My niece Ava has a new blog detailing her battle with lukemia. Feel free to go over and post your comments. I'm sure April and Greg would love to know who all is praying for her.

We started out Thanksgiving morning the same as every year before. The kids run around the house in their pjs while I bake pies and watch the Macys parade on tv.

We had lunch with my family in Daisy this year at noon. The food was wonderful and I ate way too much! Jed had fun running around and playing with all the kids.

After lunch we drove to Little Rock to have Thanksgiving with Ava at Childrens hospital. She was having a good day and smiled alot which made our day so much better!

That night we drove to Jessieville to have Thanksgiving with Memaw Vicie and the rest of the family....again, the food was soooo good and I stuffed myself!

We finally made it home late on Thursday night with our belly full and our eyelids heavy!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

It was one year ago today that you entered in this great big world. One short year since the doctors held you up for us to see and your Daddy's eyes filled with tears. We could not believe that God had blessed us with a sweet little boy. Your sisters were so proud to have you....a little baby brother. It is impossible for me to think of your first year and not have my eyes well up with tears. I love you so much, Jedidiah! You have filled our home with so much love and laughter the last year. We have enjoyed watching your first smile, your first steps, recognizing your sisters by name, and so much more. I would love to stop time right now. If only I could keep you this little forever. I love snuggling with you at night, smelling your baby skin right after a bath, watching you toddle around in a diaper, and seeing you first thing in the morning with a great big smile on your face. I love sitting up at night with you when the rest of the family is asleep and you are not quite ready to crash...you sit and stare at my face and grab my cheeks as I rock and sing to you. You don't seem to mind that I can't sing on key or that I make up words to the songs. You will always be my little baby....just the way that Reagon and Kendall are still my babies. Knowing that you are my last baby, I will cherish every single little baby moment. Being my sweet third baby, I know all too well how fast you will grow up and not want me to rock you to sleep so for now, I will love every single minute of it.

Your daddy and I wish you lots of love and joy and happiness along your journey in life. I pray that God will be with you every step of the way and that His word will forever be in your heart.

Love,

Mommy

1 Samuel 1:27

For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted my petition made to Him.
Therefore I have given him to the Lord; as long as he lives he is given to the Lord.

Aubri, Kendall and Jed had so much fun playing last week. On Wednesday morning after breakfast, they worked on their Thanksgiving placemats. I just noticed that I didn't wash their faces before taking the pictures! LOL

Last year Teresa bought me a Foodsaver for Christmas. Since we have tagged four deer this year, this has been a lifesaver. We normally cut and wrap and then stuff in gallon ziplock bags and still have trouble keeping the ice out of it while in the freezer. Now, with the foodsaver we just fill and seal and it take takes all the air out and freezes beautifully. If you are looking for something to add to your Christmas wish list, this would be a great gift.

Reagon and I had fun working on her school project. She was to choose an Indian tribe and construct a replica of their home. Reagon chose the Inuit Indians so we got to work on their Igloo home. She received her grade yesterday...105/100!!! YEA!!!

The Bible teaches that blessings follow those who give. Proverbs 11:25, "the generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself."

I have heard countless testimonies from men and women who gave and watched God give back more. I would like to share what happened with our family this week.

