God's Perfect Timing!

TGIF is what we lived by at the Green house for about a year. As many of you know Daniel has been working for a wonderful Christian company in Jacksonville called Collins Builders. He has been very happy working for them but the one catch was that we were still all in Macon! We have been very thankful for a wonderful job that God blessed Daniel with shortly after being laid off from his job in Macon, GA...especially in the state of our economy. We had faith that everything would be fine after all we have been through in life we know that God never leaves our side. That doesn't mean it has been easy though this past year. We truely can say we really looked forward to Fridays...this was the day that daddy came home or we drove down to see him. The weekends never seemed long enough though, but we were thankful for that time. This was true QT time for us. Well we said that 6 months was going to be our deadline that "something" would have to happen that either he move back or we move down. During this whole time we have had our house on the market...no serious prospects though. Well the 6 month mark came and went and we continued to look forward to our Fridays and shed a few tears on Sundays. This was hard on all of us...the children especially but hard on Daniel and I as well. I will have to say we learned SOOOOO much during this time. I would start to list them off but I would probably have to write a novel then :) Lets just say we have Gained So much from this time and it has made our family that much closer and our marriage that much better but most importantly our faith in God that much stronger!

Months 7, 8, 9, and 10 passed by and we finally decided after much prayer that we need to take the next step. Daniel, the children, and I have been praying very specifically for our family to be together...but we just coudn't understand WHY this was not happening yet. WHAT did God want for our family. Did Daniel have to come back or what? It didn't make sense on paper and our budget for us to just move down their and for us to have 2 house payments. Why couldn't God just sell our house!!!!! We would go through periods of frustration...but all along we knew God's timing is perfect and that if we were praying for His will He would care for us and provide for us. We heard a couple sermons actually more than a couple but they all started having the same message to us....TAKE that LEAP of FAITH!!!!! God is challenging us to do this...How BIG is your Faith???? We can't just keep on praying for the same thing unless we plant the seed...a good example: you can't pray and pray for corn unless you take some action..plant the seed. Well I decided to try to get a job in Jacksonville (again) this time I had some interviews lined up and I was offered a job on the spot. The job seemed great, I would be teaching for the summer childrens program at Primrose School (a great school) right across from the elementary school Madi and Lawrence would be going to (also a great A+ school)!!! Still numbers didn't add up b/c of the cost of childcare but we decided to trust God that he would provide and we were SO excited about getting the family together again. Just to show how important this is to the children Madi's first response to us moving was, "YES, I am so excited because Daddy gets to tuck us in again at night". They love their Daddy and so do I.

We found us our townhouse down here, not to big but the perfect location and again we are together so it's HOME to us! We then got the news that I had a friend who was interested in renting our house in Macon....Daniel and I prayed about this and have been praying for an answer so we were very thankful and thought this Must be God's answer to us. BUT we were still a bit uneasy about this. I had talked to our wonderful realtor, Anna Roberts, by the way if you need a realtor She is the BEST!!! Love her!!!! and she said it best you have to pray about it and do what is best for your family. The market may not be as good next year but do what you need to do and pray about it. Daniel and I still thought, we can't have 2 house payments we need to just rent it, it would be a tremendous help right now....

This past Friday we drove down to Macon to Pack Pack Pack and Clean Clean Clean to get the house ready for our rentor! As we laid on our one mattress left in the house on the floor...I told Daniel I just am so nervous I don't feel like we are doing the right thing, did he feel like we were rushing into things as well? He did feel the same, but said we don't really have a choice at this point we already told the lady she can rent it besides the house has been on the market for a year it's not like we have an offer or anything.................I agreed and then felt a little bit better about it. We woke up and moved all furniture left in the house into our basement (because we were going to store it there while it was being rented out)...Guess who called our realtor with a bit of news for us. She told us that their may be someone interested in offering on our house to HOLD off on renting...WHAT?????? COULD THIS BE???? she then called the other realtor who showed the house to the interested couple. That realtor said they were interested in another house...so we kinda sighed and continued doing what we were doing. Daniel then went to get some alergy medicine for me when I got another call from Anna...I had just got done praying and I told Daniel to be doing the same thing...Our Prayer was if we are not supposed to rent out our house....don't let it happen let us know!!!!! Not even a full 24 hours before having a lease signed for our house to be rented WE got an OFFER on our house!!!!! Anna said the couple from California wants our house (which was not their original first pick). NOW if that is not in the HANDS OF GOD and GODS PERFECT TIMING...I don't know what else it could be. GOD IS SO GOOD!!!!! Please put All your FAITH in HIM and He will BLOW your socks off!!!!!! We close on our house on July 7th....Please continue to pray that everything goes well. I know we are and we trust God that He has a wonderful and perfect plan for us. He has prepared us for something Big and we are ready.

Thanks for taking the time to read this...and I will try to get a bit better on updating what is going on in Jacksonville FL :)

Sorry for the long post but I just HAD to share God's wonderful work....We owe it all to Him and give Him all the Glory! We thank Him for using people to show how wonderful He is!

