My Week in Review

Well it's the weekend again. Here are some updates on life in the Martin household:

Still no laptop. However, my hubby surprised me on valentine's day with an incredible gift: an itouch. We can't get an iphone because we're on Alltel (I know, I know, it just makes the most sense for us...all of our family is on Alltel and with the my circle plan we hardly ever use any minutes. I just wish they had rollover!). So he knew how much I wanted an ipod to listen to music, etc while cleaning, walking (eventually, when it gets warmer), etc. And since the computer debacle I hadn't been able to get on the internet during the week, unless I used my cell phone, he got me the itouch. I gotta tell ya...I have enjoyed it immensely. I had never tapped into podcasts before and I now have subscribed to a few. I can't wait until my favorite shows start coming back so I can download a few of them! If anybody has a suggestion of an incredible-you-can't-miss-out-on-this type podcast, let me know!

Lights are now installed at the church. Theatrical-type lighting. Shaun's not quite finished, a couple of the dimmer packs were broken so he had to send them back, but they are all installed and the finish work is done on 2 sections. We are actually going to get to use half of them on Sunday. The choir's gonna have a fit...lol. But it looks so much better. Before, the regular lights cast so many shadows that it just looked bad. And they will be a huge benefit come Easter and Christmas for our musicals.

We bought a potty chair. Just to get him used to it. Every night before he takes his bath we let him sit on it. I don't think he understands yet what it's for, but he sure does like it! I guess I'm just going to take my time with it and see what happens. I don't want to push him before he's ready, even though he has shown several signs of being ready.

His vocabulary has grown so much! He's just growing up so fast; he turns 18 months next week.
Our church is growing. We had 2 more couples join this Sunday. I think there have been maybe one or two Sundays this year that someone hasn't joined. And I know of at least one more couple who will be joining soon. It's incredible what God is doing in our midst! Our discipleship university classes are going so well, too. I know mine is just awesome.

The puppies are growing, too. They are getting so big! I still have 3 available, by the way. They'll be ready around Easter.

I guess that's it for now. Maybe this weekend I'll get a chance to blog more and have some interesting posts. No promises though! Now I'm off to go take a long bath and pamper myself, since hubby and son are still asleep!

Last post for a few days

Before I forget, here's a group pic of my new "babies". And that's my maternity clothes they are sleeping on! Batgirl opened the box herself and nested in there.

The weekend is almost over and that means the 'puter is goin' back to the church. And unless Shaun brings it home during the week, I probably won't get to blog again until the weekend. I'll be so glad when his laptop either gets fixed or he gets a new one.


So, here's the summary of my weekend:

Friday night I got to go shopping! I bought a couple new maternity dresses and some clothes for Cayson.

Saturday night we had our Valentine's Banquet at the church. It was so much fun. We had a skit with a parody of a dating game like love connection. The "contestants" were characters like "Whitney Fears", "Zsa Zsa Galore", "G Diddy", "Nerkul", a parody of the superstar girl from SNL, and a parody of Larry the Cable guy. The lucky bachelor and bachelorette looking for love were normal and they ended up running off together at the end. It was so funny!

Today we had an awesome worship service, with 3 people joining the church. Tonight we started our Discipleship University. I'm taking a class called "The Next Step". It was written by a guy in our church who is also teaching it. It's good stuff, I tell you. Tonight's lesson was all about getting out of your comfort zone and giving God your absolute best. The Scripture was from 1 Kings 18, the story about Elijah challenging the followers of Baal to have Baal send fire down to light the altar. When it didn't, Elijah wet the altar with a ton of water and God not only sent down fire, but burned it all up and the flames licked up the water too! That's the incredibly short version, but it's an awesome story about the faith of Elijah and the awesomeness of the God I serve. At the end, David, our teacher, challenged us to do something to get out of our comfort zones this week. Something that the only way we won't make a fool of ourselves is if God does it. And then to help someone else to do the same thing. There are 24 people in our class. Can you imagine if every person in our class did that? That's a possible 48 instances of God-sized happenings! In one week! I'm very excited about this...and at the same time, terrified! But I guess that's where God likes us to be because then He can use us. I have no idea what I'm going to do yet, I still need to pray about it. Hopefully I'll have something amazing to post next week!

