Sharing the Love

Melody over at Slurping Life has decided to share some love with me. Melody is such a neat person, has such a talent for photography, and those boys! I just want to show up at her door some day and let our kids get rambunctious and crazy together. Thank you Melody for the love. You know you would be getting this from me had I got it first :)







For the ones I'm sharing my love with...
Amy from The Junk Drawer (previously Laughing Through the Tears) She is a special bloggity friend whom has never stopped praying!
Leeann from The World: Through the Eyes of Me I have been blessed by her honesty and love for life.
Cindy from Still His Girl Her and her husband has been an inspiration to us.
Rach from Greene Acres. She is a truly a blessing and a beautiful person, inside and out!

I am going to cut myself off at this point. Awards go around and spread so quickly in bloggityville that I wanted to leave some love for everyone else to share.

Undeserved Awards

Toni over at In the Midst of This Season has chosen to award me the Mathetes Award.

This award originated with Dan King over at Management
by God, who states, "Mathetes is the Greek word for disciple, and the role
of the disciple (per the Great Commission) is to make more disciples. The role
of a disciple of Christ is to carry His message to the ends of the earth. It is
with this heart that I have created the Mathetes Award."Those who receive it are
to pass it on to other disciples who are sharing the good news in their own
bloggity ways.

Here are the rules: Winners of this award to pass this on to five other
"disciples". As you pass it on, I just ask that you mention and provide links
for(1)the originator of the award (Dan King of management
by God), (2) the person that awarded it to you, and then (3) name the sites
of those you believe are fulfilling the role of a disciple of Christ.

I will be honest, I struggled whether or not to even accept this award for a couple of reasons. First, this blog was not intended to create disciples or specifically to point people to Christ. I know I talk about my faith at times but not for the purpose of creating disciples. I am just sharing my life.

The other reason is because I am only generally sharing the more positive side of my life. I am not sharing my deepest hurts, burdens, struggles. When I hijacked this blog (the original intent was just to keep family updated on our lives) I made a decision that it was going to be a more upbeat blog. I had gone to some blogs and they had humor, but it was more whiny humor. I wanted to have something that was the positive side of life, even with humor. But I have not been transparent. I have only really shared one side of the picture.

So, when she gave me this award I knew this is not something I really deserve. I contemplated what to do. Then I realized something. It is not really me she is awarding it to anyway. If I have shared His truth, it was because of Him. If He is shining through me, then people are seeing Him. I am nothing. I struggle to have the faith of a mustard seed. If there has been any good shared, it is not me, it's Him.

So with that being said, I will pass this award on. Toni would have been one that I would have automatically thought of as deserving this award, but these others have each encouraged me in their own way and for that I will recognize their part sharing His truth with me and others.

Melody at Slurping Life

Karen at For Such a time as Now

Amy at Laughing Through the Tears

ATTENTION--Someone actually thinks I'm fabulous!

The fabulous Toni from In the Midst of this Season has so graciously bestowed the I'm Fabulous Award to yours truly. Now, it may not seem like a big deal but I don't get to drink water out of that fancy of a glass everyday! And to bonus there are two of them so I just might get a sip before the kids drink it all, needing some just because it's in a fancy glass. I sure hope that this is faux fancy so when the kids are fighting over the glasses and drops them, they just have that slight sound of plastic bouncing. Don't judge...we are high society here around these parts!

But Toni, being sneaky as she will be has given this award with strings. She also tagged all of her victims friends with the 7 random things meme. But before I get to that, I will pass this award on with the same condition....you have to do the meme too. Hee Hee, us who learn our kids at home have to stick together!

Rules...

1. Link to the person who has tagged you.

2. Tell seven true things about yourself.

3. Tag seven new people (or in my case 2)

4. Leave a message with the person you have tagged so they know about it.

So my choices are...

Leeann from The World:through the eyes of me. She is a neat person, but what I think is really neat is that she is going to to naked for a great cause. Well, only naked at the top of her head, but anyone willing to shave their head for someone else is fabulous in my world.

As the World Scraps (sorry I couldn't find her screen name) I have just recently been introduced to her blog, but let me tell you, this woman is fabulous! I love her creativity, her energy, and her faith, and the fact that she feels comfortable just popping in unannounced and eating all my M&M's!

