My Hope

"My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that in being unholy, He is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what He has done, and in what He is now doing for me. On the lion of justice the fair maid of hope rides like a queen." - C.H. Spurgeon

Wrestle Time and Chill Time

Our PC Caregroup & Caregroup Retreat ...plus a green thing

Our PC Caregroup consists of 6 couples.
From Picture:
(top row)
Matt & Siobhan Slack (from Corning, NY ...also good friends of ours from Metro back in the day. I used to babysit for their kids!)
Bryon & Jennifer Lockhart (from Cherry Hill, NJ)
(bottom row)
Aaron & I with Caleb & Tyler who got to come with us on our retreat! :)
Jonathan & Lilli Leslie (from Stillwater, MN)
Ben & Erin Wikner (from Gaithersburg, MD)
(missing from the picture are our dear friends, Luan & Teresa Nguyen from St. Petersburg, FL. We were sad they were unable to join us for the retreat!)

We meet once a month for couples caregroup with Gary & Betsy Ricucci (what an incredible blessing and time of growth that is!). We also meet in smaller groups of 3 for "fellowship group" (the guys meet every Wed. and the ladies every other). We also get together one Sunday a month (rotating whose home we meet at) for dinner and fellowship. It has been such a joy to get to know each of these couples and to grow with them in the grace of our Lord.

Ben & Erin Wikner arranged for our caregroup to have an overnight retreat (back in mid November). A family from Covenant Life Church graciously opened up their beautiful home for us to use. It was right on the Chesapeake Bay. (The water view below is right out the back door!)

What sweet times of fellowship we enjoyed! We ate together (beautiful and huge meals prepared by all the men), laughed together, spent time sharing all kinds of stories from our lives, had a time of prayer and worship together and took time to encourage each other with evidences of God's grace that we see in each other's lives.

(Thanks Siobhan, I borrowed some of these pictures from your blog) :)




Yes, we're eating a green shake (composed of kale, pinapple, lime, flax seed oil). Siobhan got us started on these and this was our first taste. We have actually, due to many different skin problems & health issues, started making these kind of shakes every morning. Joshua even drinks them too! :)

I've been tagged!

Okay, so I've been tagged by both Praise and Jennifer so I guess I better respond. :)

Here are the rules for those of you whom I'm about to tag: go to Your Pictures file go to the 5th folder open up the 5th picture and post it then tag 5 people when you are done. (I feel like this is one of those silly forwards that I never respond to so don't feel compelled ... but it is fun to see pictures from everyone.) :)
Drum roll please...I tag Amanda Welton, Megan Roca, Taraleigh Davis, Tracy Lytle and Jacki Guajardo.

This one was of all those who served through the Alpha course a few years ago. What sweet memories!

"Todo, I have a feeling we're not in Florida anymore."

Saturday afternoon we had our first snow! These are my flip flops which were out on the back patio. I haven't been able to wear them in awhile. :) Aaron and I were laughing because when we got out the snow shovel in the morning, we notice that our neighbors were just using their brooms. I guess it's a little obvious that we don't see much of this in Florida!



Right now it's about 26 degrees outside. I'm inside with our boys, eating hot soup! :)

A brief update & a cute picture of Tyler

I need to upload some more recent pictures but here is one of my favorite ones we have of Tyler from about a month ago. (Our neighbor, Stephanie, took it one night when her and Amber were babysitting)

A brief update:

We're loving the cooler weather. Over a week ago we even had a few snow flurries throughout the day. As soon as I'd get Joshua bundled up to go outside, it would stop and then once we were back inside and all warm, it would start up again. So we just enjoyed it through the window. :)

I love just being home with the boys. They're growing and changing so fast. Joshua is such a sweet big brother and loves to make Caleb & Tyler laugh. First thing in the morning, he goes to give them each a kiss on the head.

Aaron continues to lead and serve our family so well and so joyfully even in all the busyness of this season. We definitely look forward with great anticipation to our weekly date nights and our family times.

Amber left on Tuesday to enjoy the holidays with her family. She is planning to return on Jan. 6th. We're also planning to return to Orlando for a visit over Christmas break. We're so looking forward to seeing everyone!!!

Caleb & Tyler

Caleb & Tyler will be 7 months old on the 18th. They are hitting some fun milestones.

Tyler has 2 bottom teeth that just came in this past month. He loves to jump in the jumper, smile, laugh. His chest and shoulders are very ticklish. He does roll over and sit up but he seems more laid back and content to stay in one place.

Caleb doesn't have any teeth poking through just yet. Unlike Tyler, Caleb is not content to stay in one place. He rolls ALL over the floor and we now have to be very careful to shut the door to the basement. Just yesterday, there was an orange ball in front of him which he reached out to grab. When it got pushed further away, he scooted after it, all the way across the floor! It's more like an army crawl...so cute. He also loves to jump, smile and laugh like Tyler.

Both of them are growing so fast! Their personalities are growing more distinct and it is a joy to watch them grow and change.

Pictures from Cheryl's visit

It's a baking kind of day!

We have many of these kind of days around here! The weather is getting cooler and it just makes us feel like baking. Joshua loves to help us of course. He actually does a pretty good job transporting ingredients back and forth from one bowl to another. It's actually really weird for me to think that I have a son who is old enough to help me cook! All our boys are growing up and I just can't seem to enjoy them enough! It's definitely worth the extra clean up in order to build these special memories with him. It feels like just yesterday that I was sitting on the kitchen counter helping my mom mix up a batch of these very same cookies (Oatmeal Chocolate Chip - Yum)!
Amber & Joshua :)
So grown up!
Caleb & Tyler just hanging out, waiting for their turn to lick the bowl.

