Do Not Fear

Be not afraid. Have no fear. Fear not. Do not be afraid

I'm currently in the middle of the Esther Bible Study by Beth Moore. Two weeks ago we had a lesson on fear. According to Beth Moore, the number one commandment in the bible is, in more words or less, "Do not be afraid". She asked us to think about what a life without fear would be like. This was huge for me. Since I could never do her words justice by trying to paraphrase them, here is a quote from her...

"The most critical breakthrough of faith you and I could ever experience
is to let God bring us to a place where we trust Him-period.
We don't just trust Him to let us avoid what we fear most. We determine
to trust Him no matter what, even if our worst nightmare befalls us...
Our only steadfast defense against life's certain uncertainty is
unconditional trust in a Savior who loves us more than His own life."

I want to believe God, not just believe in Him.

Eh

We had a good weekend. Happy Birthday, Dad!!

(There, I blogged)

Already Out of Ideas

Day 5, and I can't think of anything to blog about, so here's what's on my mind.

We just found out that our tenant in the Athens house is not going to renew her lease with us in January. The tenant's daughter is entering the military so section 8 is downgrading her since she'll have one less dependent. The contract we have with section 8 ends mid-late January, so we should have plenty of time to find a replacement. While on the topic of the Athens house, next month we will pay off the smaller loan on it. (we have an 80/20 loan on that house) It feels good to make some progress with it.

I have some news to share when I get the okay, but that's all I can say for now. (Don't you hate when people do that? I do, too ;))

And my mind is pretty empty right now, so that's about it. I'll end with some pictures.

Camryn's 1st Birthday Party

A couple of my favorites from Shiloh's 4 year pictures

Moments Like These

So thankful for moments like these.

Keeping With The Adoption Theme

Richard and I are making the preparations for/seriously considering for another adoption. Which one we are actually doing kind of depends on what day you ask me. I say me because Richard is on board for whatever I choose. He would like a second child, but he would also be fine with only Shiloh. The decision is basically mine to make. That's not a good thing. I can be pretty indecisive. Which means that it may never happen because I'll never be able to make a decision.

In the past couple of months we've (I've) decided we're going to adopt again, told friends to keep us in mind if they know anyone considering adoption, decided maybe we're not quite ready, contacted an agency regarding home study info, had a contract sent to us from the agency, decided maybe we should wait until after the Holidays to start anything, and that's where we are today. I think I'm hoping that maybe between now and January 1st I'll have some kind of an epiphany regarding what decision we should make.

Today I'm leaning more towards a second adoption, but I'm sure that by tomorrow afternoon I will have changed my mind.

Here's What You Missed

Kim is pregnant again. Shiloh is truly going to be a big sister this time. Kim is keeping the baby. I say that because we haven't had the contact I thought we would with Will and his family. Anyway. Kim went trick or treating with us Monday and after we were done Shiloh was sitting on the couch with her. She pointed to Kim's belly and asked her what it was. On a side note, she had already been told of the pregnancy. Moving on... Kim told her her there was a baby in there, and that was all that was said on the subject.

Skip ahead to yesterday morning, Shiloh and I are sitting on the couch talking about how much fun she had Halloween night. Somehow Kim's "belly" came up, and we have a conversation that goes something like this...

Me: Shiloh, do you know that the baby in Kim's belly will be like your brother or sister since you came out of her belly also?
Shiloh: Yeah. I know.
Me: Oh, you do?
Shiloh: Yeah, I know. I've been praying for a baby sister (which she has EVERY night), so she's growing one for me.

After she said that, I was concerned that she thought this baby would be coming to live with her. I asked her about it, and she said that she understood that the baby is going to live with Kim. I think she really gets it. As much as she can anyway.

I'm excited. I really do hope that Shiloh will be able to have as much of a sibling type relationship with this baby as she possibly can. I asked Kim if she had any idea what she's having. When she was about this far along in her pregnancy with Will, she already had a feeling he would be a boy. She said judging by the heartburn, she would have to guess this is another girl. I really hope it is since I know that a sister is what Shiloh really wants.

