Table Top Tapestry Event

Last night our Women's Ministry hosted their annual "Tabletop Tapestry" event in the worship center. They had over 100 ladies decorate tables. We were blessed to hear Nina Hendey speak. She & her husband own the fabulous, The Taste of Texas restaurant here in Houston.

She did a fantastic job & it was a joy to hear her speak.

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I sat at a table with the fabulous Tessa Ramer!!

Seriously, she is SO precious & I love her dearly!

Her husband, Jeremiah, works with Brian as the High School Pastor on our youth staff.

She is a talented designer and works for Dunn's Designs here in Katy.

She decorated the 2 tables pictured below! Such a talented girl!

Tessa & I

Table #1 "Going green." - sponsored by Dunn's Designs

Table #2 - sponsored by Dunn's Designs

"Home is where our story begins..."

I just completed this wall hanging this week for a customer in New Jersey. This quote has meant a lot to her family this past year.

"Baby Wells"

Here is another 11x14 canvas I did for a baby gift for a baby boy's nursery!

Canvas for "Sarah Kate"

Here is the picture of another 11x14 canvas I did for

a baby gift for a friend in Arkansas...

METRO 2008

Metro is a conference I attended this past week with Brian in Destin, FL (rough life...I know...haha!) It was such a great week of rest, encouragment, & NO KIDS!!! Praise the Lord! I mean, I love my children dearly, but this was such an extrememly needed week for Brian & I to get away together and be encouraged as a couple and by other Student Pastors from the largest "mega churches" all over the country! We had the priviledge of getting to meet SO many new friends who are also involved in our same field of ministry! It was such a blessing and the board who put it all together this year did a fabulous job. We were definitely BOTH loved, encouraged, and learned alot about marriage, love, family, our home, & our ministry! What a blessing this past week was!! A HUGE thanks to Brian's mom who was brave enough to keep our kids for the week while we were gone! I know the kids had a blast spending it with their Mimi!!

Here are a few pictures from this week... (click here for album)

Brian & I at dinner the first evening

Us on the "dinner cruise" hosted by Student Life

Shawn & Tracy Smith, FBC Springdale, AR

Keith & Jackie Harmon, FBC Orlando, FL & Brian at Dewey Destins!

The gorgeous view from the balcony of our condo!

Brian & I again on the dinner cruise on Tuesday night~

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I also completed an amazing book while on this trip, "The Shack"

It was an AMAZING book that just made me think a little deeper into my way of thinking about my Amazing Creator! I highly recommend it! Just read it!! Talking about it will not do this book justice!

11x14 canvas for Metro wife...

This was a 11x14 canvas I did for one of the ladies who I had the priviledge of meeting this past week while we were in Destin for METRO 2008 conference. She ordered it just before we were leaving to fly down so I was able to complete that and take it with me! It's for her 16 year old daughter, Sara.

Pictures from last weekend

These are a couple of pictures that I had to share that Brian took of McKenna last Saturday before he & I headed out to Destin for the week. I've got pictures to come from our amazing week here in Destin for Metro 2008, but my camera battery died while I was uploading pictures off of my camera... :)

Here are some precious pic's of my McKenna Grace....

Christy Nockels from Tuesday night

Okay, I SWEAR this is my last post for today!! :)

I just really felt led to share a little bit of what Christy Nockels shared at our concert thing she did here at Second on Tuesday night....First of all, she is completely REAL, and GENUINE.... she was just very transparent about who she is and where the Lord has taken her and where she is in her walk with the Lord. So inspirational...she's one of those people who you would look at and assume she has things all together. But she got up there and sang of course, which was AMAZING, but she also just shared straight from her heart and let me just tell you it spoke right to my heart & where I am with the Lord right now. Here are some notes I jotted down from her....

1.) As women, look to God to fill those "God needs" in our hearts that only He can fill. Quit looking at our husbands, our kids, etc etc to fill those deepest needs in our hearts, that as a woman, only our Creator can make whole!

- She referred to the lyrics from Plumb, "There's a God shaped hole"

Chorus:

There's a God-shaped hole in all of us

And the restless soul is searching

There's a God-shaped hole in all of us

And it's a void only He can fill

2.) Be open to receive your Validation only from Him. Psalm 139

- "God may be withholding validation that you seek from certain people, because He knows if we didn't go to Him for it, we would think of it to be enough from someone else... but it isn't."

3.) Maintain a Grateful heart. Quit criticizing the way God made me or didn't make me, it's being critical of His creation when I do. I don't have to have all the same gifts, talents, abilities as some other girl or look like a certain person does....I am ME! And I am who He created me to be - refer back to Psalm 139:14!

