UPDATE to the Griswold’s

Dear creepy neighbors:

Apparently, the letter to you last week was freakishly enjoyed by lots and LOTS of people. It’s like a car wreck: you are sorry for the victims, you can feel remorse, empathy, etc, and you don’t WANT to look as you go by….

….but you strain your head to see MORE. Maybe we all have a bit of creepy in us. Like when someone trips and falls and we laugh. It’s not NICE to laugh, it’s embarrassing to be in that situation and we all know it.

However, as the observer, we can’t help but laugh hysterically. Sometimes I laugh at bad things. It’s not right, I’m a little off, I’ve come to terms with my freakness.

Which brings me back to you.

I hate to say it because it makes me look like a “not nice” person and I don’t like to be that person. But, really, you’ve gone too far. Just.too.far.

Last week was bad enough. But now:

You’ve added a THIRD big, freakish angel! And it wasn’t so bad from a DISTANCE….

But after you got CLOSE:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Dear LORD, make it STOP!

And then you added THIS:

(Wait. Is she looking at me? I think she’s looking at me….)

I’m not even SURE what that is SUPPOSED to be!

Griswold’s, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?! It looks like a small preschooler….but the head is just large…..and like a grown mannequin’s head….with a twist of Barbie…..but the body of a weird bag lady that wears ALL of her clothes ALL at the same time……and PIG TAILS? Good LORD, woman, what have you done??

And those HANDS! ACKKKKKKKK!!!

The hands just give me nightmares. YUCK! They are like DEAD hands. THE HANDS OF DEATH….. Seriously, I’m AFRAID of your Christmas “jolly”.

And what’s with the big stick behind her? Is she packin’ a WEAPON?? (Well, and she WAS staring at me…..)

And then, Brooklyn was standing at the window staring across the street at your house, and then she suddenly screams and declares that “they are ALL BALD!” Like NO HAIR!! They are ALL pulling a SHELTON! (little shout out there…) And sure enough, ALL of them are completely bereft of HEAD FUZZ!

And, being the kind neighbor that I am, I rush to get into the car to do a drive-by-shooting…..with my camera. But by the time I changed lenses on the camera, you had their hair all put back on!

Now, and this is where I get really creeped out: I can’t tell if you had BACK UP wigs waiting in the house for them, OR, an even scarier thought, you REDID their hair!

Deliver me from evil……

So I make my little jaunt to the store and come back to find:

Can you see that?? Let me help you out with your insanity:

Scarves. Seriously? Scarves? Are they concerned that the drizzle makes their hair frizz? Maybe the mist in the air will cause their mascara to run?

HELLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

THEY ARE MANNEQUINS!

THIS:

ISN’T NECESSARY! THEY ARE NOT REAL! (I’m sounding remarkably like Woody from Toy Story here…..)

{shudder}

But the babies are just left to defend themselves from the cold and rain:

But at least you supplied them with fake PRESENTS.

And the newest baby out there…..seriously…..ummmm….WOW. No words. Maybe a few high-pitched screams…but nope, no words can form in my head:

(Wait, I think she moved. She’s DEFINITELY looking at me, but I really think she moved…..I think she’s already killed the one behind her….wait….yes, I think she’s definitely moving….)

Griswold’s.

{shaking my head}

I’ve called the nice men in the white coats. They have a new little jacket for you to wear. It will help build your self-esteem by allowing you HUG YOURSELF for loooooooooooong periods of time. Go with the nice men. Don’t worry about your dummies….errr….I mean, your possible-dead-family-members in your front yard. I promise my boys won’t steal their hair while you are away.

Pinky swear.

Respectfully

The Jones’.

The end.

(HI JAN!!! HI JORDAN!!!)

Week 48-Sweet Dreams

I have a plethura of beautiful, perfectly captured photos I could have used for this weeks theme. I love the photo of a peaceful baby sleeping. This photo ended up being one I snapped quickly before I missed the moment.

