Final Stop Birthday Stop!

Opening presents...
Eating Cake...and celebrating with Nonnie and Poopie!!

2nd stop... Dewberry Farm!

Abbey was seriou about beating her sis in the duck races!

#1 Pumpkin

Mia and Mommy jumping on the pillow!
Acting like gerbils!
Daddy racing sissy!
Getting lost in the corn maize!
Surviving the maize!

Taking a ride with the tractor!
Mia and Poppie
Even Nonnie and mom joined in the fun!
Birthday Girl
What a day at the farm!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIA

We started off with a scavenger hunt that Nonnie and I put together the night before!

Abbey was not going to be left behind in the hunt!

The hunt led us to none other than Rao's! Mia drew her own cake!!! A horse of course!

Rejoicing in hope...

The first week I found out there was no heartbeat I began to ask the Lord what he wanted to teach me?( Not my first response but none the less)! There was a continued theme of hope over the course of the next few days. Hope that my baby would survive because the God we serve is a Mighty God, hoping in my Salvation and just trying to understand what hoping in God means on a daily basis. Hoping in His will but not knowing how that will flush out. I was offered some sweet wisdom along the way to keep hoping, not giving up on my little one. It was difficult to fully understand what giving up and not knowing if God was going to take my little one home or not...meant.

"BE DEVOTED TO ONE ANOTHER IN BROTHERLY LOVE; GIVE PREFERENCE TO ONE ANOTHER IN HONOR; REJOICING IN HOPE, PERSEVERING IN TRIBULATION, DEVOTED TO PRAYER, CONTRIBUTING TO THE NEEDS OF THE SAINTS, PRACTICING HOSPITALITY...REJOICE WITH THOSE WHO REJOICE AND WEEP WITH THOSE WHO WEEP..." Romans 12:11-15

This hope is from the Greek: elpis (a noun)1 from elpo which means to anticipate usually with pleasure. 2 joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation. (Heb 3:6 and Col 1:23)

"...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things..." 1 Cor 13:7

This hope is elpizo ( a verb) to wait for salvation with joy and full confidence. (1 Pet 1:1 and Heb.11:1)

So hoping in the Lord with joy and a grateful heart is the theme I am seeing and of course the Lord tied it back to joy... the theme He was teaching me about last year! (really sense Abbey was born) Which is why my title to the blog is Joy in the Journey from James 1:2

"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces enduranc and let endurance have its perfect result..."!

Thanks so much to everyone who has done a WONDERFUL job of rejoicing with me and weeping with me!!! It is so sweet!! Love you guys

Goodbye little one..

So many sweet memories in between the last post... sweet time with my nephew Caden and sis in Tulsa, sweet times starting school, sweet times with friends in Dallas, sweet time with sis-in-law making tinctures, but by far the sweetest... was one I never got to post about because I was trying to keep it a surprise.

So here it goes...we got a beautiful surprise in the middle of August that we were pregnant. I was excited because the Lord had changed my heart to meet His (and my husbands). It is almost impossible for me to keep sweet gifts like that a surprise because they are such miracles.
I never knew I would find so much joy in sharing that surprise with my girls but they were ecstatic to become big sis's again! (and for Abbey first time big sis). We had names for a boy or a girl and for us to come up with a name that quick is a miracle too!

We got another surprise on September 20th! There was no beautiful heartbeat on my sweet little one. We tried to wait hoping in the Lord to work another miracle...only to find out the same thing a week later and then a week after that. It is still crazy to me that the life inside me is gone and as a sweet friend said never to be met on this side of Heaven. I have so many different emotions it is at times difficult to sort through them and not just ignore them (which I think is my tendency) !

We have been super blessed with some wonderful fellowship of believers who have gone through this numerous of times. I feel blessed to only have experienced this once thus far. Wes and I more now than ever see the Sovereignty of the Lord and the provision of children He gives us! Some children we get to raise and care for while on earth and some we never even get to hold but love no less.

This post is more for me but I wanted to be able to remember how much I loved this little one already! I love you sweet baby and am so thankful that I got to rejoice with my family and friends in my discovery of you! It is such a strange feeling to say goodbye........

Mia's skills!!!

I bought Mia a how to draw horses book from the homeschool conference! Wes and I were astonished by the end product!!! She drew this the first day I gave her the book!!

Naptime

Mia and I found Abbey sleeping inside my pillowcase with my pillow still inside!!! I have no idea how she fit her whole body in there!