Happy New Year!!!!

I am expecting a year of new beginnings for the MorningSong family! Here are a few scriptures that really stood out to me over the last few months. I want to remember them now and I pray they will speak to you as well!

Hebrews 11:6 Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him!

Isaiah 54:10 For though the mountains should depart and the hills be shaken or removed, yet My love and kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace and completeness be removed, says the Lord, Who has compassion on you!

Mark 9: 24 Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe, help my unbelief."

Joshua 3:5 Then Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you."

Habakkuk 3:2 Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known!

Romans 4:13 It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.

Deuteronomy 30:6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your mind and heart and with all of your being, that you may live.

John 15:7-8 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Psalm 81:7-14, I will only share the key verses of this passage that stood out to me! (Verses 8, 10, 13) Hear, O my people, and I will warn you - if you would but listen to me, O Israel! I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!

These scriptures may seem a little jumbled, as though they don't come together in any understandable way. They all speak to faith and believing God! There are SOOO many times I know that I have believed God and took Him at His word to only find myself losing my faith grip! I so need Him to help me with my unbelief! I also know God has shown up time after time in my life when I needed Him. When I call out to Him, He answers me; but do I listen?? I know I have listened at times but I've also not listened on many other occasions! I hope and pray I will have a new beginning in my 'hearing' God. I want to give Him room to act quickly on my behalf!!

It is comforting to know that Abraham didn't do everything perfectly but when he did obey - when he did take God at His word and believe/act on it - God credited Abraham's faith as righteousness. We do not have to be perfect, we must simply obey when we hear Him whisper our way to go. We also need to be cautious that we do not force the direction God has for us on everyone around us. God will lead and guide each of us, He doesn't need our help in ministry. I have found the moments God uses me most are often moments I am unaware of, until after the fact. Like when I say something I feel is random and once I finish my story the person I am speaking with is almost in tears telling me how that was a specific God word to them. Did God need my help? No, but since I was clueless and since I had no agenda = I was a prime tool He could use to speak to someone. This is why we must consecrate ourselves daily before God, we never know when a random story will bring another person to their spiritual knees before God!

I also want to see the miraculous become more evident in our generation. I want to see God move in ways that are unbelievable, if I didn't see it for myself. I want Him to have the freedom to heal the physical ailments as well as the emotional and financial. I want Him to reign in earth as He does in heaven! I want my kids to be consecrated to God and I want them to know Him, really really know Him from a young age. I want them to see God do great things! I think it best to end 2007 and begin 2008 with a well known but powerful prayer:

Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power forever and ever! AMEN!

Father God,

I ask you to be the head of our family as we enter 2008. I pray that we will hear your voice and that we will listen. I ask for our understanding and discernment to be increased and for our influence to increase. I pray your will and your way in our day to day. I ask you to reign and that your will would be done in our lives! I pray we will bring honor to you day after day after day in 2008! I pray our eyes will be opened and our hearts would be turned towards you like never before. I pray HC and JB would speak your words of wisdom from an early age. I pray Steve and I would remain in alignment with you so that we can guide our children in your ways! I pray we would not limit your will for our lives. I pray that any and every chain that hinders us would be broken and would never ensnare us again! We ask for a new level of liberty in you! We thank you for the healing of any disappointments from days gone by! We give you freedom to purge and heal us fully so we can fully serve you! Thank you that your Holy Spirit will teach us and guide us as we follow in your ways! Have your way in our lives this year! Have your way in each and every hour and every minute and every second of each and every day!! We thank you for our healthy family and we thank you for the doors you've opened for us in 2007! We pray continued health and blessing in 2008!! We thank you for your favor upon our lives and we trust that you have your hand of favor upon our lives and will continue to direct our paths! Let us remain in step with your will for us in Jesus mighty name I pray!!!! Amen and Amen!

Happy New Year friends!! We gladly welcome 2008 with great expectation!

Christmas 2007 - Whew!

