On the 6th day of Christmas

6. Bake a cake for Jesus.

so i made a pumpkin pound cake

here is the recipe

Get Ready...december count down

2012 Christmas Count Down begins tomorrow. i just finished our first annual 25 days of things to do in december advent calendar. 

i kinda just made this up myself with a combo of ideas from the infamous PINTREST. stephen and i came up with 25 things to do this winter as a new family starting our own traditions. so i decided to make it even more fun by turning it into an advent calendar where we open the little baggie every day and see what it tells us to do! kiah makes me wanna be crafty. i bought my very own hot glue gun too! oh the possiblities. i plan on getting some help from my BFF jessica jones on some stockings for kiah, stephen and i out of an old sweater!
    having kiah has justified my desires to decorate and start traditions. before, when it was just stephen and i, i always wanted to do things like buy a pumpkin or buy a tree or decorate for holidays but since he could care less about it i just didn't do it. but NOW...things are different. this is the beginning of a beautiful thing. we have to start off right. gosh, I LOVE TRADITIONS! 
    the other thing that we have decided to do as far as the gift giving stuff is the, "something you want, something you need, something you wear, and something you read." 
for me-
want: some type of good work out clothes
need:
wear :maybe TOMS, or sunglasses or a new scarf
read: subscription to REAL SIMPLE
for kiah-
want:
need: a warm hat
wear:
read:
for stephen-
want:
need: luggage for thailand
wear:cleats and indoor shoes for his trip to thailand
read: i'm sure this won't be too hard, he loves getting new books

if anyone has any gread ideas, i sure could use them because i'm not getting very far with this list.

hard. harness.

this morning we woke up to such a sunny day. happiness was in the air.
stephen and i just prayed in the yellow room with kiah and then took her dancing.

i have to video tape stephen and i dancing to this with her sometime. it was the best moment of my life!!!
 today was also the day that we were gong to the doctors to find out if kiah would be in a harness for 6 weeks or not to fix her hips. faith filled our hearts and brought us the a place of such belief that Jesus would heal her and we would witness a great miracle to tell everyone about the powerful healing. we were singing and worshipping in the doctors office. i think we were honestly HUNGRY TO SEE GOD IN THIS WAY. we are hungry to see healing the way we KNOW God does heal. we know the goodness and kindness and greatness of Jesus. he is and always will be, even in the midst of our feelings that try to tell us he failed us or that we failed. his love never fails.   the ultra sound showed us that there was still a dislocation after taking this past week to pray over her. this was hard news to hear. wow we cried. i cried. my mothers heart hurt so bad. i just wanted to tell kiah, i'm sorry i'm sorry. but the hardest thing was probably more just that we were so ready to praise Jesus for the miracle and to be able to tell all the doctors about Him and to tell everyone praying for kiah how Jesus is alive and heals miraculously. i have been thirsty for a refreshment in the holy spirit like this. i had thought to mself. we need this. urban eagles needs this. our families need this. our friends need this. something to spark us to push closer to him. but, in that moment, i thought to myself, well. i guess we have to tell everyone that He didn't do it.
i know that was not the right response. i knew we were still going to put our trust in Jesus and praise him like never before and continue honoring Him. in that moment i was upset. but then, we left the doctors office after taking time to collect myself and having learned how to put the harness on and everything. we were NOT ready to go back to birchcroft just yet. we went to one of our secret hide out houses- where the famly has given us a key to. we got there and just wanted to be alone but the house keeper was there. we figured we should still stay there and just tell her what was going on. THIS WAS AMAZING! the house keeper is a holy spirit filled hispanic woman of God who we love so much. she does our laundry quite often actually. she's wonderful. so we walk in and OOOHH MANNN!!! the rivers of heaven overflowed on us. she grabbed our hands and prayed in spanish with all her heart and soul. we were just weeping there in the door way and kiah slept in the car seat in peace below us. the housekeeper prayed for PEACE PEACE PEACE. then she reminded us of so much truth. God used her to destroy all the wandering thoughts i was having and totally fixed my eyes back into the eyes of our precious savior Jesus Christ. wow. peace like never before came over kiah.
seriously she was in a supernatural sleep. i had to wake her up at like 7:30 that night. she had slept from 1:30-7:30. wow. just wow. and she slept great all through the night too!
Jesus is faithful. and when we don't understand we will praise Him.

