Redeemed

As Easter approaches, I hear Jesus' voice reminding me day by day, minute by minute, that I am  redeemed.  Purchased.  Set free. 

 

Set free from the sin that weighs me down.  From the ugly parts of my life that I don't want people to see.  My selfishness.  My fear.  My lack of compassion.  My impatience.  My flesh.

Jesus came to this world with one mission- to save us from death.  To bring His people into the Kingdom of Heaven.  To bring me into His Kingdom.

 

All along I've had this "Superman" mentality of Jesus.  On a mission to save His people. 

 

Driven.  Strong.  Supernatural.  Heroic.  Powerful.  Miraculous.

 

But in Matthew 26, I see Jesus in a whole new way.  I see the fullness of His humanity.  His sorrow.  His pain.  His loneliness.  His flesh.

Facing betrayal and death on a cross, Jesus cried out to His Father.  Begging for mercy, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.  Yet not as I will, but as you will." 

 

Overwhelmed with sorry, He prayed again, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done." 

 

Blood dripped from Jesus' pores.

 

My Jesus.  Crying in the garden.  Sweating blood.  Facing death on a cross- for me. 

 

And you. 

 

Ultimately submitting to His Father's will and crucifying His own. 

 

He paid it all.  He gave it all for me.  All to Him I owe.

 

I've been set free.

Pancakes and Pajamas

We celebrated Rose's 5th birthday with a sweet little Pancakes and Pajamas party.  It was our first party where she made the guest list- and parents dropped the girls off.  She invited all of the girls in her class and a few other besties.

 All of the girls came in their pajamas.  We started by reading Curious George Makes Pancakes.  By the end of the story, Chef Clark had all of the pancakes ready and the girls were hungry!  They loved cutting shapes with cookie cutters and decorating them with sprinkles, berries, and mini chocolate chips. The variety of syrups were quite delicious.  We also served bacon and cut fruit served in mini champagne cups that the girls loved.  It felt so fancy and girly.

 After their breakfast, the school teacher in me came out and I sent the girls in groups to little "centers" :) They made cereal necklaces, decorated door hangers with princess stickers, and stenciled personalized pillow cases. 

 A Hello Kitty variation of pin the tail on the donkey was a hit! 

 Rose and Mae Mae sleep with their special pillowcases every night. 

It was such a fun party.  Sometimes the simplest parties are the best!  Thanks to Clark for cooking the pancakes and my mom and mother in law for helping with the activities! 

Rose- you are the sweetest and most precious 5 year old I have ever known.  Your maturity blows me away.  You are very insightful and you keep me organized! If I need to remember something, all I have to do it remind you and I'm covered :) You love your family, doing artwork, school, writing, church, and God.  You are a smart girl.  We love you so very much, sweet baby. 

Round 3

After over 3 years since my last blog post, I am considering getting back in the saddle.  I am horrible at documenting family events and know one day I will be so happy to have a blog to remember years past.  Here's to motivation and being dedicated to preserving our memories on the web!

 

After a very long blog hiatus, I am back! Its been a hell of a year and I have to say that I am glad to see 2010 come to an end. I hope and pray that after a year full of trials and tragedy, we will be blessed with lots of joy and happy events in 2011.

Marianne Hays Lyon was born on May 20, 2010. That was the highlight of our year! She is such a precious baby and we are extremely blessed to have her as our daughter. Marianne has a very calm and patient personality and she is sweet as sugar. I hope she will stay this way forever! 6 months

7 months

We love you, Mae Mae!

An Update on Rose

Rose is doing so much and changing so quickly these days and I just can't believe that she is almost 16 months old! My sweet friend Sarah Beth keeps reminding me that I need to write down all that Rose is saying and doing before I forget...so here goes!

