Tuesday, May 24, 2011

GET TO WORK!

Here I am on week 4 of what has been a merry go round of sickness and injuries at the Hall house.  Just about the time that the puking had ceased and the cast came off, in came the snot.  I do not get it.  You take two perfectly healthy kids to the park and you bring home a week worth of tissues, sleepless nights, Hylands cough and cold and tears.  Ugh.  All for a day at the park? 

So here I am in good ole Franklin TN, the home of the cicadas and freakish weather, sitting on my sofa wishing that I had take out Chinese food and a cold beer.  No I am not kidding, I really want a cold beer.  I know I don't drink anymore and haven't for 5 years, but still I want the damn beer. I think back on the days when it seemed like a cold beer could solve just about anything.  And just as quickly as I go there I remember that the cold beer is what caused most of the problems ;). 

So, I will do without the beer and the Chinese food if I am being honest and I will make a pb&h and wait on my girls to get up with runny noses and frustrating coughs.  All the while I am thinking about next week and the week after.  Wondering what God has in store for us and if it will be fun or frightening, or both ;).   I laugh at the absurdity of being 36 years old, still trying for more babies, broke, tired, sick, living in the turd and on the verge of needing a pedicure so badly that someone might actually offer to pay for it if they saw me barefoot.  I wonder what it would be like to sleep through the night or have enough money to get my truck fixed and then I giggle because I know that would not be any fun at all.  I mean that is what makes us the crazy Hall family right!?  The fact that we are exhausted and broke and still buying organic food and making babies is what makes us, US!!  Are our priorities screwed up? Maybe. Or maybe we have them just right. 

We are once again getting our butts kicked here in Franklin TN. Next week I go to work at the practice for the summer, we need money, we need a house that is our own, we need to be well, and we want another baby. With all of that said, this is what I know.  I love my husband bigger than the whole sky.  I have two of the sweetest, prettiest, funniest girls in the whole world. Jesus loves me.  My mama and daddy spoil me rotten and my sister misses me just as much as I miss her. That, the phone calls from my brother everyday and my four best girls are all the things that keep me sane (relatively speaking). Therefore, I will wait patiently on Him and trust in His plan, knowing He will lead us down the right path. 

Ephesians 2:10 (The Message)
7-10  Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

I love at the end where it says "WORK WE HAD BETTER BE DOING".  I guess I better get off of this computer and get to work!! ;) 

Blessing My Friends,
Melanie

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Happy 2nd Birthday Presley Rose!

Presley Rose,

Happy Birthday my sweet girl.  Today you are two years old and as much as it feels like the time has flown by, in many ways the last two years have felt like a decade.  As I watch you play today I am amazed.  Amazed at the gift that you are.  Amazed at the grace of my Lord.  Amazed at His timing.  You see my sweet girl, your birth marked the beginning of the hardest season of our lives.  A season where we have struggled in every way possible and felt more lost and more loss than we ever imagined.  A season where loneliness and hopelessness were at the tip of every day waiting, with the devil, to take over our home and our hearts.  And then there was Presley Rose.  This beautiful tiny little person that Jesus sent to us knowing that if we had you, we would never quit no matter how hard it seemed or how tired we were.  And so it was. 

On the days that daddy worked 16 hours and I was home with you and Kathryne feeling lonely and lost there you were needing to nurse, or be changed, or be held.  When your brother came and went in a day, there you were not even a year old, needing only mommy. A gentle, beautiful reminder that life goes on even in death and our blessings out weighed our sadness infinitely.  The year that has followed we have watched you grow and learn and finally get hair ;)  and we have laughed more than we ever imagined.  The days that I feel like I have had all I can stand your daddy will smile and look at you and your sister and say, "look at those girls, what do we have to complain about? What else could we possibly want?" He is right.  You and that big sister of yours are more than we ever deserved or imagined.  A blatant act of love and mercy from our Lord and Saviour. 

Today you are two and you are funny and beautiful and spunky and obstanant and loving and in a purple cast up to your left hip ;).  The first of many boo boos I am afraid.  You, my sweet girl, are wild and wide open.  Nothing is stoping you and everything is yours to be had.  Daddy and I watch and laugh and shake our heads at the glimpse of  our future with you.   I fear that motorcycles and sky diving are a part of that future.  You are your mama made over.  Tough and full of energy with a hint of mean, just enough to get through anything that may stand in your way.  Your daddy knows he is in for the ride of his life with you and he cannot wait!!  You have white blonde curls and giant blue eyes that fill up your face complimented by a dimple on the left side that matches Uncle Brett's. 


There is absolutely no way to tell you how much we love you or what you mean to us.  All I can say is that you are a gift that we did not deserve but that we cherish with everything that we have.  You bring laughter and fun into our lives and our home and that is something we have needed more than ever over the last two years.  We pray for you every day.  For your health, your future, your husband, your heart.  We know we cannot protect your from the world, but we are asking Jesus to give us the tools to prepare you.  Watching you grow delights us and gives us so much to look forward to.  You my sweet Pdub are a mommy's girl, you and your sister are best friend's and your smile lights up your daddy's world!! Like I said, Jesus knew just what He was doing. 

Happy Birthday Presley Rose. 
We love you bigger than the whole sky. 
Mommy, Daddy and Kathryne (Sissy)