Where Is Your Father?

Mom and I went to see daddy yesterday, who, by the way, was doing great, especially after they gave him a roast beef sandwich at 7:30 PM after not having anything all day. Before going up to his room we decided to use the public restroom there in the hospital lobby.

A woman and her two small children came in and the conversation that took place between them cracked me up.

Child #1: Mommy, can I touch the toilet?
Mommy: No, you can't touch the toilet. But you can sit on it. (how that isn't touching it, I'll never know. Anyway...)
A few minutes later...
Child #1: Mommy, did you say I can touch the toilet?
Mommy: No, I said you can not touch the toilet.
Child #1: Mommy?
Mommy: Yes?
Child #1: I touched the toilet.
Mommy: Well don't touch it again. We'll wash your hands when you're finished.
Child #1: Mommy, my shoe fell off.
Mommy: Well put it back on.
Child #1: I can't reach it.
Mommy: Why not?
Child #1: Because I'm on the toilet.
Mommy: Then put it on when you get off.
Child #1: Will my foot get dirty?
Mommy: *sigh* Don't worry about your foot. We can wash it too.
Child #2: Mommy, I can't reach the sink.
Mommy: Well, here, I'll help you.
Child #2: Am I gonna sit on the counter?
Mommy: Yes, you are going to sit on the counter. You can reach the sink better that way.
Child #2: Mommy, what's that do?
(lights go off...pitch black in the bathroom)
Mommy: Turn the light back on!
Child #1: MOMMY! IT'S DARK
Child #2: *giggle*
Mommy: TURN THE LIGHT BACK ON!
Child #2: Ok
(lights back on)
(lights back off)
Mommy: Stop that! Turn it back on!
(lights back on)
(lights back off)
Mommy: I am not telling you again! Turn on that light!!
(lights back on)
Child #2: You're not fun.
Child #1: Mommy, I need to wash my hands because I touched the toilet.
Mommy: Where is your FATHER??

Moving To Charlotte

Daddy's blood work showed that he'd had a heart attack. Which would explain the symptoms he had been having Monday night. I'm guessing he had the heart attack Monday night since his night was so bad.

Anyway, they decided to move him to Charlotte so his heart doctors from Sanger clinic will be taking care of him.

When he calls mom to let her know he's leaving she'll pick me up and we'll meet him over there.

He has mentioned that he is tired and is considering coming off dialysis. Of course we all know what that would mean and so we don't want that to happen, but ultimately it is his decision.

That's all the update I have for now. Thank you for continued prayers!

Happy Birthday, Hannah

We celebrated my baby girl's 15th birthday yesterday. Here she is at age 1. She was playing and happy and having a good time and decided to cheese it up for the camera. I love this picture of her. She was so cute!


Wow. I know, right? I look like I'm having a great time, don't I? Gotta love how a camera will grab that very moment in time you wish it hadn't. Thanks, Bruce!


But then you can always make it capture a moment you want to remember.


Hannah got this gorgeous purse from her Grandmother last night. I have to say that I love it and am feeling a wee bit jealous over it. But you know....maybe Hannah will share it with me sometime.

And she got this hot pink flute too. She was online one day and found it and had a fit over it. So Bruce told her he would buy it for her if that's what she wanted. Mom and dad wanted to go in on it too. So we ordered it and it came, but she never knew it came. We just acted as though she wasn't going to get it by her birthday. She was a happy little girl when it was time to open presents.

Big daddy....little Hannah....hot pink flute

When everyone left, I took Hannah to see her grandpa in the hospital and we snuck him a very small piece of Hannah's birthday cake. See the hope I don't get caught all over his face??

Oh yes, I haven't told you yet, have I? Daddy was taken yesterday by ambulance to the hosptial for congestive heart failure. When we went to see him last night he was sitting up in bed in his jeans and henley shirt, talking with some friends of his. He was in very good spirits, laughing and cutting up. Giving them some words of encouragement about a situation they're going through. Just being daddy. Today they are doing his dialysis at the hospital and are talking of giving him a stress test today. I really don't want them doing that today since this is his dialysis day. I'm praying they'll change their minds and do it tomorrow. We'll see.

On the way to the hosptial we were flooded by rain. It was coming down in buckets, it seemed like to me. But once the rain stopped we looked up and saw this beautiful rainbow. It reminded me of all the promises God has made and that He has never once failed to keep those promises. He is good, all the time!

Banquets and More Banquets!

Justin went to Megan's Junior Senior Banquet at her Christian school this weekend. They looked so nice!

