Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Blessings

I have been itching to get to write my blog this week, just finding the time and energy has delayed me.  But this morning I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed about 6:45 am and dove into my new Bible study: Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore as I anxiously awaited writing my blog. 
In posts recently I've mentioned our hardships, that I felt like Laura Story's song "Blessings" could describe our lives.  The past few weeks God has done some amazing things. 
Before I get into all that, we were able to have a wonderful 4th birthday party for Zeb on the 9th with a pool party.  Poor kid fell on the concrete, scraping up his leg pretty bad right before the party and was so frightened to get in the pool because he just knew it was going to burn.  After about 30 minutes of persuasion, we were able to get him in and he forgot all about his wound.  We all had a blast and he was blessed with so many gifts!  We also surprised him them with a recording of our friends telling him they would see him in Florida on the 12th!  He was so excited. 
Zeb's beach theme cake


Pool party
So surprised with each gift!

Blowing out the #4 candle
I spoke of God leading us to cash out our retirments to pay off some debt...I am proud to say we have been obedient!  Last week I wrote three checks paying of three debts thus far.  We still have money in the account to pay off more as we pray about which one(s) to pay.  I cannot tell you the weight that has been lifted from us.  To actually see money in our account has been WILD! 
I must also praise my husband.  His hardships at work have been taxing.  I told about him not getting promotions and raises as promised.  He has kept his intergrity greatly. A few months ago, he did feel God leading him to take the problems to higher authorities though because his voice was not being heard and he wasn't the only in the business being treated in this way.  He went to a wonderfully hardworking HR lady, who I am so thankful for. She was appauled at the treatment they were getting.  She worked long and hard and I'm so proud to say that Dustin received his promised raise last week...plus they backpaid him all the way from October all that they have owed him!!!  Glorious day! 
Admist all this, God blessed us with a refreshing time of vacation in Florida with our dear friends.  The boys traveled wonderfully, pregnant me did just fine without having to stop too often as well.  We were able to spend little cash because we just spent a lot of time visiting and relaxing on the beach.  Our friends were so gracious to allow us the opportunity to stay the week with them in their house they had rented for the month, they even gave us the master suite and they slept on the couch bed!  Talk about GREAT friends!  We were able to encourage them, they encouraged us and we played some extreme games of nerts!  We ate a lot of great food, probably too much seafood for this pregnant gal, but I couldn't resist!  And baby girl seemed to check out just fine at my Dr visit Friday!  Our friends' 12 year old son got stung by a jellyfish, which was absurd since we were all right around him and didn't see a thing.  Poor kid!  He was amazing though and I'd say he took it like a man. Zeb felt so terrible for him and asked him not to cry and not to get stung again!  Sy ate sand by the spoonfulls, literally. He got one of Zeb's shovels and just shoveled it in. When a shovel wasn't available, he would lick his finger, dip it in the sand, and back into his mouth.  He loved the taste of the salt water.  He was pretty smitten on our friends!  I think they were him too! 
Digging to China

Zeb begged to be buried
Cheese-ball pose
Sy eating the sand

 

So, in previous blogs I also mentioned we were going to be in need of a larger vehicle for our growing family.  When we got back from vacation we decided to go to a few dealerships to give them an idea of what we were looking for so they could be on the lookout.  We don't need the vehicle until close to November.  Last Thursday we went to a local dealership who said "we've got that exact thing, just traded for it today." So we briefly checked it out, thought it was really nice and thought we'd go back Saturday to really look it over.  Because I didn't want us to be too hasty, I conned Dustin into going to Little Rock on Friday afternoon to see all of our options. I'm telling you, wrapping my mind around being a mini-van Mom has been hard, so I wanted to see what kind of vans and suvs we could afford that were low mileage, etc.  Friday night posed to be a lot of snakes not wanting to work with us.  We woke up Saturday thinking we weren't quite sure what to do, but invited my Dad along to go look at the van we saw on Thursday.  It was better than we even knew.  It is a 2007 Toyota Sienna, 8 seater, with some amazing Mom technology and bonuses.  It only has 62k miles on it and was in phenominal shape.  Plus it was Toyota certified which means that any part of it that doesn't look or act like new, they would make to look and act like new before we bought it.  With my husband's negotiation skills and my Dad's persuasion of that being a GREAT deal, we bought our first mini-van.  We traded in our little Corrolla for a little less than we wanted but we walked away having to finance very little.  We have the extra money to pay that debt, but since we're able to latch on to 2.9% APR, we will probably just pay those bills monthly, putting extra on it each month, and paying off a student loan whose interest is 6.8%! 
I say all these things to say PRAISE OUR LORD!  He is amazing and has shown Himself so faithful to us.  He has provided for our needs and is making a way for us to pay off debt, which will enable us to go and serve Him in whatever capacity He has for us. 
I'm telling you, I'm excited at what the Lord has done and is doing right now that we don't even know about!  He is able, He is faithful, He is amazing, He is worth our everything. 

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