{InCourage}ment for Moms and Dads

There's a guest post on the InCourage blog today from yours truly... Show me some love and let me know what you think by commenting on the post, Lessons from a Tenderhearted Father. Thanks, friends!

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Sabbath Routine

(this is how he rests all the time, but it's just too cute not to put here)

Allen wrote a brief synopsis of our typical Sabbath, in case you are wondering what that looks like. Justin Hyde, pastor of Christ Church Brenham (another Acts 29 church) is doing a series on Sabbath Rest and what it looks like for different pastors and ministry leaders.

Check it out here.

Shutterfly Promo!

I am SO glad to have found this promotion from Shutterfly! I ordered 50 cards earlier this month and I don't know what I was thinking! I ran out of cards just in our church, much less the other friends we have in town and out of town.

So in comes this promo from Shutterfly, who I use anyway...equals AMAZING! Thank you, Shutterfly! I have tried other photo sites and have had complete customer service nightmares. Not so with Shutterfly. So, sign up here and you can get 50 free holiday cards, if you are a blogger. Even if you aren't a blogger, they have great deals on supercute cards.

I have also ordered photo books in the past. As a matter of fact, each of my children have a Baby's First Year book that is out on display in our family room. They all turned out so cute. I will definitely do one for each baby we have as a keepsake. I have also done them as our Year in Review, which has been a hit for family members. They are gorgeous books and they include many different backgrounds to choose from. Cute, elegant backgrounds, not chintzy ones. I happen to love these little books.

The great thing about having kids is the photo gift aspect. You can certainly satisfy the grandparents-who-have-everything with gifts of the grandkids' pictures. Success!

Blogging

After listening to Allen's sermon last night about Deviants in Disguise, false prophets from the Sermon on the Mount, I am painfully aware that as my blog has grown from just a place to post pictures of the kids, I have more responsibility in what I am posting on here. Here's a wonderful article that I found very helpful as well.

Here's what I'm NOT doing:

I'm not advocating you to check my blog every day. I don't post everyday anyway.  It's a miracle if I can post twice a week (after all, I have 3 kids under 4 years old). Use Google Reader and check it when you can. And not to the detriment of other things.

I'm not saying I'm the final authority on anything. I'm not an expert book reviewer, crafter, cook, pastor's wife or mom. Quite the opposite, actually. I learn from so many other women, bloggers and experts on these issues and areas of life. I am so thankful for a community to learn and grow in these ways.

Here's what I am doing:

Desiring to communicate my heart to friends, family and others who are interested in our family. I don't think you are a blog-stalker if you found our blog and keep up with it. I invite whoever is interested in us and who isn't doing/thinking the above things (the NOTs) to join us as we journey through life, by God's grace.

Blogging to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." I think that includes blogging. I'd like to serve you with resources, books, quotes, any other helpful material that would be meaningful for your life. I hope it encourages you, draws you closer to God and brings glory to God.

Here's a quote from Bob Kauflin's 17-year-old daughter who started a picture blog:

"If you ever have any free time and you're wondering, "What in the world am I going to do now?" don't go to my blog. Have extended devotions, or read some good book on our Savior, or serve your family. And once you've done that, come and visit my blog."

Such wisdom in her youth! I pray these same things for you as you explore the blogosphere.

Doing Your Husband Good

Just wanted to direct you to GirlTalk, an amazing blog that is doing a series on "Doing Your Husband Good" with comments from readers around the country sharing how they bless their husbands.

We all know different husbands are blessed by different things, but this may spark a new idea for you or refresh your efforts to please your husband by reading these comments. I know that whenever I hear an older, wiser woman who has been married over 20 years, with 11 children (in some cases) saying how her husband is blessed and what works for them, I want to hear all about that!

Do you like my little d?

Check this out...if you haven't already noticed:


I found out about this lovely little gadget called a favicon. It's the little icon you see in the address bar and then up at the top of your tab if you use Firefox. You can also see it next to my blog if you use a reader. Pretty cool, huh? I thought it was cute, first and foremost. So you're thinking, how do I get one of those little cuties? Well, I'm glad you asked.

I'm going to make this short and sweet. If I have anything else to add, I'll add it in the comments.

1. Make something cute in photoshop or just choose some clipart that will look good really small.
2. Go to this website.
3. Upload your picture, let it create the necessary files and then download them to your computer.
4. Find the ico file that you downloaded and save it as .png in whatever photo editing program you use.
5. Upload that file to your photo-sharing site (I recommend Picasa and will use that as my model). After you have uploaded your picture, go to the right side of the page (in Picasa, at least), select large (800 px) and copy the code where it says "embed image."
6. Log into your blogger account, go to "Settings" and "Edit HTML."
7. Between the head tags in your HTML code, paste this:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://myfavicon.com/favicon.png" />
<link rel="icon" href="http://myfavicon.com/favicon.png" />

8. Now, in place of the highlighted area, paste your location of your picture that you copied in step 5.

9. You may notice that what you pasted is quite a bit more code than what is shown in step 7. You need to delete everything up to the "http" after ".png". Save and you should be on your way to seeing cuteness every time you open your page, too!

