Harperisms and a feature

I thought it was time for me to write down some more "Harper-isms" so I won't forget what she is saying at this age.  We are 6 weeks away from turning 3 and just hilarious.

Harper loves to pray before bed and meals.  It is SO sweet to my heart to hear her saying "Thank you Jesus. I love you Jesus".  She likes to pray for her family and friends.  Last night she insisted on praying for all the dogs in our extended family and for Laurie's car. ha! She kills me.

Every night when she goes to bed - she requests the same 5 songs in the same exact order and I  MUST sing them or she will have a fit.  Sometimes I sing them in fast forward. ha! "Jesus Loves Me", "ABC", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Jesus loves the little children" and "Lord's Army".

She is always saying (especially if she is in trouble and wants to get out of it): "I"m proud of you Momma".

My favorite thing about her right now is pretty much everything I tell her to do - where she would normally always balk or say no or throw a fit - she now says "Okay Momma, Okay" and then does it. So happy!

Apparently she hears me saying "Be sweet to Hollis" a lot because she has started saying "Daddy, be sweet to Mommy. Mommy be sweet to Daddy".

She also is always saying "I love Mommy TOO. I love Daddy TOO." ha! 

I am loving Christmas this year because she has finally started being aware of it. Last year she kind of got it but this year she is noticing the lights and the trees and it's fun watching her excitement. We haven't decorated our house yet (hopefully this week) so I know she will be THRILLED. We went through the Christmas and toy section of Wal-Mart today and she kept saying "WOW!" "WOW!" ha! Oh life through the eyes of a child - it's the best!


and I got asked by two girls to do a feature on their blogs today. Check them out - I felt a little intimidated - they seem so amazing and stylish and creative and fun and they love God! I've had fun looking at their blogs recently and I think you will too! They might become new favorites for you!!!!

 

Creating, sharing, and inspiring connects us all together. Every day we are drawn to blogs that make us feel something, and we take a little piece of it with us. Behind every one of our favorite blogs, there's a person. A person with real emotions, fears, goals, and weird quirks that we never really get to experience first hand. We've brought together your favorite bloggers to give you a more intimate take on their lives, so you can catch the little details that make them who they are. Every Wednesday, we'll be capturing the lives of the people behind your daily reads in a way that you wont experience anywhere else.

So get ready. We have lots to share! xoxo

Each week on Casey's blog, you will hear a more personal story about one of your favorite bloggers.... why they are the way they are, stories on loss or happiness, struggles or triumphs...we want to have them share the happiest moment of their life, or a time that they grew stronger because of an enormous trial placed in their path.

On my blog, they will be sharing any advice they have for you readers. It can be about fashion, being a mom or wife, how to grow your blog, how to start your own business, etc. Whatever their niche is, you will hear their expert advice!

Roo

SO FIRST..................

I wanted to share with y'all that I'm so excited - I've been asked to be a monthly contributor at a new on-line magazine/website started by Candace Cameron Bure for women! You may know Candace as "DJ" on "Full House" or you may remember her brother Kirk from "Growing Pains" or you may know her as a Christian speaker.

This is a really neat website that will have topics on fitness, food, decorating, fashion, and being a wife and mother! I hope you will all check it out and bookmark it! It is launching today!!!
Candace recently traveled to the Dominican Republic with Compassion and she has a really neat video on the site that I'd love for you to watch! I was so excited when I got involved to find out that she supports Compassion as well!
As a side note, Candace will also be staring in a TV movie on Sunday, December 4th called The Heart Of Christmas. It will air Dec. 4th at 7 & 9pm EST on GMC TV (check your local guide or call your cable provider for channel information)

www.roomag.com

It's been a while since I have posted prayer requests and I have an inbox full of them so I wanted to share a few with you:

1.  Noah Crow is a 4 year old that has battled brain cancer for half his life.  The doctors aren't giving much hope.  It's only a matter of time.  His parents are AWESOME people with a firm faith in Christ.  An amazing family.  prayfornoah.com 

2. Pray for the Sanborn family of Kingston NH.   their daughter committed suicide this past Friday night due to bullying at school.  Gabrielle Sanborn was 13 years old.