Onto my 7 random things......

1. I love organizing but hate cleaning. I can find almost anything in my house in a short period of time, but I couldn't tell you the last time I dusted. (my mom is so proud! lol)

2. I am probably an eccentric. I get weird ideas and want to implement them, but Knight tends to be the voice of reason. For example, I have a huge front porch. I have wanted (still do) to fill it with sand, put up some bamboo shades, fake palm trees, some lawn chairs so I can pretend I live at the beach. Is that normal for a 30 year old mother of 4? Do I care if it is?

3. I spend a lot of time on the computer but 99% of my time is at 5 sites. Gmail, Bloglines, finetune, foxnews, MyYahoo (news again)

4. I don't like calling people. I don't want to interrupt their day. I will email, or text all day, but I generally don't call. But I like it if people call me.

5. I consider my genre of music is pretty diversified. It tends to be all Christian, but I like and have found hip hop, country, praise & worship, contemporary, reggae, and classical(ish) all with Christian or clean lyrics. My MP3 will go from Randy Travis, to Casting Crowns, to Jars of Clay to Toby Mac. No one can say my kids only know one type of music.

6. I have been playing with my beads lately making necklaces. This is the one craft I really enjoy that I can afford. I don't wear jewelry. Not even my wedding ring.

7. I think math is fun. I love learning the new ways to do math as I teach my kids. I will buy the penny press puzzle books when they have the Math and Logic ones for sale. Sudoku is relaxing. But don't try to get me to do a crossword. I am horrible at those.

Awards

Leeann at the world: through the eyes of me has given me the You Make Me Smile Award. Leeann is a newer blogger and I have really enjoyed getting to know her through her blog. I really enjoy reading her posts and would have awarded this to her, had she not been the one to receive it first.

The maker of this award created it for this purpose.

"The thing that I love most about blogging is that I learn so much about a
person just by reading their blog. I have met MANY wonderful people with
wonderful stories to tell, and I am grateful every day for each person that I
have the pleasure of crossing paths in life with. I wanted to create something
special for the people who have inspired me through their blogging; the stories
they tell, and the lives that they lead with grace and dignity. I visit their
blogs for inspiration and encouragement. Although there are MANY people I want
to give this award to at this very moment, I am going to choose five bloggers:
Please grab your badge and wear it(with a smile) proudly, and pass it on because
you inspire and encourage me, thank you. So, now it is my turn to pass it on."

Now, as most bloggers know, it is easy to get a big head here in Bloggityville. Awards are passed around, a lot. I am not saying that I am not grateful, but I would like to do my part in making awards mean a little more. So, for that reason, I am only going to give this to one person. Whether she passes it on to one, five, or anywhere in between is up to her.

I am awarding this to Melody at Slurping Life. Not only does she challenge me to get in touch with my feelings (the nerve!) but she is real. She has her good days, bad days, tiring days but she tries to look at the humor in it all. And I have fallen in love with those boys of hers. Not too many people in bloggityville have impacted me on a daily basis like she has. And for that reason, she makes me smile.

Melody over at Slurping Life has chosen to award me the Nice Matters Award. I know you are first thinking...what is that?

This award is for those bloggers who are nice people; good blog friends and
those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also for those who are a
positive influence on our blogging world. Once you’ve been awarded please pass
it on to 4 others who you feel are deserving of this award.

And now your thinking...WHY YOU??????

Yeah, me too. I must REALLY have her fooled. But, never one to turn down a reason to blog, I will accept it lovingly, with heartfelt thanks. Out of all the bloggers I read, she really is the model of kindness. I love reading her blog, and viewing her photography. This is one blogger I would love to meet in person. I think I would have a blast with her and her boys! I would really give this award back to her again, but I get the feeling that is not what they intended when they said to pass it on.

So now to award others (in no particular order)...Amy at Laughing Through the Tears (her kindness really shines through on her blog), Molly at Doodles (she's even better in person!) Toni at In the Midst of This Season (her blog makes me laugh, her kindness shines through) Karen at For Such a Time as Now (reading her stuff just seems to encourage me, whether it be a comment left or a blog post)