To our wonderful Friend

Happy Birthday Pastor Chris! We hope you had a great day & were shown how much you are loved & appreciated by all those around you. We feel privileged to be your friends and wanted you to know that we really appreciate your dedication to God & His ministry & how much heart & energy you put into our youth ministry! May you be blessed beyond measure and know that we love you very much! Enjoy this humorous video.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Top o' the mornin' to you! And a Happy St. Patty's Day to ALL!!!

Today is the day that I miss my Grandpa Mahoney the most. Why? Because if you called him he'd answer the phone by saying, "Top o' the mornin' to you!" I'm not really sure how much Irish he had in him but I like even knowing some of my heritage comes from the Irish. Green has been my favorite color for such a long time that I don't remember when I started liking it best of all colors. Was it that I liked the color green or was it when I found out I have a smidgen of Irish decent. Whatever the case...I LOVE green & I enjoy celebrating this glorious day. I like thinking about St. Patrick teaching people on the Emerald Isle about the Trinity using something that was so common to them as a shamrock to explain how one could have three things in one. God the Father, God the Son, & God the Holy Spirit. Did you know they get like 90 inches of rain a year to make it so beautifully green there? Fairly soggy to. LOL

One of my dreams come true would be to travel to Ireland and see some of the castles. Perhaps try to kiss the Blarney Stone in Cork. To hear some authentic Irish music and see their parade to honor the man who taught them about God. I'd love to try some of their traditional foods too. I've read that cabbage & bacon is something they eat. I'm not into drinking green beer but I do enjoy an occasional Shamrock shake from McDonald's. I know, the Americanized twist to the holiday.

All of my family wears something green on this special day. Morgan is just wearing a necklace & hair clips. Braly has bits of green on his jammies (he's still sick so we opted for Incredible Hulk jammies today), and Gabby is wearing a green dress, has a shamrock sticker tattoo on her cheek & an Ireland flag in the shape of a heart sticker on her hand. Adam is wearing a green shirt as am I (along with green eye shadown, earings, & necklace, & occasionally my small LOL green hat).

Hope your day is filled with fun, love, memories, & green! ;)

I finished a page today! AND made these

March is Reading Month and on March 2nd it would have been Dr. Seuss' 105th birthday. So in honor of Reading Month, each child in Gabby's class is to dress as his/her favorite book character. Gabby picked Cat in the hat so I did my best to make a Cat hat for her & made an extra one for Braly so he wouldn't feel left out. He may even wear it to the store tomorrow. Not too bad for not even having a 'real' pattern. Although I must say, one should NOT be sewing late at night & think that progress will be made. I messed up the 2nd hat and had to rip a few things apart & sew it back together the correct way...TWICE!

I'm officially a week behind in my online scrapbooking class (normally I have time warps of an hour or so but not a whole week...sheesh, not sure how that happened). But I wanted to share my finished page today. I know I posted about the story back in Dec when it happened but I tweaked the journaling a little & assembled the page & this is what I came up with.

The journaling reads:

I rocked and sang to Morgan as usual and she fell asleep enough that I thought I could lay her in her crib. That just wouldn't be happening tonight...she needed extra snuggles so I sat back down in my trusty 6 1/2 year old rocking chair. I did the whole routine again, singing, rocking, patter & rubbing her back & she fell asleep again. I tried to lay her down but she just hung onto my neck and wouldn't let go. I began to get frustrated thinking of how tired I was and all the things I still had to get done & wished she would cooperate & just go to bed. As I plopped back down in the rocking chair it was that moment that I realized she's always been like this. She was just being herself & how could I ask for something more. My thoughts jumped back to a little over 2 years ago and the struggles we faced when she spent almost her entire first month of life in the hospital with breathing trouble. At the time it was my prayer that she would have the strength to stay with us and not let go just yet. This little girl was still hanging on and had very good reasons not to let go.

After rocking awhile, I walked over to her crib & set her down inside and told her that I'd rub her head and hold her hand if she would just lay down. She plopped very quickly into position and looked up at me with her beautiful, trusting blue, sleepy eyes as if to say, "thanks momma for not leaving me just yet." I sang some more, rubbed her head & tussled her hair a bit until she was nearly asleep. She opened her eyes one more time to see that I was still there & grabbed my finger to hang on to just as she used to in the hospital, then fell into a deep peaceful sleep.

I feel completely blessed that God gave me the opportunity to reflect on events from two years ago till now. Remembering the strong desire I had to hold her all day long and couldn't made me appreciate my extra snuggles with her tonight. Morgan is strong and loves to be snuggled & held. God made her a touchy, feely child because He gave her exactly what she needed to make it through her rough start. Tonight was a moment I'll always cherish.

~journaling written on Dec 30, 2008 by Jeannette~