It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It seems like everyone I know took the opportunity to decorate their houses for Christmas this weekend. I love this time of year. Not so much the cold weather, I don't really like to be cold. But truth be told I don't really like the middle of summer either. I like to be "comfortable". :)

Anywho, we started the morning off with a breakfast of Eggnog Pancakes, bacon and eggs. Yum. Unfortunately, their was no bacon to be had for this prego lady, as I am still dealing with this reflux.

Here is a picture of the ingredients, pretty simple. I got the recipe from this website. I did two things different in the recipe. I subbed half of the all purpose flour for wheat flour, and used vegetable oil instead of clarified butter (only cause I didn't feel like messing with the whole butter thing).


Then we unpacked our attic, put up the tree and put up some of the decorations. After lunch the three of us went to a few antique shops. Seems a bit random, but we were looking for a "new" cabinet for the kitchen. We were in luck and stumbled upon a great piece. Thankfully it will hide my unending assortment of cookbooks that were starting to pile up. :)

To fully appreciate this you would have needed to see the metal bakers rack that was here. Isaac will miss his indoor jungle gym.

That afternoon I whipped up a batch of my Great Aunt Babe's Molasses Cookies. I wanted to start a tradition where we would have those family cookies and decorate the tree at night. So, that's what we did! Isaac lasted about 10 minutes. After we ran out of "horsies" to put on the tree he lost interest. That was also about the time the 3 cookies he ate kicked into full gear. He started running around the house and got Daddy to play chase with him. That left me decorating on my own. But I was okay with that. It was nice having the chaos in the background. I love my men being men.

TA-DAAAAH!

This decorating idea I was pretty stoked about. I bought this dessert stand back around Easter at the World Market. I didn't know what else to do with it other than serve food until I came across this post found on The Nester blog. I'm super excited for what other creative ideas this may hold!

{Thanks}giving guest post

I hope all of you had an amazing Thanksgiving with family and friends! I know I ate well and enjoyed being with my family. My mom and I even did a little Black Friday shopping today. I was mostly excited about the 1/2 price glider we found at Babys-r-us. Major score!

Today I am excited to share with you a post titled "Thankful in the Little Things". You can find it over on my friend Caroline Collie's blog From Africa, with Love. She has been doing a week of posts on Thankfulness. So click on over there and take a look at all the contributions by various writers. I must say the variety and inspiration has been great.

And make sure to check out Caroline's blog after this week. She is an inspiring woman, mother and missionary in South Africa!

Refuge

Good Morning! We are in Stella now for the holidays, and we are super excited to be here! I hope you are having a good week and that you have safe travels for Thanksgiving.

This morning I was spending some time in the Word on my parents back porch and I came across a verse I wanted to share.

Psalm 62:8

"Trust in Him at all times, O people;

Pour out your heart before Him;

God is a refuge for us."

You can talk to Him about anything. Any situation. Any circumstance. Any fear. Any failure. Any concern. Any hurt. Any misunderstanding. Any insecurity. Any hope. Any joy. Any desire.

He is a refuge for us. He is the perfect Friend, perfect Father, perfect Counselor that will listen to us. Our secrets are safe with Him. We should feel the liberty to open our hearts to Him. We have our Earthly confidants, which are much needed but there is nothing like the security and refuge of God. I want to encourage you today, if you haven't, pour our your heart to God. He wants to hear from you.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

A Year Has Come a Gone

Most people would track their year based on the calendar year, and most years I do. But not this year. For some reason I've tracked it from the moment I miscarried last year November 15. I can't explain it but for some reason I thought if I could just make it to the same point the following year I would be okay. Mind you I knew I'd be "okay", it was just a mental hurtle for me. I had big hopes for 2010 when January rolled around, but then it was just one punch after the other. I 'm going somewhere with all of this and I hope not to depress you in the process;)

The night that I miscarried last year started me on a journey that would forever change me and my perceptions of God. My second pregnancy started off kind of rocky with various symptoms that didn't look promising, but we pressed on with prayer. At 8 weeks I started bleeding and having contractions and for some reason unknown to me that baby hung on. We went and had an ultrasound and everything appeared fine. Again we praised Jesus for the miracle. Unfortunately, exactly two weeks later while I was visiting my mom with Isaac I miscarried around midnight. The miscarriage itself was a shock, I had no idea it would get worse. Shortly after, the bleeding was supposed to let up, but it didn't. I ended up on my mother's bathroom floor feeling like I was going to pass out and told her to call the ambulance. The medics got there and shortly after I was being hauled off to the hospital in Morehead City.

