What Is A Friend?

Studying my Bible the other day I came across some notes I had jotted down by some verses.  I'm not sure how long ago I had wrote them, but they really touched my heart as I looked back over them and I thought I would share them with you.

What is a friend?  We all have different answers to that question for what we would define a friend as.  But I am going to give you the Biblical definition.  They are coming from the New Living Translation.  I like to use that Bible when I am studying scripture because I can understand it better.

(1) A friend is willing to sacrifice.
               1 Samuel 18:4
                       Jonathan sealed the pack by taking off his robe and giving it to David, together with his tunic, sword, bow, and belt.

(2) A friend is a loyal defense before others.
               1 Samuel 19:4
                      The next morning Jonathan spoke with his father about David, saying many good things about him.  "The king must not sin against his servant David," Jonathan said.

(3) A friend gives others the freedom to be themselves.
                1 Samuel 20:41
                      As soon as the boy was gone, David came out from where he had been hiding near the stone pile.  Then David bowed three times to Jonathan with his face to the ground.  Both of them were in tears as they embraced each other and said good-bye, especially David.

(4) A friend is a constant source of encouragement.
                1 Samuel 23:15-16
                       One day near Horesh, David received the news that Saul was on the way to Ziph to search for him and kill him.  Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God.

I won't say a whole lot about those because they will speak to you differently than they spoke to me.  I know for my personal self that I just try really hard to be a faithful friend & always try my hardest to encourage my friends and others.  I may not always agree with what others do, but that's me giving them the freedom to be themselves. 

ALWAYS BE A GOOD FRIEND :)!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Sophie Girl!!

 Yesterday was a great day.  It is still so hard for me to believe Soph is 3!! My how time flies.  She woke up to a video text from her Daddy :)!! She watched it 100 times.  Every time she would watch it, she would talk to him as if he were in "real time".  I wish I could have video'd her doing that and let her watch it too. 

A LITTLE ABOUT SOPHIE TODAY:
- She loves to dance.  Has a passion for dancing.
- Still can be mean as a snake, but yet sweet as an angel
- Wants her hair down and "scraggly" 90% of the time.
- She doesn't really have a favorite food.  She eats anything.  Has a great appetite.
- Completely potty trained.  Has beat her brother on that with the night time pottying.
- Loves to sing.  Will sing at the top of her lungs and not care who is listening.
- If you have something to eat, just be prepared to share with her.  She WILL want a bite or a sip.
- She loves to tumble just like her big sister & is not afraid to try anything.
- She is scared of bugs just like me.
- She weighs 24 lbs.
- Every night before she goes to sleep, she will look at me and say, "Good night mom" & that's when I know she is giving it up.

****Our life would be so boring without her in it****

Babee made her cute birthday outfit :)!!! So she started the day out by opening it.

 Her absolute favorite thing to do in the entire World is swing!! She will swing as long as someone will push her. 

Her only request yesterday was for us to make a "Purple Strawberry cake".... & that is exactly what baby girl got.  She didn't want to go anywhere.  Just hang out at home.  I was surprised and kept asking to go to the park, get ice cream, or something.... but nope.  Just to play at home. 

 It was the ugliest cake I have ever made.  It was still really good though.  So moist.  I guess that's the reason it was coming all apart.

 I was in my room piddling and kept listening to Karter and Sophie screaming Happy Birthday, so I went to record them.  Funny to me watching this video because they are both screaming at the top of their lungs and then cut it off at the exact same time. 

At some point I walked in Sophie's room to find that they had dumped not only all of her clothes from the drawers, but a lot of Karter's too!!! My My My.... no worries..... while I got a shower, they were under strict orders to put it all back up.

 We also played hiding go seek :)!! It was lots of fun. 

The Big Sister...... :).....

 Papa got home a couple hours before we had to leave for church, so we went over to swim until time to go.  The kiddos had a blast.

So over all she had a wonderful, relaxed, calm birthday :)!! Which is sooo the opposite of her.


SOPHIE,

My dear Sophie....... wow.  THREE...... THREE??? How are you THREE???  You have always brought so much life to our little family.  Not a day goes by that you do not make us all laugh.  In your 3 years of life, you have made me a better person.  A better mom.  A stronger woman.  I have learned so much in the past 3 years & I am an entirely different person today because of it.  I cannot imagine life without you in it.  You are the funniest, strongest, wildest, smartest, happiest, loving three year old I know.  You are hard headed, strong willed, and take no crap off anyone LOL!! That is all what makes you.... YOU!  I thank God everyday that he blessed us with you.  You have a special spunk about you.  A spunk that definitely helps our family to not be so boring.  I love you sweet Sophie with all of my heart and I am so thankful God chose me to be your Mom!  Thank you for all  you have taught me without even realizing you were teaching anything. 

