This last month has been so busy!!   I am so thankful for the business that has come my way, because it has really helped to put away some money into savings.  At the same time, however, it has sometimes been so hectic (especially since I usually take all five kids with me everywhere I go) that I feel like I don't get a moment to just sit down and unwind.   
The other day, I was just so overwhelmed I cried- because work was piling up at the house when I was away doing murals, and I felt like I couldn't get it all done.   I go through this a lot of times when I try to fit too much into a schedule... it's a bad habit of mine, and I need to stop!   I'm just glad I finally got through with all of the tasks I had lined up.   Maybe next month will be a little less full, or maybe I'll learn to slow down a bit and stop trying to get everything done at once.  

This last month James and I worked on building a 45 foot long rabbit fence and also bought some pigs.  James did most of the work there, of course.  We are currently trying to build a chicken coop and fence as well.  We are going to raise all of  them for meat and eggs.   We also have three goats, two of which will hopefully produce milk eventually.   I love seeing and hearing all of the animals outside all of the time...they are so enjoyable.  I love how they get so excited when  you come out with food.

Some of the mural projects I have been working on include a business sign, a beach mural next to a pool, a 45 foot long fireworks mural, a wedding photography shoot, painting a deer in the woods on a saw, and about 5 pencil portraits...and another thing that is pretty exciting is that I was asked if I could illustrate a medical textbook, so I was working on a sample drawing for them this last week as well.

I'm going to just link to facebook pictures of some of this stuff, because of the fact that this blog system takes forever to upload pictures and I just don't have time to do that much anymore!  

Here are a few that I'll post right here though.

Restoring an old sign for a building here in Cullman (see more pictures here)
 

Annah was with me, helping me paint...the rest of the children came with me for parts of it but for the most part, I had someone watch them because it's not easy to keep an eye on them out there:
 

And as I like to do in these cases, I added her footprints with my signature.
 

The Fireworks mural...this one was very time consuming!  All of the kids came with me...there was a nice pasture there and they sat on a blanket and read books and ate snacks, or went exploring.   There was a lot for them to do.    You can see pictures of my progress (and the kids), at this link, and this link too. 



The beach mural:


Here is the saw I did for my brother-in-law's friend:



Two of the pencil portraits:
 

 

The wedding photos (more can be seen at this link):





 

And here's just a picture of all of the kiddos because I just love to share pictures of them. 


Ok, that's about all for now! 

Bonnie loves to borrow my cellphone and send text messages to her grandma. Usually, this happens when I am unaware of it, and then later I check my phone and find out what she's been writing.

Today, I was looking through my phone and found this:

Bonnie: Buy candy for the kids, please.
My mom: Ok Bonnie, what kind do you want?
Bonnie: How did you know it was me?  p.s. Chocolate
My mom: Your mom would never ask me to buy something unhealthy for you.

I haven't posted any pictures of the kids lately, so since I brought Bonnie up, here is one of Bonnie with her sister, Annah, who is...9 months old now!  Oh my goodness, where does the time go?   And aren't they just beautiful together?  

 

This picture turned out blurry, but I don't care. It's just so precious.   Can you believe how big Annah is? She'll be 8 months in April!  And Ian will be TWO!

I just couldn't help myself...I felt like the bus was missing something, so added something I found funny on the back of it. I think it should make people smile when we pass by.

This has been such an exciting project, and so much fun!   And I'm pretty much just giddy to share it to you all.

James was fortunate enough to purchase this old short bus from someone on Craigslist.   It's kind of ugly but it has a certain charm to it.  I was thrilled when he showed it to me, because I have always dreamed of having a bus for our family!





But it had a lot of work to do on it, as you can see!  lol   James and I brainstormed for a while.  At first, we thought we would just have someone paint it yellow like a school bus and we would just repaint the black lines across the sides...but then we thought we might do something different. We wanted our bus to stand out    James had this idea to paint it like the flying tigers aircrafts from World War 2.     We originally bought olive green to paint it so it would look authentic, but then we changed our minds and bought yellow.   I loved the idea of painting the shark teeth on the sides.  

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to start painting right away, since the whole thing had to be sanded. James sanded the top for me and I was able to paint that.   

Then for the next two days, I spent hours sanding the rest to get it ready for painting. I did not like this part!   It took forever and I thought it would never be done. lol  But it eventually was finished!

Here is what it looked like after being sanded.



I spent the rest of the week, most of the time with Annah on my back in the Ergo carrier (the things you have to do with little ones!), painting the rest with Rustoleum paint and a foam roller brush...  I also used a stenciling brush to get in the corners.  Bonnie helped me by watching Annah when I needed to use the ladder, etc.
 
