Woke up this morning to an icy wonderland. Although the ice looks beautiful on everything, it sure can cause a lot of damage. Fortunately, this time around we didn't lose power. It's not over yet so I hope we don't lose power. The ice storm of 2000 was miserable. We were without power for over 10 days. This is the kind of day you need to be at home making a big pot of veggie soup, scrapbooking, reading or just doing something enjoyable. Oh well, I'm just thankful I have a job that I have to go to even in this kind of weather.

New pictures of my favorite little guy. He just keeps getting sweeter and cuter every day. Don't know how that can be, but he is. Love, love, love him.

ooooooooo. Stomach virus. YUK, YUK, YUK!!!! But I'm much better now. Wish once you have it, you would be immune to ever having it again. AND because that illness, I didn't get to see my Noah this week. Hopefully, I can go over there after work today. He is such a cutie pie.

OK, What did everyone think of Lost?

Last night I was listening to Gary talk to one of my kids and he was saying how this one has a good job and that one has a good job etc. It made me realize that in these hard economic times all four of my kids have good steady jobs that pay decent and so do Gary and I. How blessed is that! God is and God is good. We all have nice homes, not fancy but dry and warm and we all love being together. Also we are all healthy. There is nothing more a mother could ever ask for. (Maybe more grandkids but that's another story) Sometimes my heart overflows with love for God and not just because I have so much. But because he loves me so much. This is not to say we have never had bad things happen to us because we have but God has been faithful through it all. We can walk on that water if we never take our eyes off of Jesus.

I just received word that a friend of my sister's was preparing to go home. She is so young, 46ish, and leaves three young daughters. She is a minister's daughter and will be meeting her earthly father as well as her heavenly Father shortly in heaven. Things like this I just don't understand. I am very close to both of my sisters and was especially close to my baby sister when she was in high school. I was already married (ten years between us) and she stayed at my house a lot and so did her friends. Of her friends there was a group that we became close to as well. This young woman was one of them. Heaven will be shining brighter in a bit.
It's only been a little over a year ago that we lost another of her friends and two more of these girls also have cancer. What a horrible, devastating thing from the pit of hell that is. If you are reading this, please pray for these women and for my sister. This has been hard for her. Thank God she is free from this disease and will always be so. This I claim in the Name Of Jesus for her, her family, me and my family, my other sister and her family. We have been touched enough by this.

Pictures of Noah's dedication. The outfit he is wearing is the same one that Josh and Jamie were dedicated in.

Finally I am going to post some random pics of Christmas with my family. But before I do, I want to share something I found on another blog, one that I follow. This is from the SAH Missionary blog. Instead of making New Year's resolutions she has made goals for this year. I want to adopt these and hope you will too. Here they are:

1. To see less of myself and more of Christ (ideally, none of myself!). To exchange my flesh for the controlling of His Holy Spirit...daily. That when people encounter me, that it would be Jesus they see and not me.

2. To sit at His feet daily, savoring and soaking in.

3. To spend less time using TV or other things to relax, in exchange for more time in prayer.

4. To break habits of running to wordly things when I am stressed or worried (mainly food ), and instead bring all of my worry to Him.

5. To care not at all what the world and friends think of me, being concerned if they think I'm a freak (which is even difficult writing this post!), and instead be consumed only by honoring Him and being totally sold out for the sake of the cross.

6. To rely solely on His strength and His amazing grace to accomplish any of this.

"If traces of Christ's love-artistry be upon me, may He work on with His divine brush until the complete image be obtained and I be made a perfect copy of Him, my master." - The Love of Jesus, The Valley of Vision
To God be the glory, great things He has done.

Now for the pictures.

WOW! A whirlwind of Christmas and New Year's celebrations. We again were blessed to have all of the kids home for Christmas. I pray that will always be so or at least we will all be together at someone's home. Noah was so special this year and next year he will be able to open his own presents and really enjoy them, not fall asleep in them. I have lots of pics and will post them later. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and now we are excited about the coming new year. What joys await us! This time last year we never dreamed of little Noah so what will this year bring us. Praise God for his blessings!