A New Lawn

This is our lawn yesterday:


This is our lawn today:


We are getting a new front lawn. The old one was sparce in many areas, had weeds, and different kinds of grass, so we are taking out the old and resodding with a new fescue lawn. Hopefully it will be much better.

I'll keep you updated!

I Have Great News!!

I am so excited & happy about my news. Can you guess what it might be???




I AM GOING TO BE A GRANA AGAIN!!

Yes, you read me right. Cody, Jenny & Corbin are having a baby.

Corbin called me a few days ago and told me, 'I'm going to be a big brother, Grana.' All I could think of was the Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization. I thought, 'is Corbin old enough to be a big brother in that organization?' Then it dawned on me what he was talking about. Oh my gosh! I was so surprised and I am so happy about it.

A new baby in our family. Such great news.

Corbin's Bike Show

Yesterday Corbin told me he and his friends were having a bike show on his street today from 3:00 to 4:05. He and his friends had put flyers on doors of several of the neighbors. He asked Pa & I to come and then asked if we could bring some brownies to sell. Sure, we could! So this morning I baked some brownies and we drove over there to watch the show. They set up a table to sell brownies and lemonade that Jenny made.

They plan to donote the money they made to St. Jude Children's Hospital.

We were quite surprised that several neighbors came out to watch the show and buy refreshments.



The boys did great!



There was only one little mishap:



Here are the stars of the show:

Good Advice From PAJ

Always keep yourself in a position financially to where, if you lost your job tomorrow, you would still be OK.

PAJ, (my Daddy) told me this many times and I think it is such good advice. I keep hearing all the stories in the news about people loosing their jobs and are now in such financial trouble. I just have to wonder if maybe they didn't create some of this trouble themselves. If, when they had good jobs, they had lived as if they might loose their job tomorrow, surely they wouldn't be in such financial trouble now. I know there are exceptions to this. Some people have a bad illness, or some other hardship, and I'm not talking about those cases. I know that happens, but I do believe it is the exception and not the rule.

If, when someone is making good money, they spend wisely and live below their means, saving money, doubling up on house or car pmts and such, and they loose their job, they can go get a job at McDonalds if need be, and still be OK for a while.

Don't buy houses with house payments you can barely afford, the best vehicles with big car payments, and run up lots of credit card debt. Then of course, if you loose your job, you will be in big trouble fast.

I just believe this must be what has happened with so many people that are in such financial trouble now because they have lost their jobs. (Certainly not all). And we are asked to bale them out. We, who have tried hard to live within our means. ---I just don't get it.

What happened to suffering the consequences of our actions? We are never promised a life without hardships. Loosing a job is always a possibility. No one is immune to it. Why not think ahead when we HAVE the job and make wise decisions?

Just doesn't make sense to me.

Today was my day off and a good day. I have been working hard all week. My boss bought out a gas pipeline construction service company with over 100 employees. I have been getting all the employees set up in our system along with getting health insurance put in place and lots of other stuff. It has been alot of work, and will most likely continue to be for a while here, but I am enjoying it. I'm learning new things and meeting new people. It's been great and I'm excited about a new adventure. ....But I was glad to have a day off today.

I went to watch Corbin's basketball game this morning and saw Cody & Jenny, then I went to eat lunch and shopping with my good friend, Rhonda.

After that I went to the airport to pick up Bo, who has been in Phoenix all week, and we went to eat Mexican Food. Now I am enjoying a small glass of wine and just relaxing.

It was a good day. Hope yours was too!

If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed (John 8:36).

Enjoy The Righteousness Of Christ.

Our standing as Christians is founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We say it, we hear it, and nodding affirmatively we agree that it is true. Yet, all too often we fail to grasp the implications of this fact.

All too often our actions and our attitudes, our feelings, our hopes and fears are motivated by something quite different. Instead of looking to Christ we look to ourselves. We imagine that if we could better overcome temptation we would be happier, if we could subdue our sin we would find more peace. We suspect that our interest in God’s love is hindered by our lack of faith and wonder if our conviction for sin has been deeply enough felt.

So we become pre-occupied with ourselves and measuring the successes and failures of what we do as Christians, instead of being pre-occupied with Christ, the foundation that never fails. We build our hope upon our reputations, until our reputations take a dive. We draw comfort from our Christian service then stumble upon the suspicion that much of it is self-promoting. We are encouraged by numbers and size until we glimpse how fickle are the little kingdoms we have built.

It is Christ that justifies, it is Jesus who makes peace in our soul. Our happiness and our assurance will never be complete if we base it upon anything we do in this world. When we look to ourselves to any degree we are looking away from the Lord. Our failures cannot breach our union with Christ any more than our successes can improve it. What I do, what I feel and what I say does not alter the Father’s free grace to me, the Son’s finished work for me, or the Spirit’s providential care of me.

Too many Christians are joyful or depressed in measure to how well or poorly they feel they have performed their Christian duties. Too many preachers use these feelings to badger and manipulate their flock. Christians who are required to scale the bar of sanctified behaviour are always watching the bar. They never lift their eyes from their own works, never enjoy the liberating peace of looking away to Christ.

Christ is the peace-maker of our souls; our happiness in this world, and in the next, depends upon Christ alone. Robert Hawker puts it nicely, "Beloved, if you will fetch your peace from anything in the world but Christ, you will fetch it from where it is not. None but Christ! none but Christ! While your own acts proclaim nothing but war, Christ alone and His blood proclaim nothing but peace."