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My sister, Cheryl, came to visit this past Friday through Tuesday. I hope to share a bit on that soon and some pictures!

Poopy Diapers & Sock Wars

A couple of weeks ago we had a very fun & unique evening. We had the usual celebration when Aaron came home! After catching up a bit on the day, Aaron went to get Joshua up from his nap. A few seconds later, Aaron ran downstairs and said with humor in his voice, "Sweetie, you have to come look at this." Well, you may not be wondering what was wrong due to the title of this post. Yup, that's right, he had let the poopy loose! Poor thing! I knew a day like this was coming and I was grateful to embrace it with humor.
Then came the sock wars... :)
This was not a formal "family night" but it was definitely set apart from any other kind of night. Aaron suggested we have sock wars. We've had marshmellow wars before but now it was time to pull out the socks. (Much easier to clean up than marshmellows by the way!) Aaron set up 2 fortresses on each side of the room, put on some fun sock war type music and we started!

Aaron sneaking up on us!
No, I wasn't really hurt. :)


Caleb & Tyler were the sideline referees.

Family, Fun, Food, and Fellowship

The neighborhood across from ours is where about 6 of the other PC families are living. There is a huge field right behind a few of their houses. On this particular Sunday evening, we all brought our picnic dinners and gathered for some field games & fellowship. What a wonderful opportunity it was to get to know everyone a bit more. At one point, Jordan Slack & Stephen Altrogge were playing some worship songs with their guitars and Joshua was absolutely fasinated by watching them. We think we're going to have to start him with some music lessons early on!


Joshua

Caleb
Tyler

Colds & Giggles

Even though all three boys are sick right now with colds, they still have some laughs in them. :) I thought you all would enjoy these videos. The first one is of Joshua laughing when he was about 7 months old. The second video is of Caleb laughing just a couple of weeks ago (about 5 months old). Tyler laughs too, I just don't have it on video yet.
(FYI: If you go to the very bottom of our blog, you can pause the music so that you can clearly hear the giggles.)

Girly Night

What do us girls do when Aaron has to study late? Okay...so it's not always like this but on this particular night Aaron had to study unusually late and so Amber and I declared it to be one of our official girl nights. Aaron stayed after classes to study in the PC library with some of the other guys and so he asked if I could come after putting the boys down and have a mini date with him in the PC cafe so that we could just spend a little time together. Amber and I thought it would be fun to make a blackberry cobbler so that I could surprise him with it. He thoroughly enjoyed the surprise. :) When I got back home...Amber had set up a surprise for me! We enjoyed some chocolate milk with Milano cookies while we talked, painted our nails and gave each other foot and back massages. I think I almost fell asleep after the back massage but we had a blast!
Me
Amber

Catch Up

Wow! There is so much to catch you all up on. I know the grandparents especially will want to see these pictures so I'm going to attempt to catch you all up a bit. :)

Here are the pictures from the family birthday party we had for Joshua. Our neighbor Stephanie joined us as well.

Daddy & Joshua having fun opening gifts together.





Joshua, all ready to head out on some type of adventure with the new backpack his Nonni gave him. Thanks mom!

Hopefully more posts to come... but my baby needs me now. :)

Generation Letter

Generation Letter ... a group of men from our church who recently started a band. The Lord has already been using them in amazing ways and has given them several platforms in order to proclaim the gospel. Here's part of a letter we received from one of them. Click on the link to check out one of their songs...

"Our song Blood and Water has been picked up by Clear Channel’s WJRR here in Orlando to be featured on their online platform “NEW”. This is truly amazing as WJRR is the official “ROCK” station of Orlando and in many ways our message of the Cross would be totally offensive to them. Even more amazing is that the song they chose is Blood and Water, which is our song that most clearly articulates the problem of sin and the solution God provided; the priceless blood of Jesus Christ. Please visit as often as you can, as we get credit for the number of plays of our song and that will give us credibility with other stations around the country that use the “NEW” platform. There are over 400 stations and 10,000,000 listeners in the “NEW” network so your help is critical.

If we can rally around this song and let Program Directors know it is out there, it could get enough attention to get played On Air in cities across America. Can you imagine God getting a song about Blood and Water onto the secular airwaves of America?

We are most humbled by this incredible open door into the hearts and radio stations of lost and hurting people all over the country and want to do all we can to spread this great news.

Once again, we are amazed at God’s kindness to us! Please visit HERE and listen to our song and then forward this onto a friend and encourage them to listen and forward it to their friends. As insignificant as telling your friend about a song might seem, your help can make a huge difference and enhance our ability to preach the Gospel through our music."

Blackberries Galore!

A few weeks ago we had a family outing to Butler's Orchard. It is only about 15 minutes from where we live and the drive to it is absolutely beautiful. When in season they have apples, blueberries, blackberries, rasberries, strawberries, flowers, etc. They also have a cute country shop with tons of homemade goodies, etc. www.butlersorchard.com Here's some shots of our day...

Joshua helping (or at least posing for Amber to take a picture) :)

Amber and Joshua

Aaron is back there somewhere! He took Joshua with him and they found the mother load! They actually had to eat most of what they picked right away because they were so big and juicy that they fell apart right in their hands. :) Let's just say, Aaron was very happy and we came away with about 10 pounds of blackberries!


Joshua


The flowers were beautiful!

For only $8 you can pick as many flowers as you can jam into one container! Here's Amber holding our pickings! :)
We made 4 vases out of what we gathered.


We're looking forward to our next visit to Butler's Orchard.