here are some of the pics from Izalou (my youngest niece) 's 2nd birthday party:


"thats..thats for ME???.. scoot it closer, will ya?!"

mmmm... yummy!
"Oh! Oh! i call that strawberry righhhhhht there!"

"do i like it? i think i do..YES! i love it!"

"thank you Mimi (Kim's mom, Mrs. Pepper) for my great cupcake!"
"just one more bite..ok, maybe 2 more..or 3.."
Grandaddy and Jessie

"CHEESE! .. Aunt Mercy, take a picture of me.. CHEESE!"
Michael and Rachel-- Kims cool siblings-- also known as "Uncle Michael" and "Cha-cha"
"for me??"dont worry, Izzy, your cousins are here to help! :)
Annie's Angels
the birthday girl!
angel with a mission and a borrowed purse ;)
preparation for flight..

swingin' angels-in-disguise..

messenger angel
goal: to beat the heat :)
i have a few more favorites, but havent had time to edit any of these pics, and want to zoom in on my other faves. :)
so Jane has come to stay with "grandmommy", "grandaddy", and "aunt mercy" for the week. . . . it has been awesomeness fun, and REALLY funny. for example:
me: so, what are those animals in the pen over there, emma claire?
e.c.: oh, those are the meat-ducks.
me: meat-ducks? whats that?
e.c.: they're ducks that grow up and turn into meat..
me: jay, PLEASE wash your hands!
j.: ooooook, aunt mercy.. but i want to go play with my toad!
me: ok , but u have to wash ur hands before touching anything else please..
j.: dont worry, i wont touch u with my toady hands.
^btw, im not that prissy, but we were about to eat, and jane had been going back in forth between eating bread (that was for appetizer) and playing with her toad.. sorry, but im not that big on toad-tasting bread.. or any other food for that matter.
j: i think im going to call u aunt squeaky, ok? ok.
me: what?
j: i love you, aunt squeaky.
me: i love u too, silly gooseball.
j: AUNT SQUEAKY! AHAHHAHAHAHHHAHA...
me: *becomes tickle monster*
j: so, aunt mercy, grandmommy promised that u and me would watch a movie tonight.
me: really??
j: yes. and the movies ICE AGE!
me: really?.. and did she mention where we were going to watch ice age?
j: on your laptop of course..
^ reason funny: "grandmommy" had mentioned to jane that if i said yes, we (j and i) MIGHT be able to watch ice age. also, my laptop is slightly broken (a few things wont work on it, plus my dvd player on it is very tempermental) and our dvd player thats hooked up to our tv is broken.. so yeah. thankfully, i agreed, and so did my laptop. so that worked out well after all ! :)
ok im tired, and tomorrow i go stay at the Abernathys house, then head off to Disneyworld (or Mouse Mafia, either name u prefer) with Mrs. Jenny, Alexis and Caroline P, and Caroline and Rebecca A. :) hoorah for fun times L.W. :D
b.c He Lives and Reigns
Today’s sermon by Daddy was on God’s providence. However, I am not going to start with this morning’s sermon, but with last weeks instead. Last Sunday morning was on “The Twelve Principles to Influence Our Children 100 Years from Now”. Keep in mind that whatever we do WILL influence our children and grandchildren and future generations, but the question is, how do we influence them for good instead of evil?
Here are the 12 points:
1. Believe that the people of God have a victorious and glorious future on this earth.
Anotherwards, hold a victory orientation in mind in line of everything you do!

2. Believe that God has entered into a covenant with His people in Christ down through their (His people) generations.
Deuteronomy 7: 9 says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His loving kindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments”. Also, there are two sides to the coin—therefore to those who hate Him and leave His commandments behind, those He is angered with, down to the third and fourth generations! Why? B/c children (and adults) imitate that which is around them—that which they see and know!

