Monday, January 9, 2017

My Best Year (Spiritually Speaking)

In Sunday morning's sermon, the preacher asked when was your best year spiritually?  My answer was this past year.  In January of 2016, I made a resolution to start a personal Bible study plan and actually stick to it through out the entire year.  I have always done something along these lines, but have ALWAYS allowed life to get in the way.  The typical strong start would last a month or so, but by mid year I would be discouraged and behind because I had allowed different things to get in the way of my personal Bible time.  
But not this year!  For the first time since I completed a "Read Through the Bible in 1 Year" program (quite a few years back), I actually stuck to and completed a personal Bible study plan.  Some weeks were really hard but even with those hard times I was able to stick to the majority of my weekly plan.  I did different things each day to try to keep myself from getting in a rut and it worked well for me.

I participated in the Revive Me in 2016 a 52 week Bible Study, you can begin here:
Revive Me, Week One
I also began Bible Marking different topics.  I got started here:
Bible Marking at Come Fill Your Cup
Since I was new to this, I did one topic every week.  A new topic is posted every month or so but there are (at this time) about 8 pages of topics, so you have plenty to do while you wait for new topics.
I read different spiritually minded articles mainly from these 2 websites:
Come Fill Your Cup
The Colley House
And I listened to different Pod Casts from here:
The Light Network
The podcasts are especially great for those days when it is just hard to sit down and have quiet time, which is very often when you are a SAHM with not-yet-school-aged littles.
I also read our Ladies Devotional and Ladies class books that we did this year with our church family at Southaven and prepared for the children's Bible class I teach every Sunday.

I am hopeful and praying that this year will be another spiritually successful year.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Fall Recap

Fall is my favorite season: cooler temps, soccer, camping, hay rides, being outside most of the day, leaves changing, fires, smores, Halloween!  




School: Hilton loves his 2 day a week MDO/preschool, but we still work on schooling at home.  We are making a  letter handprint keepsake book and he loves doing it.  Aylin is having a great year in the 2nd grade!  Weston loves getting to go to story time once a week by himself; he is trying to learn new words too.

Hilton's NICU reunion!







Soccer:  Aylin and Hilton both played this year and I helped coach both teams.  It was a long season but a great one!  Hilton almost scored a goal in his last game and Aylin really showed some improvement.  Her team ended the season in 2nd place and then beat the undefeated team in the championship game to win first in the tournament :)

Night at the fair!






Camping: We had a wonderful time with our church family at our annual camp out.  We stayed 3 nights even though one night it poured and our tent leaked and site flooded!





Annual trip to the pumpkin patch!

Fall break zoo trip!


Trunk-or-Treat: Trunk-or-treat with our church family was great this year too.  The weather was amazing and we still have candy left over, although none of the really good stuff.



The boys and I went to the Fire Museum of Memphis!


Aylin and I went to see HHS put on Tarzan!


Halloween:  I couldn't talk the kids into doing family costumes this year, Aylin was dead set on being MAL from Descendents.  So I let Hilton and Weston pick out their own costumes.  Hilton was a green Power Ranger and Weston was Superman.  The big two and I went trick-or-treating with friends again this year and left Bobby and Wes home to hand out candy.




Hilton's MDO/preK had a Halloween parade and party!

Aylin was a flag holder for her school Veterans Day program!






Thanksgiving: The kids were out for the whole week, so we drove to Jonesboro to visit my grandmother who was staying with one of my uncles at the time.  Then spent 4 nights with Bobby's family in Heber Springs and even got to see some of the extended family.