Then Saturday night was his last SIGMA banquet. It was a fun night, but a little depressing for me, knowing he was leaving the youth group already. I just don't know about this growing up stuff!!

Justin was awarded the Pastor's Award, which is given by our Pastor, to the teenager that exhibits leadership to the youth group. It is such a beautiful award. I think this year is the first year they've given an eagle. Just gorgeous!

And he was third in the top ten. So we were proud of him for that.

Way to go, to all the youth that were awarded a certificate and/or trophy Saturday night. You did a great job this year!!

Home School Graduation

As much as I enjoyed the graduation at CCC, our home school graduation was my favorite. LOL I said last night that when we started home schooling, Justin became my first student and thirteen years later, he has become my first graduate. Praise the Lord!

Everything was personal and God honoring. We would have never made it through these home school years without the help of the Lord.

And now I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for Justin. I know it's gonna be good!

Enjoy this video of Justin and Bruce playing Rejoice in the Lord. Justin is playing the mandolin Bruce made. It has such a beautiful sound. I couldn't help but cry while they played. We have so much to rejoice in the Lord over.

Justin's Graduation from CCC

We had a good time watching Justin walk to receive his diploma Wednesday night. He was very excited and there were several other people we knew graduating also. To each of them we send our congratulations.

Almost Time!!

So Justin's diploma cover came in the mail today. It's very nice and his diploma is sitting in it and ready to be handed to him Thursday night. Can't wait!!

I'd show a picture of it, but you know...he might see it.

;0)

Tomorrow night he will graduate from CCC. Thursday is his high school graduation and then Friday he has a Junior Senior Banquet with his friend Megan. We'll be following him down to SC to meet her parents and get some pictures. And then Saturday will be his last SIGMA banquet.

:(

I'm a little sad about that. I feel like he just moved up to the youth group and now his time has come to move up to the College and Career. *sigh* I find myself asking where the time has gone more and more often these days. I can't believe he's finishing up so much at one time. But he's worked hard and I'm proud of him.

Love Thy Who?

So here I am at 2:30 in the morning and my neighbors are making so much noise I can't sleep. HUGE work trucks, bright lights, loud talking. What in the world are they doing down there at 2:30 in the morning anyway??? I would go see, but they're strange like that. A little more redneck than myself. So, you know, I think I'll just lay low for now. LOL

My mom came for a short visit today. We ate oranges and talked for a little bit. Then Bruce got up and we went to cut his mom's grass and visit with her for a while. That was fun. I tried showing her some things on facebook. Maybe she'll enjoy it. I hope so.

Lots of stuff to do tomorrow. Think I'll try going back to sleep. Goodnight!

...love thy neighbor....love thy neighbor...love thy neighbor...love thy neighbor...love thy neighbor.......

Mother's Day Give Away!

Hey, Hey!!! Homestead Momma is having a Mother's Day Giveaway!!! Go take a peek and enter for your chance to win. :)

YAY!!!! Love giveaways. Don't you????

Click here to visit Homestead Momma

And We're Off!

The last thing I needed to do before Justin can receive his diploma from CCC is turn in his transcripts. I finished that this morning, complete with photograph. I searched all over looking for Transcript records and this was the only one that had a place for a photograph. Thought that was interesting. lol

Anyway, all I have to do is turn it in and I'll do that as soon as Justin gets back from the college. Wish I had had it completed yesterday. He could have dropped it off at Student Services this morning. Oh well....

So here is his schedule for next week:

Tuesday: Practice @ the church for Home School graduation
Wednesday: Graduation from CCC
Thursday: Graduation from Deuteronomy 6:7 Home School
Friday: Jr/Sr Banquet at Mountain View Christian Academy with Megan
Saturday: Last SIGMA Awards Banquet :(

It's going to be a very full week next week!! But that's ok...I LOVE IT! Although, here lately I've been having a lot of stomach problems and I'm thinking it's my nerves. Hopefully, come next week, I'll be so busy I won't have time for an upset stomach!

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Daddy is doing great. He is recooperating wonderfully with the loving care of my mother. She's so good to him. I must give her a SHOUT OUT. She's a wonderful wife and caretaker!!!

Love you, mommy!

Mother Daughter Banquet

We had our Mother Daughter banquet at church this past Friday. It was a lot of fun and we thoroughly enjoyed hearing Mrs. Anna Parris on things to say and not to say to your children. She is just wonderful and I love her so much.

Thank you, Mrs. Anna, for your words of wisdom Friday night, and for being such a sweet friend in my life.

I was able to sit with my daughter and my mother. Two other beautiful people in my life. I don't know what I would do without them. They are both such blessings to me. I enjoyed the time and fellowship together.