                                                                Love you, Mommy

Mower, Storm, Teddy.... Oh My!

The other morning while Face timing, Kyle and Sophie were practicing holding up "3" fingers she her birthday was almost here.  She couldn't get them to cooperate haha.  So I taught her to just do the "ok" symbol and that holds 3 up.  Works for me!

 Monday was kind of a hectic day.  Our mower needs a little TLC and moms blades need sharpening.  So she got My Uncle's mower and his has some short in it and won't stay going.  But he wasn't sure if it was just a fluke thing or worked now, so Mom got his mower to do hers and came to town to get gas & thought she would come by here and I could mow ours in no time with it.  Well it just wouldn't work.  So she took it back and got her mower.  We thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad..... well I had to mow our front yard twice because of all the twigs it left.  SOOOO I went and borrowed Dad & Yana's and finally got the grass mowed that afternoon.

In the meantime with all of that, Babee mentioned Burger King for lunch, so I went and got that while she was doing the 2nd lawn mower swap.

Well y'all, Heidi has graduated from the kids meal to a regular sized meal.  The kids meals just do not fill her up.  I got her a Whopper Jr and when we got home, it was a tiny burger.  So I put it on Karter's burger and low and behold..... SAME SIZE!!! How about that?  So I paid more for her a burger that she could have gotten with a kids meal.  So FYI to everyone!

I got me a chicken sandwich.  By the time I got everyone situated with their food, Heidi was finished with hers and was still hungry.  Like any other mom would do, I gave her mine.  So I paid $27 for a Burger King meal that I didn't even get to eat.

 When I was almost finished with our yards, it started raining on me.  I just finished because it wasn't that hard and I didn't have much left.  It was getting very dark, so I knew a storm was approaching.

I managed to get Dad & Yana's mower loaded and the kids and when we got up the road, the bottom fell out.  So I unloaded it in the pouring rain.  When we got back home it still wasn't raining LOL! So I loaded moms.  Heidi was so nervous because it was lightening and thundering.  I managed to load it before the rain and up the road of course it was pouring again.  Wouldn't you know when we got to moms it hadn't even rained.  Funny how that works.

Here we are after 1 of the times with getting soaked.....

 I mean like I couldn't even hardly see in front of us.  And then like 4 miles up the road it hadn't rained a drop.

 It had mellowed off when we got home, so I was able to let the dogs out.  I had to get in their fence to fix their feeder.  This girl has learned how to tweak quite a few things ;-)!!! I have learned that zip ties work wonders haha! 

In the mean time, my cousin sent me this picture of her beautiful daughter in one of the birthday shirts I made her.  It put a big smile on my face :)!!!

 The yucky weather and crazy day brought us inside sooner than we usually are.  We were all so yucky, so we got baths and started supper.  It was a breakfast kind of night :)!!

The babies love to help me cook..... and I will be honest.... I love for them to help me. 

 And I love this picture...... it isn't staged, it is as real as real can get.  This is how most all of our nights end.  I rock all of them, but when the babies fall asleep, I put them in bed and then come back and Heidi likes to rock until she falls asleep.  If I am too tired to do that, she and I go crawl in the bed :)!! But I LOVE the realness of it.....

 And this was yesterday........

 He has fallen in love with this bear.  He calls it Teddy.  Teddy has sat in his chair in his room for a year or so,  but all of a sudden is his best bud!  He even called me the other night from Babee's to tell me to get Teddy from his room because he (teddy) is afraid of the dark.  He went to church with us Sunday morning & night.  And as I am typing this, he is on the couch with Karter watching Disney on my phone.  Not sure what struck the sudden obsession, but he is certainly attached.

AND GUESS WHOSE BIRTHDAY IS TODAY..... yep..... our Sophie girl.  I took this picture last night.  Her last night as a 2 year old!!!! Time seriously flies. 

Sick Kitty, Facetime Fun, 4 Parties, Tired Mommy.

I thought I would start you off with Sophie really getting down with Ice Ice Baby.  Funny stuff to me.

The next few pictures are from last week when Hank stayed with us.

Thursday Heidi got a package in the mail.  She was so excited.  Babee bought her more Heidi Heckelbeck books and had them shipped to her.  She has already finished 1 of them :)! 

And I was equally excited because Tyler's birthday gift came in.  25 Vintage records.  I really think he was just as excited as I was.

Okay so Thursday we noticed that Lovey started really acting different.  She wouldn't move.  She would hardly open her eyes, wouldn't eat or drink.  So I was worried sick about her.  Y'all know I am not an "animal lover".  I don't mind looking at them because my children love them, but as far as having them all over me.... I just can't handle.  I don't like feeling like I have a hair ball LOL!  BUT when they are sick, I can't help myself.  I don't like to see any animal suffer.

