Worship Wednesdays: The Well

Sunday night, I had the opportunity to see Lauren McCaul, Royal Tailor Matthew West, and Casting Crowns in concert. **BIRMINGHAM, AL: the concert will be at the BJCC on April 7th!** I was there as a volunteer for World Vision.  (If you'd like to sponsor a child, please visit World Vision's website.  It's only $35/month.  You won't regret it!)  It was an amazing night.  I think there were 186 new sponsorships!  The concert was amazing as well.  I love Matthew West (he'll have his own post in the near future) and Casting Crowns.  If you're not familiar with the group, they are all youth workers at their church in Atlanta.  They are amazing people and most of their music was inspired by their youth group and other people in their church.  There are so many of their songs I could talk about, but today I"m going to focus on The Well.  (This is their new album title as well.)


John 4:7-38 is the story of the woman at the well.  You can read the whole story HERE.
But the cliff notes version for those of you who might not be familiar: A samaritan woman comes to draw water from the well.  Jesus is there and asks her for a drink. She was surprised that a Jew would ask a Samaritan woman for water.  Jesus said to her, if you knew who was asking, you would ask Him and he would give you living water.  In verse 13 he tells her, "Everyone who drinks of this water (the water in the well) will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become a well of water springing up to eternal life."  Wow!  God is so good.


As I listened to this song, I thought about the people in my life that I know are lost and don't know Jesus.  They're always searching for something, but they never find what they're looking for.  The answer my friends, is JESUS!  One of my favorite lyrics in the song says "You can spend your whole life, chasing what's missing, but that empty inside just ain't gonna listen.  When nothing can satisfy and the world leaves you high and dry, just come to the well!"  You have nothing to lose, but everything to gain!


Just listen:






Your fear of rejection 

Your pursuit of perfection 

Your temporary pleasures 

All your earthly treasures 

Dried up empty religion

Rusty chains of addiction 

All the guilt that weighs you down...

 Leave it ALL behind...just come to the well!

Worship Wednesdays: In the Sanctuary

If you didn't know already, I sing in our church choir.  (That's a no brainer, right?)  Anyway, for today's Worship Wednesday, I wanted to share with you a song that our choir will be singing soon.  It's called "In the Sanctuary." It is a straight up PRAISE song!  Yes, Lord....we WILL praise you for the rest of our days!  When we get to heaven, it's going to be one big praise fest and I, for one, can't wait!  And while we were practicing this song at choir practice, we were having church!  Yeah, it was practice, but it was also praise and it was an amazing night at rehearsal.  Hallelujah!

Hunter's Party

After church today, we went to another birthday party!  Today's party is for Hunter, Andrew's friend from church.  If the pictures look familiar, it's because this party was at the same park as the last one.  (This park is awesome and we love it!)

Whee!

 He found a spot to play "Store."

 Time for cake!  Hunter had an awesome Darth Vader candle holder for his cupcake!

 Andrew and Colt fighting with their light saber cupcake toppers.  

 Piñata time!

It was another great party at the park.  Melissa, your cupcakes were delicious! And the party favors were awesome!  


*I would just like to add that after this party, Drew felt "it was time" to introduce Andrew to Star Wars.....he's hooked! :)  *

Worship Wednesdays

Since I tend to have a love of alliteration, I think I'll do my worship through song posts on "Wednesdays" and call them "Worship Wednesdays."  And well, since it's Wednesday, here's another one for you:  "Waiting Here For You" by Christie Nockles.
I love this song!  It's just one of those tunes that makes you stop and say, "Lord you are amazing; so amazing that  I just want to praise you name all day long."  We serve a risen savior that hears our voice.  When you pray, do you pray with expectation?  Or do you pray simply "hoping" that He'll answer?


Psalm 5:3 - "In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation."

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone is having a very Happy Valentine's Day! I am.  I woke up this morning to a couple of surprises.  Drew left for work at 5:30 this morning, so all saw of him were his lips as he kissed me goodbye.  I'm pretty sure I heard him say "Happy Valentine's Day" and maybe I mumbled something back in my sleepiness.  It's hard to remember when you're asleep.  :)  I got up and headed to the kitchen for breakfast when I saw this:

 The card was perfectly romantic and sweet and inside that purple envelope was a gift certificate for a one hour massage! (In the words of my friend, Lisa: Yes, and Amen!)  I've been needing one for quite some time, but don't want to spend the money on myself to go get one.  I think this is the first time EVER that my hubby has bought me a massage.  Sure, I've bought them for myself...especially in Hawaii because you could go to the massage therapy school and let a student give you a 90 minute massage for $33...that's right...$33!  I digress...  The point was that his gift was perfect and unexpected and that's just one of the many reasons why I love him so!