Speaking of Will, while Kim was over she showed us some recent photos Will's mom had just emailed her. It is CRAZY how much he looks like Shiloh. When he was born there were definitely some similarities. There were some pictures where he 100% had his own look. Then there were others where your guess would have been as good has mine regarding whether or not it was Shiloh or Will. When we saw him around his first birthday I honestly did not see much of a resemblance. Now? OMG. From right below the eyes down, they are identical. You could copy and paste Shiloh's nose/mouth onto one of his pictures and it wouldn't look much different. The only real difference is that Will's lips are a little fuller than hers were. It is crazy. Even their upper, four front teeth are identical. He is adorable. His second birthday is coming up in January so maybe we'll get to see him again.

I'm Horrible!

How could I give you a Halloween post with no pictures?!?

Making Halloween cookies to share with friends

Shiloh and Kim

Buzz, Love Bug, and Rapunzel

National Blog Posting Month

...or NaBloPoMo if you're a real blogger.

I'm not sure if anyone reads this anymore, but apparently November is National Blog Posting Month (who knew?). The goal for bloggers this month is to write a post every day. I've decided to give it a try in an attempt to get myself back in to the blogging world, so here goes....

It's November 1st, which means that last night was Halloween! Halloween is one of my most favorite nights of the year (I'm such a heathen!). I love the sense of community that Halloween night is, for me anyway. Neighbors opening their doors to neighbors, even if only to quickly give them candy and then promptly close the door on them. Just kidding. Shiloh had a blast running briskly walking from house to house with her friends, Tristyn and Easton. As I type this it is 10:10 am and she is still passed out in her bed. Can we trick-or-treat every night???

In all seriousness, we did have great night shared with Kim and The Evans Family. The kids were very polite saying "Thank you" and "Happy Halloween" without having to be reminded too many times. I'm still not sure if they enjoyed trick-or-treating more, or passing out candy to other trick-or-treaters after returning to the house. I am already looking forward to next year, and Shiloh already has her costumes planned out for the next 3 years (seriously).

It's Been A While

The Thursday morning after my grandfather passed away Richard, Shiloh and myself loaded up the car and headed off to Cleveland for his funeral. His was my first military funeral and I lost it after the flag over grandpa's casket was folded up and handed to my father (the oldest child). It was a nice service and I enjoyed seeing family members I haven't seen in more years than I'd like to admit.

After spending some time with family we loaded up again and headed to my parents' house in Pennsylvania, and we've been here since. Well, not Richard. He flew back the Sunday after the funeral. We've been pretty busy with trips to various bouncy places and the Pittsburgh Zoo, a ride on the good ship lollipop, a visit to my mom's parents in Ohio, and a trip to my parents' house in NY. Things have quieted down a bit though, since my sister and her two kids left yesterday morning. Shiloh and I still have just under two more weeks until we head back to Georgia. Richard is pulling up all of the carpet on the first floor of the house and replacing it with wood floor, so we're hanging out here until he's done. This weekend Shiloh is heading up to the lake again with my parents while I stay in PA to attend a Pirates game on Saturday. Train will be performing after the game so I'm pretty excited!

Check back later for some pictures from our visit!

He's In A Better Place

He was one of the sweetest souls you'd ever meet. He was a great father to seven kids. Yes, SEVEN. Seven kids who all turned out pretty good. He was one of the most loving and devoted husbands I know. Not a day went by without him sharing memories or stories of Grandma Gene. Even 22 years after her passing. He was a WWII Veteran with stories I wish I'd taken the time to hear.
Yesterday we lost one of the few remaining truly good men left in this world. We love you, Grandpa John.

My dad and grandpa at my wedding

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday: Shiloh's New Bathroom (This Is How I Deal With Sasha Missing)

Now we just need to pick out a paint color and some tile :)

Nothing Much

I feel the need to write a post, but there's really nothing to share. Nothing of importance anyway.

Sasha (the stray kitty we took in) is doing okay. We took her back to the vet last week for a check up regarding her upper respiratory infection. I was looking forward to her receiving a bill of good health, but instead I received another $100 plus bill almost identical to the one we received on her first visit. After days of no nasty green snot coming from her nose, on the way to the vet she starts sneezing and sure enough when I open her carrier to retrieve here I find a big, nasty, green, snot booger inside. We were given another bottle of antibiotics for her. Then she needed another ear mite treatment because "the eggs had hatched" from the mites we killed off with the first treatment. We also started her vaccinations and purchased a dose of frontline since we had to remove a tick from her earlier in the week. This was all a week ago, so a week of more antibiotics later and she's still sneezing nasty snot boogers. She's killing me with this. I'm pretty certain Richard isn't going to fund many (or any) more expensive vet visits.