Here is a picture we took with the auto shot feature! Not too bad! Christmas Eve we were thrilled for the festivities to begin! We began our evening with a candle light service at our church. It was amazing. They had an actual ice patch on the stage and two girls ice skated while the choir sang. Then it ended with candles being lit from the stage across the whole church. It went from a single light to hundreds in minutes. It was beautiful. A single light lit was the soul source of the hundreds finally lit. Very powerful! Well, Santa had only one gift to put together on Christmas Eve. After my stockings are filled they never stay on my stocking holders. So they ended up in the kid's car for safe keeping until the morning.
The remaining gifts were all wrapped up! I love the suspense of the kids opening their gifts.
The first glimpse of Christmas morning. 5:30 AM! The best part is after all the gifts were opened HC said "Well, there is one more thing." Hubby and I thought 'no there aren't anymore gifts!' and HC said "NOW we need to go outside and see if Santa brought our SNOW!!!!!!!" We walked out with the video camera in hand and searched high and low for snow. We even had to check the neighbors yard! JB finally said "I don't think Santa brought any Snow for us sister!" JB's big gift was this train table. After visiting friends and noticing their kids' train tracks and trains everywhere.... we decided that JB may be best suited to start with a train/car table that cannot have key pieces lost. :)

Here is his table with the top on it. JB can use the table top for building blocks or whatever!
HC was beyond thrilled to have her Barbie house! She was delighted!! This one was a 2 hour job for dear old Dad!! He heard "Are you done yet Dad?" at least 100 times! :) Oh the joy! Outside driving the new wheels!! It has been so cold lately!! I love it!

Then on December 26th, we woke early in the morning and headed for Houston. Of course, Hubby drove since HC can drive well in a circle and JB crashes into everything! WE thought that Dad was our best bet! We arrived at about 6 pm and opened MORE presents!!! Here is JB playing with the guitar HC received and HC was playing JB's keyboard.

Here are my kiddo's with Uncle Michael. Grandmother aka 'Mudder' and my Mom aka 'Nana' are in the background.
JB checking to see if he and PopPop are doing the same pose still or not.
Here is Grandmother and Grandfather (JB renamed him Godfather). They eat lunch everyday at this Whataburger and wanted to take us so they could show off their family. It was a fun lunch.
Later that evening my Uncle and his family arrived. So all the Grand kids took a picture with Grandfather and Grandmother. My two were the only Great Grand kids in attendance. My brother Michael's wife "Uncle Jill" as my kids call her is pregnant. She is the first female on the left. She is due in April! We cannot wait! We were only missing my other brother and his family to have everyone together.

Here are my Grandparents with my Mom and her brother and their spouses. Later that night my brother and sister decided we should all get away alone. We headed off to Chili's and had a fun time being silly, like kids. My parents were on babysitting duty. We took full advantage of their services! ha ha! So below is (from left to right) my baby brother Michael, his wife Jill, my sister Stephanie, me and my husband Steve. After our grub we headed back to my parents to play a little Wii Bowling! I can't wait to get a Wii!!! We had soo much fun!
The next day we had lunch and headed to visit family in Baton Rouge. Uncle Michael is really tall and he toted HC around in this plastic chair. She was scared but thrilled!
We arrived in Baton Rouge around 5 pm and then the kids played and ran around with their cousins. They took the mattresses off of the beds and pushed them together. They put their sleeping bags on the mattresses and slept on the floor. What a fun time they had NOT sleeping and giggling!! Nothing better than kids laughing together.

The next morning we were thrilled to meet the newest addition to our family. Here is Beau! What a cutie he is! Can't wait to see what personality he will bring to the table!!

The kids played a little hide and seek. I caught them all switching out who would hide and who would seek. The hiders would remain under the table while the seeker would count and pretend not to know where they were hiding. After much needless seeking they would finally find the others. They giggled and laughed so much! Truly fun times! (Pictured below is Lauren, JB, and HC) JB was dressed cute too but had a few accidents on this day. I guess all the traveling and activities were too much for him to remember to go tee tee too! This was his first go of accidents in weeks! Oh well, he still had fun!

