The Prodigal God...

I just heard of this book from a friend of mine, Amy Cathy (I also follow her blog -- "My Place in the Sun"). She mentioned that it was the first book she downloaded to her Kindle. I, too, got a Kindle for Christmas so I decided to see what the book was about. After reading the short description on Amazon, I decided I wanted to read it. So, I bought it with "one-click" and was able to start reading it about a minute later. :) I do love my Kindle!! (In case you have not heard of a Kindle, it's an e-book reader offered by Amazon. You can download somewhere around 1500 books on this little electronic device that is about the size of an average paperback, but is only about 1/4" thick. Most new releases are around $9.99 and there are thousands of books that are "public domain" that you can download for free.) Anyway, I only planned on beginning the book, but I just kept reading until I was done.

The book is based on a parable in the Bible from the book of Luke (Chapter 15) about the Prodigal Son. I've heard this parable many times and the times I've heard it, the emphasis has been on this prodigal son. However, this book brings to light not only the sins of the Prodigal Son, but also those of the elder brother. One of the features I really like about the Kindle is the ability to highlight passages within the books I read. The Kindle stores all those highlighted passages into a separate file called "my clippings." Throughout this book, I highlighted several passages that stood out to me. I wanted to share those with you.

"Religion operates on the principle of "I obey -- therefore I am accepted by God." The basic operating principle of the Gospel is "I am accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ -- therefore I obey."

"As Richard Lovelace has written: "[People] who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons...Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce, defensive assertion of their own righteousness, and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger."

"As long as you are trying to earn your salvation by controlling God through goodness, you will never be sure you have been good enough for him. You simply aren't sure God loves and delights in you."

"Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn't mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness."

"Martin Luther's old formula still sums things up nicely: "We are saved by faith alone (not our works), but not by faith that remains alone." Nothing we do can merit God's grace and favor, we can only believe that he has given it to us in Jesus Christ and receive it by faith. But if we truly believe and trust in the one who sacrificially served us, it changes us into people who sacrificially serve God and our neighbors. If we say "I believe in Jesus" but it doesn't affect the way we live, the answer is not that now we need to add hard work to our faith so much as that we haven't truly understood or believed in Jesus at all."

As you can see, I really liked this book! I liked that it brought to light that you can take "doing the right thing" to the extreme. Our service to God should come from the heart. Not because it's what we are "supposed to do."
I'm so thankful for a Heavenly Father full of grace and mercy!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Where does the time go?? I can't believe Christmas is just under 3 weeks away!! Wow!

Thanksgiving was a wonderful day....we celebrated with my parents at our house. Mom spent the night with us on Wednesday and we spent the evening making some delicious desserts for after our Thanksgiving meal on Thursday. We made chocolate truffles, cookies, peanut butter balls, chocolate eclair pie, and pumpkin pie. All three of the girls helped prepare our Thanksgiving feast...and a feast it was! We had turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, potato salad, deviled eggs, and cranberry relish. It was a very delicious meal.

Thursday evening, we went to visit David's mom and some of his family. We had more desserts and some of us girls made a fun gingerbread house. We played card games and just had a great time of fellowship. Then began the shopping expedition! Toys R Us opened at midnight! Last Christmas season, I went to Toys R Us and did the majority of my shopping...so this year, since I was going to be in the area (David's mom lives in Fayetteville, close to Toys R Us) I decided to go ahead and knock it out that night...then shop in my own area (Newnan) the next morning. My brother & sister-in-law joined me for the midnight madness. And, suffice it to say, madness doesn't even begin to describe how crazy it was!!! I'll just say what I thought would take me 2 hours at tops, ended up taking 6 hours. I stood in line for a miserable 5 hours. I did get some great deals, but I did not get ANY sleep. I left the toy store at 5 a.m. and drove home to pick up my Mom and Emma for some more shopping!! We hit several other stores (none were as crowded as Toys R Us was!) and were very successful. I think overal, in the 16 (yes, 16) hours I shopped I saved close to $400! Pretty impressive! I am thankfully almost finished with my shopping....all I have left is to get a few stocking stuffers and get something for David (who I am convinced is one of the hardest people to shop for) and my parents.

Saturday....after sleeping very late, we decided to decorate the house for Christmas. The girls had lots of fun pulling out their ornaments. My mom has bought them special ornaments every year and they each have a special box just for their ornaments. They really have fun putting them on the tree....and they did a great job! I only had to remind them a few times to spread the ornaments out! :) One of my favorite things about my Christmas tree (besides the fact that it is a pre-lit tree -- NO stringing lights for me!!!) is that it has a rotating tree stand. This is a feature that can be turned off and on. Last year, we didn't have it rotate, this year the kids decided they wanted it to rotate. Well...little Miss Molly (our dog) decided that she wasn't so sure about this rotating tree!! She spent the better part of the evening barking like crazy. It was quite entertaining....so much so that I had to capture it on video. She especially didn't like one particular ornament that kept dragging over the tree skirt. Brace yourself for the video...she is quite ferocious!




Now...weren't you frightened by that!!! :) We have a busy couple of days ahead, we are having David's employee Christmas party this Sunday, then we are taking his managers out for dinner on Tuesday evening. Next Saturday will be my birthday, then we have Emma's chorus recital on the 17th, followed by class parties on the 18th, then it's just one week till Christmas! What a wonderful time of year it is!

Trick or Treat!

Well...it was supposed to be a treat, but turned out to be a trick. For the treat, I was going to post pictures of the girls from Halloween but for some reason, I keep getting an error code. I guess Blogger wants me to have a trick!!! So, instead, I will just tell you what the girls were, and if we are friends on facebook, you can see the halloween pictures there.

