Microwaves and Toaster Waffles

I teach the children on Thursday nights at church, and last weeks lesson was about how the Lord provided a wife for Issac. Well we all know that story and Issac married Rebekah. The lesson was all about a "Bride named Rebekah". SOOOOOO I took in our wedding video and showed the class parts of our wedding, including the part where the Bride (me, Rebekah) came down the isle. It is was a good way to get their attention, and go right into the bible story.

While I was preparing for the class, I enjoyed watching the wedding. Ben and Hannah watched too and it was fun explaining to them about mommy and daddy getting married. (when Dan got home I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready and I heard Ben say to Dan "daddy you got married!!") I watched until the end where they went around with the video camera and different guests said hi and gave some advice. One that made me laugh out loud was from Carrie Beard. The camera moved onto her and she was ready with her advice. With a smile she leaned into the camera and said "Microwaves, and toaster waffles. That's all you need!"

This lovely lady is pretty special. Not sure she knows it, but she taught me a lot! One thing she taught me, was that who we are is good enough. She is one of those REAL women. She has a husband and three kids, and it was OKAY to have those microwave dinners. I guess I related to her, in the fact that I am not one of those "Susy homemaker" types, with the home cooked meal, and spotless house, and hair done with make up for my husband when he gets home. I always feel comfortable around Sis. Carrie. She is always so positive and down to earth and REAL! She is someone, I could have stop by my home, and not worry if the toys were ALL OVER and the hamper is overflowing and the meal for the evening is MAC and CHEESE! There are not a lot of women I can say that about! And how nice it is to have those women. (thanks Sis. Carrie!) There is nothing intimidating about her. She is just who she is and it is great!

Now back to the whole, "All you need is microwaves and toaster waffles". Of course for a marriage you will need a little more than that. But I like how simple it is. For me, marriage is a simple straight forward thing. God, in the center of it all! It is as simple as that. If God is at the center of my marriage, then no matter what storm is ragging around us, we will be fine. Life is NOT perfect. Dan and I have been through A...LOT...!!! But strive to keep our marriage a priority and keep God at the center. And instead of being torn apart by our struggles, it has made us stronger. When I heard Sis. Carrie say those words and how simple she made it sound, it kinda hit home and brought me back to the basics. God in our marriage. That's all you need. How much better things go when I am in the Word, following Christ, praying often and learning His ways. This makes me try harder everyday to love my husband more. I need these reminders. Sometimes the day to day living and schedules and...LIFE can put this on the back burner. But oh how important it is. And how WONDERFUL life is when I get back to the basics of marriage. God, and Dan. The microwaves and toaster waffles...that is just icing!

Hannah girl

Being a mama ROCKS! And Hannah has exploded with changes these last two weeks. She is understanding more and the words coming from her little mouth are sounding older and older. I am having fun watching her FALL IN LOVE with "Booty and the Beast" (what she calls it) She LOVES Belle and her pretty dress and is always so concerned for her "papa". Now she keeps asking for "pincess" books!! As a former little girl, this is so much fun watching her get into the girly stuff. 

She is smack dab in the middle of being two. She has started needing her MANY stuffed animals when she goes to bed. Last night I think it was 6 stuffed animals she piled on her bed to sleep with!! And now EVERY night when I tuck her in she crawls up into my arms and asks me to sing her a song!! I am loving this and soaking it up while I can! 

She has also begun to have her own fashion style!! (oh pray for us!! LOL)  She found Ben's old boots. They don't fit him anymore and they don't fit her yet, but she still wants to wear them ALL THE TIME!!! So thought I would share a photo of my princess loving, boot wearing little bundle of spunk!

My Husband Part Two!

In the last blog I wrote a lot about what led up to getting married to Dan. But that was just the beginning of our journey and what a wonderful ride it has been!! 

We started out with EVERYTHING planned!! Hahahaha, I laugh thinking about it now. How FAR off we were with OUR plans!! God had something better in mind! Our plan was to wait three years before having babies. We wanted to get the marriage thing down before throwing ourselves into parenthood right up front. We are so so so so so...so glad that we took that time. Our relationship grew so strong in those years, and the Lord knew we would need the strength of our marriage to get through what was ahead. 

I remember before we were married, we talked about kids and how many we wanted. We wanted to have biological children and then adopt. Both of us wanted to adopt. It was neat to know that he wanted to as well! It told me a lot about what kind of heart he had! But then, he had looked at me and said that if it turned out we could not have children, nothing would change. That he was not marrying me so he could have kids. Kids or not, we would be together. Little did I  know that I would go back to this conversation MANY times!! 