HC, PawPaw and JB
HC, Mimi and JB!
My husband's brother, sister, and Hubby!
Here are all of the cousins playing together with JB's train set he received from PawPaw and Mimi!

Overall our trip was super fast but we had so much fun at both of our stops! It was so fun to see the kids play together. Such a rare event! The boys later went out to play a little football together. I have that on video. I hope to share that vlog with you another day!! We miss you all and cannot wait for our next trip! Much love!!

Merry Christmas Then and Now

Here is a glance back at prior Christmas' with our family! Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!



We certainly wish you and yours a truly Merry Christmas! We pray you will enjoy your family time! Many blessings to you!

My Birthday Pics & Vlogging for Christmas Eve

My birthday was so great! Very relaxing and fun! The kids love birthday's because birthday's = cake to them! :) JB kept asking when we were going to the party. Once they blew out my candles they felt all was well!



The sugar turned them into giggly monsters!! (above) :) Even the moon was cool on my birthday! See the teeny star next to it??? Cool huh?!?
In honor of Christmas Eve, and since yesterday was my birthday, I decided to post my first vlog! I have not found the device thingy that allows our video camera to connect to our computer and so I used the photo stick feature instead. Sorry that it is a bit gritty in quality but the audio is good. I hope we will find the necessary connector thingy for our video camera (so next time I will use my video camera)! Here is HC singing a few Christmas songs for me! Don't be fooled by the t-shirts. My kids prefer short sleeves when indoors. Our high has been in the high 40's and low 50's this week. (Finally!) Sunday was especially blustery! Anyway, onto the vlogs!!!!




Now for a little singing by JB (in the beginning HC is singing her own song; so you have to listen closely to hear JB)!! We had a good day yesterday! Thanks to you all for sending me birthday wishes!



You obviously noticed a twang in JB's voice! He just started saying things like "yay-yah" instead of yes and "over they-yer" for over there. It is funny but disturbs hubby and I just a teensy bit. We have slight accents I am sure but nothing like the accent JB has suddenly (overnight) taken on! It is fun!

Happy Birthday Morningsong!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, 35 years ago today the love of my life was born. We met when she was just a tender 24 and she has blossomed into a beautiful, vibrant, incredibly talented, superbly gifted wife and mommy. Why just in the last two days she has sewn 12 dresses, some for HC and others as Christmas gifts. She always has time to play with HC and JB - not to mention she homeschools them. She has endured my long business trips with gladness and is never too tired to hear the boring details of my work world. She rarely tells anyone "no" and she is always quick with an encouraging word. I have seen people's lives change with the words she has spoken! She has kept me encouraged through some tough times and has always reminded me that God has His hand on our lives. I LOVE THIS WOMAN!!!!!

She is MY BEST, she is my precious wife, my sugarbear, my lovely bride. I NEVER want to do life without her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Sugarbear, I love you bunches, you are amazing!!

She will post pictures of the celebration later, I can't figure this stuff out :)

Steve (hubby)

Hot Chocolate-Polar Express

In honor of my birthday I wanted to share this fun song!!! It is so peppy, it makes you want to dance around like you are a kid again! I hope you all are having a great day (and while you're at it have some Hot Chocolate)!

Blessings!

Playing "Alone"

First I must say "MY HEADER'S BACK!!!!! MY HEADER'S BACK!!!!!!" I had to change it b/c it suddenly shrank last week. Now I hope to have my smiling little ones back up top as they should be!!!!! On to my post now:

Normally when I take the kids out to play in the backyard I hear a lot of this: "Look at me Mom. Do you want to play ball with me Mom? Help me Mom." Etc. I know when my kids are 15 or 25 or even 10 I will wish I stopped to play once more, but today I want them to play without my assistance ALL the time. When we go to the park, they eagerly run to play without me but when we are in our yard they wear me out! It is nearly impossible to sit back and watch them play together. They want me to do it all with them!