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

I just love the Christmas Season! The kids were so excited about starting to decorate for Christmas, I had to pull out the little Christmas trees for thier rooms the week before Thanksgiving. They had so much fun setting them up in their rooms. This past weekend we decorated the rest of the house for Christmas. We had a great time doing this as a family, Daniel was home for Thanksgiving so it was an extended time at home, which we all enjoyed. I know we will have more pictures to post this month of wonderful Christmas memories made. These were just a few that got us in the Christmas mood. We went to the mall to go see Santa, but we missed him (he went back to the North Pole) so we will try again this weekend. We did have a chance to go take pictures at the big Christmas tree though. :) I hope you all enjoy the Christmas season and don't let the hustle bustle get in the way of the true meaning. Love to All!

We have so much to be thankful for!

These pictures were taken on the Sat. after Thanksgiving. We go to Stuckey, GA to the farm. This is a fun time for all the family on Daniel's mom's side to see each other. The kids have lots of fun on the farm running around and going to see the cows! We all leave there with good memories and full tummy's from ALL the food!!!!

Last week was Thanksgiving, Im a little late on my post. I just wanted to share that we are so blessed and thankful for all the Lord has blessed us with. At times we tend to dwell on the circumstances we may be in and not pay as much attention to all the blessing we may be missing around us. So this week was a special time to reflect on them and remind us of all them.

* Im Thankful for the Lord our Savior who continues to love us unconditionally

* Im thankful for our 3 precious children who are so FULL of love and so sweet.

* Im thankful for a loving, caring, hardworking husband who is a great daddy as well!

* Im thankful for a HEALTHY family....Ive realized even though we may be apart and the distance is hard, we are all healthy and well. My heart goes out to those families that have to go through any of that.

* Im thankful for Daniel's job...this is what keeps us away but the irony of it is that it is a Huge Blessing! Not only is it a job, but the people he works with are a blessing in our lives!

* Im thankful for our family and friends...what a huge blessing they are to us!

* Im thankful for a beautiful home, the food on our plates, and warm clothes. We take this for granted at times but their are so many people without these things. Im thankful that the Lord continues to provide for all our needs.

My list could go on and on! I am thankful for this time of year to reflect on all that we DO have to be thankful for. I hope to keep this in my mind not only on Thanksgiving and over the holidays but throughout the year!

We love you all!

Let's go to the Z O O !

When we were visiting Jacksonville this past weekend, we were supposed to go trick-or-treating at the Zoo. My sister found out that it isn't the best time to go with little ones because the zoo gets really packed with people and its so hard to even walk around. So, we decided to go the following day. Which was much better in our opinion. We had the whole Zoo to ourselves practically. It was great!

Best Cousins have the best seat for the trip to the ZOO.

Lilli sees the Choo Choo

Lawrence, Madi, Lilli, Caleb, and Macy to your left.

The animals come up so close to you!

Frankestein and Lawrence

The Zoo was all decorated for Spooktacular!

The Pirates Cove at the Zoo

Too bad we didn't stomp on those Gators

Lots of Jack-o-lanterns all over the Zoo, this was just a few of them

Our Favorite spot everytime we come to the zoo. The Chimpanzee's always make all of us laugh. We can watch them literally for hours.

Trick or Treat!

Constume Fun! I made their costumes this year again. Lawrence dressed up like a bat and Madi and Lilli were ladybugs. They were all so cute. We actually got to dress up 4 times this year with all the festivities that were going on. The kids loved it. We definately got some use out of our costumes this year.

In front of our playhouse Daniel built

This swing Madi is on was also Daniel's when he was young

My Love Bugs

Halloween Night we went down to Tina's house in Jacksonville. We went trick or treating in her neighborhood with Caleb and Macy. We then went to Caleb's school for a fall festival called Hallelujah. We had a good time. It ended up raining on us the end of the night but at least the kids had some time beofre the showers to enjoy Halloween. Thanks Bost family for inviting us! Oh and Madi even won the costume contest for her age range. She loved that!

Macy the bumble bee

Macy is now walking. So she really got to enjoy trick or treating this year

Macy and Lilli are so cute together, they are close cousins

Caleb was Spiderman, I couldn't beleive for a 2 year old that he kept his mask on!

Family Vacation

We had the opportunity to go on a family vacation with Daniel's side of the family to Pigeon Forge, Tenn. We had a great time! We stayed in a cabin together in the mountains, it was beautiful. We even went to Dixieland Stampede for dinner one night, Dollywood, and let the kids and the adults ride some go-carts. We all had a great time together the only down fall was that the weekend flew by too quick! The pictures below were taken from Dollywood. They had some great Fall scenes set up.

Fall Fun!

Our fall day at the Farm. We went on a hayride, the kids picked out small pumpkins, fed some farm animals, and played on a playground. The weather was wonderful and it was so nice to have such a relaxing afternoon ALL together!

On our hayride around the farm

Feeding the goats