God grant us freedom to enjoy the righteousness of Christ.

by Peter L Meney

Vehicles

Mason got a new "used" car. Yeah, it's my old Honda Accord. But it's a good one!


So you might ask, what am I driving now.


Ta Da!!


My New Honda CR-V!


Isn't it pretty??



Bo & I went to Lubbock yesterday and picked it up --off the showroom floor. It is loaded, with a voice command GPS, dual air, heated leather seats, XM radio, a backup camera, and much more! I plan to keep it for a long time, so I might as well get all the bells and whistles that were offered. It's really not a very expensive car like some, but it's is just perfect for me.

On another note, we listened to a great sermon this morning and I thought I would share it with ya'll. It's called 'The Angel Sent Before Us --Christ, Our Protector." You can find it here. I think it explains very well how I'm always saying we don't HAVE to work. We are not under the law. Christ kept the law for us!! Praise his wonderful Holy Name!

That's all for now.

Max

Corbin's cousin Max who is just 9 years old was just recently diagnosed with Leukemia. Oh, my heart goes out to him and his family. His mom, Christian, Jenny's sister has started a blog. It's called "It's A Good Life..of Course it is...I'm A Pirate!" and you can visit it here.

Not too long ago I posted pictures of Lilly before and after bathtime. Mary Ellen, in the comments, asked me if Lilly liked getting a bath.

Here's a short video of Lilly when we told her it was time for a bath. She knows what the word 'bath' means, mind you. ---Now you decide if she likes taking a bath.

Here's Mason standing out by his Tahoe a few weeks ago



Here's Mason standing out by his Tahoe today



Yes, last Friday afternoon, I got a frantic call from Mason. 'I've had a wreck!' Oh dear, oh dear. He ran into the back of a city garbage truck as the truck was turning into an alley. He wasn't hurt at all, and that's good! The garbage truck wasn't hurt either. But I can't say the same for the Tahoe. I'm afraid it's headed to the salvage yard.

We just had a great Christmas this year. We decided to have a very nice, pretty formal Christmas dinner with our kids. So that's what we did.

This was our menu:

Gingered Butternut Squash and Apple Soup
Beef Tenderloin with Cranberry Dijon Mustard Sauce
Roasted Red Potato and Onion Wedges
Sauteed Green Beans with Shallots and Sweet Corn
Glazed Carrots and Sugar Snap Peas
and Creme Brulee for dessert

Bo & I worked hard all morning getting everything ready, and it all turned out really good. The Beef Tenderloin and the Creme Brulee were excellent, if I do say so myself!




Bo put together a Scavenger Hunt for the kids before we ate and that was lots of fun too. They had five places around town to go. Bo had written all the clues which were really pretty witty. (He's good at that sort of thing). About an hour before the kids got here, Bo went to all the places and taped envelopes with the next clue. I wondered if they would all figure it out, but they all did, and Mason & Whitney were the first to get back. It was really fun and we were thinking "maybe" we should make the scavenger hunt a new family tradition. We'll see.

You know, we always take our family kid picture at Christmas, and here's this years:



A pretty good looking bunch, I'd say!

I hope you all had a good Christmas too. And Happy New Year!!

My Weekend

All of our kids are coming for Christmas on Christmas Day and I'm looking so forward to it. Bo & I have been working on a little surprise for them. (Nothing much, but hopefully fun). I will let you all in on it with pictures after Christmas.

Jocelyne should be here tomorrow, and we will be so glad to see her. I just love the family time at Holidays.

Bo & I drove to Clovis, NM on Saturday. He is looking for some new boots & a hat. We needed something to do that day, so on the spur of the moment, we jumped in the truck and went there to a big Western Store. He didn't find any boots OR a hat, so we just decided to wait until after Christmas to look again. Maybe they will be on sale then. We stopped and ate at a Mexican Food Restaurant on the way home and that was good.

I went and did a little late Christmas shopping today and WOW was there a ton of traffic and people out. Hopefully I won't have to do that again this year.

Tomorrow it's back to work, and that's OK too.

Have a great week!

Dirty Lilly


Bathtime


Clean Lilly

We had a nice Thanksgiving today at Bo's sister's little restaurant. The restaurant was closed, of course.





Watching the game after the big meal.

Yesterday we went to Corbin's basketball game. His team lost the game, but they played hard and had fun.



Here are a couple of spectators:



Then after the game, at home with Lilly

Well, Bo & I finally made it home. We went to visit my family after we left the convention and had a very nice visit.

First we went by to visit my PAJ and Dorothy and enjoyed seeing them. Here's me & PAJ:



Then we went to eat Mexican food with Mary Helen, Gendy, John & Rudy:



It's always so good to see my family!

Here's How they Got up & Down

*

Bo & I are at a cattle feeders convention in Grapevine, TX at a BEAUTIFUL hotel and having a great time. We are on the ninth floor and here's the atrium view from our balcony:




Pretty impressive, I think!







This morning I went out on the balcony and saw this. (Yes, they are putting up Christmas decorations already).




If you click on the picture and make it bigger, you will see little men sitting on those steel beams. Over nine stories up! Wow.






Here's one up close:




Those are some brave guys!







Well, I'm heading out for a walk around the lake outside. It's supposed to be around 80 degrees today and beautiful. I am loving this!!

Maybe I'll post some more pictures later. I sure am lucky to have such a sweet husband to take me to such cool places as this.

I got to go trick or treating with these guys tonight. They were Greasers. You know, like from the movie, Grease.














It was fun and there were LOTS of trick or treaters out.

Happy Birthday to my Boy