However, right now, at this particular point in our lives, I couldn’t have posted a photo of a sweeter dream than this:

The full story of how we got Baby Girl is here. See, it’s not just a sweet photo of a father holding a sleeping baby, but it tells a story of a journey that God has set for us….

….and as you can see, it’s one we take joyfully!

(For safety reasons, I could not use Baby Girl’s face. She’s not ours to KEEP….just for a little while…)

Letter of Intent-to the Griswold’s

Oh I’ve gone back and forth over this one. Fear of being found out I posted it to begin with…..just plain fear of scaring any of my blog readers….

But it just has to be said. Forgive me.

Dear Griswold’s creepy New Neighbors:

I love Christmas too! It’s the BEST holiday out there! The birth of our Savior…..yummy FOOD…..gifts to give……Charlie Brown Christmas trees……family…..

But, THIS:

THIS is not Christmas. I’m not even sure it’s Halloween.

THIS:

This may be Dateline material here. You know that Dateline where they find the dead bodies dressed and posed around the house like mannequins? But they’re dead?

And dressed?

And posed around the house like they are still alive? And in a REAL wedding dress?

THIS:

Yeah, it’s kind of like that….

And to add BABY DOLLS to the mix, like they are playing outside, in the cold, on a mat of Christmas lights…

Dude, I’m afraid of you. Like, seriously…..afraid of you. If my kids end up missing, I’m hunting YOU down. Not even joking there. I’m crashing YOUR pad first.

It’s CHRISTMAS! The celebration of my Savior’s birth! It’s festive! And fun! And beautiful!

It’s not the odd gathering of trinkets from your kitchen….

It’s just NOT! And I like to decorate with the best of them (I don’t, but I’d like to), but this……

….is even creepy at night! My kids can’t sleep! My husband has nightmares of the creepies coming to get him in ugly prom dresses and wedding attire….

I think you’ve kind of lost your minds. Honestly. It’s a bit MUCH. And I use MUCH kindly because what I’d like to say would be mean.

We are scared of you. Please. To keep my dog from whining in fright and my kids being too afraid to walk home from school, just DON’T.

No, really. D.O.N.’T.

Signed:

The Jones’ down the street.

No really, my name is JONES. Like BONES, but with skin. I’m not lying to you. We are the JONES and I promise, we WON’T try to keep up with you. I promise.

ETA: When I planned this whole post, and typed it all out to post today, I had no idea they would go even FARTHER. No, I’m not playing. It’s gotten creepier. They’ve added a THIRD big, freakish, prom-dress-wearing “angel” AND a doll the size of my 3 year old but with an adult mannequins head so it just looks like a strange little dwarf out there with a tutu on and pigtails. Wait….where’s Brooklyn? BROOKLYN!!!!

OK, no, she’s safe…..she’s cowering in the corner in the fetal position. But she’s OK. WHEW! Thought I was gonna have to do some damage control there…..We’re fine.

The “rest” of the story…

I can’t share ALL the details, but I will share what I can. Let me start at the beginning.

Remember when I said (a few times) I’d just pack it all up, sell everything GO anywhere that God led me to go, and start an orphanage somewhere?

Well, here lately, I was thinking that God was leading us to do something HERE somewhere along those lines…..say…..like FOSTERING.

But, with fostering, I had 3 main obstacles:

1.) DHS sucks eggs. I’ll just say it plainly. The right hand never knows what the left hand is doing, they are a country with it’s own governing rules all to themselves, and they can change the rules and game plan at will. (now that I’ve written this, they are probably scouting out my house right now….they have probably tapped into my internet and are following my kids schedules now. Nice. {sigh} ) Hey, I’m honest.

2.) I cannot be licensed childcare AND foster at the same time without “permission”. And really, who thinks they are really going to GET that permission from the OMNI-PRESENT DHS, raise your hand? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

3.) And this was the biggest one: my husband didn’t want to. Right, no changing a man’s mind, I know.

So I just continued on with my Bible reading and prayer times and prayed that Lord would be more clear, give me a better understanding of His plans, and please make the way possible.

