Another New Year

We have been in Texas for the past week and normally I take a million pictures and love writting out milestones that my kids go though when they're out here. But this year I haven't taken even a single picture and biggest milestone is that now Siah is old enough to take his sisters in the elevator by himself. It may not sound like a big deal, but let me tell you that the fact that he can navigate himself and his sisters around this enormous house without any assistance is an AWESOME accomplishment!


This trip has been so incredibly restful for me... which I must say is just what the doctor ordered! This newest little one in my tummy has been causing my eyes to feel very heavy and my tummy to feel quite queazy. Everyday, since we arrived at this glorious retreat, better known as Papaw and Granny's house, I have taken excessively long naps and gone to bed quite early. I have enjoyed good conversations and eaten my fair share of delicious food. There have been so many people around that have loved on my kids that I've felt so free to escape and rest.

Although I have throughly enjoyed this week of what feels like pure pampering, I am looking forward to going back to my real life with my three little treasures. I have had lots of time this week to think about things... about life... about the new year... about my relationship with my Joey, my kids, my friends, my Savior. I've thought about things that I feel are going well, and things that I want to change.
Last Year I decide to skip the "New Years Resolution" idea and instead pick a few things that I wanted to commit to prayer for the upcoming year. And I am so stoked to say that that worked out much better for me. Instead of trying to do a zillion things on my own, I was able to do most of the seven things that I picked to accomplish last year with God's grace and help.

So this year I have chosen only three things that I would love to see the Lord refine in my life.
The first being Trust...
trust in him, and the plan he has for my life, even if the road is difficult or scary or sad...
trust in Joey and his choices for our family...
The second being, A Genuine Love For The Word Of God...
I have been overwhelmingly lazy and distracted by other things and have lost my love for God's Word over the past few months. How can I expect to train up my children in the Word of God if I am not consistently in it myself????
The third being, A Wise Manager Of My Time...
This is such a great time in my life. I have very little that I am committed to on a daily basis. But sometimes I use all my spare time to waste my life away. Granted I am pregnant and my body is worn out, but I know that I can still be more intentional about my time. So I pray that this year the Lord will bring to my mind ways that I can specifically be a blessing to those around me, even if it's something as simple as a phone call.

So there you have it... My three New Years prayers...

There are a lot of exciting changes brewing in the Clark house. I have no doubt that all the things coming up will allow me to grow in these three areas if I have a humble, willing heart and allow the Lord to work in my life. He is able to do so much more in me than I could ever dream. This year I am whole-heartedly giving him my entire life, and anticipating that he will enthusiastically mold me into the kind of woman that he wants me to be.

I can't wait to see what you have me Lord! I love you with my WHOLE heart!
Happy New Year Y'all!

Siah & Santa

I know that several of our recent posts have been about Siah, but he has been a hoot this Christmas season and I want to remember everything that he does and says so here I go again.

Christmas in our home, is first and foremost a celebration of Christ's birth. But I must admit that I also love Santa Claus.
I totally believed in Santa Claus growing up. My brother and I used to wake up at 3am and sneak downstairs to try and catch Santa in the act of bringing our gifts. Then we would wake up again at 5am and beg our parents to get out of bed... they always made us go back to bed until at least 6am... then they would stubble down the stairs, much to our bubbling over gitty-ness, start a pot of coffee, and smile from ear to ear as they watched us enthusiastically open each gift. It is such a fun memory for me.


We tried to explain Santa last year but both kids just looked at us like we were crazy... It's a lot harder to explain than one would think. How do you make Christmas about Christ but still manage to throw in the joy and magic of Santa Claus? It's a challenge that we decided we wanted to take. So last year we just dropped it and thought we might try again this year.

And this is how it went...

I explained to the kids that Santa comes and brings people gifts on Christmas Eve in the name of Jesus. So when we wake up on Christmas morning there will be something special in your stocking from Santa Claus.

And the first thing Siah says is, "Mom, who's gonna get up in the middle of the night and open the front door for him. You won't do it cuz you don't like to get up in the middle of the night." :) (He's right, I definitely am not a "middle of the night" kind of person.)

Then Joey explained how Santa comes down the chimney and Siah responds to him with, "That's not very wise. If he comes down the chimney he'll get burned by the fire."

When we got home that night he walked in the house and went and examined the fire place. There are glass doors that cover our fireplace so Siah informs me, "Mom, Even if he doesn't get burned, he'll get stuck behind these doors."

