More Mia

We had a suitcase packed for Mia when she spent the night at my mom and dad's for the first time. When we got home, she took the liberty of unpacking it in the kitchen. For the record, this is a little suitcase!

 Then she got in the suitcase and laid like this for a very, strange, long time. Looks like a frog to me. Maybe that corner smelled good! Tee hee...

 As we were packing totes for moving out of our house, we constantly had to give her rides in totes. This one in particular was comfy as it had our guest bedroom bedding in it! She played in this tote forever, it was so cute! I wish you could see the joy in her face while Joel pulled her around, inverted :)

 Here she is helping my mom cook by breading sliced zucchini and handing it to "grandma" to cook. SO cute! She gets a bucket or a chair or whatever she can get up on, whenever someone is cooking, and loves to help. This morning she spilled my protein powder all over the floor in an effort to "help". Thanks Mia :)

 While we were in Mexico, Mia got a few blisters on her feet. They are almost completely healed, but the slight scab that is left still has her very bothered. I still have to kiss the dang "owwweee" about 3 times a day. After playing in the fridge door, she thought it would be a good idea to get out the Cholula (hot sauce) and put it on her blisters. I'm tellin' ya', strange child!!!

 We had 10-12 inches of snow this week and we have taken full advantage of it. We have a little hill on our property and have been kayaking down it. SO fun. Mia doesn't really like her hands in it - who does? it's cold!- but other than that she has a great time and cries when we have to go back in the house.

 Just a goofy picture Nora took of Mia:

                          

She loves taking baths and is so cute all wrapped up in her towel afterwards :)

 So, my child loves anything that is dangerous. Here I was doing paperwork on the table 4 feet from her. She reached up where the dishes were drying, grabbed this steak knife, found an apple, apparently stabbed the knife into the apple, then brought it to me like this. I figured if she hadn't hurt herself while accomplishing all that in mere seconds, she could hold it for a few more while I ran and grabbed the camera.

 Her beloved, obnoxiously pink, 4-wheeler:

 Opening the dog kennel door (or should I say, "about to be demolished by overly excited labs getting out of their kennel")

 Just cute:

 That's all! Aren't you proud of me for the semi-consistent blogs lately??

TYMTJ Day 2

Worship, as you know, is a matter of the heart. So, let's begin by praying for his heart. I know what it feels like to have a heavy or burdened or uneasy heart. Don't you? Let's come together against this for our guys.


Our focus:
-Take the burdens from the heart of my husband.
-Replace them with freedom.
-In that freedom, begin to teach my husband what it truly means to worship You  
 in spirit and in truth.
-Come and meet my husband where he is.
-Allow him to find rest in his home and in his current circumstances.
-Begin to lay new words and encouragement on the heart of my husband.
-Develop him into a man who is capable of being in a constant spirit of worship.

TYMTJ Day 1

Take Your Man to Jesus Day 1:

I read this on a friend's blog and decided it would be good to post on mine as well! The men in our lives have a lot resting on their shoulders as they strive to lead us and lead others - in their jobs, in the church, and in the community. I think our culture has gotten far to comfortable with "man bashing" and demolishing their reputation. Especially when a group of girls get together. Our men need our confidence, our support, and our approval. I think the saying goes: "behind every good man there is a good woman" and that is so true. The more we help meet the needs of our spouse, encourage them, and believe in them, the better they will be in all facets of life.

We've all seen what can happen on the flip-side: a lively, strong man gets together with  a girl, they fall in love, they get married. She has no problem putting him down in public, pointing out his shortcomings and his flaws. He gets home from work and she hounds him to do this, do that. He has no quiet time, and finds no joy in coming home. Eventually he isn't so lively or strong. He starts letting her make the decisions, their kids are brats, she doesn't respect him because he has no back bone anymore. He dreads coming home and finds any excuse not to. It's just a downward spiral.

Ok. Let's lift our men up to the awesome God who created them for the next 10 days. Let's strive to support our men, thank them for what they contribute to our families and encourage them every day.

Day 1:
"disclaimer: Before I begin, I want to let you know that I will, most often, be referring to that special man in your life as "husband." If the guy you are praying for is not your husband, please still participate and know that when I say husband I actually mean: husband, fiancé, boyfriend or future husband...

Let's begin by praying for our husbands as leaders.

All of our men are leaders in one way or another and most of them lead in multiple areas. They are all the leaders in our relationships and homes. Many of them lead multiple people in their place of work. And whether you realize it or not, many of your husband's friends look to your husband as a leader in their friendship. For those of you who have been in leadership roles yourselves, you know the burden and pressure that can come from such roles. Recognize that your husband is a leader to many people, even in situations that you may be unaware of. Let's ask the Lord to bless them in this role, to teach them through leadership and to use them to influence others.