Today I made reservations for Richard and I to spend a weekend in Atlanta during my mom's visit later this month. Two years ago we were in desperate need of some time to ourselves, so our friends took Shiloh for the weekend and we headed to Atlanta. It was so great! We stayed at The Ellis Hotel in downtown Atlanta, which is where we'll be staying again. We visited The High Museum of Art and The Georgia Aquarium during the day, and checked out some local bars at night. It was an awesome weekend, and Richard and I are both looking forward to doing it again.

It is HOT. Thankfully, our neighborhood pool opened last Saturday. But even the heat is going to kill that soon. We visited the pool Saturday and the water temp. was quite chilly, Tuesday I was able to get right in with slight hesitation, and Thursday there was no hesitation when getting in. Last year it was July before the water became flat out warm. Unless we get some rain soon, I have a feeling that this year we'll hitting that point within the next couple of weeks.

Wordless Wednesday; The Neighborhood Pool Is Finally Open (But These Pictures Aren't From It)

Wordless Wednesday: Friends

Some words...

I feel weird posting pictures of Shiloh with all of that make up on, which then makes me feel like I need to explain it.

When the director told us that all performers needed to be in "full make up", which includes eyeliner, mascara (we didn't do this), lipstick, blush, eyeshadow, and eyebrow darkening (I don't even know what that is so we didn't do this either) I was not at all happy. I wear foundation and lipstick, so the idea of putting all of that on Shiloh didn't sit well with me. Then I spoke with my friend, Alli, who danced the majority of her life and taught dance as well. She assured me that it's needed due to the lights on the stage and that it's just what you do for a recital. I was still a little unsure about it. I couldn't imagine Shiloh sitting still long enough for that amount of make up to be put on her. However, thanks to some kit kats and Alli's awesome ability to put make up on a 3 year old, it actually wasn't that bad.

Dance Recital Pictures

On stage during the curtain call

Flowers from mommy and daddy; and grammy and grandpa

Shiloh, mommy and grammy

Alli, Zach (Shiloh's Godfather), and Alli's sister, Lexy

daddy, mommy and Shiloh

Shiloh and Kim

Shiloh and grammy

Paaassssed out! She didn't even wake up when Richard and I took off her tights and leotard and put her jammies on :)

Dance Recital

Below is the link to Shiloh's dance recital. The quality of the video is poor because we weren't allowed to video tape so I had to use my regular camera. Anyway. Here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtedgEr9tsw

I'll post some pictures later today or tomorrow.

Busy, Busy, Busy!!

That's how our weekend is going to be. And I'm so excited!

It starts out tonight with a trip to the airport to pick up Grammy! She'll be leaving Monday, so it's just a quick weekend visit but we're happy to have her.

Tomorrow will be jam packed starting with a trip to Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta for the Herman Cain rally. I'm not going to turn this into a political post, but please learn his name and research him!! Herman Cain is a breath of fresh air and someone Richard and I are actually excited about. And while I am easily excitable, it takes a lot for Richard. We will unfortunately only be at the rally for a couple of hours because Shiloh's dance recital dress rehearsal is Saturday evening!! I can't believe it's already here! I also can't believe that Shiloh is even old enough to be in a dance recital! The rehearsal should be interesting. Shiloh can be painfully shy and I'm not sure how she'll react to being on stage, if she'll even go on stage. We've been talking it up with her, but her nerves are definitely showing through.

Then comes Sunday! The BIG day! Definitely look for pictures and possibly a video Sunday evening! Not only is Shiloh going to be wearing the cutest, little ballerina costume, but she'll also have a face full of make up. I haven't decided how I feel about all of the make up, but it is necessary since the recital is at a high school auditorium so it doesn't really matter how I feel.

So you don't think I'm being a prude, we're not just talking lipstick and blush. She'll also have on eye shadow, EYE LINER,and MASCARA (if she'll let us put it on). They even want us to darken her eyebrows. I didn't even know people do that, but it should definitely make for some great pictures.

Wordless Wednesday: I Don't Want To Overload You With The Kitty, So Here's Our New Roof

Okay, you're going to get a few words...
One of the bad storms that went through the south a few weeks ago caused some wind damage to our roof. Not the one with all of the tornadoes, our roof was actually fixed by the time that happened. Anyway. We filed a claim with our insurance company and, thanks to Richard's job, we were able to upgrade to architectural shingles!

