Thanksgiving!

 

Just Around the Corner!

Oh my, the great Holidays are just around the corner and I am so excited for them! And I am most excited for family and food for these holidays. We are going to drive to Johnstown, CO to see Tom's parents among other relatives of his for Thanksgiving! I have to say I am not excited about the drive, 12 hours normally without a baby, and a little nervous about possible road conditions this time of year. We drove there for Thanksgiving 2 years ago before we were engaged and on the way home there were some scary places on the road! But I am so excited for his parents and other relatives to enjoy Titus. He is at one of those first really enjoyable stages, laughs and tries to talk to you. Isn't no longer only sleeping and eating. Although there has already been days where I wish he was that small again, guess that just means we will have to have more babies! Ha! And I am really excited for the food too! I love watching the Food Network and mostly this month it seems they have been preparing Thanksgiving feasts! Oh, sometimes I wish I had smell-o-vision television! But I am really thankful for the opportunity to spend the holiday with Rich and Carol, I am really thankful for my own family, my wonderful husband and my beautiful, delightful son. I am thankful for our health, for God's provision for us. It has been an adjustment for us to go down to one income this year and an adjustment for me in the change of pace and just daily routines from working in a workplace full time to being a stay at home mom. I am thankful for Bible Study Fellowship, for all the ladies there that are exploring God's Word with me and all of them just love Titus. One lady said a couple weeks ago as she was talking to Titus, "it is like you have 150 grandma's!" They are not all old enough to be his grandma but I thought it was so sweet and cute of her because they all adore him and I told her that is nice because unfortunately his real grandmas live far away. I am thankful for my aunt Mary, she likes to meet with Titus and I a couple times a week to chat, pray and walk together. And she loves entertaining Titus. I am thankful that God's Word is living and active in our hearts, He is working in the lives of loved ones around me in ways I never expected Him to. I am thankful for the freedom that we have in this country thanks to the soldiers who have given their lives and time away from their families to keep that freedom. Freedom to enjoy life, freedom to love God openly, freedom to have God's Word, freedom to meet openly with other believers. I am thankful for friends, like Brian and Rachelle, Daisy, Mike and Allison, Stephanie, Emily, Erin, Kristi and Sarah just to name a few. Anyway I am sure my thankful list could go on and on if had the time.

And then we have Christmas! Yikes! I am super psyched about that. We are flying into IA to visit my family in Galena, IL for Christmas. I am also excited not only for my parents to enjoy Titus but my sisters get to meet him for the first time and so does 2 of his cousins! I am so excited for the three of them to be together and play. And we get to meet our niece Bella for the first time and she just turned a year old this month! And basically my dads whole family lives back there except for Mary who is here and then most of my moms side lives back there too. So we will be having Christmas on both sides back there plus my immediate family! So what do you get a 6 month old for Christmas? I am trying to keep Christmas simple this year, with one income I am trying to come up with nice things that I can make. And I so do not want to go overboard with gifts for my child, not only do we not really have the room in our 2 bedroom apartment but I don't want to teach him that Christmas is all about gifts. This might sound unheard of but I know a family who tries to stick with 3 gifts per child based on the fact that the wise men brought 3 gifts for the baby Jesus to Bethlehem (see Matthew 2)! And I know another family that just basically does stocking stuffers with their children! I think those are some good things to think about! Besides we all know the grandparents can't hold back and resist going all out on presents for their grand kids so it isn't like he would be lacking anything if we tried to keep it simple for him.

So if you would, we would appreciate your prayers during our travel to CO, we plan on leaving Tuesday night, the 23rd, to drive to Billings while Titus sleeps and then Lord willing make it the rest of the way on Wednesday. And then begin our return on Saturday, the 27th, to head again to Billings Lord willing and do the rest on Sunday to home here. Not only that Titus would do okay in his car seat that long but that the roads would be clear and the Lord would just have His hand over our vehicle protecting us.

