God is So Good!

Things are going well here. We just got done with a great month at GLBC. We have 3 teenagers and one child saved 2 Sundays ago and then all 4 of them were baptized this Sunday! Praise the LORD!!!!! Last Sunday was Friend Day and there were SEVERAL visitors at church. The week before that was Round Up Sunday and we had a great cowboy day complete with a ride on a "modern horse" a.k.a. a four wheeler! I think the kids loved it even more than a real horse. The Sunday before that was International Sunday with Bro. Alan Brooks preaching the morning service and showing us his DVD of his missions trip to Nias to hand out more than 20,000 Bibles to middle schoolers throughout the island. Then the first Sunday we had a hay ride and apple cidar plus a delicious potluck. I'll tell you, our church has been blessed with some GREAT cooks. It has been a great month! God has really blessed. I will post the pictures later on. They are all on the other computer. God has been so good this month! It has been a blessing to see what He has done through the life and ministry of our church and we are excited about what He is going to continue to do!

FRIEND SUNDAY
I didn't get any pictures of the baptism because I stepped into the nursery so one of the mom's of one of the teens getting baptized could watch. What a wonderful day it was!

ROUND UP SUNDAY
We offered pictures for anyone who wanted at our fall decorations we had in the auditorium. Abby did have a hat for Round Up Sunday but it didn't stay on very well.









This was a board we made for the Round Up Sunday. The children and even quite a few of the adults enjoyed getting their picture taken.











This was our modern day horse. The children had a GREAT time riding it around.








INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY

International Sunday outfits! If you're wondering why the long face, she hated this outfit. I made it Saturday night and tried to get her to wear it up higher but that aggravated her. She has a definate opinion about where skirts go . . . BELOW her belly. Then on Sunday when we tried to wrap the thing up on the shoulder . . . let's just say, I took an extra outfit in case it was going to cause too much trouble. She did end up wearing it all day but the head dress was history and the dot on the forehead was a no-go as well! Some battles are better left for other days instead of Sunday mornings. Don't get me wrong, I want her to learn to obey but as a Mom I think there are some things to push on and some things that are better left alone . . . this was one of them. The fact that she was wearing the outfit was good enough for me!

We both dressed up. I needed something that fit my whale sized body and so this was it. At first I didn't know where I was from, but Bro. Alan Brooks informed me that I was from Jamaca and not Australia like one of the children told me I was from!

These were some of the children that dressed up. Pastor had each come up and tell where they were from. Mrs. Butler, the Pastor's wife brought the children from the nursery as well. Addrianna was an adorable little Dutch girl complete with hat and little wooden shoes! Too Cute!




COUNTRY HARVEST DAYS KICK-OFF

We started out the month of October with the theme Country Harvest Days. This was our hay ride. In the mule . . . not the hehaw kind, the vroom, vroom kind. The children loved it! They kept asking for more!

Fall in Michigan

It is fall here in Michigan again! What a beautiful state. I'll let you in on a little secret . . . I know Tennessee is God's Country, but Fall here in Michigan, there are few places that can compare to it. The trees are all at their height of changing colors. I couldn't resist taking Abby and getting a few more Fall pictures. I know I've already taken so many Fall pictures of her, but the colors this year are amazing. Spring is beautiful here as well and because it never gets really hot, it seems there are flowers all Spring and Summer long. Each month it seemed that there were new colors to discover and see as more wildflowers would bloom. Then Winter. Yeah, I guess it's beautiful it would be even more beautiful if it snowed for say maybe a week or two and then got to being Spring, Summer or Fall. Seriously, Winter here with all the snow and everything is beautiful, I just haven't resigned myself to liking snow yet. Maybe one day. Maybe if I'm not pregnant one winter I'll be able to enjoy the snow and actually go sledding or skiing then I'll be able to see the real usefulness of all that snow! Oh well, there's always next year!

Fun with a Toddler!

Not much has changed here . . . constant housecleaning, for such a small house you'd think it'd be a lot easier to keep up with. But enough of that drudgery, yesterday, while I was cleaning I started having contractions and I wasn't timing them but I had noticed in a hour's time I had had about 10 so I decided to sit down and take a rest for a few minutes to see if they go away. For some reason at this stage in the game they don't want you having contractions that close together! While resting I was listening for Abby, our almost 2 year old. She had been in her bedroom and I thought that was where she still was by the sound of her playing. A few minutes later she came out and held up her very bloody little hand and said, "Mommy, LOOK!" She was not crying . . . I think she was more fascinated than anything else. We went to the bathroom to wash off the blood to find the source of the flow and I saw that instead of being in her room, she had been in the bathroom rummaging through her daddy's drawer. She's done this once before and she tried to shave her face like she's seen daddy do and ended up cutting her lip . . . not bad but bad enough she hasn't touched the shaver for quite awhile . . . I guess the old sayings true, 'old wounds do heal' . . . and she being a toddler forgot that they hurt before they heal. I picked up daddy's shaver and told her, as blood was pouring out of her thumb, to not touch it because it hurts and showed her finger. Then I went to put a band aid on her thumb, which coincidentally she had shaved off the tip of . . . BIG mistake. She is EXTREMELY particular about clothing and anything that goes on her. Abby HATES band aids. Whenever she gets a shot she cries more from the band aid than the shot. So after about 20 minutes of holding a napkin on it and squeezing it, I realized that it was GOING to have to have a band aid. By this time, blood is all over her dress and me and the table and I was slightly frustrated so after a slight battle and for the sake of the Internet and you soft hearted people out there, I will spare you the details of the battle but, let's just say she now is willingly wearing TWO band aids on her tiny little thumb! I think the thing that cracked me up the most was that cutting off the tip of your thumb hurts and that's NOT what she cried about . . . she cried about the band aid! Oh, children are fun!!!! By the way, Don't you love the morning-mommy-hasn't-given-me-a-bath-or-done-my-hair-look! I'm told it's quite the fashion!
~Patty

New to Blogging

I just got done spending over an hour uploading and e-mailing pictures to a bunch of people and realized that if I blogged those same pictures, everyone can view at their own convience and I won't risk missing someone, like I did and dreading having to create more e-mails to send to those that I missed. So for the sake my sanity, I'm going to try this blogging thing. It looks fun. I enjoy reading other people's blogs . . . maybe I can figure it out! HA HA! I am NOT computer literate! (Sorry Dad! I know you tried!) I am, however, very good at messing up computers! Well, here's goes, my first blog!

This is our family picture we took this summer at a park here in Michigan. Abby is going to be 2 in December and we are expecting little Timothy Andrew around the same time. Things are going well in Michigan. On a side note, three teens got saved last night at church! It was very exciting! Joshua works with the youth and heads up the highschool department in our academy. We are busy but not too much! Just enough to stay out of trouble! :o) ~PJ