4.) Having an attitude of bowing before Him. Completely committing my heart & life to Him on a DAILY basis so I am everything I need to be for Him, for my husband, and my children.

A quote she used, "A mother's heart is her children's classroom." It's the things that are unsaid that are doing a lot of the "teaching".

Psalm 37:4-6

4 "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires. 5 Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you. 6 He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun."

A revelation she had about this verse in Psalm 37:4, if we delight ourselves completely in the Lord this verse doesn't say that He will give us whatever it is that we WANT, but that when we are content in Him alone and delight in Him, that His desires for our life will BECOME our hearts desires, which is the only perfect way. "Be rooted in Me, Abide in Me, & focus on your "bullseye" (which is your relationship with God, your husband, your family, & the local community "church" you belong to), then He will take care of all the rest and give us our "hearts desires".

I was simply reminded to focus on the precious calling of motherhood, which is the season of life that I am in right now. And there is no better place that I'd rather be. I want to be ALL He wants me to be & created me to be, so that I can be ALL that my family needs me to be!

She read a book to close called "Let me hold you longer" by Karen Kingsbury which was absolutely precious.... A must read for ALL moms out there!! (Get your Kleenex ready!!)

I came home and told Brian just how blessed I feel to be where I am right now...with our church, the bible study I am going currently going through, the people he is bringing into my life, and what HE is teaching me every day about who HE wants me to become!! I'm just in awe at the fact that HE wants to use little old me!!

Growth spurt I guess???

Okay, so this morning while I was cleaning house, I threw in a load of laundry & snuck in each of my kids "blanky's" into that load. Those of you who know us, know that BOTH of my kids are seriously addicted to their blanky's ALL THE TIME, but they were both filthy dirty & were needing a MAJOR "bath"!! When Parker discovered his was missing, I told him that it was in the washer getting it's "bath" (that's what I tell them since it's always so dirty). So Parker sat in the hallway outside the laundry room & on the staircase with his "big blanky" which usually stays in his bed, but that was not good enough apparently, b/c he just sat at the bottom of the stairs and cried & cried for blanky. I was upstairs and noticed he got awfully quiet....I look over the edge of our upstairs playroom to find him like this....

That's right - SOUND ASLEEP!! He's been sleeping a lot lately - I'm guessing he's growing! Sweet baby boy!

My lil' helper!

Brian and I are leaving on Sunday afternoon to attend the annual METRO 2008 conference in Florida, and my mother-in-law will be staying here with our kiddos. Pray for her & for my kiddos to be lil' angels, that I KNOW THEY CAN BE!! :) haha....

Anyways, tonight I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom and McKenna wanted to help "get our house ready for Mimi to visit"....so I let her clean the toilet! She did great and she had such a great sense of accomplishment when she was done! Brian snapped some pictures of her...

More pictures from Girls Weekend 08!!

Here are a few more pictures my friend Leslie took.....so much fun!

We LAUGHED so much!!

Group shot of the 4 of us at Cheesecake Factory

Taber & I laughing - we did that ALOT!!

Looks like a Starbucks commercial...

Another group shot at the Southlake TownCenter!

Great shopping!

Saturday night dinner together at Cafe Italiana! YUM!!

PEDICURES!!!

Sunday at Lunch! Leslie & I...

Donation for MOPS

Here is a picture of the plaque I painted as a doorprize for our MOPS event on

Tuesday night of this week for the

"Intimate Evening with Christy Nockels!"

It was an AMAZING night - she is such a real & GENUINE person...

the Lord used her to speak right to the heart of where I am!

If you're not involved in a local MOPS group & you are pregnant with your first or you have children in preschool, MOPS is such an amazing ministry to mothers!! I love it!

Fits....

Parker is getting REALLY good at mastering his skill of throwing temper tantrums!! After probably 4 rounds of timeout consecutively this morning for squirting his juice box all over the floor & the table and then crunching his goldfish and throwing those everywhere too... I think he finally got it!

"Oh, okay if I stop screaming & behave...I can go play!"

Whew...sometimes he can be so stubborn!

And bless his little heart, he has a huge scrape on his knee from falling in the driveway and a scab on his nose from being bit by a little girl on his NOSE at church on Sunday!!

Girls Weekend 2008 Re-cap!

