Breaking Ground

Pastor Scott told us yesterday in church some AWESOME news! We will be breaking ground for our new building this summer! YAY! Even though we don't have all the money needed to build the whole building, we will start with what we have.

Song from Sunday's Service

Song from the Worship Service Sunday April 30, 2006

Give Us Clean Hands
Charilie Hall

We bow our hearts, we bend our knees
Oh Spirit, come make us humble
We turn our eyes from evil things
O Lord we cast down our idols

Give us clean hands, give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Give us clean hands, give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
O God let us be a generation that seeks,
That seeks Your face O God of Jacob
O God let us be a generation that seeks,
That seeks Your face O God of Jacob

Easter Service

Today is one of my favorite holidays! Easter because we celebrate the Resurrection of our RISEN Lord. I kept hearing on the radio over the weekend that if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead that Christianity is nothing. HOW TRUE! My other favorite holiday is Christmas.

I got up this morning and made the breakfast casserole that I signed up to take to church for the brunch they have every year. I was told that last year they fed over 500 people. WOW! I took the juice and casserole to church at 9am. Then came home and finished getting the kids ready (with Terrilyn and Delsa's help of course! How great that they help!) Then the kids and I went to church, while Steve went to help a friend do some things.

At church we ate some of the great brunch. SEVERAL kinds of egg and meat and cheese casseroles, with all kinds of fruit and muffins, donuts, etc. They even had a chocolate fountain with all kinds of things to put it on. Like strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, cinnamon bears, teady grahams, etc. I heard it was pretty popular! In an hour they went through 5 lbs of chocolate!

After church we came home and had lunch. My dad came in the afternoon and we had a little egg hunt for the kids. Steve and my Dad hid plastic eggs full of candy around the yard. I think my step-mom had more fun than the kids did! We took a video of it and I took a lot of pictures. I haven't uploaded them to an album YET!

The girls (yes, all 3) went to my dad's for the week. It was Spring Break here, but Stevie had school all week. I kept him home so he could go. I know, HOW MEAN!

This Day

This is the song that we sang in church Sunday. I don't know who sings it.

This Day
This is the Day You have given
This is the day I embrace
The morning awaits to be lived in
For moments too quickly do fade

Never again will there be now
Never a better time to say
I want to please You, show me how
I want to serve You with this day
With this day, with this day

This heart is the heart that is beating
To walk, to delight in your ways
For passions of earth they are fleeting
So I reach for the prize that remains

Right here, right now I seek you
Right here, right now I receive you
Right here, right now I bring you all of me

Sunday January 08, 2006

Here are the words to a song we sang on Sunday that really spoke to me.


Lord Have Mercy

Steve Merkel


Jesus I've forgotten the words that You have spoken

Promises that burned within my heart

Have now grown dim
With a doubting heart I follow

The paths of earthly wisdom

Forgive me for my unbelief, renew the fire again


Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy

Love have mercy on me

Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy on me


I have built an altar where I worship things of man

I have taken journeys

That have drawn me far from You

Now I am returning to Your mercies ever flowing

Pardon my transgressions, help me love You again


I have longed to know You

And all Your tender mercies

Like a river of forgiveness ever flowing without end

So I bow my heart before

YouIn the goodness of Your presence

Your grace forever shining like a beacon in the night


c 2000 Integrity's Hosanna! Music

December 05, 2005

Yesterday I woke up at about 9AM. I knew what I needed to and when I needed it done by. Here is my schedule for the day as it started out:
1)9:30a After Mortgage Broker called take W2 and checkstubs to him so we can refinance the house
2)11:00a Mom will be here
3)12:00p Meet Stevie in his class for his special day, eat lunch with him
4)1:00p Go to Bishop's Storehouse and get the food order that someone told the bishop we needed(which we did, but we are not LDS, so this was a GRATEFUL surprise to me).
5)Get the rest of the stuff ready for the Ladies Tea
6)Go to church and decorate my table for the Ladies Tea
7)Ladies Tea

When I got up my schedule TOTALLY changed! Here are the details for whoever would like to read them! LOL

I went to make a pot of coffee for Steve and got about 1 cup of water out of the faucet. No more would come out! GREAT the water company forgot about my payment arrangements and shut it off anyhow! So I called them and they said there wasn't an order to turn the water off. The lady said I should talk to Public Works and find out if something was going on in my area. I talked to someone and they asked if I talked to any of our neighbors and see if they had problems with their water. I hadn't even thought about that one. So they said they would send someone out to check it out. I took the papers to the Mortgage Broker after I learned that the pipes were frozen. We have lived here for 6 years and 5 months and never had that problem. As I was leaving to go to the mortgage brokers office Steve asked if I would stop at Home Depot and get some heating tape. Great! Something else to add to my day! LOL