Once we arrived they started sticking me with needles to get an IV going. My mom was in the room with me and shortly after Blake showed up around 1:30am (He had to drive from Greenville). The rest of that night is somewhat of a blur. I remember people rushing in an out of the room and being poked and prodded constantly. It was the scariest moment of my life. I literally felt like I was floating, somewhere between life and death. I kept asking the nurses if I was going to live. At one point I remember looking up at Blake and wondering if he would have to raise Isaac on his own. I wish I could say that I had more faith in that moment, but the truth is I didn't. Blake took my hand and he said "Michelle, repeat after me. 'I will live and not die, and declare the works of the Lord.' And so I did, over and over until the point the Doctor in the room told me I was going to need to calm down. :)

So, after an emergency D & C I had 2 blood transfusions and stayed in the hospital the whole next day. My mom and Blake stayed with me the whole time. Meanwhile, my stepdad, the amazing man he is took care of Isaac the whole time. And to top it off our best friends, Kasey and Lee happened to be in town and were able to come to the hospital to visit me. We had already lost one life that night, and God was with us, He spared mine.

I share this story not because I want you to feel sorry for me but because God deserves all the glory. He has done a great work in my life since that moment. After that moment when I would cry out to Jesus, I could feel Him like never before. This has been the hardest year of my life with our various trials, but God's presence has never been more tangible in my life. He has shown me my fears, doubts and misconceptions that I had about Him along the way. Sure, I had a lot of questions about the whole ordeal, who wouldn't? God doesn't mind our questions. And though I didn't find all the answers I wanted, I did find out who Jesus REALLY was in the process.

He is someone I can believe. Someone I can count on. He will never leave me. He will always work things together for good. It was a hard lesson to learn but I'm glad He showed me about my fear of death. I want to be in control and mostly I don't want to be in pain. But those aren't my decisions to make. This past summer I did a Bible study on the Life of Paul, and it has done wonders on my perspective of life. That man endured so much for the sake of the Gospel, and he knew Jesus intimately.

I know this is long and I need to wrap it up. I could write a book on all that Jesus has done in my life this year. So many stories of His faithfulness. So, I will just leave you with one.

A year has come and gone, and this time we are 15 weeks pregnant and having a much healthier pregnancy. Three days before we found out we were pregnant I asked God for a word to stand on. This is what He gave me:

Jeremiah 17:7-8 "Blessed is the woman who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord.

For she will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream.

And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit."

I took some liberties with the "she's" and "woman", but that was so that I could make it even more my word to stand on. It was just what I needed. Trust in the Lord. Just like the scripture says the heat did come. The first trimester was a constant battle in my mind. Even so much so, when I was 10 weeks, at our college retreat on the same day Blake and I had the same vision from the devil of me miscarrying. It was the craziest thing. The devil is not creative and we immediately recognized it for what it was. We prayed and the fear left. And though this last year has seemed like a drought in the natural, He was right, I am producing fruit and he or she will be here in May.

Fall Festivities!

We had a fun and busy weekend! It started off Saturday by going to Briley's Pumpkin Patch outside Greenville. I've been wanting to go for weeks, but we have literally had something planned every weekend this month and this was the last weekend they were open to the public! I'm just gonna sum up most of our weekend with pictures:

Isaac on his pony ride!

Isaac was pretty upset we had to leave the tractor, so he pouted his way through the pumpkin patch :) All well, you can't win them all!

All is well in the world, back in view of the tractor!

The next day for Halloween, instead of trick or treating, we went to Aunt Ally and Uncle TD's for a Fall Party and cookout. It was lots of fun! All the kids dressed up except Isaac. He was supposed to be Thomas the Train, but lately he has been non-negotiable about putting on any type of costume! I was a little disappointed, but you can't force your kid to dress up, that would just be traumatic! :)

Daddy dressed up instead to "encourage" Isaac to try it, but the mission was a fail. The picture on the right is all the kids. It's just not a good quality picture unless some of the kids are crying! :)

To finish up our weekend we took Isaac to the Winterville Fire station so he could see all the "Big Trucks"! Our friend Jeremy, who is a fireman, offered to take us. Isaac ran around like a crazy man. He couldn't figure out what truck to look at because there were a few different ones.

Isaac and Jeremy "driving" the Big Truck!

I think this smile sums up how much fun he had!