Words:
Mama, Dada, ball, bow, dog, juice, shoes, no, bath, snack, baby, dog, keys, eyes


Signs and gestures:
more, all done, eat, shakes head no when she doesn't want something, nods yes when prompted


Activities:
-Does motions for The Eensy Weensy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, and Patty Cake
-Can identify her babies, dogs, kitty cats, ducks, books, milk, juice, most of her favorite foods, Pops, Grammy, Jannie, Junior, Gray, Jody, Mama, Daddy, Jay, William, Meryl, and other people she sees often
-Goes to the door when the doorbell rings, when I get my keys, or when I say "do you want to go bye bye in the car"
-Goes to the bathtub when ask if she wants to take a bath
-Can identify the following body parts: eyes, nose, tongue, ears, hair, head, belly, feet and boobies (Are all kids obsessed with their mama's boobies???)
-Gives the best kisses on command
-Loves to pretend talk on the phone
-Sleeps from about 7:15 until about 8:00 every night with a 1-3 hour nap in the afternoon

**She has alot more cute habits and tricks but these are just a few that I thought of quickly when doing this post.

The Ballpark

Last Saturday we went to the ballpark with Pops to see William play baseball for the first time. His team is the Grasshoppers and William loves it! Here is a picture of him after he scored for his team! He loved running the bases :)

Jay and Rose played on the playground after the game.

A Tale of Two Trips

Since it was such a gorgeous day on Tuesday, we decided to head to the beach for the day with Sarah Beth to visit Bryant, Jacqueline, and Meryl. We started the day on Bryant's little beach at the Wood's Ono house. Rose literally dragged Bryant straight to the water! She loved it!

Toes in the water for the first time this year.

I love how Rose copied Bryant!

After playing on the beach, we all headed over to Jacqueline's condo at Caribe for lunch. Then Mrs. Elena sat with the girls while they napped so we could lay out at the pool. It was such a wonderful treat to lay in the sun for 2 hours without any responsibility!!! After their naps, Meryl and Rose played and shared snacks before we headed home for the night.
After such a fun day, we returned home just in time to eat dinner, take a bath, and hop in bed. Or so I thought. Little did I know Rose was about to have her first trip to the ER...

I had a 9 by 13 glass casserole dish on a table in the foyer and was planning on returning it to my Mom. As we walked in from the beach, I threw Rose's blankie on the table and it landed on top of the dish. While I was heating up Rose's dinner, she ventured into the foyer, saw her beloved blankie on top of the table, and grabbed the closest thing she could reach...the casserole dish. It landed on her precious big toe on her right foot and all I heard was a loud thud and Rose screaming. I ran into the room, picked up Rose, told her she was OK and that it just scared her. But then I felt something dripping down my leg and saw that there was blood everywhere. I am usually a total freak when it comes to situations like this but thank God I didn't panic and lose it as I was home alone and Rose needed me to handle the situation like the adult that I am! I may have overreacted by calling 911, but I was worried she had lost part of her toe... there was so much blood and I couldn't see where it was coming from on her toe. Literally less than 5 minutes later, 4 firemen were at my house. They took 1 look at her foot and told me I needed to go to the ER for stitches. Luckily my Dad was on his way and we jumped in his car and headed to Springhill Memorial. After a relatively short ER visit (which lasted about 2 hours but seemed like 10) we made it home. They did an x-ray and saw that poor Rose has a fractured bone in her toe, a bad gash, and a toenail that is turning black and will probably fall off eventually. She was SUCH A TROOPER and is recovering nicely. She wants to walk and play as normal, but has a hard time because it hurts to put any pressure on her foot. I'm hoping she will start feeling better by the beginning of next week. I just thank God that it wasn't worse!
Ready to go home. She was exhausted and so were we! Thank you Daddy for taking such great care of us!!!
See the little bear she is holding? They gave it to us when we checked in and Rose didn't let it go the entire night. This morning I noticed that it had a little tag on the back telling me it was made by members of a local church. So, I called the church to let them know how comforting it was for Rose and they told me that 10 ladies make 360 boo bears a month for all of the local hospitals! Wow!! Thats alot of sewing! I just wanted them to know how much we appreciated their gift at such an unfortunate time!