The decorations were gorgeous, thanks to Mrs. Ava and my buddy, Dana. They did a fabulous job!! It made me want to sing the song from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Spring, Spring, Spring.

We had another man saved at church this morning. I'm telling ya, the Lord is doing some work in the hearts and lives of people everywhere!! It is so exciting!!

Things are going to be very busy the next couple of weeks, so I'll see ya when I can! :)

Jubilee, Daddy, Babies, and Funnies

We were able to attend two nights of the Crossroads Rescue Mission Jubilee this week.

We heard some great singing from the Love Valley Baptist Church choir....

the Crossroads Rescue Mission men....

the Faith Baptist Church Vintage bluegrass group....

The Henson Family, and others.

We heard some great preaching. This preacher, Brother Williamson (I believe they said his name was) was something else. I think he was my favorite out of the three we heard, although all three were GREAT messages!

And it is always good to see old friends, like Brother Keith Linzy (Evangelist)....

Brother Rocky Shelton Sr. (Director of Crossroads Rescue Mission)....

Dennis Gomez (We go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back)....

Kim (Brother Keith's wife)....

and Melissa (Pastor's wife at Bread of Life Baptist)

It was good seeing all of our other friends there too!!

:)

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If you read the post below, you know we brought home a little one from church with us the other night. We had such a good time with her. She's such a cutie pie.

Here she is with her eyes on the prize. She never did reach it, but I'll admit that I did give her a smidgen of frosting. Boy, did her eyes light up then!

Mom and daddy came over for lunch and we had a good time. 'Lil Angel was passed around from person to person and received a bushel of lovin' from everybody. Here she is snuggled up to Paw Paw Birt. Isn't that sweet?

Daddy is doing very good. He ate until he was stuffed yesterday. I doubt he ate supper last night. LOL He was stumbling around a bit. I think his next surgery is to remove a cyst behind his eye. Hopefully that will greatly improve his vision! I am praying for that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've posted this before, but it's a little different. Still very funny. I received a lot of negative feedback, but funny is funny! You can click on them to enlarge them.

Daddy Update and Lil Angels

Daddy is still doing well. As a matter of fact, he and mom are coming over for lunch. Mrs. Kim Lee made a lasagna for them and they're going to eat it over here. I made a three leaf salad and I'm going to make some cheesey garlic biscuits. Should be a good lunch.

Thank you, Mrs. Kim, for your thoughtfulness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We brought home Lil Angel last night from church and she spent the night with us. It's been fun having her and playing with her and smothering her with love and attention. She likes Bruce. LOL


She is just the sweetest little thing. I hate to see her go back home. But alas, all good things must come to an end. I'm sure we'll do this again sometime though.

Lord willing, I'll be going to the Crossroads Rescue Mission Jubilee tonight. We sure did enjoy it Tuesday night. Brother Williamson preached a great message.

Hope y'all have a great night!

Daddy Update and Graduation Stuff

Daddy is home and resting. He is happy to be home and Dolly (their dog) was thrilled to see him walk through the door. I'm sure she has tried to crawl up in the chair with him. I haven't talked to mom today to hear his most current update. I suppose no news is good news, right? She's had the phone off the hook, which probably means that daddy is resting. That, or she's busy playing on facebook and has forgotten to put it back on the hook. We'll see how long it takes her to read this and give me a call. LOL

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Justin and I went to the college to do some things he has to do before he graduates from there next month. Our first stop was to pick up his cap and gown. He's being silly here...probably because I had been crying. Yes, crying! I couldn't help it. I was fine when he was trying gowns on in the bookstore, but then when we walked out of the bookstore I became a tad emotional. As tears swelled in my eyes, I realized he was walking a good twelve paces behind me. Wonder why? LOL Then he started poking fun a little bit and gave me this pose for the picture.


We had to stop at the switchboard and fill out a survey about the campus. He couldn't receive his tickets for graduation until he filled out the survey.

I need to do two more things this week and we'll be set!

To Be Released, Or Not To Be Released...That Is The Question

Daddy's surgery went very good. It is not unusual for the patient to end up in ICU after having their carotid artery cleaned out. So that's where he went right after the surgery. They wanted to monitor him and make sure there was no bleeding, etc.

He was really out of it after this surgery. When they did the first one a month ago, they did not put him to sleep. He was awake for it because he was such a high risk at that time and so when we saw him afterwards, he was alert. But this time they put him to sleep. I'm so glad of that because he has Vertigo and it's laying on his left side that makes him so sick. Which he had to lay on his left side this time. The doctor did not know about his Vertigo so it was a blessing they went ahead and put him to sleep.