The girls had a great time trick or treating, despite the cold and rain! My parents came over to see the girls and we had a great evening together. Emma dressed up as a Starbuck's Barista...our local Starbuck's even loaned her an apron to wear! She got a lot of compliments on her costume while we made our way through the neighborhood. When I returned the apron, I took a picture of Emma in costume to the manager and he posted it on his Community Board. Emma thought that was awesome! Audrey dressed up as Hannah Montana....she posed with our Wii guitar for some pictures and then wanted to carry the guitar trick-or-treating, however, a quick thinking Momma remembered that she had a Hannah Montana purse in the shape of a guitar, so she carried that instead and used it as her candy bag! Amy dressed as Fancy Nancy. Fancy Nancy is the character in a series of childrens books that Amy likes. There are also some puzzles and dolls that go along with the character. Fancy Nancy, as her name denotes, is very Fancy. She likes to use fancy big words and dresses quite lavishly. This was right up Amy's alley and she loves anything that involves glitter and being all dressed up. I curled her hair in sponge rollers and she wore a tiara. We covered her in glitter and she got to wear a feather boa....she was just too cute! She's even decided that she wants a Fancy Nancy birthday party next year! (This coming from a child that has had a Dora party for 4 years straight!!!)

We had a great Halloween weekend. I can't believe November is almost half-over! Thanksgiving is just 2 weeks away! It's my favorite holiday and I can't wait for it to get here! This year, my mom and I are going to get up the next day for some Black Friday shopping together. We haven't done that in many years....it should be lots of fun!

What if?

What if?

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Sneak Peek of Family Portraits!

I posted this link on my facebook page, but in case you missed it, or just wanted to see it again, click the link below to see a few shots from our recent family portraits. I am so thankful for Heather sharing her talent with our family. I can't wait to use her services again! I'm hoping to do a spring session as well, and include my parents and David's Mom for some generational shots. Should be great! But, without further ado....check out our pictures!
http://heathercrawford.typepad.com/photography/2009/11/sneak-peek-for-the-lindley-family.html

An update!! (are you shocked??) ;)

For some reason, I just can't seem to keep up with this blog!! I visit my own blog daily so that I can check on my "friendly places" links and see what others are doing, but somehow I don't ever update! Shame on me! Maybe with the holidays approaching, I'll have more newsworthy things to blog about! We shall see!

Not much has happened since my last update. The kids are all doing great in school and seem to really enjoy it. Audrey and Amy both have some wiggly teeth, but none that are close to coming out anytime soon...maybe by Christmas they will come out.

On Wednesday we went and had some family portraits made. The last time we had pictures made as a family was November of 2003!! Audrey was just a baby and I think it was just days before I learned I was expecting Amy. Needless to say, it was long overdue. We went to the Peachtree City Library and took advantage of the beautiful scenery and lake for our pictures. I'm hoping to have the professional pictures in the next couple of weeks to share with you. We were able to snap a few while our photographer was working and then while we were all dressed (and the kids were still willing) we took a few more pictures after our session was over. The picture at the top of my blog is one that we took with our own camera. Here are a few more.....



I can't believe how quickly the year is coming to an end! Tomorrow is Halloween and then before you know it, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be upon us! It's my favorite time of year!!! I have so much to be thankful for! I hope to do better at updating....stay tuned!!!

"Fall"ing behind again....

It seems as though I am always playing catch up on this blog! It's been just over a month since I last updated. Where does the time go?? Audrey recently got a visit from the tooth fairy...she lost her first tooth on September 2! It had been really wobbly for several days and we finally decided to pull it out. I was afraid it might come out at school and get lost before it found its way underneath her pillow for safe keeping until the tooth fairy came. Audrey was very brave and probably wouldn't have cried at all had she not been so tired when we did the pulling. She really wanted to pull it herself, she just couldn't get a good grip on it. She finally let mommy give it a tug and out it came.




The girls are really enjoying school and are doing very well. Progress reports came home this last week and all the girls had excellent reports! Amy is doing very well on learning her sight words and is really working hard on her handwriting. We think she has finally "picked a hand" when it comes to writing. She's always been ambidextrous when it comes to using her hands...never using one more than the other. Here lately though, when we do her homework, she most often writes her letters with her left hand. I still sometimes catch her coloring and doing other things with her right hand, but I think she will be left hand dominant.

Audrey is getting much more fluent with her reading and is a whiz at math. She is definitely her mother's daughter and has to be reminded every now and then not to talk during class. She has been getting excellent grades and we are very proud of her.

Emma is doing GREAT in the 4th grade! She is very concerned with her work and always wants to do her best. We have a great homework routine and she is making awesome grades! She recently did her first project on the Kwaikutl Indians for Social Studies. She was required to recreate the habitat of her tribe. She had to include landforms and also represent items her tribe was known for. We had a great time working on this project together. My parents also chipped in with some help. Nanaw helped Emma make a basket and Angaw cut some pieces of my grandmother's cedar tree to make a totem pole. The project turned out great! Emma was very happy with it.

I am staying busy during the week with two Bible studies this year. I am going to the Ladies Bible study at Berachah Bible Church on Tuesdays with my best friend LeighAnn. We are doing Kristie Gant's study on Heaven. Last week was our first week and it was great...I look forward to completing this study. On Thursdays, I go to Mom to Mom at Dogwood Church in Peachtree City. This is similar to a Bible study in that we reference God's word, but it is so much more than that. We are given a place to rest our burdens and be encouraged as Mothers with hearts for God. It has been such good medicine for my soul! The Lord is so good to me.

Well...that pretty much sums up our last month or so. We are looking forward to some cooler weather...Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I love the rich colors and the crisp breezes it has to offer. Hopefully I will do a better job of updating this blog....thanks for checking in on us!