3. If you are w/in child-bearing years and are married, have lots of kids!! If you aren’t married, pray earnestly for a godly spouse that shares the goal to have lots of kids!!
Almost all of our culture today, including many to most professed Christians think it is ridiculous to have many children, seeing them as a burden upon the wife and husband, or just not “into kids”. However, that view is relatively new, within the last century or two, especially in Presbyterian and Catholic denominations. Why do I say that? Because in previous years, if you had a big(5+) family, people would assume you were either Presbyterian or Catholic, b/c they were KNOWN to have big families—for the Catholics, b/c they believe that birth control is wrong. For the Presbyterians, it was a worldview—they recognized that the more children they have; the more God has given them the chance to spread the Gospel through their (L.W.) godly offspring! They had a victory orientation in mind! Ever since I was really little, my parents taught me to pray for my future husband. We’ve prayed not only that he would be a godly leader in our home and over me, but that I would become a godly submissive wife and “help-meet”. Genesis 24:60 is a blessing Rebekah’s family (Rebekah that married Isaac) gave to her, saying, “May you, our sister, become thousands of ten thousands..” WOW! What an amazing blessing to bestow!

4. Create a material, spiritual, intellectual inheritance for your children’s children.
I hate the stupid bumper sticker that says “I am spending my children’s inheritance”. “Nuf said.. God has not told us to live for the present, yet that is what most of the world does today—including many Christians! But more about this later.. What do we mean by a material, spiritual, intellectual inheritance? Here are some examples:
Material: I love what Mr. Howard Phillips, a great man, does for his children—whatever age they are turning, on their birthdays he gives them that amount of books! Wow- talk about an incredible library by the age of 20! Other examples of material inheritance: gold, silver, investments, houses, LAND, books, and so on and so forth. Not dollars—personally, the fact is that paper money is daily decreasing in importance- b/c we can always just make more of it. What makes something valuable (besides sentimental value) is how rare that something is. The rarer it is, the more valuable it is. Gold will not lose its value b/c there is only a certain amount of gold in the world. Only God can make more of it, not man. Therefore I truly believe America should go back onto its gold standard. Anyways, to get back on track:
Spiritual inheritance: love for the Reformed faith, distinctively believed and applied. What do I mean? Don’t just teach your children to love “the reformed faith”—teach them what it is! Teach them the specifics, as in the 5 points of Calvinism, the Westminster confession of faith, the Westminster Catechism, and so on and so forth. Teach them not only what, but why.
Intellectual inheritance: give them a Christian education. Get them out of government schools—don’t put them in Christian schools that use the same books as the govt. schools, or books that don’t have the correct worldview immersed in them!

5. if at all possible, purchase land and keep it within your family!
Give your family roots!

6. Obey God’s Word on how to raise your children, particularly as in Genesis 18:17-19
“The Lord said, ‘shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and might nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.’ “

7. Give your children a distinctively Christian education and teach them to do the same.
We are taught today that everything is relative to each other. WRONG- however, everything IS relative to God and accountable to His Word and Law- teach your children, through math, history, science, English, and every subject what Gods word commands, and how they may apply it to life and the future.

8. Pray for your children, grandchildren, and the future descendants that you will never meet- frequently!

9. Work hard to reconstruct this evil culture that we live in so that someday our children might live in a less evil world and culture than we do now.
Don’t focus on the present, but instead learn from the past and strive for the future, so that your present will be spent will the victory orientation of winning the world to Christ! J

10. Guide your children regarding whom they should marry.
II Corinthians 6:14 says “Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership have righteousness and the lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” My parents have also taught me to make sure that whomever I marry has the same beliefs about our faith—not just that he is a Christian, but that he shares my beliefs about , for example, the 5 points of Calvinism.

11. Teach your children AND grandchildren to live with their focus on the future.
Proverbs 12: 7: “The wicked are overthrown and are no more, but the house of the righteous will stand.”
Proverbs 14: 11: “The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish.”

12. The more the church and this world is brought to Christ, the longer our future generations will have to witness to their future generations:
Isaiah 65: 20 “No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days; for the youth will die at the age of one hundred and the one who does not reach the age of one hundred will be thought accursed.”
So what does that say about those who are in their “old age” if you are “young” when one hundred??

Ok, well, I need to get ready for evening service and such, so ill put up today’s sermon notes later on L.W.

ttyl L.W.

