Moses, the preacher's wife....

We've known for a couple of weeks now that we will soon be making a major move here in a couple of months. Adam is taking a job with a church in South Carolina as their pulpit minister! We'll be moving not only geographically but also be taking a major career move and move with our lives in general. For ten plus years (nine since we've been married and one while we were engaged) youth ministry has been our life. For a few years now, it has been very apparent to me that God has given Adam a gift for speaking. However, I just knew that God was going to entertain my refusal to be a preacher's wife and give Adam another avenue for using that gift. I figured he could be a teacher, a writer, a traveling speaker, I was even fine with him preaching from the back of a garbage truck! But, I was digging my heals in in refusal when it came to being a preachers wife. I should have learned by now not to tell God what I was or wasn't going to do. "God, I'm going to marry a doctor so that we have lots of money" God says, " Nope youth minister". "I'm never moving any further away from my family than I am now" God says, "You're going to move to West Virginia". "I'm never going to be a preacher's wife"..... Guess you know how that one is going to go... Well maybe I've learned my lesson this time... God, I'm never going to be a millionaire!

I'm actually more excited about this upcoming move than I ever thought I could be and I'm going to tell you all about that in a minute but first, I want to say something to the teens that I know that read my blog from time to time.. I have seen more depth in you than I have seen in most adults. I am so proud of the way you have grown. I hear you making comments like, "I want to partner with God to make His dream for the world a reality" and I know that if the Church could get what you already know, that dream would be reality. I know that your faith doesn't rest in us and that though you struggle, you have a faith that is firm.. I know that you are changing the world and that you will continue to do that. Our relationship with you will continue, we'll just have a new address. I love you so much and I am honored to be a part of your life.

Ok, so how did this all come to be. Well, where do I start... About three years ago, we moved to WV. I'll spare you the details of how that all came to be because this post is going to be long enough as it is but lets just say that we were sure that that was God was wanting us to do. It has been one of the best yet one of the hardest experiences of my life. I realize that I still (God willing) have much of my life ahead of me but, so far, up until now... Soon after we moved to WV, I prayed a dangerous prayer.. "God, do to us what you need to do to us to make us who you want us to be". Now granted, if I had realized how much work He needed to do, I might have re-thought that prayer and I'm sure Adam would appreciate it if I would ask him before I pray something like that on his behalf again. You maybe wondering specifics and I'm trying hard to try to put them into words... I guess I would say that God, the vine dresser, has been pruning us for the last three years. I have met some wonderful people and made some friendships that will last a lifetime but I have definitely felt like a fish out of the water... I guess you can take the girl out of the south but you can't take the south out of the girl. There is much more of a cultural difference than we had anticipated. Adam has a very dry sense of humor. That hasn't always gone over so well here. If you get that sort of thing, it's wit and if you don't it's sarcasm. I have found that some people are not big fans of sarcasm. I feel like I have walked around behind him for three years laughing really loud so that people know he's kidding.

I knew that our families had helped us out with our ministry a lot but I grossly underestimated the difference that moving from a 5 hour drive to a 12 hour for mine or 16 for Adam's parents would make in them being able to continue to get to us when we needed them. I longed for my mother's arms many times but I think that was magnified the most last March when after months of me being horribly sick from being pregnant Emma got sick and was hospitalized. At that moment, I felt so much like a child needing my mother myself. There have been many times like that. But always, at times like that, God has made His presence known.

I'm jumping around here... That's why I've taken so long to make this post... I'm still not sure what I want to say. So back a few months ago, the church here did evaluations on their ministers. I will say up front that I'm not a fan of this. I just don't think it's a good idea to give a people a mode to give their opinions anonymously but, no one asked me.. and they were done. Well something that kept coming up over and over was what a good speaker Adam was and how he would make a great preacher one day.. Well, I got to thinking that maybe I was keeping Adam from doing what God wanted him to do. So I came across this little job posting (that's right, I did it). One thing led to another and we found ourselves visiting this little church on the Georgia/South Carolina line. Fully expecting to feel uncomfortable in the "preacher's wife" role. I fell in love with the place.. It is a young church with mostly couples our age with small children. When we left there, people were hugging us and telling us that they love us and at the risk of sounding cheesy, I really felt like I belonged there and would be really sad to never see those people again. So again, one thing led to another and after much prayer (on both sides) they offered the job and we accepted..

