"You of little Faith...why do you doubt?"

Yes, two posts in one day! One was a test run for a new app Grant got me for my Blackberry. The picture came out entirely too large, so I will have to mess with the app a bit (I had to fix on the normal computer). Grant and I have been blessed to be able to go to Destin, Florida Sunday, so I plan on updating from my new application! I have such a sweet, thoughtful husband!

Today I was reading in my devotional (that I LOVE and have recommended a ton on my blog!-See picture below) called "At His Feet" by Tiegreen. 

The verse today was from Matthew 14:22-32 about Jesus walking on water. We often hear about this in sermons, but there is something cool about reading it again and a getting a renewed message from the passage. In Matthew 14:31 it says: 

"You of little faith," he said, "Why did you doubt?"

And, I often feel like Jesus says that to me...sometimes DAILY. When issues come up like our huge medical bills for Maksim, an unexpected expense with maternity leave, cars dying, lights at church failing to work...(a lot of my faith issues come with finance worries)... God ALWAYS pulls through and I find myself saying "Why did I ever doubt?" God is CONTINUALLY FAITHFUL to us in more ways than we could ever imagine! 

Here is a tid bit from the devotional: 

"If our ears are truly open to Jesus, we will probably hear such a rebuke daily (referring to Matthew 14:31) It is a gentle rebuke, coming from One who understands our frailties better than we understand them ourselves. But it is a firm reminder that the life we live is to be radically different from dependence on our human senses and reasoning that most of the world understands." 

Today's devotional ends with this (and I will, too):

"We must get to the point where we hear His voice alone and become deaf to all others. Then we will know what it's like to walk on water."

Chinese Sub & Jerry's!

Thanks to my sweet friends who made my birthday dinner and dessert WONDERFUL! Dinner at the Chinese Sub Shop and then dessert at Jerry's Sno Cones! Both of which I was introduced to this year! I am spoiled!
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Birthday and Mother-To-Be Day

It's been a while since my last post! 

WELL, it was a crazy fun weekend! I had my birthday and Mother-To-Be Day all in one! I was extremely spoiled! Grant got me a new camera (see other post) for my birthday and for Mother's Day he bought me a dozen roses and spending money for our Florida trip! Grant is speaking at a retreat in Destin and they GRACIOUSLY allowed me to come along! And, my bosses GRACIOUSLY allowed me to go! So grateful! We have 6 days of not doing anything at all! It's going to be super nice!!! 

My side of the family got me a prenatal massage! Sooo nice! I think I am going to hold off on cashing it in until after Camp Electric...when I will need it! Grant's parents got me a pedicure and manicure!!! NICE! I think everyone wants me to relax!!! 

Here is a super cute onesie that my bosses bought for me! It's from The Bomb Mom Website which is TobyMac's wife's website! They got me a maternity shirt and a onesie for Maksim! 

My wonderful friend, Chelsea, took me out to eat at my favorite restaurant, OLIVE GARDEN! She was passing through on her way to see her parents and stopped in to see me! She gave me some fun shopping money and I bought some maternity shorts (I wish I could wear these shorts all year round when I am not even pregnant. I have a complex with shorts...always have and maybe always will unless I wake up one morning and I have Heidi Klum's legs!) and I bought this cute onesie for Maks! I know, I know! #1: It won't be baseball season when he gets here and it's a newborn onesie, #2: he won't be able to wear it for long, and #3: The Braves are pretty much on a losing streak right now, but faithful fans will stick by them!!! It might be kinda mean to push this on Maks, but he's gotta learn young! 

I have a little more shopping to do with my shopping money from Chelsea and I will have a BLAST doing it! 

On my actual birthday, we had one of my favorite lunches! Spaghetti with my family and then after my Mom left for work, my Dad, Kristina, Matt, Grant and I went to Lowe's to pick out paint colors that matched these bowls/place settings that Mom has and we painted her kitchen! It took us about 3 hours tops even with clean up! I was impressed! She was totally surprised! Here's the end result!

It's funny how paint can really change a room! It even makes her table look better and new! It goes with the country look of the space. My Dad and Kristina looked at me funny when we started the bottom color...they were unsure about it, but I think now they love it! It even makes the dark blinds pop!!! 

My Mom and I are throwing a shower for my sis-in-law this Friday so I am excited to use the new space! 

More pics to come! Showers galore this weekend! 

The Secret Church

Yep! Two posts in one day! I wanted to devote this all to our bible study lesson we did last night at our weekly "Bible Study at the Butler's"! 


We are just starting a new series  from David Platt's work on "The Secret Church". From what I understand, David Platt starts out this conference at 6:00 p.m. one night and goes until midnight. We will be breaking this up a bit. 


Last night we had a preview night that ended up being chalked FULL with information. We watched the first session in a series of video clips. The section we are doing is on "Angels, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare" which I am really interested in learning about. All I know is what I have read from the fiction book "This Present Darkness" by Frank Peretti. I love the book, but at David points out, we need to be focused on understanding the Bible and not Frank Peretti. 


We started the night (and ended it, too) by going over the Foundational Truths before diving into the angels and demons part. David Platt said he wanted to equip the body of believers and not entertain and that's what he did...he presented straight facts from the Bible without a whole lot of stories to entertain. 

