Memories

As I think back to memories I have from throughout my life it occurs to me that our eyes are like the shutter on a camera.  Just as the shutter exposes the film to light, our eye lids opening exposes our minds to the world around us.  Our eyes are our lens, and our mind is our memory card.  With a simple blink our experiences are forever stored in our memory.

Photographs of the mind. Memories in our life add to the sense of completeness of who we are.  What a beautiful ability God has given us.

BLINK!

BLINK!

Holding our 31 weeker for the first time.

BLINK!

The miracle of life after her MAJOR open-heart surgery.

BLINK!

Her first night home.  Bittersweet!!!

BLINK!

Buying our house!

BLINK!

My big girls braving the dentist for the first time.

BLINK!

Fun family vacations!

BLINK!

The excitement of two little girls waiting to see Taylor Swift.

BLINK!

Fun times at the lake.

BLINK!

My sweet Ava graduating preschool

BLINK!

DAY 13

Love brings completeness

" A man leaves his father and mother and bonds

with his wife, and they become one flesh."

Genesis 2:24

"In the finale of God's creation, He made the first marriage by taking one man, removing part of him, and fashioning another person.  Then, in the mystery of matrimony, two could come together and become one.  Adam, though completed with God alone, found his God-given needs met even more fully with Eve, his complement, in life.  This is true in your marriage.  The Lord knew before you were born that you would one day marry your mate.  And in His design of your gender differences and uniqueness, God intentionally created needs in both of you that the other would be exclusively designed to help meet.

The devil's desire is to use your distinctiveness to push you apart - to operate independently - as though what your spouse brings to you is unnecessary.  But marriage has made you 'one flesh'.  Now neither of you should live without the other.  Though distinct in personality and ability, you have been designed to experience oneness in your diversity.  You are no longer just you.  You are so intimately combined with your mate that together you are to live as one complete person."

God Bless,

Casondra

Movies and swimming

I was so aggravated at myself last night.  I got some really great pictures of the kids playing outside..I came inside to upload them, and realized that I didn't have the memory card in the camera (it was stuck in the computer from the last set of pictures I uploaded) and I have no clue how to transfer them from the internal memory on the camera to the card.  I wonder if my forgetting to put it back in the camera is a sign that I do too many things at one time.    


I ended up finishing painting the back door trim after I put the kids to bed last night.  I simply don't have the will power to let things be half finished for more than 24 hours, and since we had a fun-filled day planned for today, I had to finish it last night.


I woke up this morning to feel Breanna cuddled up against me.  She's never been a co-sleeper, not even when she was being breastfed.  And truthfully, it made me a little sad because she's our last one.  The last baby.

Here lately when she wakes up in the middle of the night, daddy will go get her and put her in bed with us.  She snuggles right in between us and goes right back to sleep.  And if it's a week-day, when she wakes up and immediately asks "Where's daddy?".."He's at work",  but on the week-ends she gets the biggest smile on her face when she sees both of us.  I cherish our morning cuddles.  I wish she could stay this age forever!

For breakfast, the big kids requested pancakes...do you sense a pattern of pancakes for breakfast at our house?! haha  I'm telling you, peanut butter pancakes really are the best! Daddy requested bacon.  So pancakes and bacon it was.

We caught the early show at the movies...it's so much cheaper, and when you are a family of 7 on a budget every little bit helps.  I do have to say that Toy Story 3 was pretty darn cute.

On the way home Chris asked the kids what they wanted to, and of course, they said, Swimming!  So we ran home, grabbed swim suits, Rylie, the cooler and some food, and stopped by the grocery for some drinks and ice.  Then off we went to our favorite swimming hole.

                                                                My blessings!!!

He's ready to go snorkeling!

Picking up sticks from last nights storm...

Sweet Ava

Ava decided we needed our picture taken too

Bre exploring

Of course, we couldn't forget Rylie!!!

Simple pleasures in life!!!

  Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

quick side note: I'll start back up with the daily couple's devotional tomorrow.

Food for the Soul

My morning could not have started out any better.  All the kids and I snuggled and watched cartoons in bed....that is until they decided they were hungry.

So, I whipped up one of my most favorite morning delights....PEANUT BUTTER PANCAKES!!!

Several years ago...C introduced me to eating pancakes with peanut butter on them. When he was a child his grandma lived down the alley from his parents house, and when he would go down to her house she would make him peanut butter pancakes.  He urged me to try them...as he did with many other things (things that have become routine in my day-to-day life) during the five years we were together.  I'm thankful for that!  I'm trying to make a point every.single.day to say out loud something that I am thankful for.

Yesterday I mentioned that I have been struggling with perspective in my life lately...I've just felt overwhelmed.  My dad always tells me to just open my bible and start reading.  That He will tell me exactly what He wants me to hear.  So I did just that, and this is what I read.




1 John 1
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.  And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
We write this to make your joy complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim to have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.


The devotional written by Rebecca Pippert is so fitting.


"We can lose our perspective while we are dealing with what is wrong with us.  So we need to remember that it is not God's desire that we live in perpetual pain, morbidly focused on what is wrong.  That tactic is the enemy's, not God's.  God convicts us of sin only so we may be forgiven and enabled to walk in freedom.


Confession is not a list of pretty blemishes drawn up grudgingly for the sake of an overbearing God.  It is a facing up to those cancerous vices that sap vitality, cripple freedom and eventually kill.  We are the ones who suffer if we sin.


To work to see the victory of God's grace over sin is not something we can knock off in a weekend.  Though we live in a culture that is always in a hurry, and demands instant results, the Bible admonishes us to wait, to work at it and never to lose heart.  I have discovered no magic key that enables us to lock out suffering or the painful and often slow process of growth.  I have found no shortcuts, no gimmicks to becoming the person God desires. EVIL NEVER HAS THE LAST WORD!  God does.  But while we wait, we need to ask for grace for tenacity, so that we can hang on - and on and on - while He works His excellent purpose in us.


We shouldn't underestimate the pain that will be involved.  But neither must we forget what is happening to us: we are being changed into the likeness of God."