Josh and I watch our budget very close. We like to keep a certain amount in the checking account and never try to get below that amount. Well, thanks to some very high utility bills and some expensive breakdowns in the chicken house, we were sitting well below our comfort level this week. Once a week, we sit down together in our home office to balance the checkbook and pay any upcoming bills, discuss savings plans/vacation plan/any upcoming expenses. This week the tension was high because we were way below our "set amount" with both vehicle payments due. We had just enough to pay our payments and have our normal grocery/Walmart/gas money left over. Then it hit us...we had forgot one very important thing! Our tithe! How could we forget to give back to God what he has blessed us with. For a second, I hate to admit that I thought about "skipping" our tithe this week and "catching up" later. I know that Satan was putting those thoughts in my head.""""But God....Deer season is coming up and you know how expensive it can be with the camping groceries and the shells...and Jed's first birthday, you know it will be expensive to buy the cake/decorations/pictures/and all the gifts..what about my shopping trip to Little Rock this weekend with my sisters, Lord! You know that we don't spend enough time together and I won't have a good time if I'm broke! I'll pay you back next week or after Christmas sometime""""I feel awful about it but I want to be completely honest. Needless to say, after writing out the tithe check we were broke! As you can imagine, we walked around feeling sorry for ourselves. Let me rephrase that...we walked around in our 2000 square foot home feeling sorry for ourselves. We spent the next few days moping while we played on one of our 3 computers, watched movies from our big screen tv, and rode around in our new vehicles. Don't you feel sorry for us! Yesterday we went back over our budget and realized that I would be getting an "extra" check the month of November since it is a 5 week month and our budget is set for a 4 week month. This would put us back on track. I felt really bad that I even considered not tithing. I spent some quiet time alone with God this morning after the girls were at school and Josh & Jed were out of the house. I thanked God for everything he has blessed me with.....the love of my life, 3 beautiful children, a wonderful family, a nice home and farm, the blessing to work from home, an amazing bible study group, many answered prayers, good health, and many other things. I then told God how sorry I was for letting Satan get in my head and entertaining the thought of stealing from Him. I know that tithing is just a simple act of giving back a small portion of what He has blessed us with and I almost didn't give it back. I thanked Him for His generous grace and thanked Him in advance for the rewards and abundant blessings that lie ahead for our family.

Now, the story doesn't stop here.

Today I came into the office around 8am as I do every morning. Around 11am my phone rang and it was my boss. He asked the usual question "how is business" and I gave my usual answer "good". He then said "I think it is time for your bonus". This didn't suprise me..I've been working for him for 13 years now and every November he gives me a Christmas bonus. It has been the same amount for the last 13 years so I have been expecting this call and already have my "plan" for the money. The only thing that suprised me was the timing. Usually he gives it to the the week of Tgiving..he knows how much I love to shop on the day after Tgiving. He then told me the amount! I almost fell out of my chair!! I asked him...are you sure? He said OF COURSE! Now, write it out and have a good day. I couldn't believe it....it was DOUBLE my normal Christmas bonus. He was anxious to get off the phone with me and back on the golf course but I held him for just a minute longer. Before he hung up I said "Thanks again for this Christmas bonus!". He said "Christmas bonus???? no, this is not your Christmas bonus, you get that the week of Tgiving every year..you'll have to wait a couple more weeks for that" and then he hung up! As you can imagine, the tears began to flow. Not because of the money, but because I knew that God had done this for us. Not as a reward for paying our tithe, but as a blessing...a gift given to us by God. The blessing was not a measure of what we had done or who we are..but of who God is!

Praise God for His presence in our lives ...

Jed was more interested in playing with Oscar than having his picture made.....

We have the best bible study group ever! We get together every Monday night at 6pm for a delicious meal and time in the word of God. This is such a special group and we are so thankful to be a part of it. There is nothing like sitting down with a group of friends and discussing the bible.

A couple weekends ago we decided we needed a "parents night out" so we all got babysitters (thanks Nana Memaw and Papa Rog) and hit the town! Somehow, all 4 couples (yes, all 8 of us) squeezed in Matthew and Carrie Jo's van. First stop...Don Juans Mexican Restaurant. A mystery person told the waiter that it was Sheridan's birthday so at the end of the meal the waiters came out with a slice of cake and sang Happy Birthday to him in spanish! It was hilarious and Sheridan turned 3 shades of red! He vowed to find out who did it but we will never tell!! LOL

Next stop..Trader Bills. As you can imagine, this was not the ladies' idea of a night out! Thankfully the men didn't stay long, they picked up some shells for the upcoming deer season and they were out in no time.

Finally we made it to the bowling alley and I don't know when I have laughed so hard. The men ended up beating the women by only 4 points...no help from me, I am a terrible bowler.

Our last stop of the night was Walmart...you didn't think we were going to let the men off that easy, did you?? The men went their own way (to the hunting dept) and we women did some halloween and grocery shopping. It was funny trying to fit all 8 of us PLUS our groceries back in the van!

On the way home, Matthew popped in a karaoke cd and my side literally hurt from laughing. We sang everything from Conway Twitty to Loretta Lynn to Barbara Mandrell!

We made it home around 10:30pm and Jed was still up playing with Memaw Teresa and Papa Rog.

We are already looking forward to our next parents night out!