Thursday was kind of a rough day, so Mom asked if we wanted to come eat supper at her house to change up our scenery.  I jumped right on it.  I took Lovey so she could check her out with me. 

We managed to get her to drink some and to eat some Vienna's.  So we were still unsure what was going on, but had hope.

Silly Sophie girl... waving and telling me she is "Hollywood" LOL!

I already had a roast in the crockpot, so I took it with us and mom did these fabulous chicken fingers wrapped in bacon.  SOOOOO yummy!

After supper, we were hanging out in Moms kitchen and Karter ran in, but wasn't saying anything.  Well I told him to go back and shut the door.  The are so bad about leaving the doors open and flies coming in.  Well then I felt bad :(!  Heidi came in a few seconds later crying.  She had fallen off the monkey bars and hurt her arm.  I was holding her and checking it out and noticed her nose was bleeding too.  Poor baby girl got hurt.  Thank the good Lord she didn't break it.  It was just really sore for a couple days.  We iced it with frozen peas :)!

Once Heidi started feeling better, we all jumped on the golf cart and rode around.  Sophie conked out.

So me, Sophie, and Lovey headed home.  Wouldn't you know when I got home one of the chickens had flown out and pooped everywhere LOL!!! Gotta love city farm life baahaaa!

And here was Lovey Dovey that night after we got in.... (left).

And glory hallelujah!  By Friday morning she was almost her old self.  Was trying to play with Sissy.  She even drank some warm milk. 

And was peaking in the door..... which meant she was walking :)!!

We aren't real sure what happened.  Seems like some kind of poison.  Kyle said could have been a poisonous bug or frog even. 

Kyle called while Soph was checking on Lovey.  I loved watching how entertained he was.  I haven't seen him smile so much while facetiming (except the first time we got to) as he was while Sophie played with the kitties.

..... maybe it was because she was semi-torturing Sissy with a kabob stick.

Anyway, Friday afternoon Amanda took Heidi to get a pedicure :)!! She gave her a gift certificate for her birthday & Heidi insisted that Amanda had to take her and not me.  She had a great time :)!! Her toes are pretty and bright pink.

Saturday was incredibly busy.  We had 3 parties Saturday and 1 Sunday.  We have done 3 parties before, but what made these so hectic was 1 of them was at 2 in Dothan and 1 was 3 in Opp.  Heidi really wanted to go to her friend Madelyn's and I really felt like she needed to.  So it worked out and the babies rode with Nana and Grandmama to Frazier's in Dothan and we went to Madelyn's, but left after 30 minutes and headed to Dothan.  It was very rushed for about 30 minutes.  But worked out.

Here are our precious kiddos at Kayleigh's 1st birthday.  Party #1:

Sophie looking like she was the Queen of the little pool.

Our kids are a lot like me.  We love watching the birthday boy/girl open their gifts.

Party #2:

And finally.... Party #3:

3 days apart and 3 years old :)!!!

MeMe went with us to Frazier's party.  After his party, we went to the  mall.  Madelyn had on this super cute skirt that came from Justice and Heidi thought she just had to have it.  Meme agreed.... but at my expense of course haha!  That store always breaks me. 

We were hungry because we hadn't eaten.  The kids ate at the parties, and Drew ordered Dominos, so they had some of that and I did try a small piece of the Hawaiian.  It was very good.  But anyway, that was more of  a snack :)! So we ate in the Food Court.

How stinking handsome is this little man?  His maturity and sweetness just lights my face up.

MeMe & Soph walking to the car.

Of course the hot light was on at Krispy Kreme.  MeMe and I LOVE us some hot donuts.  So we pulled in and got none other than 2 dozen hehe!

We finally got home after 10 and crashed.  MeMe stayed with us :)!! That was nice having her here yesterday morning.  We were so tired that we over slept and got up at 7:40 and all had to get a bath.  So she bathed them while I got one. 

After church we came home to eat, change, and get ready for #4 for the weekend.

I also went ahead and cleaned the chickens bin.  They are getting so big....

And then after a storm rolled through, we headed to Enterprise to celebrate Atlas turning 1.

Here is Heidi's fabulous Justice outfit hehe....

Y'all, I just cannot get enough of this handsome kid..... I think because I see his Daddy every time I look at him.

The birthday boy..... such a cutie....

Kman asked to get on my shoulders as we were sitting down.  I definitely took that opportunity :)!! He likes to stick to himself sometimes, so I loved it.

This one is cute to me.... her face just shows how much fun she was having.

After the party, we headed to Publix.  I had to pick up some cat food and something yummy to snack on for our ladies class.

I am seriously wanting to learn to coupon and thinking about going to Publix to do it.  That store was amazing.  And some of the things were cheaper than what I can get locally, plus if I have coupons then even better. 

Anywho... on to a new day.