My Top Ten Favorite Maternity Pictures

My sister Mel did an amazing job with our maternity pictures! I had nearly 300 to choose from and the process of picking my top ten was not only very time consuming, but aslo extremely difficult. She is very talented. Her love for capturing "moments" on camera was obvious as I reflect back on this picture taking experience. I highly recommend her to anyone who is looking for a photographer who is detail oriented, enthusiastic, and is just naturally talented.

My God Wink

I found this book at Dollar General, of all places, called "God Winks" by SQuire Rushnell and I was impressed with the stories of God's sovereignty. A "God Wink" is those little things that happen in our life that we consider coincidences, but are actually signs of God working in our life. I love how Rushnell described why God Winks help us,

"In times of UNCERTAINTY what we desire more than anything else is CERTAINTY. Certainty that our families are safe. Certainty that we won't get downsized or that we'll have enough in the checkbook to make it through the month. We crave certainty when we get a scary medical report. And we long for certainty in our relationships.

It's during times of uncertainty that we especially need to get connected to our faith. We need to believe that our lives are not random like twigs floating on a stream to destinations unknown. Instead, we need to know that we all have a greater purpose; that someone really is up there watching over us and we're always on an incredible GPS...what I call God's Positioning System™...never alone. To me, the best thing about godwinks is that they are TANGIBLE SIGNPOSTS along our way, giving us hope, replacing uncertainty with a genuine feeling of CERTAINTY that everything is going to be okay!"

That's so true! You can submit your own God Winks to SQuire Rushnell through his website: http://www.whengodwinks.com/ but I thought I'd share one of our "God Winks" through our blog. I truly believe that God is in control and I have faith that God is working in Kyle and I's life in miraculous ways. I'm about to tell you a God Wink story from our lives, but before I do, this book in and of itself is a God Wink, because a few Christmas' ago one of Kyle's stocking gifts was this book. He laughed as he rummaged through his gifts, because he had given me the exact book! (We took it as a sign we were meant to read it!)

My God Wink story may not seem miraculous to you, but to me it was the CERTAINTY I needed that there really is someone up there who knows best, giving me hope in things to come - especially those little "God Winks" that I know will continue to pop up in my life - forcing me to believe that there's no such thing in coincidences.

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During our marriage counseling sessions with our pastor Doug, one of the first pieces of advice he gave us was to find a Bible teaching church, where we would grow in our relationship with Christ. We are not to become stagnant Christians! God calls us to grow in Him through His word. Kyle took this seriously, I however, was struggling with the idea of going back to church.

Growing up, I had associated church with drama, unfaithful Christians, backstabbers, and hypocrisy. My family had many bad experiences at church and as a pastor's daughter, I watched my dad endure these times with his head down on the couch, on his knees, in deep prayer. It ate him alive. Every single time my dad stood up for what I had grown up knowing was godly and good, it made people mad! So there would be an instant uproar, people would leave, drama would incur, people we had thought were friends would suddenly disappear from our lives, and we would move. I hated moving, because that meant leaving my friends, starting over in a new school, and making new friends. That was pretty scary to me. I've lived in five different states and the reason we moved from three of them was because we experienced some sort of drama within the church my dad pastored.

I remember one particular incident where a married woman of our church was in an adulterous relationship. The elders and my father made a decision that she would no longer lead the church in worship until this situation was resolved. That was the information given to me as a child. One morning, she had the audacity to try and play the piano during a special and my father took the tough position and quietly asked her to step down. Half the church got up and left with her! As a ten year old, that particular incident was etched in my brain and I had associated church with these kind of people. As time went on the mother of this woman, who lived across the street, would spy on us through her window throughout her day. I remember my sister and I making a rather large production one time on our driveway, playing loud music, yelling along, and dancing crazily on our roller blades, just to give her something to watch and probably talk about. "Those crazy pastor's kids!" The sad thing is, I have story after story about "Christians" in church and I had zero desire to attend another one.

So when Kyle said, "Becky, let's try to find a church to attend." My guard was immediately up. I didn't want to try, "I know what goes on behind the scenes in those places." Kyle is ever the patient type, "I really feel this is something we need to do, will you at least pray about it?" I had at least agreed do that. At first, I was angered with Kyle. He knew my stories of "church" and how it destroyed my family! How could he ask me to do this?!

Well... God works in miraculous ways. Kyle and I had bought his and her's devotion sets and decided to read them daily. It was a great start to the day. That very morning, after Kyle had asked me to pray about attending church, the topic on my devotional was titled, "CHURCH". The date was September 2 and the subtitle was Do I really need to go to church? Wow, that was the exact question I had rolling around in my tiny brain! Here's what my devotional said,

God's Response: "Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other." (Hebrews 10:25)

Just after reading that verse, I felt myself shrink a little, but after I read what the author had to say, I knew this was a sign that I needed to to listen to my husband!

