the one where we pick up the niece

Goodness gracious night alive I am one worn out chick! My oldest niece, Anna Woods, started spending the week of VBS with my parents (Gendaddy and Nana to her) and so my mom and I drove down to meet the family today and pick her up.


Here's the cute family eating lunch at McAlister's. From left to right are Anna Woods, 4 1/2 (she had just hit her head on the corner of the table and was crying). Ed, my brother sporting an LSU shirt. Groan. Melanie, my sweet and beautiful sister-in-law. As soon as I took the picture she knew she had her eyes closed but the girls wouldn't sit still for another one. Then my youngest niece, Mary Neal who is almost 28 months old. Aren't they just a beautiful family? Seriously...beautiful :)

Ed and Melanie got married my freshman year in college on what was actually Ole Miss' Homecoming that year. I missed my first college homecoming for a wedding. Melanie's bridesmaid dresses were some of the prettiest I've ever seen...if only I had a picture! And looking back, I wore the ugliest thing to the wedding. It was just...ugly, goodness. Anyway.


Anna Woods posing with her Nana (my mom). Anna has a busted lip. Mary Neal gave it to her with a book. You have got to love sisters! :)


Now THAT is one of the cutest pictures ever! I absolutely love that girl. She has 'grown up' so much since January that she's not the same little girl. I can actually understand every word that comes out of her mouth and boy, does she have some stories! We also discovered she can't do certain things in a car - take a nap, say her ABCs, and count to 25 just to name a few.


Mary Neal and Melanie again. She was chomping down some Mac and Cheese and poor Melanie can't keep her eyes open! Mary Neal (MN) used to have red hair and it's slowly going blonde. :( I wanted to have at least ONE red headed niece or nephew. They need to have another kid. HA! :) Funny moment - I asked Mary Neal why she was so cute and Anna Woods who was sitting beside me at the table, without missing a beat, responded, "Because she don't look like her mama." Now...I probably shouldn't have laughed because I don't think she realized what she was saying and it wasn't nice but it was just one of those times where you laugh before you think. Melanie's a good sport about it :)


Ed, Melanie and Mary Neal went back to Greenville while we brought Anna Woods home with us. After we had some chicken pasketti (Why can't kids say spaghetti?) at AW's request, Aunt Leah, Anna and myself went to enjoy some ice cream at Baskin Robbins. I think that's quite obvious by Anna's mouth!
Aunt Leah and AW at Baskin Robbins.

They turned the camera around on me and boy do I look scary! I had been up since 6:15, on a Saturday...that's rough!

I'm so looking forward to what this week is going to bring. Making memories with my niece is so beyond fun and I'm so blessed to be her aunt.

Lastly, I absolutely love this song that was on an episode of Bones from Season 2 (The Aliens in the Spaceship) and I felt like sharing. That episode is SO GOOD. One of my favorite episodes of all 5 seasons. So. Good. Enjoy!

I pray everyone has a blessed Sunday! I know I will :)

the one without a creative title and a list.

Hello friends!! How have you all been? I pray it's been well. I've been pretty much awesome blossom fabulous fantastic. (Did anybody ever watch the Search for Elle Woods on MTV a few years ago? That's what that is off of. Made me want to be on Broadway.) Moving on.

Can I just say that my blogbatical (Annie's word - I like it), was absolutely wonderful. The past 5 months have revealed so much about who I am that I don't think I realized about myself. And I think I needed to discover some of those things. Can I just say that God has rocked. my. world. the past 5 months? In a completely appropriate 'I'm the God of the universe and you need to be rocked and your faith built' way. Boy, is He building.

Just to give you an update on what's new in the life of me let's make a list shall we? Lists are nice. The prettiest and best planner I've ever had was my junior year in college. It. was. a beaut. I carried it around for another year just because it was hard to part with. Seriously. I'm not kidding.

A : I just have to start off with what I'm listening to at the moment because if you haven't heard this girl before, you are in for a treat. Brooke Fraser's 'Albertine' has been on repeat in my car since I bought it last Thursday. I know...I'm like, 2 years late to the party that is her awesome songwriting but...better late than never, right? Check it out because....just...wonderfulness. Love it.

B : The little sister is leaving to spend 3 years in the Philippines as a missionary in exactly 40 days, if my math is right. That is a WHOLE other post by itself, oh goodness. I beg you (I'm begging the first post back? That has to say something.) to please earnestly pray for her and our family. Not like we hate her for going but you know that faith building thing I was talking about? This is a ginormous part of that. So beyond tough that it makes me kind of sad to even type these words. She is the one of the sweetest, most caring, loving, biggest-hearted Godly people I know and not having her only a 4 hour drive away is the toughest thing I think I've ever been through, and it hasn't even happened yet. I'll be fine one moment and then I hear a song on the radio and I'm squalling like a baby. UGLY crying. It's really ugly. Please just pray for her and us when God brings us to mind. Oh, and she has a blog that I will be contributing to sometimes and perhaps she'll learn how to actually blog so we can keep up with how she's doing over in the PI.

