What am I crazy????

Jen Bart called today to ask if we wanted to meet her at the play area at the mall. I said yes because I am always up for a good adventure. Keep in mind I am now hauling 3 kiddos around because I am watching Owen (5 1/2 months old). First of all bad idea because we weren't getting there until 11am when the rest of the crazy moms make it out. Second, Owen is new to us and on his own schedule oh and he has to eat a bottle and baby food while we are out.

Play area is too crowded so we head to eat. My girls aren't really ready but I get them food. We got to sit down and Owen is starting to cry because it is bottle time. Hook him up while Jen gets the girls food ready. Neither of them eat much and Owen is pretty interested in his bottle but also what others are doing. Oh wait we have to go potty. Did I mention that Elizabeth is pretty much potty trained and prefers (insists) the potty over her perfectly nice diaper she has on. The four of us head to the potty for dry bottoms and a diaper for Owen. Go to play area it looks like a concert it is so crowded. Play on the car things with no money. Owen gets fussy and girls want to go potty......the story continues with more of the same. I finally throw in the towel and head out to find another potty for Ella. Owen is asleep (it is not nap time) I think all the noise did him in. We head home Elizabeth falls asleep about 15 minutes from the house. Transition seems to go well with her but Owen isn't having it.

Owen took a 40 minute afternoon nap. Elizabeth woke up an hour early. Ella went down almost an hour late and work up after an hour. Nap time didn't go well. So trips to the mall or anywhere else for that matter are not on our agenda anytime soon. Thanks Jen Bart for the invite and helping us out but that's all she wrote for now.

Did I mention I had to take my 2 to Walmart that afternoon to get all our groceries on limited naps. By the grace of God we survived. Praise the Lord!!! He is Good!!! ~melanie

Wow, a month has gone by already

Ok, so I guess I am not as good as I used to be at keeping up with things on the computer. I have had a few good laughs lately at the fact that I actually have a degree in computers. I bet my parents are happy they didn't pay for that degree! Oh well it is so funny how life can change so much in 6 years since I graduated college. Wow, imagine how much it will change in 6 more years. My baby girl will be almost 10 and Elizabeth will be almost 8. Wow talk about change. We will be gearing up for their hormones not that we aren't already dealing with that drama. Oh the life of girls.

Ok, ok... so that was a weird way to start. Here is an update. Tommy started his 4 classes last week. It looks like it is going to be a fast semester with little time for air. Math seems to be the challenge. Please pray for him there and his confidence. He is such a great student and I know he can do it. I started keeping Owen last week. He is going on 6 months old and is such a cool addition to our family. The girls absolutely love having a real life baby around the house. I think they like him more since he isn't theirs and he goes home everyday. I guess this is preparing us for another in our family some time down the road.

We have been blessed with a few scholarships this semester that paid for school and more which was totally cool because we lost one scholarship before we knew about the others and were a little discouraged and then in a day the Lord brought in even more through another resource. Man he is faithful and gives us so much more than we deserve. How can we ever doubt you.

Here are some pictures of the girls and the toys we have for Owen. If you notice the exersaucer is broken down for storage and still Elizabeth managed to get herself in there. Oh and yes they do have morning hair. Check older posts for some other morning hair shots.

Enjoy~Melanie

Mowing the lawn should be easy!

Thought some of you would enjoy my lawn mowing experience. Last week Tommy set me up to mow the lawn while he did the other stuff in the yard (riding mower). We have had a ton of rain and a day or so Tommy commented on the need to mow again. I thought this would be a great way to serve my busy husband so I decided to get mowing today while the girls were asleep and then finish it off when he got home. The girls wanted to ride the mower later in the day and daddy still wasn't home. Elizabeth went first and she was super calm so I thought hey I bet I could finish the riding mower parts before Tommy gets home to make his day. So I but Elizabeth on my lap and drove with my right hand and Ella on the back straddling me. It was great and I just kept encouraging them that we were serving Daddy.