u are good God    u are good to me

the day after tomorrow

      all along i have made "the due date" as the last possible day she might arrive. i have heard very few stories of babies coming late and a ton of stories of babies coming early. but now, here we are with tomorrow and then finally the next day with my next doctors appointment. i thought she would be here by now. so many people are coming up to me saying, "what! she hasn't come yet!" and i'm like, "ahhh look at me, does it look like i had my baby?" this morning though, i went walking with my friend lenia and she and her husband were the best. he came in and said hi to me. instead of saying something that made me feel like i was doing something wrong or that it was my fault the baby hadn't come yet, he said..."the next time i see you i am sure your gonna have the baby so congratulations." i am excited about long nights, long days and little rest. i am looking forward to every bit of it. i am looking forward to labor even. i am excited to see what God is going to do.

ice-cream and cookies

tina reading the treasure hunt clues

     tried walking to help the baby drop more, spent some time with Jesus on lenia's back porch, came home to my hubby, he made me a smoothie, showered, prepared for GIRLS NIGHT. i decided to just lead it since i might be out of commission after kaih comes and i felt like why not, it will help keep me busy. so i planned out a treasure hunt at the near by veterans park. the theme was being a princess in the kingdom of God. we brought about 15 girls and kids all over the park wanted to join in with us. the Lord put matthew 6:20-21 on my heart and i knew i just had to share it. "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." it was such a fun time at the park. after the treasure hunt the two teams gathered back to our picnic tables and we handed out bowls of cookies and ice-cream.

 i was pretty tired from all of that and was ready to come home, eat dinner and relax.

pregnant in heels

my dear friend kari gave me such a great word today,
     habakkuk 2:3 says,
the LORD replied,
     "for the revelation awaits an APPOINTED TIME;
  it speaks of the end and will not prove false.
    THOUGH IT LINGER, WAIT FOR IT;
  it certainly will come and will not delay."
WOW, i mean, seriously, WOW   --- this is the cry of my heart right now and to allow the sweet voice of Jesus to be heard really makes it so wonderful. Jesus is perfect in every way. the timing of kiah lily jackson's arrival will be the time that has been appointed all along.
    today the enemy has been trying so hard to distract and disturb stephen and i both. i have felt so busy today without actually having had done anything. i felt so bad for my hubby this moning. he woke up in bed beside me so sweetly telling me good morning and how much he loved me. he is such a morning person!!! he told me to keep sleeping and to stay in bed because he was getting up to pray and spend time with Jesus. i stayed in bed just a bit longer but felt so thirsty. i didn't want to disturb stephen but i had to go get some water. so i went down stairs and he wasn't there. i knew what had happened. he came back in and said that some boys missed the bus and he took them to school. so by then i could tell he was still left hungry for intimacy with Jesus. but he was having to get a few things done before practice. we got some cereal, but while we were in the kitchen we found some evidence from a rat that had gotten into a bag of bagels. that is always frustrating to talk about. but after moving past that, i went to open the pantry and a huge cockroach crawled down the door. AHHHH!!! YUCK! it was already a ruff morning. so stephen headed to practice and i headed to the gym. i did an hour on the elliptical while i watched a show called 'Pregnant in Heel' and watched a girl give birth at home. it was crazy. and kind of made me not so excited about the LABOR.     then, stephen called me and told me that while he was practicing his wallet and phone had gotten stolen from his car. his credit card had been used 11 times by the time he got to the bank and there happened to be a big wad of cash in it from the day before after someone paid him back for paying for their bills.   this was just all crashing down on this already tiring day. i had 2 things on my agenda for the day that i had to do, and both fell threw, kind of. i was supposed to pick up 2 kids early from school for an appointment but someone else had already gone to do it. then i was supposed to pick up another kids from his school that was much farther away and let out later to get him to the wednesday soccer practice. i drove all the way there, got in the car rider line extra early and the teacher comes out and tells me he rode the bus.  by the time i got home, i knew i couldn't just hangout outside with the kids, so i took little sofyia with me to the park to walk around and watch the boys practice. it was hot and gnats were everywhere, but it was better than being in birchcroft right then. we came home and i made hot dogs, baked beans and corn on the cob. i guess i was just craving a cook out. we been able to chill out but i think we just need to go to bed. we both want to shower so bad but we can't because leo, the maintenance man, worked on our shower and the glue stuff isn't dry. all and all, one more day closer to seeing kiah lily's face!