a story of grace

When I was 7 years old, I had a nightmare I'll never forget. I woke up sweating and shaking. I can still remember the feeling of uncertainty that pulled me into a deep sense of fear. The nightmare I had woken up from involved two close relatives of our family who had both passed on; one just after I was born, the other only a few months ago. To the best of my knowledge, neither of them had known Christ. In my dream, these two relatives were pleading with me to be ready and know where I would spend my eternity. I was so frightened by this. Death in any form had always scared me, so I'd never put much thought into my own future death. It was that night I realized that someday, for sure and certain, I was going to die. I knew where I wanted to go, but deep inside I knew I wouldn't get there.
Ever since I can remember, my parents have been faithful to teach me and my siblings about Christ and what He did on the cross. I knew about God. I knew Jesus died for people's sins. I knew it, but I had yet to come to understand it. It wasn't alive in my heart; I didn't believe.
Sitting there in my bed I was fearing death, yearning for hope and aching within my soul for certainty. I saw my need for Christ. I was a sinner in need of His grace. God then brought to my mind Acts 16:31 which says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." In Acts 16, Paul was taking to the jailer who wanted to be saved. Those words meant the same thing that night in my bed as they did to the jailer so long ago. Jesus opened my eyes that night and saved me. I had found what I was searching for all along, wether I'd known I was searching or not. The Lord didn't have to reveal Himself to me...I didn't (and still don't) deserve salvation, but He chose to grant it to me.
Ever since He adopted me into His family 9 years ago, He has always, always been by my side loving me, teaching me, guiding me and being a faithful and gracious Savior. I want to live my life to honor Him. He is beautiful. He is my everything. I love Him and strive to love Him more everyday in word, deed and heart. Psalm 34:8


P.S. Dear people, I know I promised you guys more pictures of our trip and I will post those, but it's just been on my heart to write out my testimony. Thanks for taking the time to read it; I hope it wasn't too painful for you. I know I'm not the best writer, as I've mentioned before...*cringes*. Haha ;)

Trip to Virgina {Part 1}

 Last week, we went on a vacation of sorts. Our friends, Jessica and Stephen, were getting married in Blacksberg Virgina, so we planned an epic camping trip in Lexington, V.A. just a few days before the wedding. We love to camp. All of us--even me, although I'm not so huge on the spider part of camping. (Ok, so maybe I detest spiders and scream every time I see one..) Anyway, we haven't been camping for years so it was very exciting to be doing it again! (And this time, withOUT a crib or stroller!)

 

I made a vlog for you all after we had set up camp on the first day. Against my better judgement, I'm posting it for you... *cringes* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAC0hSdRWpg&feature=plcp

 Enjoy? XD

 Lexington was incredibly interesting! We all love history and Lexington had so much to see and do that was historic. Hannah is a little obsessed with the 1860's so, needless to say, she was thrilled to get to see places that her heroes (Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson) lived and taught.

 Our first stop was General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's house he lived in with Anna, his wife. (I've always thought it was kind of funny that people call him "stonewall". I mean, if I say "Thomas Jackson", people have to think twice before they know who I'm talking about. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, his name was Thomas...not Stonewall... Ok, I'm kind of rambling...)

           It was a *cough* very unique tour of his house. (I think that's all I'll say on the subject. XD) But it was a nice house... and fun to see. I've always admired the Jacksons. They were sweet believers and a good example. (I've also heard they were happy people. I know I would have gotten along well with them. ha! :))

                                                           Yes, yes and yes. XD

                                                  Lunch time!!! LOL. hey, I love my family.

 Aaand, we toured VMI! (Virgina Military Institute) This was one of my favorite things we did. It is so beautiful there--the architecture and everything. They filmed some scenes from the movie 'Gods and Generals' at VMI so naturally, I was very excited to see it!

Meet Stonewall's horse, Little Sorrel. They stuffed it and put it on display in a museum at VMI. It kind of weirds me out a bit. Haha.

                                       The cannons--'Matthew', 'Mark', 'Luke' and 'John'. haha! :)


 Later, I'll post some more pictures from our trip, which include, a beautiful farm, a rehearsal, a wedding, and just some randomness! :)

In other news, I'm going to change the title of this blog to 'Life's a happy song' inspired by the song with the same title from the latest muppets movie. What do you think? :)

The Other Pictures Link Up!

It's me again! (Yes, I know--2 blog posts in one day! Crazy!)
So, the lovely Mrs. Lynnette Kraft is having a link up over at her blog . The idea is to post some *unique* photos on your blog that you might not normally post. I had a lot of fun looking through our collection of photos...we have plenty of crazy ones, trust me! But I'll just post a few here. (I'm having trouble with the layout of things. Yes, I'm technically challenged!)

This one is just...awkward!

             







             I suppose I just make faces like this!

                             








                    You can just guess.

I guess they don't like being with each other! (Just kidding! They love each other very much. I think the unhappy faces are due to the fact they are being forced to take pictures! )

                        
                              



               No comment.