3.   Kevin (brother of a friend of a reader) was approached by a man on Nov 15 who demanded money and before Kevin could hand over anything, the gunman shot him in the neck.  Kevin is battling serious injuries and they are unsure if he will regain any movement below his neck.  The gunman is still at large.  If you could, could you please add this family to your prayers?

4. Pray for the Lightfoot family in Texas. They lost their oldest son a few years ago and now this:

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/110411-Burned-Body-Identified-as-Young-Woman

5.  Kelly & Adam have a baby girl, Charli.  She is a triplet but her brothers both went to be with Jesus just after birth.  Currently little Charli is not doing very well at all and needs prayer warriors to lift her up to God's healing hands.  Their family has been through so much in the past year or so and they just need their brothers and sisters in Christ to hold them up right now.  http://hopeful-aninvitationtoeavesdrop.blogspot.com/

6. A reader's friend's  little boy (Weston) died recently in a freak farm accident. He was only 4. If everyone could pray for Anissa, Lynn and Haley, they miss him so much

7. little Allison and her father Will were wounded, Allison seriously, during what may have been a mistaken address home invasion. Allison is 5  She is in a coma, fighting for her life. They are a sweet family who live very modestly so that Jennifer can be home to raise their three children.  http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/oct/26/neighborhood-horror/

Thank you for praying! 

Are you Lonesome Tonight?

Here is picture of our family on Thanksgiving.

See my earrings?

My mom tweeted me this picture yesterday and asked me if I was missing anything. ha ha ha!

We started our month of Christmas clothes yesterday for church.  I've wound up with a bunch of Christmas outfits - a lot are hand me downs and some I bought.  My MIL bought the girls these dresses.  I love Christmas plaid.  I want to get all the wear I can out of the cute holiday clothes - so we will be wearing them over and over all month!

I love these pink and green Christmas tree outfits! The girls wore these today to take Harper to speech.

I have something on my mind and it's loneliness.  I was lonely a lot of my 20's. I had friends but I just was so lonely for a husband.  And now that I have a husband - I can still be lonely.  (Scott is amazing but he's not big on "girl talk" ha ha ha!) I haven't felt that way in a long time but it seems like it has just hit me.  In fact - in recent months - I've heard friends say they felt lonely, like they had no friends.  These are BEAUTIFUL and AMAZING girls who I think anyone would DIE to be friends with so I was shocked to hear them feel this way.  I feel like I have so many friends and I'm so thankful.
BUT being a SAHM can be isolating. I'm so busy with two kids now that I can go days without seeing or talking to another person besides Scott. Twitter kind of helped my feelings of loneliness last winter by making me feel like I have friends to talk to during the day - but sometimes even that can make me feel lonely.  I know it's probably hormones or Satan's attack of insecurity - but do y'all feel this way?
I don't have an inspirational way to tie this post up like a pretty package. I know Jesus brings comfort and is a friend and He TOTALLY does - but I think you can still be faced with lonely feelings.
I guess it bothered me so much to hear some friends were struggling with loneliness and when it sort of hit me lately I just thought I would say - if you are feeling that way - you are not alone. I think about widows and people spending a lot of time in the hospital either for themselves or family members. There are so many in the holiday season who especially are lonely.  I think about single moms.
I'm not sure of how we can help each other with this loneliness problem - but let's try to lift each other up as much as we can!

Thanksgiving

I keep chuckling to myself when I think about Thanksgiving because when I went to Ecuador I was pretty intimidated to be on that trip honestly. Three of the bloggers with me have either written books or are writing books now and Amanda will probably write one one day. I will not be writing any books. I'm just a mom who puts up a lot of pictures and writes scattered thoughts. ANYWAY - probably a lot of you know about sweet Ann Voskamp and what a great writer she is and she has a best selling book "One Thousand Gifts". She wrote this wonderful post on our trip called "Thanksgiving is Thanks living". And the last night we were there the head of the Ecuador Compassion office came to visit us and Ann was already in her room and he came in where we were working and said with this delightful accent "Which one of you wrote that wonderful post 'Thanksgiving is Thanks living'? It was AMAZING". And we were all like "woh woh" - it wasn't us. ha! It just makes me laugh so all week I have been saying in my head the title of that post.
We had a really nice Thanksgiving. We went to my parents Wednesday night and came home this afternoon. My mom cooked a big lunch on Thursday and it was delicious. I ate way too much. My aunt and uncle came for lunch and my brother and his wife were there also! We tried to get in a family picture before we ate.

