January

January. January–oh where did you go?  Is it really February already?

2009 started out at 12:30am-Central time–loading up a charter bus full of high schoolers onto the bus and driving through the night from Kansas City back to the big ATL.  One Thing was absolutely incredible.  The Lord stirred somethings up in my heart that was greatly needed.  

I also got to visit with some of my amazing friends–so good for my heart to see them!!!

While I was in KC, the Lord told me to not travel in January.  Oh, that was a hard one to receive, but we did it.  Honestly, it was really hard at times.  I was really missing home, since we hadn’t been there since Thanksgiving meaning we didn’t make it home at all over Christmas.  This was really hard for my heart, so another month of not being able to go was hard.  But the Lord allowed us to fellowship with people here–and home visited me on several occasions!!! 

Here are some pics of our January–no traveling month!

First day back I went and had lunch with some dear friends of mine from college–one I hadn’t seen in a few days, one a year and two a few years!!

Left to right:

Dana, Sarah, Anna, Leigh & I

My sister, Jocelyn (aka munchkin)  and her husband Brett, came up for her birthday.

My parents also got to come up and spend a weekend with us, which was a lot of fun…and cold!  We had snow flurries while they were here!!!  

They got to meet their grandpuppy for the first time:

Going for a walk in the cold!

Maddie and granddaddy’s leg:

While mom and dad were here, we visited with my cousins in Woodstock and got to try out the Wii 🙂

Also during that weekend, Ms. Julie and McMom came and had lunch with us–but somehow we forgot to take a picture of that!!!

January held Maddie’s first play dates.  She didn’t do to well on the first one, but was full throttle for the second one:

Daddy save me (if you look closely, you can see her under Roberts feet):

Playdate number 2…much better:

To finish out the great month of no travel January we had some great fellowship with the girls of RiverStone.

Kimmy made homecoming court, so we went to see her and cheer her on—yes, those are popsicle sticks with her head on them 🙂

Fun times at our apartment:  

Did we mention it’s been really cold here lately  (notice–Abigail the cat in the far left corner–yes, she now has a balancing act she performs on a baby/puppy gate)?

Well that was our January.  As you can see…

Our no travel January tuckered our little girl out!!!!  🙂  Thank you to all that made our month in staying put in our new home so wonderful!!!  

I also started the bible study, Esther by Beth Moore in January.  We had over 170 women sign up for this bible study at RiverStone.  Holy Shamolies–that’s a lot of Esther=Estrogen as Beth Moore states!  I’ve also been pondering the question one of our associate pastors asked me in the beginning of January…”Has God given you a vision for 2009?”  I’ll get back to this question in a little bit, but for now…that’s our January!  Thanks for sharing life with us!