I have this feeling that he's not buying this "Santa Claus thing." :)

A Couple Firsts

This weekend was big for both Siah and Hal. Siah had his first Christmas performance in front of the church and Hal had her first dance recital. I just loved every second of it! I love this age. I love their innocence. I love their joy. I love how they're so proud of themselves that it shows up all over their face!!! We didn't get the best of videos but we did the best we could. :)

Hope you enjoy... :)

Siah Singing Christmas Songs at church last Sunday. He's all the way on the right side of the video. He has on a brown sweater, khaki pants, and a black beanie on his head.



Hal's first dance at her recital... Don't blink or you might miss it. Hal is the second one over from the far right of the screen.

Hal loved her outfit...



Gramma and Grandpa Jim were here for the weekend. It was such a blessing for Hal to have them there...


This is what Reesie did throughout most of the performance...


Here are a few of Hal's dance moves...





She got a special treat from her teacher at the end of the program. She had to do a curtsy in order to get her treat.


Gramps came too and brought Hal some beautiful flowers....

At dinner that night we asked the kids what their favorite part of their day was...
Hal said, "Getting flowers from Gramps after I danced."
Siah said, "Watching my sister dance so beautiful."... How sweet is that!!!!!

It was a really wonderful weekend and I am so proud of both of my treasures.

"Uhhh, Maybe When We Get Home"

Last Night we went to this really awesome Living Nativity at Horizon Church. We stood in line for a couple hours just to get in.

But when it was finally our turn Siah started asking me questions about each scene that our "tour guide" took us through. Siah's questions about the things that he was seeing as we walked through the nativity totally allowed me to explain the gospel to him. And at the end there was a man who summed up the whole story of Jesus and then gave everyone an opportunity to accept Christ into their hearts.

Siah was sitting in the stroller and I knelt down next to him. I shared Romans 10:9 with him, like I have soo many times before, ("If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord then you shall be saved.").

Then I asked him if he wanted to ask Jesus to come into his heart. As I anxiously and excitedly awaited his answer, I got all teary-eyed over the thought that my precious son just might accept Christ!

He thought about it for a few seconds.

Then he said,

"Uhhhh, maybe when we get home."

If you know Siah very well, you know that that was a very "Siah" answer. He rarely does anything unless he is completely sure that he wants to do it. It's actually a quality that I am very grateful for. He didn't accept Christ last night, but I know that when the day comes when he does choose Christ for himself, it will be because he truly wants that relationship for himself.

Siah fell asleep on the way home and I opted to just bring it up another time.

It was still a very sweet night with my Siah...

Siah's Thoughts

While driving around looking at Christmas lights the other night we were talking with the kids about the birth of Jesus. I was telling them about the three gifts that the wise men brought to Jesus on his birthday... "gold, frankincense, and muir (not sure about the spelling here??)."

Then Siah pipes in,
"That's what Jesus got for his birthday?"
"Yeah. They were very nice gifts."
"Is that what he asked for?"
"Well, no not really... they just sort of gave him those things, he didn't really ask for them."
"Those don't sound like very good gifts. Bummer for Jesus!"

I asked him later what he thought Jesus should have gotten for his birthday... He said that he thought Jesus would have appreciated toys more than "those other three weird things that he got instead."

Soooo Funny is my little man! :)

Our "Mini" Treasure

I went to the doctor yesterday for our first appointment with baby #7! We saw the heartbeat and it was glorious!!! I cried like I do every time... I know that the baby kinda just looks like a blob on a screen at this point. But for some reason seeing that little heart beating, when just a few weeks ago there was nothing there, just never ceases to amaze me and captivate my heart.

The Doc said, "So far so good." We'll be able to see things better at our next appointment in January. Our official due date is July 30th, 2010.

Here's a picture of our "mini" treasure...


Please continue to lift our little gift up in prayer... we would truly be so honored to meet and love on this little one in July! Thanks for joining us as we wait and see what the Lord has in store for us!! :)

Christmas, Christmas Everywhere...

Christmas is alive and well at the giant house on the hill... In the past few weeks we have...
Put our lights up outside...
Decorated our BEAUTIFUL FREE!!! 10 Foot tree...
Filled our fireplace with stockings galore...
Baked sugar cookies...
Done our Advent Tree each night with the kids...
Gone to the annual Encinitas Christmas parade...
Went and saw Christmas lights with our friends...
Have been to our fair share of Christmas parties...
And took our annual picture of the kids in front of our tree...



I love these treasures!!!!


How BEAUTIFUL is this tree!!!! Thanks to Adam's Uncle for blessing us!!