 
One of my little turkeys!
My mom did all the work. I wasn't much help - I had two kids to wrestle. I promised to host Thanksgiving one day when the girls are older.


The rest of Thanksgiving included watching the big game that we lost. Yes - I was pretty sad but LSU is obviously the #1 team in the country and I'm rooting for an SEC National Championship. LSU and Alabama deserve to meet again.

Friday we all got ready and tried to take a big family picture. We tried a couple of spots by the White River but it was windy and too bright so we ended up home on our front porch. My brother took those pictures so I'll have to share when he sends me one.
A lot of our holiday was just spent watching Harper clown around. She gets SOOO over excited to be with her grandparents. She and Hollis slept in a room with me and Scott slept in the bonus room. Neither girl slept much so I was exhausted and they were both a little grumpy most of the time we were there. Holidays are kind of tough with little kids. From packing for a family of four for several days to traveling to sleeping away from home - it's not easy. But I am thankful to have family to spend it with. Even when we are grumpy. :-)

Harper practiced her gymnastics for us.

She is starting dance this week and so we brought her new dance outfit and she put on a show. She is SOOO excited about taking "dance class".
She also did a lot of running around.
I love this picture of her that my mom took. So sweet.
Speaking of sweet - Hollis got a lot of attention at her first thanksgiving too.
Isn't she the cutest?

Today before we left, two of my life long friends who were home for Thanksgiving came over to visit. Their family is so special to me and I'm sad we don't see each other more. This is Micaela and her son Jeryn.

This is me, Jamie and Micaela and 5 of our 7 kids. Their two oldest are 1 day apart and best friends and they stayed home with their grandparents. It was so nice to see them and for our kids to see each other.

 

We especially enjoyed our time with Papa and Nonny!

 

And Uncle Chris and Aunt Carrie 

We are so blessed and I'm very thankful for my family - both my little family of four and our two extended families. Hope your thanksgiving was great!

Sisters of the Traveling Turkey Dress

I bought this little turkey dress when I was pregnant with Harper. And I loved it.  

If we can squeeze out one more time next year - that's four years of use! Not too shabby!

Happy Thanksgiving from my two little turkeys! 

They look thrilled about the holiday, don't they?

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

I'm So excited!

(My post was originally titled something about "number three" and WAY too many people thought I meant we were pregnant again. Oh boy no - my hands are plenty full! :-)

If you have read my blog very much at all - you know I'm CRAZY about Razorback football. And if you keep up with college football - you probably know that I'm COMPLETELY GIDDY right now! This weekend was CRAZY and we have ended up #3 in the country with a chance at going to the championship game (if we can beat a little school in Louisiana).  :-)  So needless to say - this Friday I'm going to be nuts!!! We went to the U of A today for speech therapy and I drove by and took this picture of our stadium! The whole state of Arkansas is just electric with excitement! It's a fun time to be a Razorback fan.

Sadly - a sophomore on our team died in his dorm room yesterday.  I don't think they know why yet - it's so tragic.  So it's a very sad time for the Hogs along with being excited.

Speaking of excited - for the first time - yesterday our church had a Compassion Sunday! Talk about amazing timing for me! I was asked to get up and talk about my experiences and trips with Compassion. I felt like I was going to throw up I was so nervous but I just prayed hard God would give me words to say and I think He did. We had a guy named Owen from Kenya who had gone through the program and was a LDP student share his testimony. It was AMAZING! And something I really loved was he shared that he just got married and his Compassion sponsor was his BEST MAN! Isn't that so sweet??? I wish you could all hear what he shared! We also had a man who is on staff at David Platt's church (and Boomama's church) share about Compassion.  And the even bigger God thing is I was able to talk with him and find out he and his family are moving to Ecuador soon to start and work at an Orphanage in Quito where I just was!!!  There was a huge line of people getting Compassion packets afterwards including one of my 9th Grade Sunday School girls who signed up to sponsor and my neighbor who knocked on my door after church to tell me his family is now sponsoring two kids! I love how God is using Compassion to help kids in poverty and to spread the gospel!