B/c He Lives and Reigns

Praise the Lord!

i . love . my . family . amazing, fantastic, understanding (most of the time ;) , precious, and even w. all my messups, they still love me! Praise the Lord for family like mine!!!!!!!! So, yesterday i had my first tutoring session w. a four- yr old named Jude. and what am i tutoring him in?? spanish.. yeah, go figure. me ? spanish??but they want me to, so i am. so since it was the first day, he kept getting distracted, but thats ok, hes only four. :) we learned 5 spanish words (btw, these are 30 min sessions): gloves (los guantes), hat (el sombrero), jeans (los jeans), tree (el a'rbol--accent over the a) , and pajamas (el pijama).. fun times :) so then i went home and "grandmommy" (mom), a.k., and "aunt mercy" (me) all went to the YMCA. it was good- they went swimming and i got to excercise..HOORAH! so then we all went over to McDonalds to grab a bite of lunch..yeah, do u notice the irony as well?? YMCA and then McDonalds..hmm.. so after lunch a.k. wanted some ice cream:


aww yummy ice cream!


my treat.. we told a.k. it was dirt and ice cream...she laughed and said "no silly".. :) i love my niece

anyways, after McD's we went to Em's house to see their new baby lamb and sheep.. AWWWWWWW ok , ive officially decided that no matter how evil goats, cats, and chickens can be, i love THESE sheep..some sheep would drive me crazy, but this type (which i forgot what they are called) are great -- and these sheep were taught to love to be around children and humans. :)
here are some pics:


the baby lamb


the other sheep :)


the helping hand


follow the leader, lamb style!


friends, cousins, family-- including the sheep


E.Claire!!


"Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He that made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of his pasture."- Psalm 100:3

so after a good time at Em' s house, thus ended the exciting part of the yesterday.

Today we left for annie and grants house!! A.K. did NOT want to leave for home .. at first.. i think maybe that she could be worried that if she left "Grandmommy" and "Grandaddy"'s house, that we might decide to move as well , just like they did a couple weeks ago. but before we left, i got a few pics of her wearing my old hat that i wore when i was about her age, maybe a little older than her:


laughing at her aunt mercy ;)


precious


so now i am at annies house. it only took about 3 hrs (not including stops for lunch, ice cream dessert for a.k. (i got to get a smoothie from planet smoothie instead :D ) and gas stops) after we were all settled in, a.k., jaybird, and i went to go swing on their new swingset (j.lu had already gone to bed)



jaybird


sisters, sisters,
there were never such devoted sisters.. :)

after all the girls were in bed, and dad and grant were about to hit the sack, mom, annie , and i went for a walk. what should we see but a HUGE owl!! heres a small glimpse of it in a tree before it flew to another tree:



ok thats all for tonight, im pretty doggone tired and need some sleep! ttyl L.W. (btw, L.W. means Lord willing)

B.c He Lives and Reigns over all

"deeper" thoughts

so, i admit, my mind hasnt been completely on the girls today. in fact, it has been tending to wander quite a bit. what on? well ,firstly on what i have been reading in the Bible this week- my goal was to start and finish the Book of Judges-- not only was i so into it that i finished it, but i have also finished the book of Ruth and have started on and am continuing through the book of I Samuel. ever since , probably about 3 or 4 yrs ago, Grant gave me the read-the-Bible-through-in-a-yr bible for Christmas, it has always been a "new years resolution" to read through it in , well, a year! however, i have always viewed it as a "race against time" or , sometimes, if i m really tired, a chore that i "need to do". but this yr, or rather , this summer, has been VASTLY different , and praise the Lord for it! instead of having a far off goal alone, ive been trying to set reasonable goals for each week , and then, instead of just reading one chapter, im trying to read 2 + depending on if my eyes will still work or not (aka how sleepy i am). anyways, thats been one major praise/joyful thought. and im not saying this so people can go "oh how wonderful and religious mercy is" or any of that junk-- im not! i want to be deeply rooted in Him , but i feel as if im just moving one speck of dirt from the top of the ground of getting to know the Lord-- and its definitely not me doing it! Im telling you this so u can REJOICE IN THE LORD with me for this great answer to prayer! so yeah, just wanted to let yall know i do have my priorities straight on this :)


