Yay! It's May!

To break my 3 month blogging "fast" I have a few fuzzy pictures from my phone for you. I have to start somewhere, right?

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that our sweet neighbor Crystal had a wagon sitting on the curb in front of her house. Turns out her kids have outgrown it, and it was time for the wagon to find a new home. One of the back wheels was missing, but we found a replacement on ebay and decided to let the wagon come live at our house. Samantha loves it, and I'm looking forward to pulling her around in it at the farmer's market and Sturgis Falls this summer.

One night last week, after a wagon ride to the park, this tired little kiddo crashed on her couch when we got home. She's never too tired to smile at the camera!

Playing with her Leaptop (pretend laptop) that her grandparents in California sent her for Christmas (or maybe her birthday...I can't remember which).
Chris is in Wisconsin on a fishing trip this week, and I've been sending him pictures of Samantha periodically (so he doesn't forget what she looks like, and so he doesn't decide to leave me alone with her permanently!) This morning she ran away from me when I tried to take her picture and faceplanted into grandma Shirley's ottoman.
Here's the proof that Chris is fishing and having the time of his life. Who's coming over for dinner on Sunday when he gets back with all those fish he's catching? :)
Just in case you haven't heard, we are officially going to be a family of four around the end of October. We should be finding out if Samantha will have a little brother or sister to terrorize in the early part of June, so stick around for the news!

Sabrina's January Work-out Recap

Well, January is over. Those of you who are friends with me on Twitter/Facebook might know that I've spent the month of January working on getting into a regular workout routine. I'm pretty proud to say that I've done a decent job sticking with it. There was one week in January that I completely blew it, but for the most part I've worked out 3-5 days out of the week for the rest of the month.
In the beginning of January I told everyone that I would share my results at the end of the month. Really, there hasn't been a very drastic change. I've lost about 2 pounds, but I'm not entirely convinced that it was due to my work outs.
Going forward I have a new goal for the month of February. I'm going to continue the work out routine, but I'm also going to be making changes to what I eat. I've never considered myself a very unhealthy eater, but I've never done much to monitor what I eat either.
I'm starting a calorie counting plan, and I'm intentionally adding more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to my diet. I'll post some updates as I go along this month, and I'll definitely write some sort of blog post at the end of February to let you all know if I've seen any kind of change.
Here's to a healthier year in 2011! (and hopefully the year that I can fit back into my old jeans again!)

Thursday Evenings

I am constantly being reminded that:

When I surrender and do what God wants me to do He makes incredible things happen.

For the past few months I have been part of an evening women's Bible study at our church. It started out as a fairly small group of women meeting on Thursday night to work through a video based study. On average we had about 8 women on any given night. I liked how small it was for a couple different reasons.

1. It was much more personal, for me, that way. I felt like each night I was really getting to know each of the women in the group.

2. It made the whole thing a little less intimidating for me, as I was the facilitator of the group.

Our small group worked through two powerful studies over the course of a few months. One study focused on discerning the voice of God, and the other was on why God allows trials in our lives.

Last night we kicked off our third study together. This one focuses on who you are as a person. How God created you to be you and not someone different because of other influences in your life. In the few weeks leading up to last night our group worked on inviting more women and increasing the exposure of our group. I slowly watched the number of people committing to joining the group grow from 3 women to 12, then to 17, and eventually up to over 30.

If I can be totally honest with you here, I was trying as hard as I could not to get excited about that. I lacked the faith to believe that all of these women would actually show up for the study on Thursday night. We all know how that goes. You have the best intentions of joining a group or attending an event, but life gets in the way. For one reason or another you just don't make it.

Last night God humbled me and smacked that pessimistic attitude right out of me at the same time. I watched as groups of ladies walked into the church until we had 24 women sitting at the tables in the preschool large room. 24 women, and that doesn't include the 5+ women who I know simply couldn't make it last night, but will join us next week.

I know that none of this is thanks to anything I've done on my own. This is not my Bible study, and none of those women came last night to look at me or hear anything I had to say. They came because that place was exactly where God wanted them to be so He could speak to them. He used my willingness to step out in faith and do something I wasn't very comfortable with (lead a group of women who for the most part are old enough to be my mother/grandmother) to create a place that women could come to and grow in Him.

I have written all of this simply to say, Praise God. He has a plan for every single woman in this Thursday evening group, and I’m so grateful that He is allowing me to be a part of it in this small way.