We were told we would not be able to get pregnant without "medical intervention". After time and tests, we had to make the choice to not have medical intervention. The option given to us, went against our moral convictions and not the right choice for us and so we left it in God's hands. This was one of the hardest points of my life. I wanted to have a baby so bad, and at times I was ready to do "whatever it took". But Dan was right there with me. Keeping me grounded and being the solid faithful husband I needed, while I worked through not being able to have a baby. 

Dan was the one who kept us focused on our marriage and made sure "we" were together and doing well. Not letting anything come between us, not even infertility! I am so thankful for his strength.

I do blame Dan for my strange obsession for HOCKEY!!! Yep, he is the one to blame!! Can you believe I went to a game dressed as one of the players on the team!! Yep, they put a split screen up on the jumbo screen and I have to say...I got the look pretty close. I also got on TV that night too!!! I know what you are thinking...not Rebekah! Well, it is all because of Dan and I LOVE HIM FOR IT!! (Go Sharks)

I am proud of what Dan does for a living! His job is HARD. I don't know how he does it. Only through the grace of God. He works with troubled youth who need help and he is right there helping them as much as he can. How proud I am to say that he is a social worker and that He is the best one around!

It was a tough road to travel with the adoptions of our AWESOME kids! Dan was right there. and with him being a social worker, he was able to help explain the paperwork side of things.  I remember riding in the car  to go to court for our Ben, I was going to be testifying, and I was so so so nervous. Dan and I said a prayer together in the car before court and it calmed me. He held my hand and gave it a squeeze when they called me to the stand and I KNOW he was praying for me, the whole time I was in that chair. How wonderful it is to be able to say these kinds of things about my husband.  

He is such a great daddy too!! The kids love him and need him and he is right there, for whatever they need. How blessed those kids are to have Dan as their daddy! And I love watching him be one! 

The Lord has given us much. We have had loss in our life together, mainly our little sprout this last year, but we have had MANY MANY blessings as well.  And Dan is my BIGGEST BLESSING! He loves God, he loves me and he loves our kids. 

So I guess this little two part blog was a way for me to count my blessing. The blessing that Dan has given to my life. 11 wonderful years this Saturday!!  I love ya babe!

My Husband Part one

With our 11th anniversary coming this Saturday, I thought I might write a bit of a "gushing" blog about my husband and how wonderful he is!

I always wanted to marry a man like my dad. Someone who was wise and had a good head on his shoulders. I got what I wanted. Dan is quiet (unless around his family) and he is reserved, but he has so much wisdom. I know that if I go to him with a question of ANY type, he will have a great answer. Now to be honest, this can get a little bit annoying, when he always knows more than me about EVERYTHING....but at least I get to reap the benefits of his knowledge!!!!! 

He is a man that can DO IT ALL!!!! Can't tell you how many THOUSANDS of dollars he has saved us by fixing our cars, he can fix almost anything! When we lived in Arkansas, he made me a wooden screen door with our anniversary carved in it!!! He took my papaw's old porch swing that was falling apart and copied it and made my papaw a brand new one for Christmas! He seems to know what means the most to people. 

I Love that he is so grounded in his faith and his beliefs. From the start I knew he was a faithful man. With his desire to serve the Lord being one of the first things that caught my eye.  Now most of you know that in my house the rule was that I was not allowed to call boys. But when Dan came along, he was so shy and quiet, I would have had to wait a year before he called me. So I broke the rules and called him and asked him out! I am so glad he said yes. He changed my life! 

We went to the county fair for our first date. We had such a great time. I was worried that he would not talk very much and it would be awkward, but I was so wrong. It was just right and it was a night I love to look back on and remember. June 22, 1997! 

He was so sweet through our dating! We spent all the time we could together after the first date. I remember one day, after dating about 4 months I was sick and at home. When he stopped by and brought me some ice cream and a card. (so romantic) So I opened the card and there on the front was a huge picture of YODA. Yes the green guy from star wars!!!!!! I was not sure what to think...Yoda is not my idea of romantic, but then I opened it and the most romantic saying was on the inside!!! It said  "Yoda One For Me"!!!!!! (sigh) It was so sweet and to this day he still tells me that!! I have a HUGE Yoda collection too, all from this little card! 

It was six months of dating before Dan said he loved me. This meant so much to me! I knew that when he finally said it, HE MEANT IT! I don't understand this saying "I love you" in the first couple weeks of a relationship. Since Dan took his time, I had security and confidence that he held what he said in high regard and that it was not just something he said lightly! I knew it meant forever! 

When we had been dating for 8 months I went on a trip to Peru! It was so hard to be away from him for those two weeks. Harder than I EVER thought it would be! I knew that if it was that hard, I NEEDED him in my life for good!! And I prayed for the day he would purpose! I arrived home on Valentines day, and part of me hoped he would ask me then, but he didn't. He did have a dozen Pink roses and a special tape of songs he made for me! 

