Now I'm a REAL Fan!

So, my best friend Leslie gave me the BEST gift so far this Christmas...my very own Fresno Falcon's sweatshirt! Now I'm a REAL fan! I took this picture myself, so I'll have to get another good one of us both at the rink at one of the games too. Thanks Les! I love you.

Decking the Halls

So my last post made reference to our house being decorated for Christmas two days after Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd share what that looked like! And now you get to see our new sectional sofa and decorated walls! I'm so excited that my friend Alicia was able to come over and help us hang pictures! It looks so great. We both love it! So...enjoy this little peek into our home. And our puppy, Daily, curled up in her "spot" next to the tree. Her bed used to be in the corner where the tree is now. She's still adjusting to that.

Thanksgiving...and into December we go...

Thanksgiving this year was hosted by US!!!! Oh my goodness we had a great time! I was so pleased that all the food turned out and my pies looked and tasted delicious and I escaped with only one minor injury. (I cut my finger while chopping sweet potatoes the night before.)

Steven dressed and cooked the turkey in our electric roaster, only took 4 hrs! I made mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potato pies, a hot Shepherd's dip, an jalapeno and cream cheese dip, veggie platter and coffee! What a feast we were blessed to have. God sure did provide for us and we were SO thankful to partake.

My parents, grandparents, and brother, Daniel were our guests that day. We were able to watch two movies, play cards and eat together for almost 6 straight hours. It was a lovely day and I'm SO thankful to my mother who helped me with the dishes and so now my house is clean!

We were also blessed to spend two days, uninterrupted, together after the holiday. Since Steven returned to school full time and works full time, we hardly get to spend any quality time together and this year we were able to prioritize each other and it was a huge blessing. We spend Friday watching 4 movies together and lounging around in our new sectional sofa. Then Saturday, since our house was still clean, we took all the recycling out of our garage and Steven earned $71 towards the final cost of his bass guitar. We also put up the Christmas tree and decorations!!! We've never been THIS on-top of decorating before. Man it feels good! Our house finally looks like WE live there, and not just a mixture of other family members. Having that sectional sofa and our own matching pictures on the walls really makes it seem like home to us for the first time since we've moved in, (over a year ago.)

This holiday weekend was such a blessing to me and to our marriage. I am SO blessed.

Family

Well, as we quickly approach Thanksgiving, I wanted to give my family a little face time on the blog. The second picture is last year's Estes clan. The Barker's have added another little one since then. New picture to be taken this year at Christmas! The first picture is my family. Much smaller, but love them SO much!

Vegas!

It's been a while now since my last post. So, sorry to those who read this. In mid-October Leslie and I were blessed with a week's vacation to Las Vegas! We had SUCH a great time and saw SO many things, it was awesome! Here are just a few of the many pictures taken. We went to see STOMP and that was awesome! We had $100 in gift certificates to use at the Planet Hollywood restaurant and here's us at the Flamingo Hotel, can you tell?! The boas were at the Elton John gift shop~

Delightful

For some reason, I have woken up on the right side of the bed this morning. I actually feel pretty rested and a little "chipper." I got up in time to get ready in time, including finding a cute outfit and shoes to wear, my hair looks decent, and I've had breakfast. Amazing!

I recently bought the $5.00 CD special at Berean, Lincoln Brewster - Let The Praises Ring, and I LOVE IT! I think it really added to my already potentially good mood this morning. So, I brought it into work and ripped it to my computer and am trying to make this feeling last as long as possible throughout my workday and if some of the faculty and staff happen to be exposed to the praises of our Lord, then Praise God!

I guess I'm just feeling delightful. I'm reminded of Psalms 37:4 - "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Now, I don't want this to seem like it intentionally follows my last post, but today I am looking to delight myself in the Lord because He desires me to. And because I can, because I want to, because He's worthy of my praise. I just want to thank Him for the blessings He HAS given me. Because, why not?!

May you find yourself "delighted" in our Lord today. Take a moment and observe your existence in this day. That alone should be a blessing.~

desire of my heart

I am having trouble lately.

There is a huge desire of our hearts to have children and sometime soon would be wonderful with us! One of the hard parts is the waiting, but sometimes even harder is watching our friends get to experience the joys of new pregnancies and new babies and knowing that we haven't gotten our blessing yet.

I know God has a plan for our lives and for our children, but for times like these, I just struggle to not loose hope. I pray constantly and Steven and I pray together about it. It has been a blessing and a privilege to pray daily with my husband, but I have waited four years to hear him say that he desires children (with me) and now that it's here, I feel helpless. There are only so many things you can do on your own about this sort of thing and then you have to believe that God is in control and that His plan is better than what we could ever imagine possible! That's hard too. I want to believe this with all my heart, but the human side of me wants to be in control of my life and just make it happen my way.

Some people would say, "when it's the right time, it will happen." Well, the problem with that is that there are many people who don't seem to have it "together" and they have kids and it surely doesn't seem like the "right time" for THEM to have kids and not me! Others say, "it will happen when you stop trying." Well, it's hard NOT to think about it when your desire is so strong.

All I can do is pray. Pray that God continues to work in me, to make me the mother and wife that I need to be before hand. Pray that my relationship with my husband grows stronger and deeper, regardless of what happens. Pray that I may have opportunities to grow closer in my relationship with God and through that, I will have a clearer understanding of His plans for my life.

But it's still so hard...