It took several coats of yellow before you couldn't see the colors underneath.  In the picture below, it still needed about 4 coats on that part that is painted.

 

I was so anxious to get this bus done quickly that I painted all day, and then at night, James would come and we'd work till about 10:00 PM trying to get it done.  He put new tires and wheels on it, fixed the brakes, took off the lights, painted the grill, etc.     I was exhausted at night! 

I freehanded the eyes and teeth once I had the yellow paint mostly on there...



  

I was able to paint the Flying Tigers insignia inside....I painted it right on the old stop sign!   James took it back outside and fastened it to the bus again.  He loved this part.  

It took about 2 weeks before this bus was finished on the outside.  Here are a few pictures of the completed bus.....  

 

 





 



Here is the before/after shot!   

 

It's been getting harder and harder transporting all of us and the kids whenever I go grocery shopping or anything else that I do in town....so we finally decided to invest in something that will help us get around - we found the cutest little Shortbus.   James found this vehicle on Craigslist, and it really was a great deal and runs well.  



 He bought a set of tires and wheels to put on it so it will look better...they are also large so it will help with gas mileage.  At first, we were going to pay someone to paint it, but then realized we might paint it ourselves.  Then we decided on a theme and James helped me by sanding off the top and then we painted it just to see how it worked with rustoleum paint.   Once we knew it would work, and looked good, I went ahead and sanded the rest of the bus myself.  The last week or so I have been painting and painting...and the bus is looking so much better!   I can't wait to post an after picture but will be waiting until its finished.     It has been so much fun...and a lot of work....I just can't wait to finish it and drive it around.   I can guarantee you won't find another one like ours. Lol.  

I was listening to a message by Voddie Baucham tonight.  It is a sermon called, "Love Debt".  During the message, I was convicted of a sin I have ignored or somehow missed for a long time. 

I realized that there are some people I have intentionally withheld my love from over the years.  Please note that I am not talking about society's idea of love, but the unconditional love that stems from Christ.  

There are some people in my life that I suppose that I "gave up" on long ago, thinking to myself, "What's the point?", because every time I reached out to treat them with kindness or love, they would not return that love or treat me in the same manner.    (In fact, sometimes these people took advantage of my love and treated me badly in return).    I guess I justified my wrongdoing of withholding love by telling myself that there was no point in even trying anymore because they obviously didn't care...so why should I?

I am starting to realize that my problem was that my motives in loving these people was wrong.  The very reason that I chose to show them love in the first place was tainted with sin.   It was manipulative behavior and was not love.  The reason that I chose to love them was that I was expecting something in return.    I didn't love unselfishly. I expected to be loved back.  

By the world's standards, this isn't such a ridiculous idea to expect this.  But from a Biblical standard, it is not the way we should love, because it is not the way Christ loves us.

Christ loved us even "while we were yet sinners".  He died for us while we were still His enemies.   

What if Christ had loved me the same way I "love" my neighbor- with conditions?
He certainly would not have suffered, bled, and died for such a person as I.    I sin against Him every day...yet every day, He shows me unconditional love.     Why would He do that if love is something which requires that conditions be met first? 

Here is the Biblical definition of love:

Love is patient and kind;
love does not envy or boast;
it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 
Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things. 
Love never ends.
1 Cor 13:4-8

Ouch.  By this definition, I fall so short of truly loving so many people.

If I have ever felt irritable or resentful of someone, I am not loving them.
If I am ever arrogant in my heart towards another person...I am not loving them.
If I am not loving my neighbor, I am sinning. I should repent.

Let me clarify that loving them does not mean letting them do wrong things without speaking up about it and letting them know that they are wrong. 

It simply means that we choose to love them (see the definition above) because they are a human being created in God's image, and we owe them a love debt.    We owe them love because we are no better than they, no matter what sins they have committed. 

Even if they are not a Christian, we should love them, perhaps even all the more...because we were once as they were and the only thing that separates us is not that we are better than them, but that we have been given a gift from God-  undeserved forgiveness.  

We should want that for them more than anything and should never arrogantly believe it is something that we accomplished by our own might or goodness.   None of us pursues God....  It is God who draws us to Him.  We should pray for this person and seek that God would draw them to Him as well.

So this is what I was convicted about tonight and I wanted to share my thoughts.  

Here is the sermon, if you would like to listen as well:

I was asked by someone who saw my previous Hobbes Toy (from the comics, Calvin and Hobbes) if I would sew one for her.  I have not taken the time to sew in years, but made a pattern up and got to work.  The toy ended up looking cute!  I hope I can make another one soon for my family, because they all wanted to keep this Hobbes for themselves. 

When i was sewing, I was reminded of how much fun sewing is.  Maybe I can find time to start doing that some more after this.