Now don't think that I'm not nervous about this at all. I've been having "preacher's wife" nightmares.. I dreamed the other night that I showed up to church in a very inappropriate pair of daisy dukes... I have always feared that I was going to run into someone that I went to high school with and tell them that I was married to a youth minister and they were going to fall on the ground laughing. That hasn't happened yet but now I'm going to be telling them that I'm married to a preacher! I feel so inadequate. But, I know that if God has gifted Adam, then he will equip me to be his mate. I keep telling myself that God's power is made perfect in my weakness and that God as he did with Moses, often choses the least qualified for the job. So anyway, if you've somehow stuck with me to make it to the end of this novel. Please pray for me. Please play for Adam, the church in WV and the church in SC as we make this transition.

I'm sure you will be hearing soon of all the tedious things we've been doing to get things ready to sell our house and move etc..

Blessings,

Dana

Congratulations Lindsey !

I recently took senior pictures of one of our girls. Here are a couple of her favorites. Congratulations Lindsey! The Ellis family loves you!



And this is the invitation that I made for her party.

Better eat those Wheaties

So for the first five months of her life, Chloe did not fight me on going to bed or taking naps or anything. I think it would have been easier if she had. Because somewhere, she developed a will and it's much harder for her to learn now than I think it would have been earlier. So I had put her down for her nap determined that I was going to be more stubborn than she. I could hear her crying and was trying to keep myself busy with washing the dishes because it's much easier if I have a task that I'm working on. Well, things got quiet so I went to peek in to make sure that she was asleep and this is what I saw. If you look closely, you can see that she had been crying. But, she was quite proud of herself at this point. And guess what, she won. I can't leave her in there now because the mattress needs to be lowered so that she won't tumble out. No worries, I have a pack-n- play and at the moment, she's safely placed inside and I'm writing this to the sound of her cry. I'm saved from the infant out smarting me for now. I'm not sure if all of this is early or not but it's way earlier than Emma did all of this. I just knew that Chloe would be late moving around because she's so laid back. She's still pretty laid back but she's got some of that strong spirit that is inevitably in her genes. I have no idea where that comes from ;). She's quieting down. Maybe I should go check and make sure she's not in there doing cartwheels.


And kudos to mommy for winning the first battle of the day



Blessings,
Dana

PS: make sure you scroll down and see the video of her saying Mama.

Chloe says Mama

I know I'm doing a lot of videos but you probably just need to get used to it. This is the point where I want to run a video camera non stop. She is changing daily. Anyway, I'm sure that some point, I'm going to want a hiatus from my professional job title ;). But, for now, it makes my heart melt. You may need to turn my music off to hear this. Scroll to the bottom of the page and push the pause button that is in the upper left corner of my playlist box.

Blessings,
Dana

She's Got It Now

Seven Months!

Nana's Visit

Adam had his class at Lipscomb last week and Nana came and stayed a whole week. We had a wonderful time and I owe her my life because I'm pretty sure that a whole week by myself with a baby and a kid with a broken leg would have done me in. Plus, she helped me catch up on all the house work. We had a wonderful Easter. It was freezing but the girls wore their dresses anyway. Chloe was all in to the Easter basket. And since the last video, she is crawling all over the house. I was trying to figure out a way to post all of the Easter pictures without making you have to scroll for days. I just picked out a few. I have to tell you about the one where Emma has blue lips. We were dying Easter eggs and we had one of those kits that has the little tablets that you dissolve in water and vinegar. Well, Emma thought they were candy. Don't worry, they are non toxic. I checked. I'm also including some other pictures from March since this is the end of the month.