I hope you enjoyed these pictures and that they made you laugh. Or chuckle. Or giggle. Or at least smile! :) Thanks for reading. Much Love!

Mother's Day Video

I know this is a little late, but I thought you'd all like to see the video we made for our Mom in honor of Mothers' Day. (We being my siblings and I) It's kind of patchy, but it is the first video we have made all together. The dialogue in the beginning is a bit convoluted. But in our defense, Hannah (who was filming the video), told us to talk nonsense because she thought she was going to mute it in the final cut. She didn't, but fortunately we were able to get a scene out of it all that *kind of* made sense! I hate seeing myself in videos. I don't feel normal at all, so I can't believe my siblings got me to do this! haha! Anyway, I hope you enjoy watching it! (And feel free to tell me what you think! :))

Jo really, really enjoyed playing with Micaiah's BB gun! (We had a rather hard time getting it from him!)

That's all for now, folks. Thanks for reading! (And watching! ;))

Treasuring the 3 Stooges & more

Monday started out like one of those lazy days where no matter what you do, you don't feel like you accomplished much at all. Because Dad is a Pastor, we have always taken our Mondays off instead of Saturdays. (Dad's day off is Monday). So normally on monday we do whatever needs to be done around the house and find some way to have fun together. (Not that it takes anything to have fun with my family--just being together is fun!)


So last Monday we just did a bunch of random things (I won't mention them all here because I don't want to bore you.) and finally left the house around 6 P.M. To go shopping. When we got to Wal-Mart, we kind of split up--I went to the gardening section with a few of my younger siblings & Mom. The little guys were tripping over each other, knocking things down, hop-skipping, unintentionally getting in people's way and overall just acting stooge-like. I'll admit, I was starting to get very frustrated with them!

 Then it hit me...one day I won't get to shop with them. One day they won't be little anymore and I'm sure I'll miss these days at least a tiny bit. So for now, while the younger ones are skipping through life, I'll treasure the time I have to watch them...be an older sister to them and be their friend. Oh the things you learn at Wal-Mart! ;)









Yesterday we were running errands and while mom was in a thrift store (I love thrift stores so much, I don't let myself go in if I don't have a specific need because I know I'll end up spending money I shouldn't. Ha!) I took a couple videos for you guys! I'll post them for you all when YouTube lets me. (I'm currently having technical difficulties. haha)









Today I listened to Carrie Underwood's new CD 'Blown Away' in it's entirety. I (no, I'm not going to say I was blown away. ha!) enjoyed it! Carrie is really the only country artist I listen to because I love her voice and her music isn't too country...more like country/rock. Anyway, I have the title song stuck in my head. I liked when Carrie Underwood sang it on Idol the other week, but I think the recorded version is best. Do you all like country music? ;)
Thanks so much for reading! Hope you all are having a fantastic week!

A Whole Lot of Randomness

I'm sitting here watching Mission: Impossible 4 with my family (even though we just watched it last week) We are some serious Mission: Impossible/Tom Cruise fans here! Ha! Have you all seen this movie? What did you think? I really like it, although I think the 3rd movie is my favorite in the series.

Last week I made a dress. I needed a formal spring dress but one that wasn't too fancy. Here are some pictures...

Have you listened to the Jonas Brothers? They are awesome & I'm not afraid to say so. Haha! I was kind of
aware if them when they were the happening thing, but I never really paid much attention to them until now. :P They are pretty great though! And their TV show 'JONAS' from a few years ago? So awesome! Also, the band 'Lifehouse' is really great. I've really been enjoying their album 'No Name Face'.

I'm trying to be a better blogger in the way I write, the things I write about and how often I blog. So hopefully you'll hear more from me very soon. :)
That's all for now...Thanks for reading. I hope you all have a great week!

Downton Abbey Fever--do you have it yet? Because....

 I do. Ha! I only started watching the series a few weeks ago when season 2 first aired. My sister and I downloaded season one off itunes and watched it in less than a week. At first I was like, "What. A series about some rich family and their servants?" But when I started watching it I got hooked. The music is beautiful, the character development is excellent, the storyline is quite interesting, the costumes are b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l, and the cast is perfect! (The other week I tweeted Hugh Bonneville...and he actually TWEETED ME BACK. Wowwww.... It made my month. ;))

 Aw, I just like this photo. hehe So cute. Plus, I love Mary's dress and necklace. Gorgeous!!

 So after watching it for a while, I got majorly inspired to sew SOMETHING. So I made a dress.
The dress I made was basically modeled after Sybil's dress in this photo. The sleeves are shorter for lack of fabric. And the collar is a bit different but considering the fact I've never sewn a dress without a pattern before, I think it's all good. ;)

For some reason I keep thinking "The Waltons" when I look at my dress. Haha! I'm not sure why. What do you think? :)








This is Hannah's lovely dress. I'll tell you a secret - She made the lace part out of a tablecloth. I think it works perfectly, though!










 The conclusion to this post is as follows: If you haven't seen Downton Abbey, go watch it. (you can watch season 2 for free here-http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/downtonabbey/ ) , also, have a great weekend and thanks for reading my little blog! :)