ANYWAY! We went up the next day and he was still a little groggy. But doing well. I was able to feed him supper, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy, until he got sick later and lost it all. Poor thing.

Since then they've moved him to a regular room and we're waiting to hear whether or not he'll get to go home today. Last time he had dialysis on a day they thought he may get to come home and decided to keep him. Today is a dialysis day, so we'll see.

Thank you again, to all of those that were praying. Our family appreciates every one of those prayers. And thank you, Brother Randy, for wheeling mom up to the room the day of the surgery. It took a lot off of her AND my brother!!

Just Waiting

We dropped daddy off at the hospital yesterday. His surgery was scheduled for early this morning and they wanted to give him dialysis last night.

They took him just after 6:00 this morning and we've been sitting here in the waiting room for hours. I'm looking at a man across the waiting room. He's asleep and I'm pretty sure there's drool hanging off his chin. That's nice.

Mom took her water pills and she's been up and down the corridors of the hospital huntin' bathrooms.

John has been lying all morning and being contrary about everything. I've been good.

Just sittin' here mindin' my own business, playing on facebook. ;0)

Are You Listening?

James 4:17 "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

Sometimes doing the good part is easy. And sometimes it is not. Sometimes we allow pride to get in the way of doing the good part.

I don't want my pride to be a stumbling block to my own self or anyone else. And so I need to make a public apology.

Several months ago I posted a blog post about people leaving the church who were telling some things about our Pastor that shocked me. I knew in my heart that my Pastor had never said the things he had been accused of saying and so it began to burn inside of me and I was very angry. Instead of going to the people that supposedly said those things, I vented on my blog post. Although I never mentioned their names, my heart was wrong, my spirit was wrong, and my blog post was wrong. I allowed gossip to stir up anger in my heart.

Although I removed that blog post, damage was already done.

Pastor Goodman has said many times that it is not the gossiper that bothers him, it is the one that listens to the gossip. And that's what I did. You can't help what you hear, but you can help what you listen to. Instead of blogging about it, I should have called them and talked to them about it.

I have asked their forgiveness privately and want to publicly apologize to them. I don't know if I should say their names or not. If they want to comment on this blog post, they are most certainly welcome to. But I want them AND my blog readers to know that I love the Lord and want to do the good part by making things right with my Brother and Sister in Christ.

I Just Stopped By...

Here's a video of our Youth Choir singing, I Just Stopped By On My Way Home. Enjoy!

Sweet Sixteens and Baby Showers

We attended the Sweet Sixteen party of a young lady in our youth group this past Saturday. Everything was polka dots and pink and black. It was so pretty. And very Taylor!


She had a good crowd of family and friends that came. A good bit of our youth was there along with some of her friends from school.


The food was delish!


The cake was beautiful!!

My sweet hubby. :)

This is the birthday girl. Taylor is a sweet girl and we were happy to be a part of her special night.

This is Kim...mother of the birthday girl. I would have gotten a picture of her daddy, but he doesn'T liKE HIS PICTURE TAKEN!!!! ;)

Thank you, Taylor, for inviting us. We had a good time!

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I have some praise report!! I can't remember if I said anything last week, but in last week's

morning service we had a visitor and two of our teenagers saved (Monica and Raven). Then Sunday night another visitor came and was saved. He brought a man with him Wednesday night and that man was saved. Then Friday night we got a call from one of our other teenagers, Madison, and she had just come from a revival meeting with her family and wanted to tell us she had gotten saved. And then this Sunday morning, two more visitors walked the isle to accept Christ. That's eight souls this week. PRAISE THE LORD!!! I believe we'll be doing some baptizing next Sunday night. I'm so thankful to be attending a church where souls are saved and people are baptized. It breaks my heart for churches out there that never get to experience new births into Heaven or see new converts baptized.

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Sunday afternoon we had a baby shower for Johnathan and Jennifer and their little unborn, Joshua. Can't wait to see and hold that little fella. :0) We got her a load of baby food and two outfits.

That's her mama there with her. Mrs. Renee is one of the SWEETEST ladies you will ever meet. She and her husband joined our church last year and we've been so blessed!! Oh! And I have to brag a little bit. See those giant potted flowers? My hubby made those. Mrs. Ava painted them. Didn't they turn out just beautiful? :)

Jennifer got all kinds of neat little baby things. I know she was excited to go home last night after church and look at it all over again!

Our youth choir sang last night and what a blessing to see three of them, newly saved, raising their hands in praise as they sang about the Blood!

Yeah, we had a great Sunday!