Bedtime Stories

Today Nick, the boys & I went out for Nick's birthday (which is Monday) for a movie and lunch. We knew we wanted to see Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler but worried when I couldn't find it playing in Regency. Had we missed it??? Our only other option with the kids tagging along would be Hotel for Dogs and we just weren't thrilled with that... (If the kids weren't with us we would see Gran Torino.) So I checked Orange Park and wala! So we set off at 10am heading for Orange Park AMC 24! That place was packed when we got there but I figured as long as this movie has been out we'd probably be the only ones in there. There were actually about 25 of us in there. Rocco played the whole time, rolling all over the carpet in front of our seats (we always sit in that first row behind the rail). I asked Nick if Rocco could have possibly found a groser place to roll around and he said, "McDonald's?" Lol..or the bathroom, that would have been groser. He was having fun anyway.. Well the movie was great! We all laughed so hard! It even poked fun at some of the enviromental issues that have been shoved down our throats in other movies like Wall E, Happy Feet and well, just about all of them! We totally thought that the mother of the kids (played by Courtney Cox) was a lot like one of Nick's sisters. She made a gluten free wheat grass cake for her kid's birthday, lol. She didn't have a TV and the kid's books were things like "The Organic Squirrel ____________" (can't remember, learns to read or something like that.) TOO FUNNY! Skeeter's (Adam Sandler) best friend is one of the funniest characters! We laughed so hard when he went in to his sleep panic attacks! Such a cute movie for the whole family! Even our little Rocco..

Next I want to see Gran Torino and Friday the 13th! (Minus the munchkins ofcourse!) Oh and we had so much fun taking pictures in the lobby of each other in the Friday the 13th cutout! I'll try to figure out how to upload those pics from my phone and post soon!

Happy Movie Watching!

No guesses???


2350!!!!!!!!! That's how many verses there are in the Bible about finances and possessions.

Here are a few on the topic of Giving:

Giving

"But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John 3:17)

"If I give all my possessions to feed the poor... but do not have love, it profits me nothing"
(1 Corinthians 13:3)

"God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7)

"Go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasures in heaven" (Matthew 19:21)

"If any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family, and to make some return to their parents" (1 Timothy 5:4)

In 2 Corinthians 9:7 some translations read 'hilarious giver'.

We are to give with joyful abandon. The freedom to give flows from the hand of the person whose mind views life from an eternal perspective. It is this person that can give cheerfully. The word that is used here can be translated hilariously. God loves a hilarious giver. A hilarious giver is one who gives with joyful abandon. He is free from fear and insecurity about the future. The hilarious giver is dependent upon Almighty God to provide for his family. He experiences peace when he gives away what he might need and trusts that the Lord is in control of tomorrow. There is joy because of the freedom from concern over any loss. He is not expecting the poor to pay him back. The hilarious giver does not attach strings to his gift. He trusts that the Lord will repay in this life and/or in the life to come. And he has a supernatural desire to lay up treasure in heaven. He longs for eternal reward above temporal pleasure and comfort.

We're not there yet but this is our goal, to become hilarious givers.

American Idol Disappointment

So I was telling this friend of mine yesterday that I saw him Tuesday night on American Idol TWICE, in the crowd. He said he was actually on there three times, I missed one. I asked him if he actually tried out. He said not only did he try out, he got FOUR Yes's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said well what happened? Did they just not show your audition? You know sometimes they don't show the ones that make it through. He said that after he got his yellow ticket they took him in to a room to review his profile and ask him questions. After that they told him that he was too wholesome and this would be the end of the journey for him. They took back his yellow ticket and sent him to ANOTHER room where they explained the importance of not discussing this part of the audition process. They also told him that they would not be showing his audition. Guess I shouldn't have been surprised...Hollywood...sheesh... (And yes, I totally believe this friend of mine.)

Again!?

I had another friend admit to being a blog stalker so this is for my three blog stalking friends! (And NO, none of them are Deanna & Trisha....)