Well I just got back this evening from Dallas, TX where I spent the weekend with Leslie, Taber, & Sarah; my roomates and best friends from college. We had a fabulous time and I laughed more than I have in A LONG TIME!!! :) These girls are so much fun. Although it's been so long since we'd all been together, it's like we picked right back up where we left off. It made me feel so old though being a wife, a mom of 2 kids that are 1 and 3!!! We ate a TON and laughed and stayed up so late! I'm worn out --- so I'm ready to head off to bed and it's only 8p.m.

LOL!!!

Here are just a few of the hundreds of pictures we took (more to come)!

Cute photo op while shopping!

Taber & I at Cheesecake Factory for dessert!

Leslie & Taber also at Cheesecake Factory

Leslie & I

GIGL corkboard...

"GIGL" (Growing in God's Love) is our preschool ministry here at Second! It is fabulous! I finished this corkboard for the directors of GIGL at our North & West campuses for their offices.

NCAA Championship

Well, my husband convinced me at the beginning of all of this, "March Madness" business to fill out a bracket just for the fun of it! I have NO CLUE what basketball teams were good this year. I'm just not the type of girl who keeps up with college b-ball; now football, I'm a little more involved. So I went along just for the fun and filled out a bracket on our 210 student ministries staff tournament. Let's just say when I checked it tonight - I had picked Kansas & Memphis in the championship game tonight!!! YEEEEAAAA!!! I picked Kansas to upset Memphis - so we'll see how tonight plays out!

Oh yeah....and I have officially beat, Michael Head as well as my sweet, yet competitive husband! :o)

I'm a little excited--- can ya tell!?!?!? I'm currently ranked 9th out of all of my friends on Facebook who filled out a bracket!

Girls Weekend...4 days & counting!!

Yay!!! I am SO excited about this weekend....

I am off to Dallas Friday morning to spend it with my roomates from college,

Leslie (my roomate), Sarah & Taber (our suite-mates)!!!

They are so beautiful inside and out and are all 3 PRECIOUS friends who I miss dearly!!!

I have missed them SO much and we have SOOOOO much to catch up on!!

I can NOT WAIT! :o) We had SO many good times and laughed more than we studied!!!

We haven't all been together since Taber's wedding and I think that was about 3 years ago!

Pray for Brian - he has the kids by himself ALL weekend!

Taber

(her husband, Adam & their precious lil' Addie)

My roomate Leslie!
(Taber & Leslie both live the in Dallas area)

Sarah
(Lives in Nashville)

Prayers needed for little Gavin...

It seems like there are so many illnesses and cancers going around affecting so many children today...It's so crazy to me and I can not fathom the pain that so many different families are going through. Even though I do not understand the extent of their pain or the reality of their circumstances, I do know that I can PRAY.....

James 5:16~

"Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other

so that you may be healed.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has

great power and produces wonderful results."

I have been receiving prayer requests via email from a friend of mine from Tulsa. Their friends, The Smith's, are going through very dark valley right now as they are walking through brain cancer with their 3 year old little boy Gavin. Gavin has had several surgeries over the past 2 weeks since the tumor was discovered on his brain. Here is their family blog for more information for those of you who would be so kind to add them to your prayer list: http://smithscooptexas.blogspot.com/
The brain tumor that was removed has been diagnosed: "The pathology report has come in. Gavin has been diagnosed with an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor. It's an exceedingly rare brain tumor for children and does not have a good prognosis. We don't have the heart to go into details or statistics right now. We need a lot of prayers."
(That is a direct quote from their blog entry from yesterday.)

Please join with me in praying for precious Gavin! He is only 3 years old and that SO hits home with me, as McKenna is also 3.

"Lord may your grace & peace be with The Smith's today..."

Great sales!!!

So after my garage sale last Saturday, my mom & I went out shopping Sunday & Monday before they flew back to Arkansas. I found SO many great buys for Brian & I!! I'm so excited. Here are a few of my favorite stores that I hit up for us!

GAP, Forever21, NewYork & CO, Banana Republic

I also found stuff for the kids at Children's Place, Target, & the GAP outlet here in Katy.

Here are a few of my favorite dresses I bought at Forever21!

I bought this one in electric blue & in black! It's so cute and comfy and will be great for the summer here in Houston!

I bought this one in a shade of brown/khaki...SO CUTE!

And yes....all the money I made has been spent - well, almost all... I set back about $200 of it for a Girls Weekend I have on my calendar in 2 weeks in Dallas, with my 3 of my best friends/roomates from college!!! YEA!!! I'm counting down the days girls!

I just love shopping & buying new clothes! It's so theraputic! :o)