And as of a few weeks ago, the message we were getting was much, MUCH, MUCH bigger than just fostering, so we’ve been praying a lot over that. It’s one of those “GOD-sized” plans that only God can do.

Fastforward to Tuesday, I received a phone call from a social worker, and I have an almost one year old in my home! LOL Circumstances, obviously, I can’t discuss, but I know the mom, I like the mom, and she just needs a little help right now. As a mom myself, with 3 kids, I completely understand needing some help to pull everything together again.

Oh boy, do I…..

No abuse/drug/alcohol problems, the kids are very well loved, she’s just overwhelmed with how life is turning out and having to do it all alone. And I believe that God is seriously intervening on her behalf as well getting her that much needed help and a good support team working FOR her.

And in the meantime, I have the youngest. It’s not permanent by any means, I just happen to have the room, availability, and a desire to do God’s will. She’s a beautiful baby, and I’m just lucky enough to have her here. I wish I could share the details, because OH MY, you’d be blown away. God’s hand was all over this! And I’m praying peace and comfort for the mom, because her heart is broken right now over these circumstances. But when she goes through this fire, she will SEE God all over this.

And Mike? Well, take a little gander at what God has done to this big, tough man’s “NO-FOSTERING” heart:

You can find him everyday at naptime, and everyday at bedtime in this position. And if I do it before he does, I get the puppy dog face til I let him take her and rock her. Just don’t tell him I put this photo up OR told you about his secret rocking-babies-to-sleep habits. I took it last night right before bedtime.

I believe this is God’s way of refining and softening Mike to do His will in the BIGGER plans later on down the road.

Is it wrong to insert an EVIL LAUGH if I’m talking about God? HAHAHAHAHAHA

So that’s where we are at. I have no idea for how long, I know it’s temporary, but I don’t know HOW temporary.

God’s pretty cool, huh?

Ready for this?

Hi.

I know it’s been awhile for a real post, but are you sitting down?

OK, I’ll wait. Go ahead and sit.

Now, this is going to be one of those posts that I hope BL O WS your mind! Because I know mine sure is. My God is great and powerful and amazing!

Alright, let’s just jump on in here:

Saturday: I sat my boys down (Brooklyn is young and wouldn’t understand) and asked them if Santa didn’t bring them anything for Christmas, is there anything they could not LIVE without? I’m not talking about upgrading the PS2, to a PS3 that they want, or one more toy to add to the ones they don’t pick up or play with NOW, I’m talking YOU COULD NOT LIVE ANOTHER DAY WITHOUT THIS . And, of course, my practical boys replied with a no, because when they thought about it, God has blessed us with everything they really do need and want. Christmas is no LESS Christmas because they didn’t get more CRAP under that tree. Let’s be honest.

So I told them my idea of using my last $25 after all my bills were paid to do more “Homeless Joe” bags but on a little bit bigger scale. My Mom had the idea to buy the gloves that are 3 for $2 and I was able to find some better insulated, work-type gloves that were the same price! Then, while I was at it, let’s get new SOCKS on top of it! And, they were $1 off! YAY! (Do you see a pattern here?)

A few people from church were collecting blankets to pass out to the homeless, so this worked perfectly to do both together! Each ziploc freezer bag (used specifically for a reason, not just because I’m cheap and didn’t want to get cutesy gift bags. Think about it.) contains a new pair of gloves, a new pair of socks, 2 packages of crackers with either cheese or peanut butter, a candy bar (because they are frankly YUMMY), 2 cereal bars (because they are healthy and full of vitamins, but not NEARLY as yummy as candy bars), a bottle of water, and a water drink mix with extra vitamins added.

Let me stop right here and clarify: this was TRULY a God-inspired thing, because left on my own, I’d be selfish and probably a big Scrooge. Just call me Scrooge McSuggs. Nice to meet you. That’ll be $50 for reading this blog. heh.