Crown Biblical Financial Study

Well, Nick & I started a new Bible study Sunday. We have a small group at our church that has been asked to take this class in hopes that we will want to teach it to others. Although I was sad to put my Esther study on hold, I am thrilled to be a part of this class. And LOVE the fact that Nick & I are doing it together. This class will teach us God's perspective on money, materials and how we spend, save, invest, etc. I was asked by a friend recently where in the Bible it says to tithe BEFORE taxes. I was blown away! What???? At the time I said things like, "The Bible says to give your first fruits", "Jesus said to render unto Ceasar what is his and to give God what is His", "We are supposed to be hilarious givers. If we nit-pick, then are we really giving hilariously?" The response I got was, "One thing at a time! Atleast we're tithing!" Maybe it's because I am a rule follower, or maybe because I have seen first hand how God blesses when we are faithful AND how he witholds when we are not. But, I have since been haunted by that conversation because I wasn't able to go deeper and actually find Scripture for my sweet friend. It made me sad whenever I thought of it. After this class I don't think I will be caught off guard by those types of questions anymore. For that I am thankful. Not to mention how this is going to help our family. Nick & I were very excited to learn in the introductory session that we had been doing some things right. We live credit card debt free. I was SHOCKED to hear that the average family has $20k-$30k in credit card debt!!! What the heck? While we have done plenty of things wrong, God is good and He will help us get back on track and live financially free. Our desire has always been to pay off everything, including the mortgage and we just didn't know where to begin. I look forward to seeing what God is going to do in our lives. In the meantime, I have to learn a weekly memory verse. I'm really nervous about next week's, it's LONG! Here is this weeks, from memory ofcourse lol: Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of worldy wealth who will entrust to you the true riches? Luke 16:11


For Fun: ANSWER ME THIS WITHOUT CHECKING FIRST ---> How many verses are in the bible regarding finances & possesions??? I'll post the answer soon! Dont' cheat! (My guess was 614.)

Blog Stalker!

This is for a sweet friend of mine (whom I will leave anonymous) who admitted to me today that her and ANOTHER friend of mine are BLOG STALKERS!!! You guys need to bite the bullet and set up your own blog! So we can stalk you too!!! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!! Come on, I happen to know that you both have great blogging abilities. Well, you girls crack me up so I assume you would! So there, I've called you out! Whatcha gonna do? huh? huh?

Marriage Retreat Jan 16-19, 2009

Nick & I went on our first annual Marriage Retreat with our church to Sevierville, TN this month. We left Thursday night and stayed at Nick's sister's house in Blythewood, SC where we got to visit with two of our neices from CA. It was so good to see them, it had been years since we had seen one of them. We stayed up until 2am visiting w/them. Then the next day around noon we were off to TN!

We got to share a cabin with one of our favorite couples there, Josh & Kristen Musgrove. We couldn't let this time go by without playing a few practical jokes. If you know the Mirandos then you know we love to laugh. We wanted to do something that wouldn't be obvious, something that they would be too embarrassed to mention to us but would tell other people. Here's what we came up with...
We put coconut on the coffee table w/clippers and Josh/Kristen thought it was Nick's toenails. They told two other couples at lunch that day! Haha!!

We put a box of Personal Lubricant in the fridge (next to Josh's root beer) and tried to make it look like we were hiding it. We wanted them to say, "WHY THE FRIDGE?!"

We also found out that you can hear everything through the vents when you are in your bathroom. Although we really didn't want to hear them, we did want them to hear us so we made some gas (aka FART) noises through the vents. They loved this and started doing it right back to us! Two other jokes we never got to were filling up their jacuzzi tub and floating a BabyRuth in it......Switching with another couple so when Josh/Kristen woke up they would see that other couple come out of our room. That one was just more trouble than it was worth, but it would have been so funny! Anyway, they were great sports and we had so much fun!

We also had a very fun night playing games with Joel/Jennifer Hall and Greg/Kelly Burnette on Saturday after the session. We played Mad Gab & Cranium. They both were completely hilarious!

We had a great time unplugging and spending a lot of quality time as a couple. We didn't get to see any snow. It started snowing two hours after we left for home Monday. Maybe next year!