Our focus:
-Increase his wisdom in making decisions for those he leads.
-God would give him confidence as a leader.
-Call him to step out in his role and calling.
-Give him influence in the lives of others.
-That he would view his leadership as a way to lead as the Lord has lead him.
-Teach him through leading others.
-A teachable spirit.

Use the next twenty-four hours to focus on your husband's roles in leadership. Take him before the Lord, specifically as a leader."

A Girl and her Dog (and goat and horse)

Mia LOVES animals and in fact, we had a hard time keeping her from loving all over stray dogs while we were in Mexico recently (more on that later).

This is such a pitiful picture of little Chevy. Any of you who know this spaz will appreciate the fact that she was being SO mopey about being in her kennel (which is bigger than our house), that she sat still with this leaf hanging out of her mouth, the whole time I walked up to her and took this picture. Brat.

There is little that excites Mia more than getting to go feed all the random animals at my mom's house. This is Lizzy, the ginormous goat. She only gets more ginormous when Mia is around because Mia gives her so many treats! This is actually a big deal because for MONTHS Mia was scared to death of Lizzy. She wasn't scared of the huge white mule that could stomp her in the ground, but she was petrified of the goat that wants nothing more than a snack.

 Here my dad is watching Mia feed the mules and horses. Joel's mom sent us the camo trapper hat and orange/camo pullover. I'm not sure why she chose the boy stuff for Mia, but Mia pulls it off and still looks adorable to me.

So I was cooking one day and found it odd that Mia was quiet for a few minutes and not insisting on "helping" me in the kitchen. I went to the living room and found her painting the black dog white! I had a paintbrush in a baggie for future use that she found and decided her dog needed to look more like a skunk. Silly girl. Poor dog.

 Here she couldn't get the dog's attention so she flopped on the floor and laid there staring at the dog for AGES. She'd talk to Sadee, sing to her, poke her in the eyeball, anything to get Sadee's attention, but Sadee is a master at ignoring you when she wants. So Mia lost this battle. Ha!

 This is probably a good example of WHY Sadee chooses to ignore Mia a lot of times. Here Mia had gotten the thermometer thingy and decided that Sadee needed her temperature checked. She kept swiping the thing over Sadee's forehead like you're supposed to do with those things - on humans. Sadee is such a good dog and just sits there and takes it.

These posts are a little random but I'm behind so this is catch up time! Enjoy!

OFL

Our restaurant sponsors the Ozarks Fight League, which puts on MMA fights every 3 months with fighters from all over this state and surrounding areas. One of our employees, Braden, fights for a local team and retained his title belt at the last fight we went to. Here are some photos:

This is a RazorBack Ribs staff photo: the blond girl is Laura, she works for us, and they hired her to sing the National Anthem before these fights. She brought the house DOWN with her amazing voice!!!! I was thoroughly impressed that such a big sound could come from such a little human :). The other guy is Brian, and he's our assistant manager. He's worked with us for about a year and a half now and we are very proud of the way he takes his job seriously, takes on responsibility, etc. He's great. We love our staff!!!

Christmas in February?!?

I guess that's what happens when you don't post for a month and a half :). We had a great Christmas. We spent the morning at home just the 3 of us, then went to my Aunt Gwen's where we played Just Dance (along with 50% of all Americans that day it appears), and finished the day at my mom and dad's with a delicious prime rib dinner.

She got VERY good at opening presents this year and in fact was quite willing to open gifts for anyone and/or everyone...

Her grandpa in Texas send her a pretty dress with shiny bloomers, and apparently she liked the bloomers. She put the dress aside, put these on, and went on with her day!

Here is at my parent's house. This was her big gift from my dad, a rocking horse!

It required some assembly... (thanks dad)

...which she decided to help with. Notice the directions AND screwdriver in her hand!

At long last, she's on it (and pieces didn't go flying - Christmas miracle). She loves this thing!

This is the day after Christmas in her pretty Christmas dress. Yes this is another picture on the potty. Some people record themselves singing in the bathroom, we take pictures of Mia. Either way, it's a bathroom studio :)

Book Review

I am letting you know that I am currently doing some photo editing of the past 2 months of this blog famine. That means that there will be several new posts in the days/weeks to come. Yay! It's long overdue....

In the meantime, I recently finished a really REALLY good book called Velvet Elvis. It's by the same author, Rob Bell, as Sex God. He's all about catchy titles apparently :). Regardless, I HIGHLY recommend picking up one of these books. Or better yet, both!

We are currently under crazy winter weather here in Arkansas. It sure feels like Alaska when temperatures are below zero around here!!! I've gotten very UN-used to that feeling.

We moved out of our house the first week of January and into our cozy cabin on our 3 acres. We plan to apply for financing to build our house on this property in the near future. But as we are self employed and the economy is crazy right now, who knows what will happen. We are VERY happy in our little cabin at the moment (minus the fact that our hot water pipes are frozen right now... how does HOT water freeze and not the cold??)

So hopefully you can forgive my lack of blogging. Stay tuned! But as usual, don't ever hold your breath :)