It’s the Christ in me that urges me to give even when my husband has no job. It’s Christ in me that gives me a giving heart.

We did about 11 bags on the $25 I had to spend.

Fast forward to Saturday evening when I get an email from a sweet, sweet blogger friend to check my mail. I frankly don’t check my mail because there isn’t ever anything GOOD in there. PSO has never once sent me a nice card to tell me they are thinking of me during this time of unemployment, and don’t worry about this months’ electricity bill…..it’s on them. Hasn’t happened. So, I didn’t check the mail for that day.

And I should have:

Dear Miss Rachel and Mr Daddy sent me an incredible gift bag full of yummy treats just for ME! The most awesomest socks that I am quite positive were NOT $1 off and came 8 for $5 and I’ve worn twice already, maybe two days in a row and I know that’s gross, but I didn’t want to take the time to WASH them because they were just so yummy…..Don’t hate. The best chocolate on the PLANET, and I shared with Austin’s bus driver who shared with HIS wife and called me JUST to concur that it was INDEED the best chocolate on the planet. And a Willowtree figure.

Oh I heart Willowtree.

But the most AMAZING thing, and I tell you, I still can’t believe it. Rachel and Mr Daddy sent me Christmas money to buy my children Christmas. In fact, I’ve already gone and done some, and I plan on keeping that Target card when it’s empty and putting it in my Bible as a constant reminder that God is ALWAYS faithful. Always. Even when I don’t see it or don’t feel it. He is faithful.

It has been one of those things that just makes you cry and praise God all at the same time.

God urged me to GIVE even when I was afraid to, and I did. I stepped out on faith (not even BIG faith….mustard-seed-sized faith, I’m not too big for my britches that I will lie and tell you how amazing my faith is. It’s bigger than it was for SURE, but I’m still a fearful person.) and I gave the only extra money I had to do what God asked me to do with these “Homeless Joe” bags….

….and He bl ow s my mind through Rachel and Mr Daddy: blog readers I’ve never met. Yet. Trust me, that is SOOOOO happening! And I hope to one day, be able to bless them in return.

And, believe it or not, but I have MORE to come I have to write about when I have time. God is so not done with us yet. As I sit, I have a beautiful 1 year old baby girl asleep upstairs waiting to start her day with us. It’s only temporary, but the story will bl ow your mind…..

STAY TUNED!

iHeartfaces-I heart tooshies!

This week’s theme is tooshies. Now, I don’t know about you, but I had a hard time figuring out this one! I know I REALLY pushed the envelope with the Breast Cancer Awareness photo, but I’m not usually one to take pictures of overt body parts….

…or so I thought.

Once I got looking, I had a bigger problem of deciding on which ONE to use. You see, they say “I HEART TOOSHIES” and I thought “HUH??” (sometimes I’m too literal-minded) But all they are wanting is pictures taken from BEHIND, not necessarily THE behind, ya know what I’m sayin? And I do have a thing about taking pictures from behind, especially my own children, usually walking away from me. Or couples holding hands…

This is making me think OUTSIDE the box a little, a good thing to stir creativity.

This is a photo of my amazing Hair Diva that gives me great hair. Yes, especially my pink streaks I love so much. She is easy to photograph! Thanks, Ash!

So, I encourage everyone to think OUTSIDE THE BOX a little and cause a stir in that grey matter! Photography should be FUN! Thanks, iHeartfaces for challenging us each week!

It’s only a dream…

I had a dream the other night. It was one of those surreal dreams where you can SEE yourself in the dream, watch yourself, know the thoughts you are thinking in the dream, and yet, at the same time, you are watching from somewhere above and can see and know things that the “me” in the dream can’t see or know.

Confused yet? That’s alright, it’s probably rambling anyway…

But in the dream, I was with my family and we were doing all kinds of fun stuff together: went to this big farm where they had this large pumpkin patch, went shopping at a home improvement store, and went to a small amusement park.