My only regret this time if that we didn't take enough pictures. In fact, we only walked away with ONE of us. Next year I'll remember! Here's a group picture Tonya took at the Apple Barn Saturday morning:

Hoppy Birthday Dallon

Time goes by so fast! People say to watch out because your babies will be grown and out of the house before you know it. Well, one of our three babies turned six this month. He is one of a kind! Such a sweet boy and funny as all get out! We through him a froggy party because, well, he loves frogs, obviously. We invited his kindergarten class, his teacher Mrs. Graves and some friends from church and around the way. We ate breakfast, did a craft and played some games. The kids had a blast! Our Dallon is growing up too fast...

Dallon & Braden in a Leap Frog Game

Dal vs. Lincoln

Froggy Craft: Frog Thermometers for windows

Presents! Thank you everybody!!

A Reflection of Christmas 2008

It seems like the older I get the quicker time goes by. I remember very clearly last year, as I was packing away the Christmas decorations, thinking, 'I'll be putting all of this back out soon.' And boy was it true! Christmas is an exciting time for our family. I have such good memories of Christmas' past and I always think of what it will be like at our future Christmas'. We love decorating, baking, spending time with family and dear friends. We recognize this holiday as a celebration as our Savior's birthday and what His birth means to us. Most of all, we enjoyed Christmas Eve at our church this year and look forward to being there every Christmas Eve. There was no more appropriate place to be than in our Sanctuary reflecting on Christ's birth and worshiping Him. Then coming home and having our annual family spaghetti dinner, then having the boys open their jammies for that night. It seemed a little more relaxed this year because we had all the gifts wrapped and ready. Nick had a few last minute things to do but it wouldn't have been the same if he didn't. We actually forgot to put the cookies & milk out until about 15 min. after the boys went to bed. By the time we got upstairs Roman was asleep so Dal came down and helped me get them out. We weren't about to get Rocco stirred up. Christmas morning Roman came down about 6:30 and Dal & Rocco followed about 20min. later. The smell of monkey bread was filling the house. I fix monkey bread every big holiday & for Dal's birthday. We let the boys open one gift each from Santa until Stephen (my brother) and his family arrived. Then it was chaos! Fun, clean, chaos! Everybody played and/or napped while I prepared our yummy meal of Prime Rib w/au jus (new to us this year - yummo but I missed my turkey and/or ham), mashed potatoes, cheesy green bean casserole, croissants and cranberry sauce. I love cooking these meals. We enjoyed our family all day then some of our dearest friends came over for game night. Tony & Trisha Thomas & 2 of their 3 boys. We played 'Catch Phrase' for hours, a game Santa brought us! We ate way to many sweets and laughed so hard our heads ached. Lastnight we brought in the new year with Tony/Trisha, their kids and Carl/Deanna and their son until almost 1am. I am thankful for what God has blessed us with. Faith, family, friends, my job, our church, our sweet church family. 2008 was a good year. Thank you Lord! I look forward to what You have in store for us this year. I know it wasn' as good for some of our friends, but I pray that this year will bring many blessings their way. So as I packed away my Christmas decorations today I thought, 'I'll be putting all of this back out soon.' I hope my boys remember the traditions that have been carried on through our family and the new ones we have started. I hope they remember that we always had monkey bread because they loved it and they want their wives to make it for their families. Or will they come home for Christmas? So many exciting thoughts.. Well, goodbye Christmas of 08! Now it's time to finish the planning for Dal's 6th birthday party! I can't believe my Dal is turning 6! Seems like yesterday I was praying, asking God for Dallon. That's another blog in itself, lol. Thanks for reading! God bless you in 2009!!

Just added a few pics:
The Vii Nick bought us for Christmas. This is my brother laughing at us:
The aftermath:
Roman said that was the real Santa at Regency because he was the one he asked to bring him Lego Batman. He also kept saying, "See Daddy? We didn't even have to pay a dime for it since Santa brought it!"
Annual Christmas Eve spaghetti dinner: