Pretend Princesses

So here is a sweet hi-light of being the mom of a two-year-old. The other night Cora and I were playing in her playhouse...it is a princess castle with three disney princesses in the different windows. Cora said "Mommy, you be 'Cin-a-rella' and I'll be Nose White."

A little later we were playing around Daddy and Cora said "I Cin-a-rella and Daddy is Ariel."

NOt so sure Geron was up for being a princess, but the thought of it was good for a laugh.

Terrible Two's...Thought we had missed'em!

This week it dawned on me that we had almost escaped the terrible two's we hear so much about. Cora has had her moments, but for the most part she has been a very sweet girl all of her young life...

Until now.

Something suddenly clicked in her brain that I call the "Testing the Waters" phase. This past week everything has seemed to come on at once. We hear things like "NO! I do it myself!" "I WANT CAN-DEEEE!" "DON'T do that, Mommy!" "I don't like it!" refusing to pray at mealtime and unwilling to try new foods...and so on and so on. What I want to know is who flipped her switch and can you either unflip it or show me where it is so I can flip it myself? Times they are a'changin'!

In the meantime, she still has her precious moments and I CHERISH them. For instance, this morning, Geron dropped me off at school. My usual routine is to get out, walk around to Cora's door, open it and give her a hug and sugar. This morning, however, it was pretty cold, so I was just going to say goodbye to Cora before getting out of the car and leave it at that. I tried. Geron pulled off...stopped...backed up, rolled down the window and said "She's asking 'Where's my sugar? Where's my sugar?" So, of course I had to give her a sugar, and a hug, and a high-five. And tonight, she crawled up into my lap, gave me a hug and said "I love you, Mommy." No prompting, just random act of kindness! At bedtime tonight, I told her I loved her and she began singing the Barney song. When she got to the end, she sang "Won't you say you love me, too... Bye Barney!"

Okay, so we are actually surviving this phase afterall. But tell me, what should I expect next between the two's and becoming a teenager...

Hello Internet

Hallelujah

I will tell you; life ain't easy. Lydia and I aren't wealthy in the traditionally understood ways. But God has been good to us and we are blessed in many ways.

Lydia and I got our largest tax refund ever this year. I have been sooo excited since i submitted my taxes. You guys know i love gadgets and tech toys, so I have been checking out the new HDTV's and had the fever for one really bad. I had even gone so far as to shop around and find the one I wanted. I was so ready to plunk down the money just as soon as we got our refund. Were going to try to pay some bills too, but really the new TV was coming first.

If your like us then there is a pile of bills that need to be paid all the time. Hospitals, Credit Cards, Schools Loans, Doctors appointments, magazine subscriptions, etc. Recently we have fallen behind on some of our bills, and we have been dodging the annoying bill collecter phone calls. We borrowed money from some family when we bought our new car a year ago, and have had trouble keeping up the payments.

When I awoke friday morning I felt horrible. Not sick...under conviction. If you have experienced this then you know exactly the feeling I'm talking about. As I lay there in bed the Lord began to speak to me. The Lord reminded me of how he had blessed and provided for us over the years. As He spoke to me, I knew that buying a new TV wouldn't be right, and definitely wouldn't be showing good stewardship. So I made up my mind that I would use whatever we got back from the IRS to pay down our debts, but only after we gave 10% to the church. Suddenly I had a real peace about the whole matter.

I got up out of bed and went into the living room where Lydia was feeding Cohen. I told her what had happend and she agreed. I went into our home office to check my online banking and low and behold our refund had been deposited. Our bank balance never looked like that before.

So after a few days our tithe has been given, all our bills are paid up, We are gonna pay our family loan back in a few days, and the only debt we will have is my Student Loans which we have been paying on monthly. Amazingly when I talked to some of our creditors, they were willing to settle for less in order to settle the accounts.

Lydia and I have never really been this debt free. God has continued to show his faithfulness to us in leading, guiding, and directing our thoughts and actions. Without Him, I'm lost. I don't have an HDTV. But I feel really good. Hallelujah!!