Just normal errands or activities that a family would do. We laughed and overall had a good time. The boys ran ahead throwing the football back and forth like they are prone to do. And Brooklyn ran back and forth between her brothers and Mike and I. They even bickered like they normally do at times.

But what the “me” in the dream didn’t see or know, but the “me” watching from above could see……

…was we were being pursued by something.

It really is hard to describe other than it was Dark and it was not good, almost like an ever-growing shadow. And it was constantly pursuing us.

Remember the movie “The Neverending Story”? The Nothing? Picture that, but in Shadow form. It was scary! And there was no way of warning the “me” in the dream. I could see it always back there, turning and moving……and always coming closer.

And yet, somehow, we always stayed one step ahead of it. It might come close, but it never overtook us. We might get a good jog ahead of it, but it was always coming.

And the “me” in the dream had no idea. We maintained our normal schedule, we continued with our plans, and lived life like a normal day.

I woke up from the dream shaken and scared because I could see the impending Dark behind us and knew the Evil that was back there.

Today, it kind of made sense. Some days, we do really well: we are fully trusting Christ to meet our every need, we have faith that God is hearing us, and we know that He will take care of us. Those are GOOD days! I LIVE for those days!

And then, there are days like today when the weight of the world, the weight of our job-less situation sits heavy on us and makes it hard to breathe. Days like today when faith is completely lost and it’s hard to trust in anything!

These type of days, the Shadow is close to overtaking us and enveloping us and whispers to us “Christmas is coming…..Santa has nothing for your kids.” “2 more weeks, and then your last house payment is spent, and January’s coming.” “No one’s calling. You’re finished.” And it’s easy to listen to it, to block out all the good that God has done for us, and just listen to that dark, whispering shadow.

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.

1 Peter 5:7-9a

That’s why it’s so important to stay in the Word of God. God reminds me with verses like these when the Dark starts whispering. He reminds me in strange dreams that I can’t understand til days later and by then, I’ve already found the verses I need to hold onto and remember and meditate on.

Job 4:6
Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence?Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?

Job 11:18
Having hope will give you courage.You will be protected and will rest in safety.

Psalm 10:17
Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.

Psalm 33:22
Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord,for our hope is in you alone.

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Father God, today, I was afraid. Today, I dropped my eyes from You and looked around at what is surrounding us. Today, I did not fair so well. Thank You for giving me hope. Thank You for encouraging me and reminding me where my Hope comes from. Lord, forgive me for losing my faith and failing to trust You. Thank You for the provisions You have for us. Please help us stand strong. Help me to be strong for Mike when he needs me. Send us something. We want Your perfect will for us. Give us guidance and direction and keep us always focused on You. Help us to be thankful for all You’ve done for us. In Jesus mighty name…..

News, but no news

We haven’t heard anything on the job hunt. My husband had a second interview for Lowe’s, and then never heard back. He’s called twice, however, the man he needs to talk to hasn’t been in. Hopefully it’s the holiday week, and not because he’s hired someone else.

And while we are waiting for a job, God has AMAZED me with His awesome provision! Thank You, Father God, for providing for my family!

Although, I have been praying that God will blind them to Mike’s resume and application at ALL jobs that He does not want him working. May sound odd, but we desire God’s perfect will, not just going out on our own and doing anything for the sake of making money. We believe that God’s will is divine and if He is preparing that perfect job for Mike that meets all of our needs both financially and for our family, and He WILL take care of our needs while we wait.

But on another front, obviously we have been deep in prayer and trying to seek God’s plan for us, and we believe that God is leading us into an area of ministry that I am UBER excited about! It combines our love of youth and children and our love for missions and it’s a prospect that makes me well up with tears of JOY if the promptings we’ve gotten were interpreted right.

I know, terribly vague.

However, while we are in the mode of seeking God’s divine wisdom, I hate to share a lot of information until we know for sure. I’ve been asking the Lord to give me a drop, a shred, a peek, ANYTHING of the HOPE He has for us. And I believe He’s shown us a little bitty shred of a much bigger puzzle He is working out for us. And it’s HUGE!