Here are a few key points that stuck out to me:

• As a church, are we a truth carrier or are we a luxury liner? (Truth carrier)
• Will we indulge ourselves in the peaceful comforts of this world or will we engage ourselves in battle for peoples around the world?
• There IS a spiritual world. See 2 Kings 6:8-23 . The king of Aram is at war with Israel and Elisha keeps telling the king of Israel where the king of Aram is and his troops so they can avoid them...well, the king of Aram gets angry and sets out to find Elisha. Elisha's servant gets scared: "Elisha's servant got up early, and when he went out, he saw an army with horses and chariots all around the city. The servant said to Elisha, "Oh, my master, what can we do?" Elisha said, "Don't be afraid. The army that fights for us is larger than the one against us." Then Elisha prayed, "Lord, open my servant's eyes, and let him see." The Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha". WOW! That was the spiritual world that Elisha's servant was able to see!
• The basis for understanding this war is biblical.

We are in a war daily: 

"The devil who rules this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. They cannot see the light of the Good News-the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is exactly like God. We do not preach about ourselves, but we preach that Jesus Christ is Lord and that we are your servants for Jesus. God once said: "Let the light shine out of the darkness!" This is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts by letting us know the glory of God that is in the face of Christ". 

-2 Corinthians 4:4-6

One of the ways we can be blinded is by not realizing DAILY that we are in a full fledged war for souls. We need to fight the spiritual battle in spiritual ways...PRAY! Satan wants to destroy...he wants to DESTROY God's people and defame God's power. Everyone is affected and involvement is inevitable. The battle is continual and we can't ignore this war.

But, the casualties are that you lose everything. The good news is the outcome is irreversible. Satan has already been defeated

"God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority. With the cross, he won the victory and showed the world that they are powerless".

-Colossians 2:15

We know the end of the story...we fight FROM victory, not FOR victory.

(I feel like there should be a battle scene here!)

*These are all my notes from David Platt...I didn't come up with this on my own :)

The Fabric is IN!

Maksim's fabric came in this week!!! I am going back and forth on the paint color for Maksim's room, but the fabric, bed set, and curtains are all picked out. Here are a few quick pictures!

Here's the fabric!!! AAHH! I love it! The animal fabric is for the bedspread, bumper, and window treatments! The polka dot fabric is for the bed skirt. The background color is black (if you can't tell).  

(Below): My WONDERFUL other preggo friend, Laura was shopping at Hobby Lobby the other day and saw these black hanger holder things (don't know correct term), but they are $40 so we will be waiting on mega sales before we buy these! But, HOW perfect! Giraffe and elephant are EXACTLY what are in the bedding! The last one is a lion, so that's a maybe, but still...so perfect!

(Below): And, here is the crib from Target :) I love it!

Now, all we need is Maksim!!! (Not quite, but BOY are we getting excited!) Grant got excited looking at kid toys today...mostly because he can't wait to have an excuse to buy cool boy things. 

I am half way in my pregnancy today! The Lord is soooo good!

At a Loss for Words...

Started the weekend off with a wedding shower for Amanda!

Grant and I have always said once we had a baby (or baby on the way) that we would get a good camera and we finally did! We got a Digital Canon Rebel that does video as well. Here are a few pictures from it (including the one above):

This is a close up of Tony, our Great Dane! I thought it was so cute!

This one is of Maddie (Maddox) our stray cat

And, here's Tony with his eyes closed...I just wanted you to see how he sits on the couch. So cute!

This could be my first post that I actually have nothing to say! So, I will leave it at that! 

Ten Things Tuesday (ok, 11)

There are a few things that I thought were just too great to keep to myself...like I would be doing you a disservice :)

Jesus Culture

1. A band that is new to me, but I am sure has been around for a while named Jesus Culture. AMAZING! From what I understand, it's a band as well as a conference. 


2. Found a cheap, cute website for preggos: Kiki's Fashions! I would compare it to the equivalent of Forever 21...cheap clothes that will last you about a year and then just might fall apart, but to my knowledge, pregnancies don't last that long :)


3. Karen Kingsbury! She got me into reading...actually, the book "The Shack" got me into reading, but Karen got me into speed reading, ha! Here is a link to all her books: Karen Kingsbury's Complete Book List. I still have a few more to go, and I haven't been disappointed yet. I am currently on "Take Three" (a set of 4 total...I think the last one is coming out this summer). My all time favorite series is the Redemption Series. There are 14 books total that are about the Baxter Family. The Redemption Series consists of 5 books, then the Firstborn series (5 books) and then the Sunrise series (4 books)...I wish she would have kept going but the endings were perfect! I am always up for suggestions for new books! I just borrowed a few from a friend...some are secular books so we will see how I like those.


4. Polka Dot Design Invitations. You think you are done with showers, but I don't think you ever really are! I have two of my best friends (one is my sister-in-law) getting married this year and about a million friends are pregnant and I have opted to throw a few showers and I got a few of the invitations from this website. Wonderful! You can even check the clearance for cute cards, too!


5. My shameless plug for our Christ Church Saturday Night service! My husband, Grant, leads the service and we have an awesome band that plays every Saturday night. If you don't have a place to call home, check us out!

6. Camp Electric my job! If I was a 13 through 18 year old, I would LOVE to be at this camp! It's a worship camp for students...and no, I am not getting a bonus to endorse this...I honestly love it that much! 

7. Interior Design. I have my degree in Interior Design and love to do it! 

8. Pickles!!! My fav are Claussen pickles! YUMMM! And, this was BEFORE I was pregnant and it's just upped like a million times!

9. My planner! It's a Franklin Covey and it's giraffe print! If you know me, you know I love me some animal print!

10. My Blackberry. I used to be an iPhone person but now I am Blackberry all the way! Love it!


11. Yes, it's not a very even number, but oh well. My new TV obsession: "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution". I think he is up to episode 4 and you can watch them on Hulu.com