Farmer's Market

I didn't grow a vegetable garden this year, but the next best thing is a Farmer's Market and I am so excited that Beaumont finally has one!!! It is brand new this year and I could hardly wait to get there on Saturday. Mom and I woke up early and headed downtown to buy lots of homegrown veggies and fruit. We quickly learned that getting there at 9:30 when it opened at 8:00 is not a good idea if you want to get the good stuff...like blackberries or pretty much anything at all. The man selling blackberries said that they sold out in 15 minutes and almost everything else was picked over or sold out...next time we will get there much earlier :) We were about to leave empty handed when a lady came with a cooler of blueberries...my favorite! I have always wished we had a local Farmer's Market and I look forward to going back many times this Summer!

After we left the Farmer's Market, we ate at New York Pizza and Pasta downtown.

After we ate, we drove around downtown to look around and I took some pictures. I hardly ever go downtown and it was fun driving around and looking at everything.

This is the Church where my Mom and Dad were married...I think it is so beautiful! It has been remodeled since them and it use to have a huge staircase leading up to the front doors.

The Jefferson Theatre...my Mom use to go watch movies here many moons ago :)

This is one of my favorite buildings...it use to be a church, but now it is a library.

The Julie Rogers Theatre where Stephanie and I had all of our dance recitals growing up.

Hope you have a great Memorial Day! I am so thankful to live in the U.S.A and for all the freedoms we have...pray for our country and our troops!

$40 Goes a Long Way....

I am so excited to share with you something that happened this past weekend that just blows me away (in a good way). I'll start by telling you that in November my pastor felt led by God to give every family in our church $40 to pray over and sow as a seed wherever God showed us. My pastor said he was believing for awesome praise reports and testimonies about how God had used this to minister to people.

My mom prayed over her money and felt like God told her to give it to the mail lady. So, one day mom chased the mail lady down and gave her the $40. She told her the story about how our pastor had heard from God to give us this money and to pray about who to give it to. Mom told her that she had prayed over it and believed that God wanted her to have it and that He loved her. Mom said that the mail lady started crying immediately and was so excited and thanked her. Mom hadn't talked to her or seen her since that day back in November.

Fast Forward to this weekend. On Saturday, mom woke up early and she decided to go outside and trim the bushes in the front yard (which is not something she would normally do by the way) and she just so happened to be out there in the yard working when the mail lady came. It was the same lady and they started talking. She told Mom that she had been asking God to have Mom open the door or something when she delivered the mail so she could talk to her. She told Mom that she would never know how much that $40 changed her. They both cried and hugged and then she asked Mom if she could come to our church on Sunday and share with the church how God had used the money to touch her.

Sandra speaking at our Church

So Sandra (the mail lady) came to our church this past Sunday morning and shared with us the whole story of what God had done! She said that after Mom gave her the money, she went to her mail car and cried and then called her family and friends and told them what had happened. She said that everyone she told was so touched and that God really used it to minister to them and her. She said that she prayed about what to do with the money and she went to church and gave $20 in the offering and then she gave the other $20 (plus her tip) to a waitress at a restaurant that she ended up talking to and found out was a single mother. By the end of her testimony, there was not a dry eye in the place.

I know for my pastor and his wife it was such and encouragement and confirmation that they had really heard from God and that God had used that $40 to touch so many people! It wasn't about the money...it was about the act of love and kindness. For me, it encouraged me to start looking and praying for ways to encourage others and do little acts of kindness to show God's love to others. You never know what a small act like buying groceries for your elderly neighbor, giving a cold water to your mail carrier, buying someones food in line behind you at a drive through, or simply just smiling at someone can do.

We enjoyed getting to
know Sandra. We invited her to eat with us at Logan's after church and invited her to our ladies meeting at church that night. We were so excited that she came and even brought her daughter with her. The message at the ladies night was about servant hood and and was all about looking for ways to serve others (how perfect was that!) At the end, Sandra's 21 year old daughter stood up and thanked everyone for inviting her and she started to cry because she was so touched by all the love shown to her and her Mom...the ladies at Joy Church know how to love on you :) It was so sweet and God really moved in such an incredible way that night.

Sandra's story gave me an idea.... I have an assignment (it's the teacher in me :) for anyone reading my blog:

1. Ask God to show you one person this week you can practically share God's love with either by meeting a need, simply smiling at them, giving them a compliment, giving them a gift, etc...

2. Write a comment telling me who God put on your heart and what you did....I would love to hear your ideas.

My Favorite Books are....