I believe it was a year ago, a friend of ours shared that he had this dream and in the dream God was showing him this SOMETHING BIG hidden inside of this airline hangar. Can you see the degree of BIG I’m talking about? When he mentioned that, my heart jumped because that’s the something BIG I’ve felt like God has in store for us! Obviously, it’s a different airplane hangar than what Brad saw, but that’s the magnitude of it!

And I also know, that while we are praying and meditating on God’s word about this, Satan can send people to distract us and mislead us away from what God’s plan is. Not to mention the ones he sends to just wreck our hopes altogether: the ones that point out everything negative about it, the ones that discount what we feel led to do or our ability to do it, or just the ones so jealous of anyone else’s good fortune, they have to poop all over it.

We all have those kinds of people right?

So, if you are not a Negative Nelly, and believe that God Almighty can and WILL do great and wonderful things, would you please pray for us? Pray for God’s wisdom and direction? Pray that we will focus on only His words and no one elses? Pray that we will receive with divine understanding. Pray that what God has in store for us will be made possible in glorious ways. Maybe even pray that those Negative Nelly’s will stay far from us. Pray that every need will be met, both GREAT and small and that people will amazed by our Creator and what He can do for those that trust in Him!

And when I can, I promise to share what we are praying about.

iHeartfaces=sunflare

This week’s theme is SUNFLARE!

This is something I learned how to do over the summer and I LOVE it! There is a little trick to it, and if you aren’t careful, you can very much OVER do it. Not that I’ve ever done that. Nope. Not me. Not at all. And especially not over the weekend at a photo session with some sweet friends of mine. Of course they are perfect and I the sun flare is NOT so terribly bad that you can’t even see the people. I am a master photographer and would never make silly mistakes like that.

{ahem}

Oh, no you won’t be seeing THAT photo….trust me….

Instead, I’ll use the sun flare photo that my nice friends, Travis and Kerrie, so generously allowed me to take on THEIR photo shoot! They humored me. And of course it didn’t take 50 tries to do it, it was completely candid and done the first time….(I may owe you some chapstick, Kerrie, but Travis sure did enjoy the 50 tries. )

{ahem}

Please check out iHeartfaces for some INCREDIBLE photos!

I’m rockin’ the crown!

Have you ever had one of those moments where you seriously wonder what in the world happened to your brain?

I miss that brain sometimes. I had him before I had kids! I was pretty darn smart all those years ago! And then something happened :::COUGH{kids}COUGH::: and he is no longer present or accounted for.

Today was one of those days.

Well, and if I’m honest, yesterday too……

….and probably Sunday…..

…..definitely last Saturday as well……

Anyway, Brooklyn brings me this crown this morning because she didn’t want the babies playing with it, so I’m sitting here trying to read with this crown on my lap, and the babies reaching for it, and without thinking….

….I just put it on.

Not a big deal. One of those absent-minded actions….it’s a CROWN! Put it on. So there it sat.

And I rocked that crown.

Cmon now, you know you want to be me sportin’ this crown. It was sparkly and PINK! Me and the crown? Oh yeah….we were tight! We were all gorgeous, no make-up on, hair done by 2 year olds…..we were SPECTACULAR! We reached full zen. Miss J.* would have LOVED me!

Oh yes, Miss J. would have asked to borrow that sparkly pink crown. After I’m done, J., after I’m done….because right now, I’m….

….totally rockin’ it.

Don’t hate me because of my crown. You’re all jealous and stuff cuz I have one and you don’t. I know. It’s alright.

Til I forgot about it sitting there. And no one said anything. No one eluded to it. “Mom, why is there a crown on your head?” Not a word. I’m a grown 36 28 year old woman with a crown on my head. I’m going about my daily routine with a crown on my head…like it’s normal!

So there it stayed.

Until I realized it was there….

….after the parents came to pick up their kids.

Nice.

*Totally don’t know Miss J. but if I did, I’d share my crown. He’s totally adorable. Don’t hate.