As I was trying to get Andrew ready for school, he was being strangely insistent that I not forget his socks?! Why, all of a sudden is he worried about socks?  I mean, it's not like I've ever sent him off to school without them.  Then when I opened the sock drawer, I saw this:

The lil squirt was just excited because he had a surprise for me in there!  He did such a good job keeping a secret.  He said, "I put it in there last night after my bath!"


Then it was off to school for a Valentine's Day party!  This year, we went with photo Valentines.  You know...the ones you stick a sucker in.  Well here's the picture that we chose to go with:

And here are some from the gag reel....

 I just love those silly faces!

Here's what they look like, all ready to go:

Now, are you ready for the teaser:  I'm going to make you go on over to Sissy's Sweets to see what goodies we made for Valentine's Day. 


Now, I must mention here, as well as on Sissy's Sweets, what my Mom sent me.  It came in the mail yesterday.  

Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pies, oh, my! is the new book by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson.  You know them from "Hello, Cupcake!" and "What's New, Cupcake!"  This is their new book that was just released.  I actually went to Hobby Lobby yesterday for a few cake items AND with the intent of buying this book, but luckily they didn't have it because it was waiting on my doorstep when I got home!  (Thanks, Mom!)  She also got me a few other baking goodies!

Mommy and Andrew Weekend!

Drew went on his first cross country flight this weekend.   He went with several other pilots and their students.  Their plan was to go to Nashville, but he called Friday morning after he left for work to tell me that due to weather (snow) they were going to St. Petersburg instead.  So with him gone all weekend, that left me and the little man to have some good quality time together.  Our weekends are usually a blur, filled with all kinds of events and/or driving to see family, so it was really nice to get to relax for once.  All we had planned was a birthday party on Saturday.  

I think Andrew was looking forward to our weekend too.  He told a man at school, "My Daddy is out of town for a few days and that means I get to sleep in my Mama's bed!"  Oh, that child!  Friday after school, we played some board games, playdoh,  and several other imaginative games that Andrew came up with.  After supper and bath time we got into our PJs for family movie night.  Now, if you know my son, you know that he's not really up to trying new things....especially new movies.  When he was 2 and 3, all he would watch was Bambi and Dumbo!  I somehow talked him into watching Oliver & Company with me Friday night.  He agreed only because I said he "didn't have to watch it."  He just sat and held the popcorn!  ;)  Needless to say, he LOVED it.  (So much so that we had to watch it first thing Saturday morning!)

Saturday, by some miracle, Andrew slept in!  It was GLORIOUS!  I haven't slept in on a Saturday in a LONG time.  Andrew started watching his movie while I cooked us some scrambled eggs and cinnamon raisin biscuits. (Drew was very upset to hear he missed out on those!) Then we played some more until it was time for Marina's birthday party.  Marina is my friend, Robin's daughter.  We go to church together. 

The party was at Benny Russell park.  It was SO COLD!  Last week was beautiful here in FL, with temps in the upper 70's.  I seriously doubt we reached 50 on Saturday...and it was windy!  BRRR!  But the kids had fun anyway.  Marina's Dad put on a magic show for the kids!

They were all amazed.  And I'm not going to lie...I have no idea how he put the quarter INSIDE the unopened coke can at the end?!  So I was amazed too!

The birthday girl, Marina, with her sister to her left, brother behind her, and mom, Robin to her right.

Make a wish!

Andrew has been blowing this horn for 2 days!  

No party is complete without a piñata!  I thought this one would never break.

Future pilot?

We had a great time at the party. (Thanks for inviting us, guys!)  We were FREEZING when we left.  My hands were so cold.  We came home and Andrew made some homemade hot chocolate!  I made boiled chocolate oatmeal cookies.  When our snacks were ready, we piled up on the couch under the blankets and watched The Fox and the Hound!  (Yes, I managed to talk him into watching another movie!) When that one was over, it was time for dinner and baths.  Guess what we did next....we watched ANOTHER movie!  Don't judge...it was too cold to get off the couch!  This time, we watched Lady & The Tramp.  Granna reads Andrew a book about Scamp and she has been trying to get him to watch Lady & The Tramp forever....so finally...he did.  He liked it the best!  I had forgotten how much I love that movie too.  

Sunday was church day.  We played a little Sunday afternoon and Andrew occupied himself long enough for me to pick up a little around the house and prepare a casserole for church.  We had a "Holy Casse-rollers church wide supper" with a Men's cake bake in lieu of our normal Sunday night service. The awanas and Bible Drill kids did demonstrations and we had lots of yummy food.  It was a good time.  

Daddy finally made it home while we were reading books for bed on Sunday night!  We were so glad he was back.  We sure missed him, but I'm thankful for the good, quality time I got to spend with my lil man too!