Micah's Day -- Railroad style!

Today Cara went to Terrific Tuesdays at our church from 9:30-2:30 and we took Micah to every little boy's dream (ok, not every one, but you know boys and trains right?) : the railroad museum! When we drove up, we didn't think he'd last long (and he didn't in the sit and learn section--ok, he's 2!) but he had a GREAT time seeing all the 'big trains'!

Here is our day in pictures: we arrived and watched the cartoon safety video.

Daddy and Anna girl

Yaya teaching about the old phone. There was a sticker search game, and it was a great little way for him to learn while looking at all the old 'cool stuff' as he called it.

Micah on the caboose!

 In the engineer's chair!

Mommy and my 2 little ones!

Coming back in the caboose.

Sweet happy girl!

The 'fancy' train. Our guide said this is basically like a private jet for trains. It is from the 1850's and at one point it was Prince Albert's train in England.

Daddy and the kiddos

One of the suites.

The dining area.

Sweet boy!

Yaya and Micah reading a paper.

Sitting on an old firetruck from 1944.

Awesome room filled with model trains. We sat in here and watched for 10 minutes or so.

After the big 'real' trains, they had this whole 'education station.' There were lots of Thomas books, trains, toys, track, etc. (It was the first room you walked into before going into the room with the automatic model trains). We stayed in here for a full hour watching him play with trains. He was in hog heaven!

And after we picked Cara up and Micah told her where we went, she started crying because she wanted to go :). We had already promised Micah to take him back with Cara, he missed having her there!  It is so great to get him 'alone' though, he talks non stop, asks lots of questions and is a great listener when he knows he's setting the example for Anna. Not totally the case when Cara is around ;).  

We will be busy the next few days, so if you ordered a shirt, please bear with us, as we probably won't mail them out until next Tueday.  If you absolutely need it before then, please email me asap.  Also, I lost my phone, so if you've called or text since yesterday, I haven't received it.  Call Eric's phone if you need me!

Thanks!
  

Happy 10 years baby!

How I could NEVER have imagined where God would lead us 10 years into our marriage.  How eternally grateful I am that He led me down that path with you.  How joyous and fun you make our marriage!  How loving, kind, and serving you are to our family.  You, Eric Newsome, are my leader and my man, and I respect you, your service to our family, and your love for our kids, those here, and those yet to come.  

I love you!

A little flashback: 7/21/2001

This past December:

Looking forward to spending the next 80 together ;) 

Blessed Beyond Measure

We seriously couldn't have ever anticipated how many friends and family would decide to donate to this garage sale!  We've already made $575 just from selling a couple of the bigger items on craigslist!  We have an entire garage full with more families donating next week!  We've been blown away, that's for sure.  God has shown up providing the number of tshirts we needed for our first order, with massive amounts of GREAT items to sell in our garage sale, and even friends who are willing to sacrifice part of their Saturday to come help.

I've been asked how you can help, if you live here in Katy.  I have a few tangible ways:

1)  We need to borrow LOTS of tables.  We'd like them by Tuesday (7/19) if you could part with them for that long.  My mom has graciously decided to take the big kids Tuesday night through Friday and so I think we've decided to turn our living room into Garage Sale central.  We're going to set up as many tables as can fit in our living/dining room so we can start setting things out.  We can't even see how/what we have because it has gotten to be too much. This gives us three days with only one child to corral while we work.

2)  Like to bake?  We'll take any and all cupcakes we can get (to be delivered Saturday morning).  Cara, Micah and some friends will be having a Cupcake Kids bake sale at our garage sale with all proceeds going to that blessed ministry.

3)  Help spread the word.  If you have a bulletin board at work, or an EBB, please email me at newsomes4adoption [at] gmail dot com and I'll send you a PDF of our flier.  We'd love for you to post it at work, at play or wherever you have access.  The folks at Orange Leaf have posted one there, and we've had some friends post it at work.  We have so many GREAT items, we hope to have some GREAT buyers as well!

4)  HELP!  Our sale will be from 7 am - 1 pm on 7/23.  I've held many a garage sale in my day, and since I've advertised 7 am, that means I'll be up at 5 pulling stuff out and people will start showing up around 6/6:30 most likely.  We can use any and all help you'd like to offer.  We have my mom and a friend from church here to help watch the little kids indoors (so feel free to bring yours if you need to).

5)  Help us make posters.  Email me if you have time and I'll tell you what we need.

And last but not least, send people to our blog!  You can send them to this page, or our garage sale page here.  

Here are just a few of the great items we have, some I've had a few minutes to post on craigslist.  The craigslist post is listed after each picture.  

http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/2493303238.html

http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/2493312169.html

http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/2493290834.html

http://houston.craigslist.org/clo/2481018955.html

Sleeping Beauty & Prince Charming

Today Cara decided she wanted Micah and her to play Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming. She has a book and so she wanted to act out each page. She saw the page where he had a red coat on and immediately knew Micah needed to wear this superman cape, to be just like Prince Charming :)

This dress was my mom's when she was in high school I think. I  wore it in a 3rd grade play and all they had to do was shorten it.  My mom was tiny!  Cara LOVES wearing it now.  It's too long, but she doesn't care. "It's fancy with pink flowers."

