Good Morning Ann

Good morning Ann,

Today is the day that you got a new body and were healed in heaven! We miss you desperately down here and think about you every day. I hope you get a glimpse every now and then of how incredible your son turned out. He is the best father anyone could ever ask for and he loves his girls so well. Thank you for raising him right. He misses you. You would just love Grace Ann and Harper. They are wildly adorable and I think Grace Ann takes after you in a lot of ways... she is passionate about life, laughs a lot and really loves people well. Harper is just so sweet and fears nothing. She would just snuggle on your shoulder all night long. Grace is asking a lot about you and we try to tell her everything we can. She has the picture of you and my mom in her room and looks at it almost every day.

I can't say enough how much you mean to us even now. Thank you for your prayers for Chris as he was growing up, thank you for the tears you shed for him. Thanks for loving him so well, thank you for loving me well too! We can't wait to see you one day. Happy Anniversary with Jesus!
~J

Zephaniah 3:15-17 (NLV)
"And the Lord himself, the King of Israel, will live among you! At last your troubles will be over, and you will fear disaster no more. On that day the announcement to Jerusalem will be, Cheer up, Zion! Do not be afraid! For the Lord your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will rejoice over you with great gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will exult over you by singing a happy song."

It's Christmas Eve!

Matthew 2:23
"She will give birth to a son and he will be called Emmanuel, meaning God with us."

Luke 2:68-70
"Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited his people and redeemed them. He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised."

Can't wait till tomorrow!!! Merry Christmas!

toot toot!

I am tooting my own horn here, but I am proud of myself... Here is my second attempt ever at a pin tuck dress. This one is for Grace and I am making another one for Harps with opposite colors... I mean, I think I love it. I even think it would be cute with the buttons in the front... Please notice the vintage sparkly button at the top. I love this!


And, here is a close up of the pin tucks, no one really cares about them but me... but they were so much work that I thought they should get their own picture.

I am thinking about making some of these for the store. (if I did, they wouldn't be that cheap because of all the work... but aren't they cute!???)

You won't believe it...

Grace actually tried ice skating! I almost didn't believe it myself when I heard her say... "Mom, I want to put some skates on!" Yahoo! And thanks to the efforts of Kat, a girl Chris works with... we have proof! (Thanks Kat!!!) Anyways, here she is, skating at the arena:

(See the kiddie cart thing??? Well, Chris doesn't want me to let the whole blogging world know, so just between you and me... he had to use it on a few laps around the rink....)
And there she goes......

....and that's about as far as she got on the first try, but hey, proof that she did get out there!!!

Later on in the evening, after Harper and I had gone home, she decided she wanted to try again. There wasn't enough time to put her skates back on, so she ran and slid around in her crocs... Those darn shoes are good for everything, right? So proud of her. She is scared of trying almost anything new, so this was a huge accomplishment!

First Date

Chris took Grace Ann to her first theater movie yesterday, The Princess and the Frog. Grace had been looking forward to this for days. It had been a rough week with Chris gone every night but one, so every night when I'd put her to bed, she'd say..."Mama, when daddy gets done workin, he will take me to the movie...right???"
She'd told me what she wanted to wear on Monday, of course, the twirliest dress she owns and her new striped sweater. She loved the movie and afterward they got some yogurt from Sweet CeCe's.
Here they are, all ready to go.... and Harper really wanted to get in the picture too:
This is Harper's newest camera face... it's the cheesiest grin in the world and she keeps doing it because we all crack up when we she pulls it out of her repertoire.

S is for....

Well, my Goodwill days may have just come to an end.

"WHAT" you say, "this is your favorite thing to do, it's an integral part of your new 'job' and a major stress reliever... what ever could have happened?"

I am so glad you asked... Here's the story:

So, yesterday after our play date, I took the girls to mom's house to take a nap while I went thrifting to restock my supplies. I had hit 3 stores and hadn't found hardly anything, so I went home to see what I had to work with.

I checked my email and found that the owner of the store had sent a message that a customer wanted a custom order for a wreath. Great! But I would have to run back out to the Goodwill (which is almost never a chore, I might add) and pick up a few sweaters. It was 99 cent Wednesday, so it couldn't wait.

I jumped in the car, drove over there (in rush hour, rain included). What a joy when I saw a friend from church that I got to chat with for a few minutes... I found a couple of things I could work with and was headed for one last looky-lou through the sweater aisle.

Feeling great that I had my first custom order from the store and even more thrilled that Christmas music was playing over the loud speaker, I hummed along and searched through the neatly hung clothes for that last diamond in the rough.

"When, what to my wandering eyes should appear...?"** but a SNAKE... and I can't finish the rhyme because I just pooped my pants again... (just kidding) But SERIOUSLY, a SNAKE slithered out from between the sweaters I was perusing, over the top of the neatly hung clothes and over into an abandoned basket sitting next to mine.

Hold on, I need to breathe.... Ok, so I FREAKED. And promptly freaked a lady who was shopping next to me. She agreed to stand guard, armed with a plastic hanger aimed in the general direction of the beastly creature, while I ran to get someone to help.

After regaining my composure and when the dizzying 'I'm going to faint' feeling left, I ran to the front desk to tell the guy that the devil himself had almost just slithered onto my hand... His first reaction: "No, there's not a snake..." Um, really dude, do you see the color of my face??? I am a Caucasian woman, but not usually this shade of white!

When he realized I was serious, he ran over with the excitement of a little boy, picked the thing up and ran to the back with it. From that moment on, we would hear faint little screams of varying pitch and degree coming from the stock room at the Goodwill. He had a little fun with it.

So this brings me back to the first sentence.... There were about 3 or 4 hours after the terrifying event that I seriously thought my days of going to the Goodwill may be over. I've seen roaches bigger than my foot, and various and sundry other gross things, but this takes the cake. The one and only thing that I am deathly afraid of and the one thing that you would NEVER in a million years expect to see..... I saw. Now, the only reason I've come back around, is because the actual probability of this ever happening again are slim (at least that's what I've tried to convince myself).

I am just glad that the ole ticker continued to tick and I didn't fall dead of a heart attack right then and there!

**Of course these are the words to the beloved poem by Clement Clark Moore "Twas the night before Christmas" Gotta give credit where credit is due.