Sarah and I at her college graduation in May! She graduated summa cum laude and I could not have been more proud.

C : There's a group of about 13 of us women from church that are all up in the middle of Kelly Minter's 'Ruth' study that we're doing in conjunction with LPM's blog. Y'all, it is real good. I started the 4th week's homework yesterday and I was sitting in the middle of Sweet Pepper's and just wanted to cry reading the introduction to that week...and then today? It just got better. Isaiah 54:4-5 and 43:18-19? Go read them right now. Our God is so beyond good and He's doing new things in us and y'all I can hardly believe it that He would choose to work in me but oh am I so glad that He does.

Have you ever felt that God was fixing (I know, it's not really a word, I'll never forget that from 5th grade) to do something gigantic and you knew it was going to mean something different for you but you have no idea what it is ? That's how I've felt since the beginning of March and He's already changed me but I just know something bigger is ahead. And by bigger I mean that it is going to bring so much glory to His name that people will know it was never anything Rebekah did, but rather God and only God. It gives me chills...I guess we'll find out together what it is. I'll definitely keep you updated on that front. I recommend this book to anyone...so good. I've always loved the book of Ruth but studying it like this is just...good. I can't even find a better word.


D : From March through May our Women's 'Spring' Bible study group did Beth Moore's Believing God and it single-handedly changed my life (well God did the changing, but He used this as a tool) more than anything else I've ever known or done. Too much great stuff to list so I'll just let you in on the five-statement pledge of faith.

1 - God is who He says He is.
2 - God can do what He says He can do.
3 - I am who God says I am (one of my faves...I'm not what my friends or my coworkers or the World say I am which is usually negative - I'm what HE says I am).
4 - I can do all things through Christ.
5 - God's Word is alive and active in me.

That being said - I'm believing God. :)

E : Stands for Ed, which is my brother's name, which leads me to tell you Anna Woods is coming for a visit tomorrow! She's going to stay with my parents next week while our church has Vacation Bible School and I CANNOT wait to see her! I saw her 2 months ago at Sarah's graduation and it's been too long and I know she's even sweeter than she was before. :) That's where this picture was taken. She's the blonde-haired little angel just to refresh your memory.

This has to be one of my most favorite pictures of my family. Ever. I heart them. Ridiculous amounts.

F - I don't know how often I'm going to blog. It may be every day, it may be once a week, but you're going to get something from me and I promise I actually WILL get pictures up from AW's visit this time. I didn't last time. I was a liar. Forgive me.

Y'all have a good weekend :)

OH! P.S. I almost forgot...I got glasses this week. I went to the eye doctor for the first time in 5 years, two weeks ago and my bad vision from the age of 3-13 has returned. I was so excited when they came in Tuesday and I didn't think my vision before was just awful, but with the glasses everything is so much clearer and I realize how wrong I was. And since I know you (all the tens of you) are curious...enjoy the bad Blackberry quality picture from work yesterday. :)

doing what you're good at...

Well...as you can tell from the long gaps between posts - I haven't blogged lately. I've just been so busy that I don't seem to have the time.

And...

that's not the complete truth.

The complete truth is I've had time (particularly on Saturday and Sunday afternoons) but have just told myself, "It can wait."

On a somewhat related side-note, I woke up at 2:30 this morning, thinking it was 5:30 or 6...it wasn't. And had some great ideas on just exactly how I wanted to word this post. Now...all those great ideas are something that I remembered at 2:30 in the morning and not when it came time to type. Score 1 for the people that keep a notepad on their nightstand to jot down dreams. WHICH reminds me of this crazy dream I had Saturday night involving my brother, Michael Phelps, two alligators and two whales in a swim meet.

Yes...remind me never to eat a pack of Swiss rolls (even though they're delicious) right before bed.

Moving on.

Anyway, so...what was I saying...not having time! Well, my friend Margaret and I went to dinner for Valentine's because neither of us had valentines...so we were each others (we're sweet like that.) And I was talking about how I just haven't really had the 'urge' to blog. It's not like I couldn't find something to say, but there wasn't anything that really needed to be said. You know? So I was thinking it over and praying about it and starting in approximately 20 minutes (about how long I think it will take to finish this post) I will be taking a sabbatical (defined as a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year) from blogging.

That's right...hold back your tears. Please. Really. Don't cry on account of me. It makes me feel bad.

I'll still be reading people's blogs (and I'm going to include my favorites below so you can read some fun/awesome talented bloggers instead of the junk I write during this hiatus). Because...'ello?!? I couldn't give up the blog world completely. That's like asking me to give up breathing or something equally as important.

I think that's part of it. These people I'm going to link you up to? They're GREAT. And they have time to write (they'd probably laugh at that statement if they actually read my blog...but I'm pretty sure they don't) and they're funny and Godly and can say things in ways that I would never have ever in a million bajillion years thought of to say.

