C.O.L.D.

IT has been COLD here! All last week we remained indoors. The weeks leading up to Christmas were in the 40's and I loved it but since we've returned from all of our traveling expeditions the highs have been in the low 20's with wind chill factors in the teens. My daughter told me other day "Mom, the wind sure is mean today." So we hid out in our little cave with hopes that the 40's would return. I know those of you up North MUST be experiencing death defying cold since we were having such cold temps and I wonder if you are all hiding in your caves too?

What in the world do you do with months of these freezing temps?? I thought I would enjoy living where it snows more regularly (and where it stays cold longer than two days a week, off and on) but I don't know if I would make it, after our recent go of cold weather. The kids do not even ASK to go out now. They admit defeat and join us in the chant that "It's just too cold today." Normally they beg us and tell us they won't be cold and they love being cold and they don't need to wear a coat, etc. But not this week. This week they've put on their bathing suits and removed the debris of toys in their path to play swimming pool in the living room. The throw rug is their pool and they jump in and pretend to swim with their babies/bears. It cracks me up! They are so ready to swim again. Aren't we all?

Here they are 'swimming'. JB is laying on his baseball glove.
Here they are pretending to ride in their boat. Now the area rug is crocodile lake. JB is driving the boat.


I do love the cold and maybe it would become normal, and less drastic, if we lived in a colder area. Maybe we would have built up a resistance to the fffffreezing temps by now. I hope that is the case! I know on a trip to Colorado it was colder there than our temps were in New Orleans but it felt warmer. The southern humidity really makes colder temps chill you to the bone. I was able to bear it much better in Colorado than N.O. So maybe I can take it. It would be fun to try! :) (Today it is back in the low 70's - I love the variety of winter weather we get here!!)

Daddy and JB

As you can see in the picture in my previous post, JB is "the same" with Steve. I had this post in save mode waiting to share our sweet story. When I began to do the finishing touches and post it, I suddenly felt the responsibility of ALL the times they both wanted to do things just like we do. So now I want to share the behind the scenes story of the photo I took of hubby and JB.

The last few times we dressed JB in pants with pockets he begins to walk around with his hands in his pockets. We were walking from the car to the restaurant Wed night before church several months ago. We normally hold JB's hand as we walk across the parking lot but that night JB told Steve (in a nice way) "I not hold you hand Dad. I hold my pocket." Steve agreed to this and they both walked with hands in pockets side by side. They began walking together and JB looked up at Steve (with a wow you're awesome look in his eyes) and said "Dad, you got a watch." Steve said 'Yes I do" JB smiled and looked down as he continued to walk, then JB said "Wook at the weaf (leaf) Dad." JB then strutted into the restaurant like he was a man. It was one of the absolute cutest moments we've ever had with him. He is always all about Daddy but this time it was with that hero twinkle in his eye!!

Look, I'm just like you!

I want make-up like you Mom.

Wook at me Dad, I have pockets just like you. I want to wear my hair down like you Mom.
Come on Dad, let's wear our bandannas together.
Come on brother, let's fall back.

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

They are always watching! I pray for a heart of wisdom that guides me to live every minute in line with what I believe. I want to practice what I teach. I don't want to leave my fingerprint. I want to be a tool God uses to draw my kids to Him! What a huge responsibility. Sometimes I am in awe of the task of raising kids and there are other times I am exhausted by the thought! I never take it for granted, it took us too long to have kids for me to knock any phase we go through. I just pray I never get in the way of what God has in store for these two precious lives! My agenda is not important - God's agenda is imperative! I don't want to miss a second of His plan!! God always does things better than I could ever imagine! Don't you just love that about Him??

Blessings to you all!!

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!