Praise Him

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Today at Bible Study it was just an awesome lesson over Isaiah 11-12. What refreshing chapters after all the judgement upon the disobedient people of God so far. It just makes me want to sing out to Him and about how good He is. Even through our disobedience He still loves us and He promised a Redeemer and that Redeemer came 2010 years ago! Praise God that by His grace I came to know Him and His saving love for me, a wretched sinner, in September of 1998! By His grace everyday I can choose to live for Him and His glory bringing upon myself NO shame or regrets! By His grace everyday I can love my wonderful husband who also loves God and share life with him and everything that God brings our way whether it is grace to face another wretched day on this messed up earth that has fallen so far from what God had in mind when He made it and everything on it or it is moments like these when you realize how blessed you are to be living in His grace and experiencing His blessing upon your life. By His grace everyday I or my husband get to see the waking smile of the precious son God has given us, knowing that it is also by His grace that we are going to meet all of Titus' needs. And by His grace everyday we will teach Titus that God also loves him very much and has a great plan for his life, one that brings glory to Him and blessing upon him as His servant. And it will also be by His grace that one day we enter into eternal life with our sweet Jesus, where peace will rule and love will abide between all mankind and their Creator there. And we will sing with the angels many songs and praises to Him for all of His greatness and faithfulness throughout the ages past and for eternity.

Hellooooo!

Well since I last wrote obviously life has gone on and Titus just keeps developing into the cutest baby boy I have ever loved, which has not been a whole lot in my life, Sior (pronounced like shore) and Jayce to name the ones I think of immediately. Oh I remember when Sior was a baby and I would hold him and I just remember thinking I want one these precious baby boys of my own. Now he is five years old and I do have one of my own! Anyway we had a busy day on Halloween since it was Sunday, there was of course church, then we did family pictures and then Sior had his birthday party which was a harvest party. His birthday was on the 29th and we were supposed to come dressed up but Tom and I both refuse to participate in teaching our child anything that has to do with Halloween, even if it is made as simple as a harvest party. We both participated in it when we were children but it is interesting that both of us on our own had decided that was something we did not want for our kids. Anyway it was a fun party with great food and company and fun for the birthday boy and that is what matters.

We went to one of our favorite places up the Rattlesnake for our family pictures. Some pictures were taken on the this bridge that we have played cribbage on a couple of times up there. I was very nervous because I think my smile is always fake but what a blessing it was to get them back and find that you couldn't tell that and most of them turned out awesome. Our photographer was a girl from our church who really got into it once she started having kids and she did a great job with posing us and making it comfortable and natural feeling. She spent a little over an hour with us and then she goes through all the poses and pics out her favorite one in each pose and sharpens it in color and then pics out her second favorite in each pose and turns it black and white and then erases the rest of the shots and gives all of them to you on a cd for you to do what you want with them. So we actually got about 58 pictures back, which I think is awesome. And she was very affordable!

Oh the total proceeds of the pumpkin patch ended up being over $18,000 to go towards the Great Commission Fund of the Alliance Missionaries! How awesome is that?!

Titus now always sleeps on his belly, we initially start him on his back but he always rolls over now. Which is awesome because now his little bald patches can grow back fully that his mattress has rubbed off.

Tom went hunting this last Saturday with Brian and Ronnie but they did not have any luck. They are going to go again next Saturday and we will be praying they get something between the three of them. Titus and I hung out with Rachelle and her kids and Dawn and her boys at Brian and Rachelle's house while the boys hunted. That was fun for the all and good soup for dinner.

Oh Tom and I did get to go on our first date also on the 30th. Thanks to Brian and Rachelle, they not only sponsored our date by giving towards pretty much the whole meal but they watched Titus for us. I was so relieved, I knew that he was in good hands and I was able to fully enjoy myself and time with Tom. We went to Johnny Carino's and I got my favorite eggplant dish there! Then we also went to Starbucks and got some non coffee beverages and then we went for a short walk in a park near Brian and Rachelle's house and when we pulled up to the park we got a text from Brian that said "no hurry but he is starting to get fussy." So we did our short walk and got over there and he was crying really hard and his face was all red and he just looked mad. He was hungry which I knew he would be getting, we were out about 2 hours and he ate before we left their house but that is about how long he lasts before he is hungry again. Otherwise he did great and he didn't complain or anything till he got hungry and he loved playing with Kezia, Shaelie and Jayce. And Rachelle was so sweet, she knew he was hungry and she couldn't do anything about it and she just tried to comfort him till we got there.

Anyway that is about it, I do have most of the family pictures uploaded to Costco.com, if you want to see them and possibly order some, I can send you an email invite to view them. They will have you set up an account to view them but that does NOT require a membership to Costco. Just let me know by email, tom.carrie.johnson@gmail.com, and if you don't have a Costco near you to order some to pick up I can upload to WalMart and you would be able to pick them up there, I have done that for my sister and Tom's parents already and WalMart online is pretty easy to work with also. Otherwise we will probably send out one for a Christmas card but it may most likely have typing on it.