I get to the mortgage broker's office and he had stepped out for a few minutes. I couldn't ask him the questions I needed to ask him. Oh well, I will call him later. I am driving to Home Depot and decided since I had Steve's cell I could just call him then. I called and got the answers I needed. Then I call Steve and his phone kept shutting off! UGH! So I just go to Home Depot. More than half way there from the Mortgage brokers office I realized I could have saved myself more than 1/2 hour of time by going to Lowes which is 3 blocks from the mortgage broker's office. Instead I drove about 40 or more blocks to Home Depot all because that's where Steve told me I needed to go. Hmmmmm One track mind. I walked into Home Depot and asked the first person I saw for 'Heating Tape'. She told me all their tape was in the paint isle. Wrong stuff! LOL So I went looking around. I was getting pretty upset. At some point in the morning I realized I needed to thank God that it was only frozen pipes and not a broken one! THANK YOU JESUS! Finally I find someone to help me and get what I needed.

I came home and my mom was here. Steve spent the whole time with the blow dryer on the pipes and had turned up the heat. THANKS! My mom and I left and met Stevie for lunch. We had some yummy corn dogs, raw broccoli, pineapple slices, and bread and butter. Then we went to the Bishop's Storehouse. I got almost home and realized I had to go CLEAR back to the far north end of town to get Steve some cigarettes. Then I came back home and had to unload all the groceries we had been given. THANK YOU JESUS!

I spent the couple of hours with my mom getting the finishing touches ready for the Ladies Tea that our church does every year. They have 35 tables set up with a lady at each table who is the 'hostess'. The Hostess is responsible for the table settings and centerpiece. I am normally the type of person who shys away from leading things like this. I like to just participate. Especially if all the people participating are people I have no clue who they are. We have only been going to this church for a couple of months.

At 4 someone from the church calls and asked me if i need help with my table. Seems my table was the only one NOT decorated! That's ok I have until 6 to get it done! :) So I am planning on leaving my house about 5 to go decorate the table because I don't want to get it finished to early and have to sit around a while or come home again. At 4:30 I realize that since the pipes were froze this morning I had not taken a shower. UGH! So I jump in the shower and hurry and get ready. Good thing I don't wear makeup! So, about 5:30 we get to the church(Steve said he would go with me and my mom and help us set up my table! What a guy!) We get all set up in plenty of time of course! :) As I am setting up my table, I remembered that my Joseph figurine lost his head last year and I hadn't gotten him fixed. Problem solved. We used the shepherd in Joseph's place. No one would know unless I told them right? The Nativity Set I used was a set that my mom had gotten in the early '80s from Avon. In Fact the Holy Family is dated on the bottom as 1981. WOW! I love Nativity scenes.

The Tea was a lot of fun! Kneaders catered and they provided 1/2 sandwiches of Turkey, Ham or Roast Beef(these sandwiches were REALLY huge, though!) and a garden salad and some kind of tortellini pasta salad. For dessert we had several choices. A few were Key Lime tart, some kind of German Chocolate cake and a rich chocolate brownie. I don't know what they were called, but the whole meal was DELICIOUS! Each table had a server also. I only know my server as Travis. He was very great! I really appreciate him taking the time out to serve us. While we were eating we talked about some questions that were provided. 'What is your favorite Christmas memory'? One of the ladies, Adele, said that her favorite memory was the year she went to a store, JC Penny I believe, and entered into a drawing for a porcelain doll. She got a call the next day that she had won the doll and she gave it to her daughter. A few of the other ladies talked about aluminum trees and that had the color changer at the base. Also they talked about the trees that were flocked by using a vacuum to blow the flocking stuff on it. I told about the year when us kids woke up and there was wrapping paper covering the doorway from the kitchen to the livingroom and while we were trying to peek in Tom, my step-dad, came up behind us and pushed my sister through. Another question we talked about was 'What is your favorite gift you ever received for Christmas'? I told of the time that my sister got a toy she didn't really want and I got the one she really wanted and she was very upset, so I traded her. Other favorites was Monica's gift of a cross necklace she received from her husband just months before he died. And Mary Lou's gift was a tea setting she got from her husband on his last Christmas before he died. The speaker, Cherry Wickle, was great. She talked about how there was 'No Room in the Inn'. (I will have to add more details about the speaker later as I need to get off the computer so Terrilyn can take her Biology test online.) I had planned that I wouldn't be home until nearly 10:30p so it was a nice surprise to be home at 9:20p.

My mom spent the night and went home today at 9:45a. It started snowing about 9:30 and right now at 5:40p hasn't stopped all day. Steve says we have 5-6 inches out there. The attached picture is of the storm today. There is another one in my photo album as I can only add 1 for each entry.