Saturday Photo Hunt

Theme: Steps


Lilla took her first steps this week, yahoo! Freedom!!

Oh, Bother

Okay, so you will all have to forgive me but I think I'm going to move over to Wordpress. A lot of bloggers have been going there and I decided to check it out and really like it. It is really easy to use and I was able to, in one step, take all of my blogs from Blogger over there. Pretty cool. The only thing I don't like about it is what a pain it is to put pictures into the blog. It was something I didn't like about spaces and I continue the feeling here. Anyway, you might want to look into it too. It's nice for everyone to easily comment and it just is much simpler. I think I had way too much on my spaces blog and I never liked the format for blogger. So, there you go!

So, my new URL will be http://amyszoo.wordpress.com

See you all there!

Easter

We had such a nice time on Easter Sunday. We woke up early, got Lilla up, of course she had no desire to see this lovely display...

...as all she can think about in the mornings is a nice warm cup of boob. Yeah, I am still trying to wean the little bugger. She just wants no part of it. However, once that was taken care of, this is what happened next...

...so, nice to know my Mommy/Easter bunny efforts were not in vane.

We went to the SonRise service at church and then headed down to Louisville to visit my hubby's family. Lilla had a blast playing with her cousins...

And looked beautiful, of course, in her Easter dress!

Hope you all had a great day too!

Pray for Cuba

On this Easter weekend I just want to express how grateful I am to live in a country where I can go to church on Sunday, sit in a pew, worship and go home without ever being concerned that someone will blow up the church, arrest me or torture my family, just for being there. Othere people are not so fortunate, and I think it's a good time to remember them.

I just wanted to make a mention about a country where there is persecution. While it is getting better, we need to be praying for the country of Cuba and it's leadership. While there is more freedom now, than there ever was before since Fidel Castro came to power, there is still persecution of the saints. We need to be praying for their present and future leadership. As many know Fidel Castro is very sick, the Cuban government says he's getting better, but he has been out of the public eye for quite sometime and is probably dying. Let's pray for his salvation in his last days and that God will raise up a Government that loves the Lord and wants to serve Him.

In 2005 new legislation against house churches was introduced and many protestant house churches have been shut down. Pray that God will raise up the leaders and allow these men and women to preach in His name. Pray for redemption in Cuba.

Please pray for the persecuted church!

www.persecution.com

Saturday Photo Hunt

Theme: Clean

This is a picture of my baby last summer. Look at those cheeks! Are they not hilarious? I have much more recent bath pics but this has to be my all time fave!

Friday's Feast

Appetizer
When you travel, which mode of transportation do you prefer?

Plane, get their as fast as possible. A jet would be nice!

Soup
Have you ever met a blogging friend in person?

No, but I do have one I previously knew. Hi Amanda! :)

Salad
When was the last time you were really, really tired?

This morning. My daughter was sick and up until 1:30 last night and then woke up before 7am today.

Main Course
If you could have dinner with any one fictional character from a book or movie, who would it be?

Maybe Darth Vader. That would be cool. :)

Dessert
Fill in the blank: One day, I hope to see a giraffe in the wild. Wouldn't a Safari be the coolest?

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things I find curious in this world 1. Why people feel that when you turn your turn signal on it is their cue to speed up as fast as they can and pass you? 2. Why do people keep voting for Sanjay Malakar? 3. Why does my dog feel the need to pee on my bed from time to time? 4. Why do people allow their children to swear at them? 5. Why do people like mushrooms? 6. Why would people rather look to Oprah for advice instead of the bible? 7. How does it happen that I can clean my house and my daughter can come through five minutes later and make it look like a tornado hit it? 8. How does my husband not see the crumbs he leaves after making a sandwhich? 9. Why do I have like 10 shorter hairs in the front of my head that always want to stand up? 10. Why do people feel it is their right to make fun of overweight people to their face (or behind their back)? 11. Why doesn't Donald Trump get his hair fixed? 12. Why do people believe that professional wrestling is real? 13. Why does the media feel it is their mission in life to tear down Christians at every turn?   OK, some serious, some silly. Just things rolling around in my head! Happy TTing you all! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Thinking Blogger Award

So I have been tagged by NSpiredbyFaith for the Thinking Blogger award. The idea is to name 5 blogs that make you think and tell what it about the blogs that make you keep coming back. It's a little difficult because many of my good friends are over at MSN spaces, and unfortunately you can't leave messages for them unless you too have an MSN account. Kind of snobby huh? Hence, why I have two accounts now.

Anyway, I do have other friends too, and here they are:

Carrie is a recent convert from Spaces to wordpress. I've been reading her blog for quite some time and she is a lovely woman. She really seems to enjoy life and writes about her husband, her music students and all the wonderful crafts she is able to do. She also writes about her love for God, which makes hers, a blog after my own heart!