Here we added a few more treasures... I LOVE this picture! Look closely... It is sooo funny. Siah is picking his nose and could care less about what's going on. Reesie is actually obeying what's being said to her and she's the only one smiling. Aj is trying to be sweet to his sister, but as you can tell she's MAD and clearly is not into the picture thing. And Hal, she's lost in her own thoughts. This is the real deal folks! :)



Gotta love Siah in this one... :)


It's the first year of our entire 10 years of marriage that we have had a fireplace... and I LOVE IT!!!

Christmas, Christmas everywhere...

Tonight we took the kids to see Christmas lights... WE ate kettle corn and played Christmas music in the car as we drove through these decked out neighborhoods... Last year we found this awesome house that had turned their entire front yard into a train station with all these working trains. The kids remembered it from last year so we parked on their street and walked for a little bit....

The kids soaked up every second...


How cute are they??

We met up with the Barons and the Haynes Families (but the Haynes somehow managed to escape without a family photo. :)


All the ladies..


Family Fun...



This funny sign was in someone's front yard so we stopped and took everyone's picture...
Hal was first...


Then Siah...


Reesie...


Then Papa...

Papa and Mama in the car...


Aunt Kristin sent us this really cool Advent tree that we have been doing with the kids each night... ok, not really each night... truth be told, we did five nights in one tonight. :) But all the same the kids love opening the ornaments and putting them on the tree. They often have a hard time focusing on the devotion that goes with the opening of each ornament but I know that even if they are not completely paying attention, we have at least another 15 years to get the point across... so not to worry. :)

Adam got to read the devotion tonight...

All the fun traditions that lead up to Christmas Day have been doubley fun this year. Life is always so much better when lived with friends and we have been so blessed to have friends as a part of each and every tradition that we've done this year. I just LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME!!! And I'm so grateful for all the memories made.

So that's what's been going on around here... Hope you enjoyed the little update... :)

They're Here!!!!

It's that time again... that time of year that we get ultimately blessed by my precious friend Lauren. Since the kids have been in our lives she has blessed us each year with AWESOME photos of them at Christmas time. This year she blessed us again and we took FAMILY photos for the first time. I LOVE them!!! I hope you enjoy them too!

If you would like some AMAZING pictures of your treasures or of your family, you to can have this talented woman take some fabulous photos for you. Check out her website at www.bullockproductions.com I promise that you be nothing but ecstatic about your photos!!!

Thank you my sweet, sweet friend! What a blessing you are!

Wisdom

Saturday night just might have been one of the absolute coolest nights of my life! Seriously!

Tara and I invited four older, wiser women over for tea and dessert. We had the fire going, Norah Jones was playing faintly in the background. We moved all our couches in around the fire place so that we could see and hear each other as we talked.

We had nine questions that we wanted to ask these women... we spent the next three hours getting through four of them.

We started out light hearted and talked about some Christmas traditions that they did with their families then moved on to some deeper heart issues. We asked them what two of their favorite things about their spouses were, and two of their favorite things about being a mom were. We asked them what the biggest struggle in their marriage had been and how the Lord had brought them through that struggle. Then we spent time in genuine, fervent prayer for one another.

If the topic is right, I can often times be a total chatter box. But on Saturday night I was enjoying the opportunity I had to soak up every word. I listened intently and asked the Lord to use these women, their struggles and their joys, to challenge me and minister to me. It was a blessing beyond anything that I could have asked for.

We were blessed with a special guest, Lynn. She was visiting one of the women that we had invited. She had come all the way from New Zealand, she'd been married for nearly 50 years, she had four grown children, and she was humbly overflowing with great wisdom. It never ceases to amaze me how when you meet people for the first time and you have Christ in common, you can almost instantaneously become dear friends. I could have stayed up into the wee hours of the morning listening to all five of the women that were in our home on Saturday night.

What amazes me the most is that I knew the night would be a blessing to me, but I never thought that it would be such a blessing for them. I think sometimes when were given opportunities to reflect on the things that God has done in specific areas of our lives it opens up our hearts to gratitude and reminds of things that maybe we have been avoiding for awhile that maybe we need to talk to the Lord about. It was awesome to hear that each woman there had a truly blessed evening and grew just a little bit closer to their Savior. :)

I'm so thankful that we don't have to go through this life alone. I'm thankful for women that have gone before us, women that are passionate about their Savior, women that are willing to be vulnerable and genuine, women who are willing to speak truth into my life even when the truth is hard to take in.


Thank you SOOOOO much my sweet friends for sharing your hearts and your wisdom with Tara and I. It was truly one of the best nights of my life!!!!