Reflection

On the eve of a new year, one starts to mull over all the happenings of the past year. My head spins at this thought.. has a year really come and gone and what happened to all the days in between? Its like they were thrown into a huge trash compactor, made into one of those neat little cubes and spit out to be stacked up and placed in line with all the past years. How do you stop time... capture small pieces from this continual movement of memories created... mind blowing isnt it..
So I reflect and think what a ebb and tide it has been this year. From a country and with a conservative Christian president in office to the first black liberal man elected, from a time of financial windfall to economic crisis, from a start of 2008 with a new heartbeat to the loss of two unborn children and now to the blessing of our second trimester starting today for a child we certainly will carry to term, from the beginnings of our oldest son learning the Gospel to his baptism in November...I reflect. Time can't stop, it must move forward so even as we reflect we move with it...

A Tradition of Mischief

We have many cherished memories in our family. Christmas holds most of them for us. This year we introduced a new tradition that will be one that is with us for many years to come..."The Magical Elves". My mom bought these two elves from a store. Santa delivered the elves a few weeks before Christmas to watch over the boys. Each night the kids would sprinkle the "magical" snow Santa sent on the elves. While everyone was asleep, those two crazy elves would create all kinds of trouble and then fall asleep right before we woke up. Every morning the kids would rush out of bed searching for their tiny friends and the mess they made. Some of the things they did included... toilet papering the bathroom (the whole roll!), silly stringing the bedroom, putting underwear all over the Christmas Tree, dumping laundry all over the living room,...

Daddy knew the elves had to do something big for their last night at our house (Santa picks them up tonight and takes them back to the North Pole until next year)... so check out the photo below and see the floor to ceiling tower they built (remember we have 12 ft ceilings)...it was a blast, and has given us some really fun memories our kids will cherish for a long time... cant wait to see them next year!

Picture Perfect.

In the almost three years my boys have been working, they have never been in a photo together...until now! They have worked many shoots together but never in the same shot...take a look at how cute they look here together..I know I am partial, but they are precious!! (to look at more photos, click on collections then on the filou and friends tab under collections and scroll through the 4 pages of photos using the arrow at the bottom...

New Beginnings...

This post is a promise of a new beginning... I will begin to post more frequently again. I have been a bit under the weather for the past 10 weeks (you can see why below)... head over toilet and eyes held open with toothpicks type of sick...

The boys have been working a lot, we have been traveling to games, family visits, and some mini vacations and life has just been plain ol' busy... but I figure with this new life beginning, I should start a new begnning on my blog...if anyone is still reading...ARE YOU??

CHOMP! CHOMP! CHAMPS!

AHHH, the feeling of being champions once again... nothing like it. Not much to say except, it is great to be a Florida Gator. You can hate us all you want, jealousy tends to do that... but you can't take away the reality of it...we are state champs, SEC East Champs, SEC Champs and hopefully soon to be National Champs!!

2 People I would like to meet

Have you ever had to answer that question when interviewed or at some random ice breaking moment "so who is one person you want to meet?" My two are two moms. I would love to meet Tim Tebow's mom and Ryan Hall's mom. Now before you go running off thinking this is some crazy post about the Gators, hold on, it is not.
These two women have raised amazing young men. Each time these young men are interviewed, they talk openly about their love for the Lord, their desire to do all things so that He may be glorified and the fact that their mother's instilled this belief in them. Often you see athletes thank God for things, but very seldom with the passion and conviction of these two young men. Not only do they talk the talk but they walk the walk. Tebow spends summer months on mission trips, off season weekends witnessing in prisons, teaching bible studies and leading prayer groups off the fiels. Hall in an article in Runner's World magazine prior to the Olympics talked openly about his faith and his decision to run for God, to never allow training or competing to interfere with his worship time and his desire not just to win but to further God's message through it.

Both men talk openly about how their mother's homeschooled them, taught them scripture, gave them a biblical worldview even when the world tried to do otherwise. Both men talk about the value their mother's placed on learning God's word and making it the center of their family. Both men talk about how God came first, sports came second. One of my favorite quotes by Tebow on the night he was about to win the most coveted trophy in college football, The Heisman, was "My Faith is first, My family second, My schoolwork third and Football fourth". He had an entire nation watching and chose to use this time to speak his absolute truth, God.
I am compelled to write this post because sometimes it is just plain hard to be a mom, a stay at home, home schooling mom.. constantly wondering if all the words of wisdom and love you speak daily are heard and learned. Knowing that the fruits of today's labors will not be seen for many years to come...
so for now, I want to meet these moms, to know how they did it and to have that daily reminder of what greatness looks like.

Missing a Miracle

I think too often we are too busy looking for miracles that we often miss the ones he lays right in our lap. It reminds of that game we used to play with my dad, where he would hide something in plain sight but we were too busy searching for it in tiny places and dark spaces that we would miss it entirely. I believe this happens to us often with God. We are so caught up in what we want him to do now and when we want it that we often miss his best parenting. Last week I prayed so hard for him to work a miracle and keep our unborn child safe and strong. I prayed so hard for this that when it did not happen I was stunned, shocked and angry. When they told me about this mass on my ovary, I was too busy crying over our lost child, that I completely overlooked the work he was doing. My best friend, Pam, reminded me ever so gently on Monday after a clean report from the doctor to remember that God is in the business of healing and miracles. It is true, I saw the ultrasound, I heard the doctors whispers and their tones of concern that Friday afternoon. What I missed was the obvious work God had done over the weekend to heal my sadness of a loss and the possibility of a grim future. He removed the mass without taking credit, without some big show, just an act of enduring faith. Don't miss it...