All believers together form God's family, and only by meeting together can we bond. The church exists in part to equip God's people to do God's work by encouraging them in their faith. At church, Christians learn to work together in unity and to practice reconciliation between different people in a way that is only possible by Christ's spirit. When we meet together, we can build each other up and help each other.

I conceded, "OK, God! I'll go!" (I think I actually said it out loud!) and I felt like a weight had been lifted from my heart. When we finally found a church that taught directly from God's word, I began changing in ways that are truly miraculous and would not have been possible had I not had this God Wink moment in my life. God's sovereignty continues to amaze me. If I look around I can see His hand at work in all aspects of our lives! I want to glorify God for this moment because I'm not Who I Once Was, thanks to Him and the powerful way He has worked in my life and in my marriage.

Poor Marley Tried to Bite a Fan...

... and it didn't turn out so well.

The video is obviously dark because we're getting ready to go to bed, sorry about the quality, but hopefully you catch enough of it to know what happens and why I'm still giggling hysterically. I was turning this little Coleman's fan off and on because Marley was obsessed with checking it out. At first he hated it because if you read my original blog about him: My Little Marley Man, you'd know that he HATES wind. So he began barking at it every time I turned it on. This was funny, so I decided to try and record it. Well... I turned my camera on in the nick of time, because this time, he decided to go on the attack.

If you read my blog about My Little Marley Man you'll also know that he is a momma's boy who insists on being comforted by mommy when something bad happens to him. Well... not this time. He only wanted DADDY! LOL. I'm sorry! I'M NOT THE ONE WHO TRIED TO BITE A FAN.

Ok, those responsible readers out there, "Well you shouldn't have been teasing him with the fan!" (Ahem, my husband Kyle.) YOU'RE RIGHT! Okay! I admit it, you're right. I'm glad the fan is a AA powered wimp and it didn't hurt him beyond his pride and a little sting, otherwise I'd have felt really, really bad. But you have to admit, it's pretty darn funny.

Poor Marley and the Dreaded Red Ant Attack

Poooooooor Marley. What started out as an adventure turned into a not-so-fun experience. Oddly enough Nebraska does have something to offer as far as outdoor beauty and Kyle and I try to explore every possible outdoor setting that will allow us to simply get away and enjoy God's beauty for a few hours. Today was one such day, and typically, Marley loves these adventures. His nose is always leading him this way and that, he fearlessly climbs and jumps through trees, rocks, and plants twice his size, and he struts around claiming everything (even the poor wild flowers) as his own.

It was the perfect temperature and it was sprinkling, which was a wonderful experience considering our 100 degree weather recently. We were taking it all in, following random game trails and even running across a couple of deer! As you can see it started out a beautiful afternoon....

    

As we headed away from an obvious skunk spray, we began to notice that Marley was incessANTly licking his back paw. Usually this is an indication of a sticker so I picked him up to check it out. What I found was that a red ant had burrowed itself into his paw and would not let go! When I finally got the ant off, I put Marley back down and he would not stop crying! It was pathetically cute. So of course, being the concerned mommy that I am, I picked him up to discover a very red, hot paw.

We took him to a pump and filled his little dish up with cold water and stuck his paw in it. He usually fights any kind of contact with water, but he didn't this time, in fact he relaxed! It was pretty obvious that felt pretty good.

We thought that might have calmed it down a tad, so we began our trek around the lake once again. However, he refused to let that paw make contact with the ground and his obsession with licking starting right back up again. At first we thought it was kinda funny, so we kept snapping pictures! I mean he was acting a little crazier than his "normal" self (whatever that might be).

 

But he refused to do anything but lick, so Kyle carried him.

We know that Marley is a baby and that yes, we baby him, but he was so darn cuddly and would not stop crying that you couldn't help but have sympathy for him! We decided to head home and on our way he sat in the back and continued to lick, lick, lick.

At this point I was getting a tad worried. I googled "red ant bites" and found that they actually clamp down with their front fangs and inject venom into their victim from their abdomen, which totally made sense when I thought back to how the ant was literally wrapped around the fleshy part of his paw. Remedies such as lime juice, a baking soda and water paste, aloe jell, worchestire sauce, and vinegar were some suggestions. Obviously these were human remedies, but what the heck, we gave the lime juice a shot, vigorously massaging it into his paw (as was recommended) and Marley LOVED that, then we iced it. After a while that didn't work so we tried the paste, still didn't work. So I rubbed aloe into his paw and blew on it and that's what did the trick. Or perhaps it was a combination of the remedies? We came home around 3 and around 4:30 he finally relaxed enough to fall asleep. When he woke up he was back to his good 'ole self.

I'm sure he milked the attention for all it was worth, but dog-gone-it, it had to hurt, poor thing!



If you want to read more about Marley and his weird little quirks check out my first blog about him: My Little Marley Man