Favorite Children's Book

It is "Show Us Your Life" time again on on Kelly's blog. This time she asked what your favorite books/children's books are. I don't even have to stop and think about my favorite children's book....it is The Oak Inside the Acorn by Max Lucado. I read this book for the first time at a friends house who has small kids. I love the message and the illustrations are so beautiful. I gave this book to my friend Britni's little boy, Pierson, for his first birthday and it is one of the best Children's books I have ever read...I have read allot having been a preschool teacher and because I just love children's books. Even though I don't have children yet, I love going to the children's book section when I go to Barnes and Nobles.

Here is a description of what the book is about (in my own words).....

"A little acorn gets knocked off from its mother oak tree and goes on a journey to find out its purpose. The mother Oak always told little acorn " Within you is a great oak. Just be the tree that God made you to be." Little acorn needed to remember this because along his journey he got planted in an Orange orchard and took a long nap. When he woke up he was no longer an acorn but he had changed into a little Oak. Little Oak tries and tries to grow oranges like his Orange tree friends, but he never can. He is confused and doesn't understand why he can't do what his friends do. He ends up being dug up and moved to the front yard of a farmhouse. He makes new friends with a rose bush and some petunia flowers. Again, he tries to grow beautiful flowers like his new friends, but he can't do that either. He is frustrated because he doesn't feel like he does anything special like growing Oranges and flowers and he is smaller than all the other trees around him. Eventually, he discovers his purpose and becomes the Oak tree God made him to be."

My favorite books to read are anything by Christian fiction author Karen Kingsbury. My friend Katie let me borrow the first book in the Baxter Family Series called Redemption and after I read the first one I was hooked. I had never read a Christian Fiction book before and now I can't stop reading them. There are 11 books in the Baxter Family Series and after I read them all I felt like they were real people that I could run into one day. I was sad to read the last book in the series. I haven't found a book yet by her that I didn't like. I am reading A Thousand Tomorrows right now.

I love how real the characters are in her books and how I can relate to them even if I haven't gone through exactly what they are going through. Her books will encourage you to have a closer walk with God and teach you more about who God is and how He works in our lives through good times and in bad. To read more about Karen Kingsbury and get a list of all of her books go to her website.

Picture Project

Mom and I were shopping at The Galleria in Houston last summer and we saw this collage of pictures in a dressing room. Mom has been wanting to hang family pictures in the hall for a long time and she really liked this collage because of the different size and color frames. I happened to have my camera so I took a picture of it. As part of my Mother's Day present I helped Mom go through all of our old family pictures, frame, and hang them in the hall.

Our Inspiration


Before

After

It was allot of work, but I love how it turned out. We saved money by painting some old frames black and using as many frames that we already had as we could. Here is a closer look at the pictures....

Little Sailor Family :)

Me and Glenn

Me

Glenn....love this picture :)

Dad, Mom, Glenn and Me

Dad and Mom

Dad, Me , Mom and Glenn

Steph on a pony (nursery school pic) and Me

Glenn on a pony

Steph and Me (we didn't realize that we both had the exact same picture taken in our Cheerleading uniforms until we found them and framed them side by side)

Glenn and Steph

Me as flower girl at my Aunt Nini's wedding

Me

Me, Steph

Glenn, Steph

Mom and Dad, Glenn

Glenn, Stephanie

Mom and Dad, Me

Steph, Mom and Dad, Glenn

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Me and Mom

Mom (and Steph), Me, and Glenn

Glenn, Mom, and Me

Me, Mom (and Glenn)

Mom and Glenn


Mom, Stephanie, and Me


Mom, Glenn, Stephanie, and Me


Mom helping Steph get ready for a dance recital


Mom and Glenn on vacation at Disney World


Me and Mom on the beach in Destin....My favorite picture of us!


Thank you Mom for.... being the type of mom that let us build tents in the living room with the dinning room chairs and sleep in them at night; for selling your car to stay home with me when I was a baby; for taking your job as a homemaker seriously and always making our house so warm and "homey"; for letting us "wash" your car even though we could only reach half way up the car; for not getting mad when I rode my bike in the garage and took off a streak of paint (the whole car length) on our brand new Suburban with my handle bar; for always making having a babysitter so much fun with cookie dough, a pizza, and a movie; for making me hair bows and matching sister outfits; for helping us have lemonade stands in the summer and buying a cup for $20.00; for letting us play in the rain in the streets on a rainy day; for letting me sleep in my playhouse with my friends and coming out there to sleep with us when we were too scared; for making me do my homework and read books in the summer; for making everyday things like cleaning fun; for letting me take piano, dance, and gymnastics and being there at every recital cheering me on; for always going way out on my birthday parties growing up; for letting us help you cook even though you had a big mess to clean up afterwards; for making going to the Doctor and getting a shot fun with ice cream afterwards; and most importantly for teaching me how to love God and have a relationship with Him!

I love you!! Happy Mother's Day!

"Every Time I think of you, I give thanks to my God" Philippians 1:3