Oops, I Did It Again

Yeah, I changed my blog title back. Richard has been bugging me about the title since I changed it last week. He said that my blog was lacking character as "Just Us". I think he was really just upset that Maddie's picture was taken down. Either way I promise not to change it again.

Sasha Update

We took Sasha to the vet yesterday. It wasn't too bad! Fortunately, there were no surprises. Meaning that her only issues were the upper respiratory infection and ear mites. Her blood work was negative and they didn't see anything in her fecal sample, although they did deworm her just to be safe. We brought home some antibiotics for her infection and once it starts having an effect we'll take Sasha back to the vet and start getting her vaccinated.

Also, the vet confirmed that she is a girl and she's around 3 1/2 months old. The vet gave her the arbitrary birthday of February 7, which will be easy to remember because I just so happen to have a cousin with that birthday.

ETA: I gave Sasha her first dose of medicine this morning (via a dropper). A good bit of it ended up on the side of her mouth, but I'm certain at least half of it went in. I'm pretty proud of myself. And she doesn't hate me. Since cats can hold a grudge I wasn't sure if she'd come to me after I was done, but she's still lovin' on me.

Sasha

We have a new friend...






Sasha, as we're calling her for now, showed up at our neighbor's house this past Thursday. We're guessing she's about 3-4 months old. It's kind of hard to tell because she's SO malnourished. If you run your hand down her back you can count every bone in her body. Richard and I brought Sasha over to our house Saturday morning since the house she originally appeared at is vacant. We set food out for her on the front porch all weekend, and left the garage door open about 4 or so inches at all times so she can come and go as she pleases. She seems to like us because she only left once the entire weekend. I went out to the garage Sunday evening to throw some recyclables in the container. As I was entering the house, Buddy (the little dog) ran right past me and chased the kitty out. She did return about 2 hours later and hasn't left again, so it must not have been too traumatic for her.
We'll be taking her to the vet this afternoon to get her checked out. I'm kind of nervous because she appears to have a pretty bad cold. We're having to replace the a/c unit at the Athens house this week so the last thing we need is a large vet bill, but how can you turn a kitty away? And I'm not even a cat person. Although I think I might have to stop saying that soon.

P.S. We think she is a Birman

Wordless Wednesday: LOVE

She Is Pretty Awesome

This morning Shiloh and I decorated a birthday card for Gigi, Shiloh's great grandmother. Gigi will turn 83 (if I'm not mistaken) on Wednesday, so Happy early Birthday, Gigi!!

During our most recent visit with Gigi and Great Grandpa, Shiloh gave them a couple of nicknames. I wasn't aware of these names until she started telling me a story about visiting a couple of people a few weeks later. She was sitting on the potty (I was getting her toilet paper) when she started asking me if I remember when she visited Jesus. (HUH?) I started asking questions about this visit trying to figure out what she was talking about. A few questions in, she brought up "the boy with the band-aid" who was also there. I was clueless at this point, and I'll admit I was getting a little freaked out about this visit that she was so insistent had happened. A couple of question later she finally gave me a piece of the story that made sense. There was a dog. A little black dog that she played with at Jesus'. (Ooohhh, Okay) That would be Tara II, my grandparents shih tzu.

I, of course, had to call Gigi and let her know what kind of an impression she left on her Great Granddaughter. It's not every day someone gets mistaken for Jesus.

I was reminded of this story as Shiloh and I were taking Gigi's birthday card out to the mailbox this morning. As we were walking down the driveway, Shiloh was explaining to me how the card will get to her.

"The mail lady will pick up the mail, and take it to Jesus..."

Happy Mother's Day!

Breakfast compliments of Richard

Picnic lunch at the park

Four Eyes

I got new glasses! And guess what?! I REALLY like them!



I haven't bought (or worn) glasses since high school because I never thought of myself as someone who wore them especially well, but I actually like the way I look in these! I might just take my contacts out every once in a while now.

I Do This ALL The Time

So, I just realized that my "Wordless Wednesday" was a day early. Oops. I have a problem with days of the week just running together sometimes. Life as a stay at home mom, I guess. Anyway. Since I was a day early, here's another one for you. Well, except this one has words.

Wordless Wednesday: Auntie A Was Here!!