another thought bothering me is the ever constant lack of money i have.. my goal (aside from L.W. someday being a wife and mom) : to study and learn and become a really great photographer. to do that, i really do need a great camera. i have a pretty good camera. but not the camera of my dreams (of the moment): the canon digital slr EOS 30D .. ahahahhahaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh i went to Circuit City the other day (stuff w. my laptop) and stopped by the camera department and (almost) literally drooled over it. the guy working at the time (his name was kyle, i believe) was kind enough to let me play w. an "open box" one-- it had a dent in the side, (a literally miniscule dent) so instead of being $1500 , it was reduced to $1200.. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh *tries not to covet* for those of u utterly confused by why the monkey i would EVER want to spend THAT MUCH MONEY on "just a camera" here is the pic of it (courtesy of the internet):







front with flash up



top



back


oh and, that price..i believe that is EXCLUDING the lens, though that i just sort of heard, havent researched, but am praying is false(lol).

and now, i am about to fall over b.c i am quite tired and still have some things left to do before i can crash into bed, so i guess other deep thoughts will have to follow tomorrow or the next time i am on here. and ill also try to tell you my reasons why i want so much to be a "great photographer". and ill also try to put as many of my jamestown pics up as possible. but that last one is iffy. night!

B.c He Lives and Reigns

*sigh* another day in the life..

hmm, i have already started (and now deleted) 2 other blogs. Lord willing this one will continue. well , i dislike giving background history, so im not going to. after all, most likely it will be just me reading this, so why bother when i already know? and in that light of the matter, im also not going to put it any caps or punctuation that i dont feel like doing (except for the neccessities of course).

but i am going to start back a few days, b.c thats where i want to put some photos in. on the 4th, mom dad and i went to the Jukins house for an afternoon I.D.P. (independence day party). It was pretty great, though i didnt take my bathing suit so ended up sweating to the point of grossness. but besides the jukins and us, the Reeds were there, as well as the Badgetts and another old(er) woman that i did not quite recognize. i actually talked (longer than 5 min) to james badgett-- ive known him all my life, and we have never talked longer than that before.. strange, especially knowing how much i tend to talk. but it was cool getting him to tell me about his gf (she sounds really great) , and his life at the moment.. aka, more about his gf and some school. lol then after we had stayed there for a while, we headed over to the Thelens house for some visiting w. them , their friends, and Mr. Marshall Foster, who was in town over the beginning of the week, until the 5th, for a speaking engagement he had with American Vision . we actually went to hear the first night (mom dad and i) -- it was truly mind capturing! it was on the 6 great terrors of world history, and how they have been overcome -- w.o.w. seriously fantastic. so at the party, i was privileged to show some of my jamestown photos to him and mr. DeMar and his wife, and they loved them! hoorah! maybe they were just being kind, but i do think that mr. foster wouldnt have wanted to see more if he was just "being polite". so i feel very honored indeed that i had that privilege. a little while later, i was introduced to Georgia Williams-- Praise the Lord! this girl..well, i cant really call her a girl, b.c she is older than i am, and she seems very grownup and ladylike, so i guess i should call her a lady, b.c woman sounds too formal.. anyways, this lady is one of the coolest, kindest, funniest persons i know! so we decided to go on a walk through the Thelens neighborhood. here are (most of) the pics:


Georgia


GA 2
me and GA


and that is how we roll..
kids dont try this one at home..


me


me 2
ok so this is one of my most favorite pics ive ever taken of water.. dont know why, i just really love it :)


soooo nothing TOO exciting happened yesterday, except that i found out my stinkin laptop wont work right now..but the good news is my sister and bro-in-law and their kids came and stayed the night! now J. lu and Anita are here for today, then annie grant and jaybird come back from their trip tomorrow, and they will pick up J. Lu. anita is going to stay w. us until tuesday, and then we'll all go see annie and grants new house and L.W. stay for a few days! hoorah! :)

but here are so awesomeness pics of j. lu that i took (she and i went for a walk and to water "grandmommy"'s flowers near the mailbox. :)
her and me

watering the flowers
the joy of helping
caught with the cookies.. sweet girl, you deserved them!

well, i should turn in for the night, but am not quite ready to do so. i think, however, i shall end this post and start another, so that this wont be TOO too long. :)