While I'm not knocking anyone that does this...I don't want to just be filling up the universe with more useless non-sense. I want my words to matter. And if I don't think what I'm writing about really matters, then why should I think that it matters to you? Really...I mean...did you read about the Swiss roll induced dream up there? That does not matter to you!

This is not a plea for encouragement. It's a statement of how I feel. And I think God's given me this feeling...because really, I have prayed about it and felt like this is where He is leading me.

Who knows how long it'll be before I pick back up blogging. It may be a couple of months, it may be a year. But for now...this is it. It's like Michael Jackson or something. Ha, get it? This is it? Isn't that the name of that movie??? Okay...stopping now. Sorry I never got pictures of the nieces' visit up.

For now, please, visit these people's blogs and comment and give THEM some through-the-computer encouragement. Just in case you have forgotten, Believers are called to encourage others.

"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:11

See...that's Biblical.

Now - a list of bloggers that I read every post they write. And laugh. Or cry. Or laugh TIL I cry. Or am encouraged. You name it! :)

- Annie Blogs - Y'all. She's HILARIOUS. And has taught me how to fold a fitted sheet...among many other amazing things. Seriously. For realz (as she says). Hit her up.

- Big Mama - Y'all. She's HILARIOUS. I realize I just wrote the same thing twice. That's how serious I was. I'm sure any mother with kids can relate to some of her stories. And what makes it even greater is I'm not a mother with kids or otherwise, and she still makes me laugh. :)

- Bring the Rain - Angie Smith, who's husband Todd Smith, is the lead singer for the group Selah is behind this blog. She has a heartbreaking story about their daughter, Audrey Caroline, who was born, lived 2 1/2 hours and then passed away. I sat there and read the story for 3 hours one night and cried and cried and cried. Yet...was encouraged at the same time. Read. Her. Do it.

- (In)courage - This is a wonderfully awesome magnificent great encouraging site for women. It's an off-shooot of Dayspring (you know, the people that make cards?) and every time I've left their site I come away having learned something. Like the Friday before Valentine's Day? Husbands (and not just husbands, men in general for those of us that are single) would probably like to hear they're respected rather than hearing they're loved. Because, if you think about it, you can love someone all you want but if you don't respect them...what sense does it make? Anyway, they said it way better than that right there. And there are funny things to. But y'all...women need a site like this and I'm so glad I found it. Both Angie and Annie (mentioned above) are contributing bloggers to (in)courage. READ. IT.

- Living Proof Ministries - Beth Moore. Enough said.

P.S. They're going through a discussion of her new book, 'So Long Insecurity' and it is awesomeness.

- Stuff Christians Like - Because he'll make you laugh. Except for on Serious Wednesdays and then he'll make think before you laugh. :)

If you didn't make the list of people I listed above...don't be upset. Check out the 'My Favorites' to the right of what you're reading (right over there -->). Those are some of my other favorites.

Y'all. It's been real. It's been fun. It's been real fun. But the time has come.

I hope you've found some encouragement, or a laugh through what I've blogged in the past. I know I enjoyed typing it. :)

Until we meet again, God bless!
Romans 12:12

P.P.S That took way longer than 20 minutes! ;)

i promise i'm alive.

There will be pictures of the nieces' visit soon...I promise. My life has been crazy busy the past two weeks and I can't really say with what. I hate that...when I've been ridiculously busy but yet, after two weeks I can't remember what any of it really was. Ya know?

So...maybe this week I'll get pictures up of AW's and MN's visit and all will be well with the world again. Also, if you're reading this and you don't know me in real life then I'd appreciate you praying for my little sister, Sarah, who is gone to the Philippines right now for a women's ministry conference with a group of women from her church up where she goes to school in Arkansas. She'll be back in about a week and a half and then she'll be heading back over there FOR GOOD closer to August. Ugh...while you're praying you can pray for me too because I'm pretty sure that I will need it. I do NOT do well with being continents away from my sister even if she's doing God's work. I know it's a trust issue so just pray that I'll trust Him for her. If that makes sense.

Lastly, I have no idea why, but all morning I've had this song stuck in my head. Well, really since we left church. I don't know why. I hate when I can't figure out why I have a song stuck in my head.

Mama made chicken and dumplings for lunch so I'm about to go enjoy those, or try to, because I don't like them. But I'll eat them. Which makes me think, JUST yesterday, I was eating lunch with a group of girls (ladies?) that I love love love and we were talking about chicken and dumplings and how they all love them, but I however, don't. I realize that's probably not that interesting...but obviously I felt like sharing.

Also, can I just say how disinterested I am in the Super Bowl? Yeah...I am. I've determined that 'who dat' has to be the most annoying phrase I think I've ever heard. I think I'll pull for the Colts if only because Peyton is their quarterback, and he's a Manning, and I like him, surprisingly more than Eli, which is kind of backwards because Eli played at Ole Miss, my alma mater...

This post has to stop because I'm pretty sure I've reached a new low in randomness.

Happy cheering folks.