I did not have to wait long, 8 days after coming home he purposed! On one knee in my parents living room, he asked me to be his wife. I said "YES!!!" and he opened the little box in his hand. And there was diamond earrings!!! Yes, I said earrings! They were beautiful and as he explained himself I fell more in love with him. He wanted to let me pick my ring, but still get a diamond when he purposed!!!!! ROMANTIC!!!!  

It was so neat to see everyone so excited for us. When it was announced in our church, our pastor said "this was a match made in Heaven!" and then when we went to Oroville and to his parents church, the pastor there said "I am so glad the Lord gave Dan to Rebekah and Rebekah to Dan"!!!!!  

I of course wanted the big traditional wedding! And it was fun planning it and all that great stuff, but never once did the desire to have the "perfect" wedding, become bigger than my desire to marry Dan! We wanted to keep the focus on the "marriage" part of the wedding and did most of the planning on the wedding. We did not do a dinner afterwards, much to my mom's dismay, but we liked how the actual wedding was the main part. Dan's dad married us and that was very special.  The wedding was so great! The very BEST part was knowing that I was Dan's wife. I could NOT have done better!!! The Lord Blessed me July 25th 1998 with Dan!

Gonna take a break, but will post another here shortly...so many wonderful things about my man, and I am enjoying writing about them! 

STAY TUNED........

Ben Day!

Today was a good day. I know, you are thinking we spoil our children! AND YOU ARE RIGHT! We are enjoying being mama and daddy and celebrating the day we got our children is just one more way we can show them just how important they are and how much they are loved. I love how we do it with just the four of us. Kind of a private celebration of how we became a family of four! And hey what kid wouldn't LOVE having TWO days of celebration a year! Birthday and Gotcha Day! (the day we gotcha)
Today I remembered past "Ben Days"!!!

Here is my baby boy...(I thought he was huge! little did I know he would get sooo much bigger)

Here is my boy Ben Day 2007

Here he is Ben Day 2008

Our tradition is to go out for a family breakfast and then let them pick out a toy. The breakfast came from the fact that on the day we brought Ben home, Dan and I were so excited we could not sleep and got up around 4:30 am and went to breakfast!!! Today, though Dan had to work, so we walked to the donut shop and got donuts for breakfast and then after Daddy got home, we went to get his toy (he chose a water rocket...surprise, surprise) and then to Denny's where Ben got a Baseball pancake!! We came home and did the rocket and had a great family afternoon. I love my boy and he is such a blessing to us! It was a great Ben day, and the greatest part of the day was BEN!

Sissy had a cheese Quesadilla!


Ben was so excited in the store when he found his "WOCKET!!"

Here they are shooting it off!

Ben asked for his rocket to sit at the table with us at dinner. It was so cute!

Not Me Monday...attempt

Thought I would give this a try and see how it goes. So here is my first attempt, and perhaps

my LAST, at "Not me Monday"

I for sure did not send my husband to work in

wrinkled clothes this morning. Why would I do that?

I have all the time in the world in the mornings!

I did not choose to leave the toys on the floor of the living room last night, and instead watch a TV show with my Hubby,

only to trip 3 times over toys on the floor this morning!

My son is NOT running around the house in only his undies!

For that matter, neither is my daughter!

The hamper in the bathroom is not overflowing

so much that it is tipping over,

and there are NOT towels on the floor!

No way, I am NOT a slob!

I did not get to rock my baby girl this morning, all cuddled in her blanky (that I do NOT need to wash) and I did not LOVE every minute of it!

I did NOT eat that chocolate ice cream last night after the kids and Dan were asleep. No way! Only healthy carrot sticks for me !!

I am NOT already trying to figure out how to get out

of cooking dinner tonight! No way, I am looking forward

to spending hours cooking and making, from scratch, a home cooked meal!

Writing this is not taking longer than I thought and my children are not crying and asking for "breckast"...what kind of a mom do you think I am???

I did not just tell my son "good one" when he belched...no way, I teach my kids manners!!

School Days

So this summer I started the kids on some Pre-School bible curriculum. I have really enjoyed it and it is working great with them both!! The great part is that I print out the books, so I can print pages as many times as I need for the kids to get it!!

Yesterday the kids finished their FIRST workbook. Colors and Shapes!!! It was a blast and now we start our Numbers and ABC's workbooks! It is so neat to be there and see them understand and learn something!! It is neat how when we are out and about Ben and Hannah point to the "circle" or the "diamond"!!! Ben has even started spotting the "B for Ben" on signs around town.

