a little bit of life lately

Life has been pretty unimpressive lately.  The great snowpocalypse of 2015 finally all melted and life has resumed to its regularly scheduled activities.  Or lack thereof.

I did enjoy my husband being home for two additional days last week.  I made him pose with me on Thursday, and we ended up getting tickled and smiling dumb.

I love him.  :)  He has been incredibly busy lately (at work) and in need of a getaway from the stress of everyday.  I believe he enjoyed his extra couple of days.  We watched television, enjoyed yummy meals, laughed and stayed put.  Did you know that I am (mainly) an introvert with a few extrovert qualities?  I would be perfectly content to stay home every single day.  I know that could have only come from God.

On Friday my dad brought pizza over for lunch.  All the boys had places to be at different times, so most of that day was spent running everyone around to where they needed to go.

On Saturday I did laundry and sat and read this book all day long.

It's funny how God works~the recurring them in my life right now is the word "disciple".  I keep hearing it, I keep hearing sermons preached on it and I keep reading books about it.  This book is amazing and will change the way you view your church.  (That could be bad for some of you.)  I won't really go into the details, but may I suggest that church is NOT AT ALL what the Lord intended for it to be.  It's becoming a "stadium of fans" (Kyle Idleman says that in his book Not A Fan).  It's become a feel good, refreshing place to be~and it should not be that way.  And may I also suggest that it's not about numbers?

I can't recommend this book enough.  I don't mean to be bashing churches...I do want to encourage you to be careful about where you go.  Be careful with who you listen to~there are false teachers out there as well, and the people that the world deems "good" are the ones you might need to watch out for.

I have been dreading Sunday for a month.  This past Sunday was our youth pastor's and his family's last day at our church.  He preached Sunday night and following that, we had a reception for them in the foyer of our church.

 
I love these people.  This isn't even all of them.  I am so sad to say "see ya later" to this sweet family.  I can't even think about them not being there without getting all teary.

I played with the cutest little baby in the world.

Sweet little Ruby Claire.  :)

On Monday we had a bunch of errands to run and stopped by our church to finalize all the paperwork for Graham's and Drew's mission trip.  They have been fully funded and leave this Saturday morning.

After we got all the paperwork notarized and turned in the last of the money, we stopped by to see our favorite church lady.  Drew is NOT the church lady.

Drew decided that he wanted to do Abbey's job for the day.

Last night, our family came over to celebrate Jonah's, Noah's and Graham's birthdays.

These guys are twelve today!  I cannot believe that fact.  My "babies" are not at all babies anymore!  And tomorrow it's Graham's turn.  We are going to get his license first thing tomorrow morning.  To say he is excited is the understatement of the year.

One last exciting little thing~I was featured on Emily Ley's blog today.  She is the creator of the Simplified Planner, which looks amazing and beautiful.  If you would like, head over to her blog and check it out!  I am humbled for the opportunity she presented.  Here is the link: http://emilyley.com/blog/2015/03/simplicity-jennifer-goodwin/.

Thanks!  Love to all.