Thanks to BlogU for the tips!

Tagged...

Okay, here's what I said last year when I got tagged. In case you are a non-blogger and just a reader you may not know what tagging is, it is the passing along of trivial information.

Here are the official rules:

First, the rules.

1. Post the rules on your blog.

2. Write 6 random things about yourself.

3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post.

4. If you are tagged, DO IT and pass it along.

Obey the rules or there will be serious consequences in the blogosphere. Ha. Just kidding.

Here are my 6... 6 things you may not know about me, that is:

1. I am a very optimistic person. As a matter of fact, I am the person who enters all those sweepstakes where you get a free trip around the world, or the HGTV Dream House and while I am entering my name, I am SURE it's going to be me that wins. I actually entered me and Allen in an Olive Garden trip to Italy contest this summer and it was one where you could enter to win every day and I pretty much entered us every day. Crazy right? Not as crazy as us NOT winning! I was SHOCKED!

2. I have started a little on-the-side, family first (don't worry) bow business. I am working on adding more bows before I release the website on my blog. But, know that it will be soon. So keep looking and waiting. Just don't hold your breath. ;)

3. I used to be a gymnast. From itty bitty through 6th grade it was my life passion. During the later years when I was on team and doing level 5, 6 and 7, I was up at the gym 4 hours a day. My coach even picked me up from school to take me to the gym. It was a HUGE committment and a HUGE pressure when I was competing at the meets, but I always seemed to do good under pressure and won lots of awards, especially on the bars, which were my favorite. The beam was my least favorite. I went to gymnastic camp with Bela Karolyi and met Kerri Strug, Kim Zmeskal (my idol at the time), Dominique Dawes and Shannon Miller. I was always the youngest on my team, and it seems weird that I put so much pressure on myself at such a young age. I still love to watch gymnastics to this day.

4. I tend to perpetually mess up sayings. I am known around my family for doing this and then they continue to make fun of me until I say something else silly. Here are some examples of things I can remember at least, I know there are many more:

"It's like a penny in the bucket" (drop in the bucket)
"It was anonymous" (nothing wrong with that except I meant unanimous)
"It's like hitting a bird with a stone" (oops, one bird with 2 stones)
"hit the hammer on the head" (hit the nail on the head)

5. I find time to read (or at least scan) blogs, but not often do I have time to comment on blogs. I guess this isn't news to anyone, but I just want to publicly say sorry I don't comment. It doesn't mean I don't love you. I really do. I'll try to be better.

6. And lastly, I should let you all know that my birthday month is coming up. It starts on Sept. 19th and goes all through October. Feel free to lavish gifts and cards upon me at any point during the process of turning 26, once again. ;)

I would like to tag everyone who has a blog. I "officially" tag: Misti, Lora, Heather, Kirby, Kelly and the girltalk blog (I'm going to do an experiment and see if they will respond!)

Worth reading...

I'm not so much looking to start a political debate, but as one who wants to be informed politically, there's not much else to research when I know where they stand on this one issue. I'm okay with being a one-issue voter. This one issue is the difference between life and death. Does it make me pay less taxes? No. Does it protect the environment? Probably not so much. But I can trust those other issues to someone who values human life. It's just not worth a larger tax rebate to me...

Tears for Obama

One-Issue Politics

Training our Daughters

Some useful articles by Carolyn Mahaney and her daughters (Girl Talk blog, yes, I will refer to this often!). I have found it so encouraging and helpful. As far as I know they will be continuing this series about raising our daughters to be helpers in the home and I will be staying tuned! I have a daughter who LOVES to help and I want to channel that into blessing for all those around her, including her future husband.

A Daughter's Heart for the Home
Training Our Daughter
Corner Pillars

Makeover

I thought it was about time that the blog get a cute little makeover. Come on over and check it out if you use Google reader. It's really worth it, I think! It's fun and easy to make your blog cute! You might also see some more changes in the days to come...

Okay, okay, everybody's doing it!

Okay, I get it! Blogging is cool... So here we are, starting our own blog. It was all Taylor's idea. She saw the blogs with all the other babies and said she wanted her own. She's got a lot to say, that's for sure! She has been making the cutest sounds lately - coos and cahs. I'll have to record it and upload it, it's just precious. Anyhow, we're glad to finally be in on this now that the internet fairy visited our house....and no more votes to wrap our house!