Saturday one of my good friends took our family pics.  She sent me this as a sneak preview.  It was an awful windy day but hopefully we got a few good ones! Bethany is SO talented. She has been taking pictures for most of my friends and they are amazing! I'm TERRIFIED of having our pictures taken because I don't know how my kids will be but I knew Bethany would still love us even if they were horrible. :-)
You have to check out Bethany's site:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/bethany-blair-photography/232088230135252
http://www.bethanyblair.com/

I don't know how much I will blog this week. I'm so overwhelmed lately with business, plus the holidays plus being overly excited about the Hogs! I wish each and everyone of you a Happy Thanksgiving! We all have so much to be thankful for!

Eight Months

Hollis - you are EIGHT months old!!!

You weigh close to 20 pounds.

You are wearing mostly size 9-12 months.

You wear a size 3 diaper.

You are ON THE GO!!!

You are crawling everywhere - really more of an army crawl but you can cross the room lickity split! You are constantly rolling or crawling or moving around.  My life has become a lot more busy in just the last few weeks.

You are never still.  You don't like to be rocked.  

You take two good naps a day.

You are still getting up every 3 hours at night. 

I think you are looking more like your sister every day.  But you have your own personality.

You have the sweetest little spirit and I love when you smile big and show your dimple!

You are pretty happy all day unless you are tired.

You now have two teeth - the ones on the bottom.

You have started saying "Momma" this week! I am LOVING that!! 

You and Harper are really starting to play and interact more. You think she is amazing and she is so sweet with you.  I am loving the sister love!

You are so easy to take places.  You are really good when we are out and about!

You are a great eater! You eat three good meals a day of baby food and you LOVE puffs and melts.  You seen to have pretty good fine motor skills - you are very good at feeding yourself puffs!

This is you at 2,4,6 and 8 months! I can't believe how fast this year is going!

I love you SO much! You are my sweet baby girl! You have brought so much light into my life! We all love you and are so thankful for you!

Show Us Your Life - "Older" Bloggers Connect

I'm sorry this is so late going up - Like I mentioned in the last post - this week has been a little nuts.

I had mentioned before we were going to do a series of "connecting" SUYL posts.  This one is for "older" bloggers.  I don't know a good way to say it - don't be offended.  I'm going to say 50 and older. I'm not calling you old - but I know there are a ton of bloggers out there who aren't young moms - and you would probably like to find others in the same stage of life.

So if this is you - please feel free to link up your blog and maybe you will find someone else that you can connect with!

What a week and a winner

I feel like I'm a little off my game when it comes to the blog this week.  I'm still kind of reeling from my trip last week. And when I got home - I hit the floor running because Scott was gone hunting so I had the girls to myself. And then we made a day trip to Little Rock.  Today we had speech and I had girls night tonight. So my week has been a little full.

I will say it was fun to spend time with friends tonight and just relax and laugh.  I needed that.

I need to post Hollis 8 month post! Time is going by too quickly. She is crawling like a mad woman right now and today she started saying "Momma"!!! Which I am loving because I think Harper was like 15 months before she finally said it. Her first word was "Dada" and she is for SURE a Daddy's girl.

Rory Lee - you are the winner of the VIP tickets - I have emailed you!

Guess what?!   As a thank you for commenting on our blog, the NWA Boutique Show is giving each of you one free general admission ticket to the show! To claim your ticket, e-mail Julie atjulie.nwaboutiqueshow@gmail.com and reference this contest. She'll e-mail you the ticket!

 

and my friend Flint has this awesome Football website and he asked me to be the "Celebrity Picker" this week - which is funny because I'm not a celebrity nor do I have any expert opinion - but you might like to see my picks for College football this week!

http://www.holyturf.com/2011/11/slim-chickens-celebrity-picks-mommy-blogger-edition/

Think Pink

 Today has been a day where my nerves are just shot! I need a Big sonic drink and a hot bath and some mindless TV. ha! Harper had an appointment at Children's in Little Rock today.  We LOVE her audiologist SO SO much but going to Little Rock for appointments is getting tough.  Scott has been in south AR hunting since before I got home from Ecuador (SO happy to see him finally) so he met me at the hospital.  I had to leave our house by 6:45 but I made one stop to get the girls fed and changed and then I got stuck in horrible traffic because of a wreck so I was late to the appointment and they almost cancelled on me. Thank goodness they understood I was coming from hours away with two babies and had mercy on me - I was close to tears. I should add that Hollis screamed about 80% of the time she was in the car today so that didn't help my nerves.

