The beauty of growth and sanctification

“Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was.”  
- John Newton

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."   - Philippians 3:12-14

"...Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ..."   
- Philippians 1:6

“Take a fresh draught of perspective, self.

See how the framework is grand.

Remember the times when you could have let go,

When all seemed to fail like the seeds you had sown,

But your Father was holding your hand.

Remember the days when invisible words

Flew the darkness away, and you wept.

And each salted glass tear was a mountain of fear

Leaving and melting and now there appears

A glimpse of the Lord’s promise, kept.

Don’t drown in shed tears for the past you knew

It’s different now that you look back.

The colors are marching through darkness you felt.

But each one is brighter for each sorrow dealt,

And their richness finds nothing to lack.”

.

- Grace Einkauf

 

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."   
- 2 Corinthians 5:17

"...Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."    - Ephesians 4:13-16

  "Yet the righteous will hold to his way,

And he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger."
- Job 17:9

 

"But the path of the just is like the shining sun,

That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day."
- Proverbs 4:18

Though I am far -oh, so far!- from what I ought to be, so far from what I want to be, by the grace of God I can truly say, "I am not who I once was!"

Risa @};-

Done!

 Dad is done with the floor. 

Not only are we done with mom and dad's floor but we are done with the back yard. (We have been since last year but forgot to post about it.) And since it is Spring I thought I would post a few pictures of our yard now.

Also . . . since I'm posting I might as well show these.

Yes, there were two baby birds born in our backyard! I actually got to see the mother bird feed her two babies yesterday. It was so neat.

♥ Baby Girl

with a little help from ~Momo

I love hiking!

A few days ago we went for a hike. We like to go hiking a lot and thought we might be able to make it to the top of the waterfall this time. When we go hiking, we like to try all different places and trails. But whenever we go on this particular path, we don't get to the top. Let's see if we can get to the top this time.

And we're off! Sunny day, happy family, and snacks! Can it get any better?

This is a picture of where we were.

We got our feet wet in the stream.And we found some shade.

Okay, I have lots of pictures but you all said thats what you like!!

Well, I guess we didn't get to the top. But we had a blast! As soon as we got home Dad took a nap, Sam went straight to the recliner, I made a snack, and Risa started a movie for us to watch. SquiRe on the other hand acted like he had just as much energy as he had before he hiked over 6 miles (9.7 km) without being carried!

Here are some silly photos I just have to share! 

Lol! Hope you enjoyed the pictures because we enjoyed taking them!

~Momo

Yesterday's happy happenings

Yesterday was a good day. Not only was it productive, but we also had lots of fun. =) And took lots of pictures. ;-) First we helped Dad pull up the the plain ol' tan carpet in our parents' room so we can replace it with shiny, new wood floors.  There's Fiona. Fiona is so photogenic [in my highly biased opinion        ;-)] !    

While we were going through Mom and Dad's closet we found Dad's old army uniform (which just barely fit him) and a trench coat he bought in Berlin, Germany. We gave him a magnifying-glass and the hat which was an early birthday present, and he looks a bit like a detective ;-) But the hat didn't fit quite right, so we went to the store to get a new one and to to buy some things for our newly painted bathroom.

This is us in the car.

On the way there Momo was complaining about how no one in the family would kiss her, and how no one loved her anymore, so mom gave her a kiss on the cheek when we got to the store ;-). . . .Then we went to the hat section. Boy, oh boy, I thought I didn't like shopping or trying on anything. . .until I found hats!

Formerly unbeknownst to me, I love hats!

 

I was actually crouching down to look at the mirror, but Risa said it looks like I'm on some kind of secret mission =].

My two favorite kind of hats have always been Fedoras and... whatever the hat I'm wearing in the picture on the left is called! And the store had both kinds! I was happy. =)

Well, hat shopping had to stop eventually (according to Mom anyway)         ;-] So we moved on to the bath mats and shower cutains...

We got those things and headed home. Here's Dad donning his nice, new hat. =)

And here is Mom and Dad's floor right now. Eh...it'll look better soon. ;-)

Oh, and in case any of you are interested, we added a pregnancy ticker for Jack at the bottom of the page =).

Now that was a long blog post!

SAM