Tommy made it home after 7pm and I offered to do the push mower stuff so he could spend time with the girls. He went out to set us up and a few minutes later the girls and I headed outside. Tommy is smiling big and laughing. He says, "Did you notice you weren't cutting much grass?" I said, "I wondered about that it didn't seem to be as much trimmed off as I would have expected but I checked all and it was cutting some." Apparently I had the blade down but there are varying levels and I had it on the highest level 6 instead of 1. So guess what we did a power mow and the girls and I got to cut the entire lawn together while Tommy push mowed areas we couldn't mow and used the weed eater. It was great fun!!! I guess this is how you learn these things. What a funny story we now have as a great family memory in the yard.

Pictures of the mowing.

july outreach part 2 north hills

I talked waith a young man named john he says he is going to heaven because he is a good person so I took the time to unpack what scripture says about God and true salvation. John is not unusual person a large percentage of people who would call themselves Christian think they are going to enter heaven on their own goodness.

This is what Jesus says about our goodness," Isaiah 64:6 For all of us has become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment: And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, " sin" like the wind, take us away." John has been deceived into believing by our culture and our pagan Christianity in America that he is not going to face judgement for his sin this is not Biblical truth.

Quote from paper on regenerate church membership," Let’s look at how Jesus handled evangelism from the beginning of His earthly ministry. Jesus makes a very clear statement on evangelism, Matthew 5: 17 “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The word repent is a word that has vanished from a majority of Southern Baptist pulpits as well as a lot of others. This word does not mean to pray a sinner’s prayer and join a church in order to go to heaven. This word means grievances over the sin that is polluting your life. Your sin has offended the Holy God that has made you and God has showed you this sin and wants you to turn away because you now hate it. You see for the first time that if you where to die right now that God would be just in punishing a sinner like you in Hell because He is not only merciful but He is also just in every way. And for the first time you see you are helpless to the sin that engulfs your life and you want to cry out to Jesus and place your trust in him alone for salvation. This is the repentance that Jesus is speaking of.
This is the Gospel that must be preached again with a passion and zeal. This blessed truth must sound again from the pulpits like the church bell chiming from its tower on Sunday mornings. We must blow our voices like trumpets once again from the pulpits of our forefathers with a boldness of a lion and the gentleness of a lamb.
What about John the Baptist? His words are almost identical to the words of Jesus in Matthew 4:17. John says in Matthew 3:2 “Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” this is the very same phrase that Jesus started with in his preaching ministry. But in verse eight of that chapter John adds something that has been forgotten that has lead to our need for regenerate church membership again. John states in Matthew 3: 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” In other words our life must be consistent with our confession to follow Christ. We will live a different way than we used to live. Not only has repentance been lost but the fruit that comes from that repentance has been lost. But the first response that comes up when a person brings this subject up is “you are being judgmental”. If we can’t be judgmental about the fruit we see or don’t see in someone’s life than the lost church member will continue on the path that they are on. People use this statement in trying to escape their conscience and their accountability to God, for this is as useless as trying to run from the sun it’s always there and eventually you will have to face it."

Tommy

July outreach in Raleigh north hills part 1

John and Erin said they where Christians I challenged theme to examine themeselves according to scripture. As we talked with John he gave the correct answers on how to be saved so may we pray for him that it is a true confession of faith in Christ Jesus.I will include a paper that was written on regenrate church membership. Which touches on the subject of true salvation which I think every Christian should be concerned about.

Elizabeth's Crazy Morning Hair

This was too cute not to share. Ella, Tommy and I were all up before Elizabeth Saturday morning and we decide to wake her up because we were going to go out to eat. She greeted us with the craziest hair ever and we all got a wonderful laugh. Elizabeth is usually good for a laugh as she is full of smiles and joy most of the time. Enjoy! Melanie

We moved

We are moved. Oh wait you didn't know we were moving! The Lord blessed us with an amazing opportunity to rent a great house 12 minutes away from the Seminary about 2 1/2 weeks ago and we did it. The move went great thanks to all the wonderful family and friends who were able to help us. We are so thankful to everyone for their help.

Here is a link to some pictures of the new place. Just copy and past the address.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=xsgxsoz.5caom3pv&x=0&h=1&y=swvcdd&localeid=en_US

We now have enough room to entertain and have company come over night. The best part is the owners are super wonderful and love the Lord.

The Lord is so good! Blessings~Tommy and Melanie