Love Those Toes

May 21, 2005

I am finally going to be able to post pictures from our wedding day.  Our photographer was old school and all our pictures are on negatives, but I was finally able to get to a scanner. 
First though, I would like to commemorate our special day with a timeline of the last six years.

May 21, 2005-Arnold and I got married on the most perfect, gorgeous, beautiful day in history, May 21, 2005, at my home church in Gaffney, SC, Corinth Baptist.  After the reception, we drove to Atlanta, spent the night in a honeymoon suite, and left for New Orleans the next day.  After arriving in New Orleans, we boarded a Carnival cruise bound for the Caribbean. 

After returning from the cruise, we settled into our nice, freshly painted apartment on the seminary campus, where we would only spend the next three months because of a little hurricane called Katrina.  After the storm, we moved to SC and spent the next five months wandering around my Dad's lake house, wondering what we were going to do with our lives. 

In February of 06, we came back to New Orleans and started new jobs, Arnold at the Leavell Center, and myself at William Carey U.   In September of 06, we started trying to have a baby. 

By February of 07, I found out I was pregnant with a little monkey named Peyton.  We both continued working at our jobs and doing stuff married (without kids) people get to do, like go on dates, go to the movies all the time, and frequent coffee shops.

In December of 08, I found out I was pregnant with another little monkey named Raegan and Arnold was getting really serious with finishing the dissertation by the time 2009 rolled around. 

Right after Raegan was born, Arnold and I spent many an hour proofing his dissertation and he successfully defended it in October.  Then we moved off campus, and Raegan was hospitalized with RSV the night before his graduation ceremony in December.  And the icing on the cake was that neither of us had had any sleep since  August of 2009.  Thank you Raegan.   Except for a few joyful occassion thrown in there, i.e., Raegan's birth, Arnold graduation, I never ever, nope, not in a million years, never want to relive those six months. 

2010 proceeded a little smoother, just enjoying life and our little family and now here we are in 2011. 

God has been so good to us, providing for us, blessing us, and helping us to grow stronger in our marriage.  We anxiously await to see what He has for us in the future. 

Here's to 6 great years!!!

A Few More Pictures

You gotta love blogger. It just deleted my post with all new pictures on it. So, here's new pictures from Easter weekend.

Peyton and her cousin Katelyn dying eggs.

We finally had to change their clothes.  I think each of them knocked over a cup of dye.

Raegan hunting for eggs.  She doesn't know what in the heck she's doing or what's going on.  She's just happy to be outside running around.

All the cousins.  The two on the ends are sisters, Katelyn and Rayleigh.  The two in the middle are sisters.  I can't even describe how hard it is to get all these kids to try to take a picture, and still not one of them is looking at the camera.  But I'm sure most of you know this already.

Peyton in her dress.

Peyton and Raegan Easter morning.

Hunting for eggs.

Sisters. 

Easter Pics, Part I

I am incredibly late with these pictures. This is part one. Part two will be posted whenever I can spare ten minutes.

Uncle Joe, Raegan, and Rayleigh(Raegan and Rayleigh are 2nd cousins)

 PaPaw and Raegan

 Dying Eggs with cousin Katelyn

 Katelyn is proud of her pretty egg

Peyton and her pretty egg

 

 Raegan is contemplating what mess she can make next

Katelyn and Peyton  Even though Katelyn is three years older than Peyton, they still have a great time together.

 Katelyn and Peyton

We had to put t-shirts on them because I think they each knocked over a cup of egg dye on their clothes.

Peyton hunting for Easter Eggs

 Katelyn found her a few eggs

Raegan doesn't know what in the heck she's doing or what this all means.  She's just happy to be outside running around.

What Will I Choose?

A while back I wrote a post called, The Feast or Famine Law  It wasn't that great of a post, so there's no need for you to go back and read it unless you're really bored, but I basically summed it up by saying that when it rains it pours.(There's always an expression in the English language to describe how you're feeling!)  I am currently feeling that it's pouring rain, even though the blue sky and sun tells me otherwise.  But that explains my asbsence on the blog for the last few weeks. 

It is hard to trust the Lord when everything seems to be going wrong, when you're standing in the downpour.  I read a magazine article today and this question from the article jumped out at me, "Will we choose faith in God over faith in an outcome?"  If you would like to read this excellent article, click on this.

I can't control my circumstances.  I can't control the fact that "Joy's wish list" is currently in the trash.  I cannot change the fact that this is not where I expected to be at 30 years old. 

The Lord gave me a verse this week though, "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?  If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?" Jeremiah 12:5 

I like what the notes in my Bible have to say about this verse.  So I will let the notes sum this up: 
"Life was extremely difficult for Jeremiah despite his love for and obedience to God.  When he called to God for relief, God's reply in effect was, 'If you think this is bad, how are you going to cope when it gets really tough?'  Not all of God's answers to prayer are nice or easy to handle...But we are to be committed to God even when the going gets tough and when his answers to our prayers don't bring immediate relief."  (From the Life Application Study Bible).  If anyone out there in blog land is going through something difficult too, I hope this post will speak to you.