New Happenings...(this is rather long)


Matthew~
Matthew turns 12 today! We had a surprise family party for him on Saturday. We also invited two of his best buddies. He had been asking if they could come and sleep over, so I arranged for them to spend the night that night.  He and I had been planning a party for next weekend, so you can imagine how surprised he was that we had it this weekend. The funny thing is that when he and I were about to walk through my mom's front door (where the party was held), he saw his friend Cody's shoes sitting outside the door.  He said, "Those are Cody's shoes".  I said, "That's strange, someone here has shoes just like Cody's!" I was  thinking, "Oh my gosh, I've got to get him inside before he figures it out". He told me later that he KNEW those were Cody's shoes because of the wear on them and he KNEW that Cody was there!  Thankfully, he didn't have time to put two and two together and didn't figure out that it was a party, but he KNEW those were Cody's shoes!  Haha!  That was so fun, planning a surprise party.  It's something I've never done before.  I like being sneaky!

I just want to say a little bit about Matthew.  There is so much more to him than meets the eye.  He has such a big heart that most people don't see.  On the surface, he's very shy and if you are around him long enough, you would think he can be a tad arrogant.  But, as a mother, I see so much more.  He loves to help people.  He is always helping my mom get in her car at church and helping her with various things.  He helps her set up and arrange her items when she has her yard sales.  Every time she has one, she calls me and says she needs Matthew.  He loves babies.  And he loves to clean and organize.  He will fold the laundry for me without me even asking, and put them away!  He will even occasionally wash the dishes for me without my asking!  My sister Vicki told me that the last time he stayed with her, she discovered that he had cleaned out and straightened Kennedy's closet!  He is always asking me if I need any help with anything.  He told me he wants to either be an engineer or to be in an occupation where he can help people one day. So, yes, I realize he is a little "rough around the edges" in some areas of his attitude.  I am not oblivious to the things that need improving in his personality, but to me the positives far outweigh the negatives in Matthew.  I love him so much, and I can't believe he is 12 already!

Makensie~
Last night we signed Makensie up for Upward Soccer.  She and I have been trying to decide about whether she should try gymnastics or soccer this year.  She has been talking about soccer for quite a while and not so much gymnastics.  I was thinking that she would like gymnastics better, but in the end we decided on soccer.  I like it that it's Upward, and with it being her first year, it's just the Fall season and she will only play 6 games. So this will give her a feel for it and if she likes it, she can play longer next year.  If she doesn't, then she can do gymnastics next year.  She loved ballet, but since she wanted to try something new, I have no doubt that she will like gymnastics.  But we will try soccer first.   I can't wait to see her in action! I hope she enjoys it and improves a lot because (just between you and me) she needs a lot of work!  :)

Another "new" happening going on with Makensie, and the one that I am most excited about, is next Sunday she is getting baptized!  She went to youth camp this summer and while there, she gave her heart to Jesus!  In fact, all three girls did, and all three are getting baptized together!  The strange thing is that when I picked the girls up from camp, the counselor had a sheet that showed what spiritual experiences they had, and out beside Makensie's name was nothing.  So I was thinking that she didn't get saved, so I pointed that out to her counselor, and she said that she didn't get a chance to ask Makensie if she had an experience with the Lord. So I just thought that she hadn't.  Well, a couple days after she got home from camp, just out of the blue, she came to me and told me that she cried at the altar during one of the church services.  When I asked her why, she said because she gave her heart to Jesus!  I almost flipped out of my computer chair, I was so shocked and excited! The next thing she said blew me away just as much.  She told me that she wanted to get baptized!  So, I almost immediately sent a text to my pastor and told him. Then later on, we found out that the other girls got saved too and they all want to be baptized! Wow, isn't God something else?  He never ceases to amaze me!