Blessings,
Dana

Emma giving Chloe her first baby food-- carrots


Just a nice sunny day-- hopefully there will be more soon!


Just like their daddy-



Nana and the girls

Easter- You should be able to click and make
them larger.

Chloe Trying to Crawl to Nana

The girls and I went to Columbus to get Lynn today. She is staying the week with us while Adam is gone to his class at Lipscomb. I'm very thankful for that! I was really getting nervous about being here with the girls by myself with Emma having the broken leg. Well, when we got back, I put Chloe down in the floor to show Lynn her new yoga pose "The downward dog". Well, Lynn got her going and she was cracking us up. I don't know if she knew what she was doing but it looked for all the world like she was shaking her head no at us telling us she couldn't do it. I'm going to have to give her the "I am American" speech. That's what I tell Emma when she says, "I can't" Then I say, "you are an American. The last four letters of American are I can". I know it's cheesy but that's what my gymnastics teacher used to say to me and it has always stuck. Hmm, I wonder if he'd still say that to me about doing a back hand spring now? Anyway, the clip is kind of long. We actually cut it as much as we could but there was just too much cuteness to leave any more out.

My Plan is better than Bush's plan

Ok, I have two different things on my mind here and I think that they are related but I'm not actually sure. But for now, I think this going to be pretty long, so I'm going to touch on one and I'll do a part two later. This will probably end up being one of those posts that is just my stream of conscience. I'm not promising great writing here. So those of you that are fiercely loyal friends and family and read everything that I post no matter what because you want to support me, thank you so much! I value your friendship and appreciate your support. But, if this bores you, I won't feel betrayed if you don't read it all. Every now and then, I get something on my mind and I end up laying awake at night trying to form a strategy (like someone in Washington is going to hear it) so I'm hoping that getting it down in writing might help me sleep tonight.

Bush's Plan
This is my general synopsis of the plan. I may be a little off on the details but this is the general idea. The federal government is going to give each working individual a $600 rebate to help stimulate the economy. They are also going to give families $300 for each child. There was also something I heard about working couples getting $1200 so I'm not sure exactly what that means. I don't know if we will get $1200 because Adam's working plus $300 for each kid. Or is we'll just get $600 because I'm not working. Either way, I'll take the money if they're giving it. It will probably end up paying for a cast. They say that this plan will amount to more than $152 billion.

My Plan
I think a better plan would be to offer individuals between 50 and 57 $200 thousand a year for five years to retire early, with the stipulation that they can only save 20% of that money and the rest has to be put back into the economy with spending. This would accomplish Bush's plan of priming the economy but it would also provide more job availability and perhaps help in the future of elderly people because over the course of those five years, they should be able to put $100,000 in savings and pay for everything that they own. Ok, now I'm sure you are curious about the age range. Well, 1) it only needs to be a small segment of the population 2) An individual can start receiving early retirement benefits at 62 so that would give them at least five years until they'd be receiving any other money from the government. I'm sure that an economist could tear this apart. But, they can Bush's plan too and it's going to happen. So there you have it. So all of you important people that I have reading my blog ha! When you rub elbows with Mr. President. Send him to the little stay at home mom's blog. She's got it all figured out for him!

Now off to one of those dirty diapers.

Blessings,
Dana

Announcements Anyone?

I've been saying for a while now that I'd like to take a class on graphic designing. I think it would be neat if I could perfect my photography and combine that with my hobby of editing pictures and such and one day open an "Everything Pictured" business where I made my own invitations and announcements and stuff. Well, I haven't taken a class yet so I'm sure that this could be better but I started looking at my own birth announcements and others that I have received lately and decided I would give it a shot. So, tell me what you think. And, if you want to take a chance, send me some pictures and I'll see what I can come up with for you. I think I could make them for pretty cheap.

Blessings,
Dana