I painted the face with black and white acrylic paint.

We become what we think about all day long.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

How true is the above statement!    Our thought life is so very important in controlling how we feel and what we do each and every day.  

When I was a teenager, I suffered from depression for years. I won't go into the details on why, but thankfully that is in the past now (only because of the encouragement I found in God's Word), but on occasion, I find myself sinking back into that old mire again.

A week or two ago, I felt gloomy. Actually, gloomy is a rather mild term for how I was feeling.  All day long, it was as if there was a huge fog of depression over my head and I couldn't see through the fog to feel positive, no matter what I tried.

Throughout the day, thoughts would enter my mind- thoughts like, "Everything is going wrong and I don't have the ability to do the things I need to do.  Nothing is going right. I am overwhelmed. No one even cares!" Those words would continually play in my mind and would make me feel so discouraged.

I allowed it to continue.   As time went on, my miserable feelings seemed to get worse, and grew in volume as I started nursing the pain (self pity) and remembering things from the past that had ever hurt me that I had forgotten about until that point.   I ended up having experiencing a fearful anxiety that just wouldn't go away. 

The way I felt on the inside presented itself on the outside, and I could see the way it affected others in my family- it seemed like my negativity was a contagious disease that plagued everyone I came into contact with. 

At the time, I was able to convince myself that this pattern of thought was something that was happening to me, and that it was something I could not do anything about.  That was a lie.

Where did I first go wrong?  I went wrong when I allowed that first tiny negative thought to take root in my heart.   I should have plucked it up and prayed immediately, followed by battling those thoughts with Bible verses that would have reminded me of how blessed I really am - and about having a spirit of love and forgiveness instead of being bitter.  I should have counted my blessings.

I was being selfish, actually.  I was thinking only of myself, and feeling sorry for myself.   It is impossible to feel depressed when you are feeling grateful.    It not only affected me, but my whole household.

After being miserable for a long time, I cried out to God and tell Him how I was feeling.   I told Him how sad I was. I told Him that I didn't understand why I was feeling that way but that I was sorry for allowing a spirit of fear and depression to take over me.   I expressed to Him all of the things that had hurt me and why I was sad in the first place, and then gave those burdens to him.   I asked for His help to do better in the future.

The next day, I felt renewed and did not have that cloudy fog of emotions anymore.  I was amazed at how different I felt from the day before.  It seemed like I could see things so much more clearly now, and a burden was lifted.   I knew that God had forgiven me and that I could start things right again.   I saw so many blessings where the day before, I couldn't seem to find any!   

I saw a difference in my family as well.   Not only is negativity contagious, but so is positivity!   When your thoughts are on your blessings, what comes out of your mouth will reflect what is on the inside.  

I have failed in this area before, and I will most likely fail again, but what I have learned is that I should always be diligent about planting positive and pure thoughts and allowing those only to take root in my heart (one good way is through reading scripture and praying), and to be consistently pulling out all of those nasty weeds that seem to appear in the garden of my heart before they choke out the good.

Phillipians 4:8
"...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Proverbs 17:22
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. 

Phillipians 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove to be what is good and acceptable and perfect in the will of God. 

I'm sure most of you have heard about Michelle Duggar, (from TLC's 19 Kids and Counting), has experienced a miscarriage of her 20th baby...Jubilee Shalom Duggar.   Michelle was in her second trimester.

My heart goes out to her and her family for their loss.  

I  know God has a plan for their precious baby, Jubilee.  Her short life will reach the hearts and lives of thousands of people worldwide... and already has!   The Duggar family has the faith of God during this difficult and heartbreaking time and have used this as an opportunity to help encourage others to see what a blessing children are. 

No matter how many children you have, nothing makes it easier to deal with the loss of a child.  The only thing that can truly help heal the hurt is knowing that God has a purpose for every single life.  If not even a sparrow falls to the ground without Him knowing it, how much more a little baby? 

Just look at this beautiful video letter from Michelle to her daughter, Jubilee- you may need a tissue:

Jubilee Shalom Duggar 

I am thankful for the Duggar's example of showing how good God is in the midst of our greatest sufferings and losses.    Everything works out for the good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  The Duggar family has the assurance that one day they will meet baby Jubilee in Heaven.    If you have lost a little one, you can be assured of this as well.    

If anyone out there has experienced a miscarriage or a stillbirth and is looking for comfort, encouragement, or answers, I recently wrote a book called, "Answers in a Time of Miscarriage", which you can find on Amazon.com or at this link: www.preciousinfants.com/miscarriage.htm

If you cannot afford a copy, I will send you a digital copy for free.  Just send me an email to mail (at) preciousinfants.com.