 Harper was SO good today.  She is getting close to three (how did this happen so fast) and I'm seeing the changes in her.  She is still a bundle of energy and big personality but she's getting easier to take and do things with. She was so interested in "helping" Miss Jan today.  She may be an audiologist one of these days. 

We have had a pair of loaner hearing aids from the hospital since this summer and today we finally got our OWN special ears! And we picked pink!!! This is what they look like! They should be good for several years and they are a new kind that can even get wet! I'm excited to have these!

Two fun things helped me end my day on a good note.................................

I had ordered Harper some pink dance shoes and they came today! I'm hoping to put her in a dance class starting in January and I'm so excited!!!

AND

I got an email that a couple who met through the Singles SUYL on here got ENGAGED this week! If you are keeping track (which I doubt anyone but me is) that is FOUR COUPLES who are engaged/married!! And I know of probably 3 couples who I expect good news from someday!


AND in case you are wondering -
I'm going to do a Singles Day for over 40 singles in January and another one for all singles in February! So if you are single or know someone special who is - please spread the word!! I hope I will keep hearing more fun success stories!!! Let's do something good with this silly blog! :-)

and sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo random and nothing to do with this post:

I've probably received 50 emails from people saying they think this girl on "Pan Am" looks like me. I don't really see it but seriously - every day I get another email from someone. What do you think? ha! And even more funny is I just saw a friend from my hometown who just moved to NYC is going to be ON the show. SO crazy!

Okay - that's all.......I need that bath now.

Calling all you NWA girls!

This post is for all of you NWA girls!

I am giving away 2 VIP Tickets to the Northwest Arkansas Boutique Show, which will take place at the Springdale Convention Center Friday, November 18- Saturday, November 19!

In addition to getting to be one of the first to shop at the event, each VIP ticket holder will receive a signature shopping tote swag bags, a delicious treat from Briar Rose Bakery, coffee or iced tea from Mama Carmen's Espresso Cafe, a savory treat from My Brother's Salsa and Catering Concepts, free return admission all weekend and the chance to win hundreds of amazing door prizes!!!

There will be over 150 merchants from over 5 states selling all kinds of unique finds from home decor, clothing, accessories, gourmet foods and much much more! You don’t want to miss this great event!

Just leave a comment to enter for a chance to win! Winner will be announced on Thursday night!

Boutique Shopping Hours
Friday, 11/18,  2:00 p.m.— 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, 11/19,  9:00 a.m.— 6:00 p.m.

Shop 150 Booths and thousands of one-of-a-kind and custom items!  Home decor,
gifts, clothing, gourmet food, holiday decor, children's items, art and so much more!    

General admission is $2 at the door.

VIP Shopping Event
Friday,  11/18,  Noon — 2:00 p.m.Be the first to shop!  Swag bags, door prizes, coffee/tea from
Mama Carmen’s Espresso Café, treats from Briar Rose Bakery, Catering Concepts,
My Brother’s Salsa and Lindt Chocolatiers, free return admission all weekend & more!$15 in advance* (online only until 11/17/11) or $20 at the door with a portion of
proceeds benefiting the community projects of the Junior League of NWA. Click HERE for more information and to buy tickets!

*Limited number of tickets available. 

VIP shopping will be from Noon-2PM on Friday, November 18th.  You will be able to get your ticket at will call! 

What's Been going on

I thought I'd share a few behind the scenes stuff from my trip to Ecuador. I shared a lot about the kids - but this is other stuff that went on while I was there.

I got to see the Equator!!! Which contrary to what I've always believed is NOT the hottest place in the world.  At least not where we were.

I served food to kids in the child development centers

I painted approximately 500 fingernails

I spent time with amazing people and watched their love and passion for these kids
(MAN - I'm missing these friends this week)

I planted corn and beans. Oh yes I did - look at my work boots!

I talked a lot with people I admire who do things that make me want to be more like Jesus.

I heard pastors talk about the persecution that Christians in Ecuador have endured. TERRIBLE persecution.  And how Compassion helping kids in the community has helped the persecutors to stop.

I prayed for the children, their families, the pastors of the churches and the volunteers in the child development centers that more of you will open your hearts to sponsor a child.  




(all pics by Keely Scott)