Tammy is also a recent convert to wordpress. Her blog, It's a Wonderful Life, talks about her life as a mother of 3, homeschooling and her relationship with God. She has a beautiful writing style that I think is developing more in her blog writing.

Suzanne is a mom I met at CafeMom. She is very intelligent and witty. She just had her 6th kid and doesn't post nearly as much as I'd like her to, but I sure can understand why!

Michelle over at Between Diapers and Dishes is such an amazing woman. She is a missionary to the deaf in Mexico and always has intersting anecdotes and fun facts.

Young Mommy at Sharpening Our Arrows is my final choice. She writes about the day to day life of a Christian mommy who is trying to lead a life pleasing to God. Lots of fun stories and she posts a lot, which I love!

If I didn't mention you, don't worry, I still like ya lots, it's just I only had 5 spots to fill! You're next on my list of course!

Happy Easter all!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

I recently heard a sermon on Ruth concerning Boaz and how he was a Redeemer for Ruth. The Pastor, Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, was extolling all men to reach out to women in their life and become a Redeemer of sorts to them. Not redemptive like Jesus, but to redeem their broken lives. He spoke about how God can bring someone in your life and you need to be accepting and willing instead of have a list of expectations and if they don't meet every checkpoint (i.e. never married, no kids, virgin, never drank or done drugs...you get the point) moving on. What a great message! It reminded me of how my husband has been a redeemer to me in terms of a life of sadness and despair, brokeness and hurt. I never thought someone like Michael would marry someone like me. What a gift!

All that to say, today is our 3rd anniversary, yeah us! We've made it thus far, which in terms of 25, 40 and 50 or more years is just small potatoes, but we are proud of it! It has gone so fast!

Months before our wedding we found this little song, Waltz for Jennifer by FFH that we just felt said how we were feeling. It's a bit cheesy, but really, it is perfect for how we feel. It became our first dance. Here are the lyrics:

Artist: FFH
Album: Ready to Fly
Track: Waltz For Jennifer
Another long day is gone
And I'm ready for another long night
Where I'll be by your side
Another long day will come
And I'll thank Jesus that I am alive and
That He made you mine

(chorus)
We belong together you and me
Holding on tight like lock and key
Going strong the way this love should be our fantasy
And I'm so glad that God made me for you and you for me

I'm having that dream
Where we are walking together along
With the sand in our feet
And I'm awake and I realize it wasn't a dream
It was reality
(chorus)

I hope you each will enjoy your marriages too!

What's going on?

So, I thought I'd give a little update here. I was thinking about my blog a while ago and how I would like it to be a historical reference of sorts for me and for Lilla, later on. I look back at the past several months and am amazed at the steps Lilla has grown and how wonderful that I have documented so many. I think I will print this out at some point in case it somehow gets erased. I guess that is another nice part of having two blogs, if one gets erased you have the other to fall back on!

Anyway, I put a new song on Spaces. It's called Let the Peace of God Reign. It's a worship song from Hillsongs. I always liked Darlene Zsech and this is one of my favorites of hers. I thought it was appropriate in this season of Easter to celebrate God's peace and love. It's so easy to go about the day to days and forget to really remember what Easter is about and how real the cross is. I don't want to do that.

Lilla has been doing a lot of new things lately. This weekend she started saying puppy and baby. How cute is that? Her cousin is 6 months older and those are two of her favorite words so I think Lilla has picked them up from spending so much time with her lately. It is so cute. I say, "Where is the puppy Lilla?" And she will turn her head and reach out for Ellie. Adorable!

She still isn't walking. She'll be 14 months on the 8th so I was starting to get kind of worried. My mom was always saying how I'd walked at 10 months. Today I found my baby book, and guess what? Not so much! I didn't walk until 15 months. So, that gave me a bit of comfort, anyway. Lilla has supertiny feet, she only wears 2 1/2, which usuallly a 6 month old would wear, so I was beginning to think that was it. My mom insisted I buy her these $50 shoes (of course she paid for them) to make her walk. We'll see how that goes. They had to be specially ordered since her feet are so small so they will come this week.

Michael got home from his trip on Friday night, yeah! It was so good to see him and spend time with him. It's hard being away from your spouse. I don't know how single parents do it!

He has been so kind and generous to me lately. I am an obsessive picture taker (who knew?) and he bought me this seriously fancy camera last week. I didn't even know how to work it! He had to go read the instructions, and it can do so much more than I know. I'll have to delve into it sometime. Anyway, wow does it take good pictures! Beautiful!

He also let me get this awesome thing for scrapbooking called a Cricut machine. It has always been way too expensive for my taste but it was almost 1/3 of it's price today at Michael's so he told me to go get one! Whew! We've spent way too much money this month so we need to reign it in before we get too used to it. See what happens when you get a decent tax return! Oh boy!

Anyway, I'm going to close this novel now...hope you are still awake!

Take care,

Amy