weekending/Hello Monday linkup

It was a really good weekend. I thought I'd share some of my best moments with you. 

Friday was different this week, and started in my favorite way.

My sister and I swam in this beautiful pool for the first half of the day. It was glorious! On the way to swim, which is about ten minutes from where I live, I talked to my beautiful niece Erika. Look how precious her family is!

Erika is only eleven years younger than me, and I loved having her and my nephews around when I was a teenager. I loved babysitting all of them, and I loved having them tag along with me when I went places. I've always been close to Erika, though. We are so much alike in so many ways, and I find it fascinating that I have twins, and she has twins. Kinsley (on the right in the picture of her with them) and Kylie (the one on the left) are three and a half years old now, and Erika is pregnant with her SECOND set of twins~also girls. Madi and Maci will be born early in August, and we are so excited for these new little arrivals and two more great nieces for me to love on when I get the chance.

I feel like everyone should experience the joy of twins...I have one set, but my oldest sons are only thirteen months apart and were always called Irish Twins...when I had Jonah and Noah, Graham (my oldest) was 3 and Drew was  2. The day after the twins were born, Graham turned four.

In other news...

...check out our home, one year later from when the top picture was taken. My hubby did this little comparison on social media the other night and I cannot get over the difference. I love how our home turned out, and I could live here forever if he doesn't make me move to Montana in a few years.

We stayed home all of Saturday. I did laundry and made some things to take to my mom's and Bill's for dinner at their house Saturday night, and we had the best dinner. Bill made catfish, fries and hush puppies. I took baked potatoes for anyone who didn't want fries and I took brownies for Jonah and Trish to have some chocolate.

Look at that beautiful sky Saturday night! This was around nine o'clock.

All the guys were in their happy place~blowing things up and making things go boom. Bill and Toddley were the two biggest boys out there having fun.

Sunday was such a great morning at church...I was honored to be able to help lead worship during the service and we all took communion together. After the service, I was going to tell my pastor something, but what I ended up doing instead was walking over to see him doing this.

Y'all. May I just tell you a little about Pastor Chuck? He is humble and kind. He is patient. He is a sweet ole Southern boy at heart, proven by his country accent. He is one of the smartest men and THE greatest pastor I have ever sat under, and every single week I think surely it won't be any better than what he just preached. He is a man of prayer, as seen here in this picture above. I don't know how long Pastor Chuck sat here with this family, but I was moved almost to tears as I sat and watched this go on. 

If you ever do one thing for your pastor, pray for him. Encourage him whenever you get the chance and when you say that you pray for him, actually pray for him. I tell him all the time as I drive by our church building and see his truck there, I pray for him. When the Lord brings him to my mind, I pray for him. I pray for him and our current worship pastor Les more than any other people on staff at our church, because those two men are the "up front" men. The Lord helps them greatly each week, and if you were to come and worship with us, you would understand and see what I'm saying. I have never had a pastor like this in all of my life. I pray you're encouraged to pray for your own pastor. And let him know that you're praying for him~they need encouragement more than at any other time before now...they're all facing opposition from every side right now with all this crazy stuff going on in our world and with the whole "mask situation". I promise, they would greatlly appreciate it.

How was your weekend? I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading my blog. 

{I'm linking up with Tanya from The Other Side of the Road for this blog post. }

Love to all.