I was listening from the kitchen. She kept asking him to dance with her. He'd say no. She's say, "Do you need to see the book AGAIN!!" She'd show him the book. He'd say ok. Then she said let's dance. He'd say no. You get the idea. Then I pulled out the camera and they both wanted to take part :). Ignore the piles of clothes in the background--we were going through clothes to get them ready for the garage sale. This was the dancing scene. She had to hold her dress (in the other hand) just so and he had to hug her :). By the time I snapped the shot, they had moved, but it was just too cute not to document.

Next she made him play the queen. Finally I told her I'd play with her after he went to take a nap. He wasn't enjoying it anymore. But I will say that as much as he loves dirt and cars and swords, he holds his own playing with Cara :)

A good reminder: Grace

A lot of my bible study and focus lately has been, well on numerous things, but two words that stick out are humility and grace.  I'm constantly reminded about how selfish my flesh can be, and that without God's grace and my constant seeking of Him, I tend to make things about me, me, me.  That's not the plan!  I had made out a bad schedule for myself now that Eric's home for the summer: staying up way too late, then not getting up and getting 'fed' by God's word FIRST, and thus, being cranky and tired with my kids.  So last night, I went to sleep at 9:30 and it felt good.  God has blessed me with alone time :) and His word has tasted oh so good.

I'm reading a book and what struck me last night was how much like my children I am!  God made me in His perfect image, (Gen 1:27), and I choose to reject Him, unless I focus on the power of His grace.  Take this paragraph from Raising Kids for True Greatness:

    "Think about it.  Why would a holy, righteous God give a second thought about created beings who have worked over time to reject everything about Him?  He's given us all that we need to enjoy a fabulous and eternal love affair with Him, and instead we spurn His love, mock His law, and reject His lead in our lives.  We deserve nothing less than God's complete and unbridled judgment." 

You know a 'raising kids' book almost always leads back to the parents heart right?  I'm so glad I'm reading this book.  It's not the first time I've heard these thoughts or ideas, but maybe my heart is just a little more open to taking them and acting them out now.  Lord, I pray you help me show grace to my kids today, and every day.  That you help me to act out Your undeserved love for them through me.  One more piece of a paragraph I just loved that talks about grace...

    "It motivates us to stand when everything else is encouraging us to run.  It challenges us to reach out and engage when selfish logic says we should focus on our own best interests.  It enables us to endure a lifetime of being inconvenienced on behalf of God's glory." 

WOW.  That last sentence hit me hard when I first read it.  Then I couldn't get off that page I was sucked into  the words.  I just think back to how many times I've made decisions based on my comfort or convenience.  How many times I've taken God totally out of the equation, when He's yearning and deserves to be at the fore-front of my mind, daily, hourly, through every thought I have.  How I consider my glory and accolades instead of His in my decision making.  And I feel weak, lost, sinful....

And then God reminds me through His still small voice: you are not perfect, but I AM.  And I have given my grace to you to USE.  It empowers you.  It quiets that evil in your head and it makes you stronger.

2 Corinthians 12:9:   But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

I am so thankful for grace.  Especially when it leads me to humility of spirit.  I've been camped here on and off in my study time.  I love these words and am working on memorizing all of them.  I love words like redemption, grace, forgiveness, love lavished, sealed.  It eases my mind back to where it should be focused.  Praise be to the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

Ephesians 1:3-14:  3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,to the praise of his glory.

June 20th

Cara had such a good time on her birthday. Yaya spent the night, we opened gifts that morning, went to Splashway that day, then Nana took us to dinner that night. She was so excited for her day. We always give Cara her gifts on her actual birthday, that way she can look at each one and we can tell her why we bought it for her. This year at her party we asked for no gifts, for people to donate to sponsoring Muzei, a little boy Cara's age in Uganda that we sponsor.  

We pray for him each day and I told Cara because we already have so much that wouldn't it be great to get him some things. She was excited (and I'll admit, a little worried that she wouldn't get anything--I assured her we had a few gifts for her) and we almost raised the whole year's sponsorship at her party. We hope to sponsor a child for each of our children at home. We want to instill in them a giving heart and what better way, we think, than to send a child our children's age to school each year. It makes such a difference in their life in Uganda when they can get an education and get off the streets during the day.  She ended up getting so many gifts, she felt so blessed and asked which ones she was going to send to Muzei, I love my baby's heart! 

Here is our girl in her new bathing suit from Yaya

Here's our girl opening her gifts. I saw this art set on www.hopscout.com a few months ago and knew Cara would love it. We are starting our homeschooling journey in the fall, and I knew she'd love having her own new set to do crafts at school. We were right, she adores it, and asks to play with it almost every day during nap.

Her apron I got her name put on, and a little purse for her.  We've used the apron twice since then, she loves helping me cook!

Since she loves Ariel, we got her an Ariel jewelry set. The little necklace Anna has on plays Ariel's tune she sings. Cara liked it, Anna thought it was HILARIOUS!

Cara's swimming so well now, and she's had her eye on these princess diving sticks for the pool. She asks for them almost every time she sees them and I have to tell her no. She was super excited to open them and take them to the pools this summer!