The other day the kids wanted to play outside and I was not up for going out. I decided to let them go outside without me watching over them. They were thrilled they were able to go out at all. They agreed to the rules: No fighting/arguing, we will be friends while we play. No running in and out! (They only came in/out once. That was a record!) These pictures were taken from inside!
I watched them from the window. They played together for about 45 minutes without my assistance or my help. This was the first time I let them out without me. I did watch them for about 30 minutes but the key was I could watch them play. I wasn't being pulled every direction. I am pleased that I can trust them to play alone (at least alone in theory). I am sure I will watch them on their next go "alone". I had a ton of fun seeing them try things they usually need me to do for them. Like "help me climb up"

Or, can you get this ball for me mom? He managed to get the ball, but never did climb up on the swing horse.They do all of these things while I am outside with them, so I was NOT surprised at any of their... methods of exploring! :) It was so nice to sit and watch without the constant asking for something. It was really nice! They cooperated a ton more without me too.

I also wanted to ask one tiny question of my friends from up North! Do you make your kids wear a hat when the high is in the 50's?? I noticed several of you mentioning the t-shirts we are wearing and wondered "What do they consider cold enough to require a hat and gloves??" :)

Thank you Mr. Uncle Mike

I came home Monday to find this in my back yard! A friend of Hubby's gave us this swing set. His kids are too old for it and they wanted it out of their yard! YaHOOOO!!! It needs a little TLC but we will gladly nurse this swing set back to full strength. HC & JB were more than thrilled to take this off of their hands. Hubby worked hard putting it together while I went to a Christmas party. We all had a win that day! I am sure you can hear the repeated cries of "Are you finished yet Dad?? Can we swing now Dad??" They were so eager to play and they stayed outside for a few hours after it was complete.
Thanks Mike!! We are truly grateful! The kids can't get enough of outside now!!! HC began calling Mike "Uncle Mike". I guess if someone gives you a gift this big they should be called Uncle! :)
"Uncle" Mike also brought over a desk his daughter no longer uses. HC loves this desk because it has an overhead light and the white section on the desktop lights up too!!
Christmas began 8 days early in our home!!

Wednesday Hero

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Leo

SSgt. Mike Mills


On June 14, 2005 SSgt. Mike Mills's life was forever changed. The HETT(Heavy Equipment Transport System) he was riding in was hit by an IED. The attack resulted a cracked clavicle and scapula bones, dislocate shoulder, broken left hip, 4 out of 5 bones broken in his foot and being set on fire. The driver in the truck behind him ran with a cooler of melted ice which he threw on Sgt. Mills to put him out.

He spent three months in the Brooks Army Medical Center at Ft. Sam Houston, TX with the injuries listed above plus 2nd, 3rd and deep tissue burns to 31% of the left side of his body. The first thing he remembers thinking after the attack was that his soldiers needed him and he needed to get back to them.

"Then the guilt set in about what I did to my family. I've totally screwed that up. Look at me, no don't. I look hideous. How can I face my kids looking like this. They'll be embarrassed to be seen with me. What if they won't love me anymore? Speaking of love, my wife, oh my god. How can I expect her to stay with me. I'm not a man anymore. She's not going to want be intimate with a freak. What if I can't work, how do I support myself, my family.

I had the nightmares and couldn't sleep. I wasn't eating and was loosing weight. I didn't really care. If I didn't start eating, they where going to put the feeding tube back in. Who cares, I've totally screwed up my life anyways."

But he found out just how much is wife loved him, when she stood by his side throughout the entire ordeal. She was there for every wound dressing and even learned how to change the dressings herself.

SSgt. Mike Mills now runs the site For The Veteran... By A Veteran in which he helps veterans, soldiers and their families find information they may not have been given after their medical discharge or retirement.


Some may say that Mike gave his country more than enough when he was severely maimed by an IED on that fateful day of June 14, 2005, but Mike continues to give to his fellow servicemen, as well as to his nation!

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.