I taught piano for 13 years. It was so neat to watch a student go through the lessons and end up playing the most beautiful songs!!! But seeing my kids get these little basics, is far more rewarding. I guess because they are MY kids. And I know I am a TAD bit prejudice, but I think I have two smart ones here!!!

I am so thankful for these precious first few years I have with them. Loving every moment I have with them! Here are my little "geniuses" LOL

Holding their certificate's for finishing their workbooks.

Here they are playing the "Color Game"!!!

Yes I know Hannah is not wearing pants, but we played in the water and when we came back in this is what she ended up in!

TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!!!!!!

Have you ever had TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!! Last Sunday we were sitting down to eat after services and my brother in law walked in. ( Just a little side note, he's a pretty cool guy and my little Hannah talks about her "unka Demar" ALL THE TIME!!!) Anywho...he came in and I remembered that he had been working on his car and I asked him how it was going and if he had been able to fix his car yet. Little did I know that I was about to get TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!! He started to talk about fixing the AC and then I think he moved on to talking about the radiator and something that had a hole in it.... and then I zoned out. It was like the stuff he was saying just could NOT compute. He was going into detail about car parts and what they do and how they work and...well...I am a girl. All I know about cars is if they look cute. I was sitting there trying to keep up, and my brain was starting to hurt!

Thankfully my sister in law came to my rescue! (thanks Brooke!) She told me it had become one thing after another, and that he was frustrated, but getting closer to being done... and that was all the info I needed! It was kinda funny and I felt bad for zoning out, but my brain could not take it in.

Yesterday I was reading in Acts and came across a verse where Jesus had risen from the dead and had come back and spent 40 days with his disciples teaching them and at one point the disciples asked him when the new Jerusalem was going to come. Seems like a fair question to me. I would ask it too!!! And here is Jesus' answer to them.

It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. Acts 1:7

WOW that hit my heart and I could not stop thinking about that statement. It is not for me to know!! I have had my questions through the years. The biggest one being "when am I gonna get to be a mama!?" It took a LOOONNNGGG time to get to be a mama. So many times I have asked "when Lord?" and it all comes down to "His Timing". It is not for me to know when everything will happen...that would be TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

I think about my boy and and girl. They are little still and need simple answers to their questions. When they ask about how the watermelons in the garden are growing, I do not spend the next two hours talking to them about photosynthesis, and how the energy from the sun is used by the plant and how that the water travels through the stem. They would "ZONE ME OUT" and go play. It would be too much information! So I simply say, God is making it grow. And they are fine with that!

I think I am the same. God knows I am not capable of understanding His ways and His timing. So that is for Him to know and ME to wait and see!!! And what a wonderful blessing it is to "wait and see". I waited for the right man...and got him. I waited for children and got two perfect little babies to love and care for!!! God is so good! And I am glad that I don't have to understand it, all I have to do is leave to God and KNOW it will work out! There are still things I am waiting for, but scriptures like this one, make the waiting a little easier!

So just sit back Rebekah, and let God do the thinking! You are ALWAYS better off that way!!

" I Guarantee It!!!

Billy Mays died earlier this week. When I heard that he died, of course I thought about his commercials. It is funny how he could make something sound so good. Like if you bought this product, your whole house would be forever clean with ONE SWIPE of your hand. He made the Oxy Clean sure sound like the Miracle we all were waiting for! (and just so you know, that stuff works great on those stains my kids always seem to make!) And he would always say "I Guarantee it!
I would see his commercials and wish it were true. I am NOT NOT NOT a great house keeper. I am better than I was, and I am trying all the time to improve, but still it ALWAYS seems like my house is never ALL the WAY clean. I can work and work and work and have every room cleaned...and it feels good, but then I think about the walls, the baseboards, the inside of the fridge, the inside of the oven. I get overwhelmed with trying to keep the house clean. You know, those times when you clean the house, to have some people over, and you make sure the door to that ONE room you did not get clean stays CLOSED!!! (I know some of you are great house keepers, and this is appalling you right now!) And, the few times where I accomplish my goal, give my family one short afternoon to put me back at square one.
After thinking about this, I thought to myself how wonderful it is that my Savior can clean my WHOLE heart, with one swipe the minute I ask...AND HE can GUARANTEE his work! He does not clean only SOME rooms of my heart and leave others undone. He cleans it all. Baseboards, ceiling fans, closets. That is such a relief that I can instantly be clean by one simple prayer to Him. And that is truly exciting, just like Billy Mays would make his products sound! I am a sinner, EVERYDAY!!! But I am a sinner saved by Grace! And Praise His name, He can wash me as white as snow!

PS 51:2-7
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.