Bobby~
And last, but certainly not least, I would like to talk about Bobby.  Most of you know about his job situation at Aaron's.  He had been very unhappy there for the last couple of years (I was unhappy with him there for the entire 4 years). The hours were terrible, the stress was awful, and the "make money or die attitude" was really killing us.  But, things didn't really get bad enough to leave until about the past year when they started making a lot of manager changes, firing and demoting, and then one of the ones they demoted ended up dying of natural causes. It was just becoming like a jungle there, and Bobby's health was really going down.  He went to his regional manager and store manager and during that conference, he made up his mind that he was going to start looking for another job.  Unfortunately, he trusted them enough to tell them that, and it ended up being a big mistake. So on his off days, he started applying for as many jobs as he could, and about three weeks or so later, they informed him that he must set a date to leave.  He never gave them one because he hadn't found another job yet.  So they gave him a date and told him that was his last day.  When his last day came, he still hadn't found another job, but he had to go.  His last day was a Saturday.  The following day on Sunday, we had a special prayer service and some prayer warriors and our pastor laid hands on Bobby and we prayed that an opening would come up.  The Friday before, he had applied at a place called Tower Loan, but didn't know for sure if he got the job.  Well, the following Tuesday he got the call that they wanted to hire him.  So the next day, Wednesday, July 21, he started his new job at Tower Loan.  The lady hiring manager told him that she felt like it was divine intervention that she hired him because with all the applications that had been sent in, she kept going back to his, and his was the first one in the stack.

So far, he likes it a lot.  His hours are much better and since he is only 10 minutes away and has an hour for lunch, he comes home every day to eat!   It's a challenging job, but it's not a stressful one.  That's what pleases me most because I was really starting to worry about his health when he was working at Aaron's.  And yes, he took a big salary cut, but to Bobby and me, the money is not as important as his having more time with family and it is certainly not worth the stress it was causing us.

The sort-of-scary thing about this new job (and he knew this going in) is that in a year or less, we may have to move.  His job title is "Manager trainee", which means they are training him to open up and manage his own store.  They have stores throughout Mississippi, Missouri, and Louisiana.  So far, these are the only three states where Tower Loan does business.  So it may be that in a year or less, we could be moving to one of these other states or to the northern part of our state.  It's a scary but exciting thought!

Well, I know this post is rather long, and since I haven't done such a long update in a while, I thought you all wouldn't mind reading such a long post!  I hope you are all doing well and until next time, may God bless you all!


Jennifer~
Well, as you can read above, my wife obviously is a woman of deep thought and much appreciation.  Jennifer is an amazing mother to the kids and a precious wife to me.  I have been in love with her for a long time now and have grown to really know her over the years and I am simply the most blessed man to have such a wonderful person as part of me.  I know we all have our faults, however, when the good things you've seen in a person out weigh the bad by such a far degree, the bad things seem quite dim to the eye.  Jennifer is the best friend to me ever.  She is my right hand woman.  I couldn't do it without her!  She asks of me very little, but gives to the extreme.  On top of all of this, she is the most beautiful woman in the world.  God blessed me with a absolutely beautiful wife.  I know they say "beauty is only skin deep."  That's a true statement, however in Jen's case it goes to the marrow of her bones.  She is my wife, my inspiration, my best friend, the only love of my life.

She couldn't decide which outfit to wear to her soccer try-out.  She ended up choosing this last outfit :)

It's That Time Again!

Our kids started back to school Aug. 2! Matthew is in 7th, Makensie & Kennedy are in 3rd, and Jackson is in K-5! God has blessed us in allowing us once again to send Matthew & Makensie to GCA. We are just taking it one year at a time and letting Him show us the way. Thankfully, He made provision again this year, and our family is learning more and more what it means to completely trust in Him!

I will be posting again soon, most likely as soon as next week, with some new happenings that are going on in our household. So stay tuned and until then, I hope you enjoy these few pictures :)

A lot of changes have taken place this year at GCA. We now have a new principal (a woman this time). And...enrollment is up tremendously since last year! We are praying God is about to turn things around for this school. We hope we get to be there to see it happen!

...just thought I'd throw this one in here. Matthew took several pics of his frozen Coke creation, but I just picked one to post :) The kids & I have been freezing our bottled soft drinks to make them into an Icee since it's so stinkin' hot! It looks like this one stayed in the freezer a tad too long! (We are always looking for ways to amuse ourselves)