A few changes

I realized that a lot of my links were old, so I updated and added a few. Also, while I was playing I noticed that there's a new poll option. So I created a poll. For what? What else...baby names. We have our girl name and our boy first name. We just need a middle name. We've only come up with 2 that we like so far, but if you come up with another one, just comment.

Bath time

Tonight's bath time brought back memories of an earlier time with Cayson. Back when you had to be quick changing his diaper or you might get a shower! After I undressed him for his bath, I suddenly had to go to the bathroom (pg bladder LoL). He was standing by the bathtub and I let him start putting his toys in. He picked up his fish...that squirts water...and suddenly I see a stream of liquid shooting onto the floor. In that first split second I thought it was the fish. But no, it was worse. It was Cayson! All over the floor! We got a good laugh, cleaned up, and he got his bath. Parenting is never dull!!!

FSBC Website

Our church is finally joining the 21st century. We now have a website. Well, actually we just have the name and a temporary page. But soon we will have a bona fide website. It's www.firstsbc.com. I'm really surprised we don't already have one, considering a major part of our communication is email. But it truly was God's perfect timing, the way all the details worked out. I'll let everyone know when it officially launches.

Whew...what a week!

This week has been crazy! Here's the rundown:

Tuesday there was a massive fire in the Barling/Central City area. Shaun called me about noon that day to say that he was stuck at the church, they weren't letting anyone on hwy 22 (runs into Ft. Smith). The church is right on the highway. He knew it was some sort of fire, but didn't know where. I turned on the news and found out it was Ft. Chaffee. I could see the smoke from my house. It was incredibly bad. Shaun was stuck at the church for about 3 hours because the fire had jumped across the highway. Our pastor was one of the last ones they let through and he said the fire was practically at his truck. The visibility was about 10 feet. It ended up burning up almost 200 barracks. It's so sad to see the place now, with all the history behind it. We also had record winds on Tuesday, which didn't help with the fire any. We have to get a new roof on the church now.

Thursday it snowed!!! It didn't stay long, but it was so pretty! Cayson didn't know what to think. We had just enough to cover our yard.

Friday the snow was gone, the temperature in the 50s, I think. We were supposed to take the youth to Little Rock to Winter Jam that night. It's a concert with several Christian artists and only costs $10 at the door. Well, by the time we got there, they wouldn't let us in...they were at capacity. We were very disappointed, to say the least. We missed out on Barlow Girl, MercyMe, Skillet, Mandisa, and some others. However, we took the kids to the mall and they were fairly pacified. My parents and my grandma also came up to our house Friday night. They beat us there! We didn't get home until 1 am.

Saturday we all woke up and had breakfast. We were welcomed with a surprise. We noticed that Batgirl wasn't as fat as she was. And she looked like she'd been nursing. So we walked out to the shed and, sure enough, there were SEVEN little puppies!!! 5 black ones and 2 grayish ones. They are so cute!

After that excitement, we got ready and headed to Fayetteville to Bud Walton Arena to watch the Hogs beat Florida. It was so awesome! We decked Cayson out in a Razorback track suit. He was so cute. Maybe I can get some pics on here soon. After the game we ate at Famous Dave's BBQ and shopped at the Promenade in Rogers. I found some incredible deals for Cayson! Pants for $3.99!

Today we went to church and one of my 1st grade girls accepted Christ this morning! It was incredible! We also had a baptism. I think we've baptized someone just about every Sunday this year so far. It was a fantastic day of worship and praise! Tonight we were going to have a church-wide super bowl party, but something happened with the satellite so anyone who had Dish network or used an antennae couldn't get the game. So we moved it to a church member's house. We ended up just going home because Shaun's brother and sister-in-law stopped by on their way back to OK City. He just got home from Iraq a week or two ago.

Well, that's my crazy week. Our puter is still messed up, so I might be a weekend blogger for a while. So until next weekend, or whenever, have fun and be blessed!

Friday the snow was