Adventures in Gardening!

The kids got their first experience with some true gardening. The Wolfe family and ours are doing a garden this year. We are planting some corn, squash, peas, peppers, tomatos, okra, and some watermelon. In order to have good produce you must first fertilize. We have the perfect fertilizer right here in our front yard: the cow pasture. Yep, that's right, the kids and Mr. Nick went on a cow patty hunt. Jaron wasn't a bit scared to snatch himself up a big ol hunk of cow patty. The girls weren't too fond of the idea, but they were quick to grab up all the rollie pollies they found underneath the patties! Good times! Good times!

Testify

I have to share this tid bit of good news. I could never give enough praise to my Savior for dying for me, but He chooses to bless me on top of already giving His life for my wrongs. It baffles my mind daily. Anyway, a few posts ago I was talking about a "circumstance". Well He has yet again been faithful and pulled me through. I have had two amazing days of almost completely being myself and feeling wonderful. Thank you Jesus for your love for me.

Trust

Could someone tell me why it is so hard to trust? I really thought that my faith was strong and that I could trust my God with anything. I'm coming to find out that I really have no clue the depths of what He wants me to become. To trust him for literally every single breath that I breathe. To trust Him for every footstep that I take. To trust Him with my kids because they were His first. To trust Him with every word that I speak. To trust Him with every quiet moment He allows. To trust Him with the unknown curves and bumps in the road ahead. I want it so desperately to just let go and trust. To have the freedom to just be content with whatever He puts on my path. Why is it so hard. So hard. I feel like I'm trying to claw my way to trust but He wants me to just rest in trust. I can't just let go and free myself to fly. I want this:

Grant me, according to your riches in glory, to be strengthened with might through Your Spirit in the inner woman of me, that You may dwell in My heart through faith; that I, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to COMPREHEND with all the saints what is the WIDTH, and LENGTH and DEPTH and HEIGHT - to know the love of Christ which PASSES KNOWLEDGE; that I may be filled with ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD. Ephesians 3:16-19

Mardi Gras

We had a really good time this year at Mardi Gras in D'Iberville and Biloxi. The kids and I only went to D'Iberville, since it is much more "family friendly". The church handed out free hotdogs to about 500 people and Patrick shared the gospel with as many people that were in hearing distance of the sound system. In D'Iberville, he stood in the middle of Lemoyne Boulevard and preached God's truth that Jesus is the ONLY way and that we are ALL SINNERS in NEED of a SAVIOR. On the sidelines, Nick fought the spiritual battle for Patrick. Cristi and I both couldn't be more proud of our men! He said the Biloxi parade also went really well. People were stopping and as Patrick put it, "I caused a major people traffic jam". Here are a few pics from the D'Iberville parade.

It is finished

The girls room is finally finished. You would never know we cut a huge hole and patched it up. YAY!!!

Happy Valentines Day!

This is Rosie, the newest addition to the Levine Family.  We got her on Valentine's Day.  She is a Carin Terrier, the same breed as Toto from the Wizard of Oz.  She is just shy of 6 weeks.  We are in love.  The kids love tugging her around and she doesn't seem to mind.  By the end of the day she is usually exhausted and sleeps in her  little pink bed.  Isn't she a cutie!

Fashion trends in the making

Notice we must wear our gymnastics leotard UNDER the pantyhose and t-shirt.  Very stylish!

My little seamstress

Grace thought she could fix the rip in her school pants all by herself...nothing a little scotch tape can't fix right?

Never a dull moment

This is a picture of the hole in the wall we had to cut out in our little over a year old house.  I noticed there was water on the floor in the girls room several months ago.  It usually wasn't much and I wasn't sure if it was from rain or what.  It ended up getting worse and in my bathroom as well.  We finally got brave a cut a this hole to find that one of the drainage pipes was never connected all the way and it was leaking all over in the wall and of course producing mold.   YAY HURRAY!!  So now we are in the process of bleaching and drying out the wood and replacing parts and will have to re-sheet rock and paint!  The girls are now having to sleep in the toy room on their mattresses.  Never a dull moment...

Our first lost tooth

Yep it's true!  My big girl has lost her first tooth!  It was a Tuesday night and the girls were having a good laugh in the bath tub.  I went in to find out what all the ruckus was about!  Apparently, Adalee bumped Grace in the mouth and Grace checked her loose tooth and with two little wiggles it came right out!  She was so excited and found it hilarious!  We first thought she lost the little bitty tooth in their bath water but Grace had it clutched in her hand.  We were all cracking up at the whole ordeal. I had no idea her tooth was even loose!  Grace said she just didn't feel like telling me.  So, I think to myself...What else will she keep from me?  She is only 6!  AHHH!  The fun times of motherhood!

This too shall pass

The Lord blessed me with a scripture last night, to show me how He will bring me full circle. Christian or not, we all have circumstances or struggles in this life and they are only temporary. It's how we look at our circumstance as to where we will end up when it's all over. You know the saying "this too shall pass". It is soooo true. I was so encouraged by this and I wanted to share a bit and hopefully someone out there would be encouraged too. The first scripture that I have been hanging on to throughout this "circumstance" in my life is found in Romans chapter 5 verses 3 & 4:

And not only that, but we also glory in the tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

I was okay that God was using this circumstance to change me and mold me, but He also would give me HOPE. I would wonder when and how. It has been about 2 months since all of this has been going on. Last night this scripture was found and I was so excited! It is found in Hosea chapter 2 verses 14 &15:

Therefore behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vinyards from there, and the vally of achor (meaning valley of trouble) as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

I have to be in the wilderness for a season so He can change me and bring me back to a place of newness and innocent faith. Back to the day when I was so enthralled by Him and how He brought me out of my "Egypt" or life of sin. He will use this valley of trouble to provide me a DOOR OF HOPE! He is so good to me. I have said this before, and I will say it again. He loves me enough to allow me to experience tribulation/wilderness so that He can bring me closer to Him; closer than ever before. Thank you Lord. I love you too.

Happy Birthday BUBBER!

Any Idea what this is?  Well today is Patrick's 5th birthday "officially".  He is now a big 5 years old!  So we celebrated and let him pick dinner.  He had his own steak and baked potato.  We also burnt, I mean roasted marshmallows over a fire.  The picture is Alissa's rendition of a smore without the graham cracker.  

As you can tell she really enjoyed her smore!  ;o)  Love you Alissa!!

Love that man!!

two little gymnast

Adalee and Merritt - Best Buds

Prayers needed

To those readers out there that happen to be prayer people.  My friend DeeDee is battling cancer.  She is a young mother with three precious kids.  One of which is brand new.  She is going through radiation right now and must be away from her kids for several days.  I can't imagine how she must feel.  Just when we think we have it  bad...Please pray for her and her sweet family. 

Sanctity of Human Life

In case you didn't know, today is Sanctity of Human Life Day.  It was put into place by Reagan in the 80's.  This pic is of a baby at 8 wks of development.  As you can see the baby already has hands and feet.  The heart is almost completely developed.  He or she is already reactive to their environment; moving around.  He or she is a living human.  Did you know we are killing these precious babies?  What's worse is that we are allowing babies that are even further along developmentally to be put to death without a CHOICE.  Where does their freedom of choice come in?  Who protects them?  Who can put a judgment on life?  None but God.  We will be ready to put a man to death for abusing an infant.  We will be ready to hang  a mother for spanking her child.  Yet, we sit back and let 4,000 babies die everyday because the mom just doesn't want to deal with it.  All I can say is...God forgive us and have mercy because we have sinned so greatly against You.  

"So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them."  Genesis 1:27

We are not the creator...we are the created.  We have no right.

Glory

Hebrew word - Kabod.  Worthiness of something; Greatness and splendor;  to revere Him; to honor Him.  

For by Him all things were created that are in Heaven and that are on Earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through him and FOR HIM. Colossians 1:16

Patrick preached out of Colossians 1 Wednesday night and I must say God spoke to me about my blog.  I know this may sound a bit crazy to most folks, but I am created to Glorify my Lord in all things.  I want to honor Him with all that is in me.  I don't want it to be about me anymore but about Him. I want to honor Him, revere Him, love Him, GLORIFY Him with everything, including this blog.  Tonight we started a bible study by Beth Moore, and she made an amazing statement of truth that just struck me.  I love it love it love it.  

In God's economy, the way up is DOWN.  

In order for us to succeed we must humble ourselves becoming less and less so that he may increase.  (see John 3:30)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

We celebrated Grace's 6th and Bub's 5th birthday today. The only way to do a pinata properly in Mississippi is with a bat and of course a hunter orange cap as the blindfold! What is really funny is that I didn't even think twice about it. I only realized how funny it was after looking back at the pictures! Whatever works!

Bye Bye Baby

This is a picture of where Jaron's baby bed used to sit. Today marks a very important milestone in the Levine home. We took down the baby bed today :o( Jaron is officially sleeping in the big boy twin bed! We have had a baby bed up at all times for the past six years! Yes, six years! We always had a baby. Those sweet times of little baby hands reaching out for you to pick them up, the coos and sweet noises as they find their voice, the first time you find them standing and peeking over the rail at you, but now I must end the reminiscing. It's time to say: Bye Bye Baby!

Amazing Christmas

We had one of those Christmas's like you see in a movie. It all started Christmas Eve after Patrick and I had done the stockings and the kids were sound alseep. He asked me to sit down and watch a Christmas movie with him, which was weird considering Patrick goes to bed at 8 o'clock like an old man. When I sat down he had a beautiful box sitting on the coffee table. (Keep in mind we were not supposed to buy gifts for each other this year) When I opened the beautifully wrapped box, it was an amazing diamond ring. It was a ring that I had seen some time ago and said "that would be a nice ten year anniversary ring" (hint hint) Well we just celebrated our 8 year on the 23rd! What a man!! I am so lucky! I was soooo surprised! It is absolutely gorgeous. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. After we were in bed a bit, we got a HUGE surpise. It was about 11:30pm when we went outside due to some racket and there were about 7 garbage bags out on our front porch. There was a card that said we had been a blessing to other lives and so they wanted to bless us. As we began to open all the bags, there were TONS of presents for our kids individually wrapped and labeled! It was unreal! Not only that but they got all four of our kids a bike! THEN we found presents for me and Patrick. You won't believe what else.....On top of all the kids presents, bikes, and presents for me and Patrick...we got a 2 gift cards! It was unbelievable!!! I had a hard time sleeping that night! Christmas morning, we sat the kids down and explained that someone wanted to bless us and that we should thank God for all the gifts. We prayed together and we read the Christmas story and then we dug in all the gifts! WOW!! I am still in shock about it all. God is so good to us! Thank you to our secret santa out there! We were truly blessed!

Peer pressure...

I guess it never goes away. Apparently blogging is the thing to do, so with some "peer encouragment" I have decided to do one of my own. Crazy things happen all the time to us and I would always think: "hmm, that would be a great thing to blog!" SOOO I am jumping in to blog those most wonderful, crazy, and sometimes incredibly stupid moments that happen to me being a mother of four! Thank you to those peers who pressured me....