All things are possible for You....

The girls on Easter.Sorry that it has been awhile since I have last posted. A lot has been going on in the Elliott house. Matt lost his job a little over a week ago. He has applied at a lot of places but has not heard anything yet. I have had some tears and some stress eating that I am trying to get under control.

I was thinking a lot the week before Easter of my worries, continually giving them to the Lord. I remembered the Lord right before He was about to die. Do you know that He was so troubled before He went to die that He was sweating actual blood? In Mark 14 it says that He was greatly distressed and troubled....yet He never sinned. In verse 36 he prayed, "Abba ,Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what You will." Now getting ready to die to be the atonement for the sins of the world, that is something to be troubled about. I was thinking on that to put my own troubles in perspective for me.

I know that God could give Matt a job today. I don't doubt that at all. He cares for us more than sparrows. I am still fighting the sin of worry. I have about 5 weeks of teaching left and then I am done for the summer and no more pay checks. Please pray with me that he gets a job.

He has been working really hard to get one.

Digesting Truth

Ok. I have been struggling for the last month on my weigh loss journey. I don't LOVE to talk about it. As a matter of fact, every time lately someone tells me how good I look, I feel discouraged on the inside because I know that I am barely hanging on.

Here are the facts. I have lost 42 pounds but I have gained almost 4 back.....with in the last week. Granted, I just took a mini get away and I wouldn't be so discouraged but it had taken me a whole month to lose 3 pounds! And before you say that I have hit a plateau, I don't think that I have because I am not doing well in the self control department. I also REALLY hurt my knee this weekend. (It is actually a really funny story of how I did it....it involves me, my coordination...or lack there of, and trying to dance a little/ act out me on a treadmill). I haven't been able to get back to working out and I MIGHT need to see a DR. to make sure I didn't tear anything. ANYWAY, THAT IS OFF THE SUBJECT!

I have felt really off. Like all of these convictions I had are slowly fading away as I resort back to the way of eating I have lived for 38 years. OK, I was a preemie and skinny for a few years. I also started to notice other areas in my life where I had been working on self control start to lossen it's grip and relax. But, there was a little voice inside of my saying" NO,wait! I want to change! I want a life filled with holy self control! I don't want to give into this sin again!"

As I was ready to put my focus back, the Lord gave me a blog post today. It was by Lysa Terkeurst. You can read it on her blog but this is what spoke to me.

" How many people choose to ingest truth but never choose to digest it?..... Just taking the inspiration of truth but never being transformed by it, will lead us down a dangerous path of doubt. Doubting ourselves. Doubting God. Doubting the effectiveness of thruth. ...... Reading truth but not applying it. Like a message I hear at church but not living it. Knowing what I must do to experience life change but never putting it into action. Taking in knowledge but never letting it make a difference in my life."

I know what the truth is about my sin. I have been studying why/ how I have been sinning against God with food and my lack of self control in certain areas of my life. I know the lies I tell myself when I really want to eat something I shouldn't. I am so thankful to the Lord for that blog post today. I prayed for something to give me the desire to get back on track. In her book "Made to Crave" Lysa talks about this. There has to be something more than us wanting to lose weight to look good,etc. (insert your reason). Pretty soon the compliments fade, people will be used to the "skinny you", you will be done losing weight. So what will keep the weight off? It is the fact the your number one reason is to honor God with your body and in my case, honor God with my self control.

Does any of that make sense? I hope one day I can look back at these blog posts and say "Hallelujah! I have done it!" Or at least I might not struggle as much as I do now.

What are you struggling with? If you are a Christian and you know your struggling, what have you been studying in God's word to help you over come your sin? Are you digesting the truth or just ingesting it?

Psalm 51:6 " Behold you delight in the truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart."

Girls trip San Diego

I had such a refreshing weekend with some girlfriends this weekend in San Diego. It was just what the doctor ordered for all of us. There was me, Ashely,Kelli I., Cindy, and Sara. We had such a great time talking,talking, talking, seeing movies, laughing, eating, sleeping, game playing, and more talking. I LOVE these girls. It is funny because we all went to college together at the same time but (besides Kelli I. and Ashley) none of us were really friends. I love how God has knit us together to be so close.

I looked around the room at one point and thought about what God has brought us through. Cindy and Ashley have both lost children. Kelli I. and Sara were both adopted, I have adopted... we have all been through all of these trials with each other. HAHA...Sara and Kelli I. being adopted was not a trial like I just made it out to be. I just mentioned that because I thought here are two women that I can show my daughters that were adopted just like them! :)

Kelli I. (from Tennessee) and Sara (from Sacramento/Roseville) flew into San Diego and Cindy, Ashley and I went to pick them up. Here are some highlights....

We ate lunch at a great restaraunt on the beach.
Ben Garate gets the special husband award for having snacks waiting for us in our hotel room when we got to our room! Props to Benny!
This is the view out of our hotel rooms. We had two rooms that were ajoining. Kelli and I stayed in one room while Ash, Cindy and Sara stayed in the other room. (because Kelli and I worked out in the moring.)
The view is at the front of the hotel.

Eating lunch at my favorite restaraunt...The Cheesecake Factory
The girls talked me into playing games. Ugh! Phase 10
It took about 65 games and 4 hours to finish! 2AM! Towards the end I was just asking what cards Cindy needed so she could win the thing and I could go to bed. Sshhh...Serect....I didn't hate it as much as they thought I did. I loved the company, just 4 hours is a little much don't ya think? Ben's candy basket kept me going. :)
Found this sign and made me miss my girl even more!
Ended the trip with some Captain Crunch french toast that I split with Ashley. Hello! So good!
We missed our families, the time went by fast but I love these girls and am so thankful that they are in my life. They are such a blessing to me.

Well Hello There....

Sorry for the long absence. We have had a whirlwind month so far! Here are some highlights. Snuggles with Lulu....My in laws were here for the Shepard's Conference at Grace Community Church. My Sister in law,Esther, came for the first week. Ivy and I took her to Disneyland. Here they are planning their next route.
Ivy and I ended up on a ride with Larry King's wife and family. They were so sweet. They put Ivy in their family video! Here she is with her oldest son.
Mrs. King (aka. Shawn King took this picture of Ivy and I.)

Ivy and I also took Esther to the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena. I took these pictures for my friend Tiffany. I knew she would love this set of spices.
The whole set was $375....so I didn't buy it for her.....sorry Tiff!
The girls snuggling with Daddy.
Fun day at the park.
I stopped into Tori Spelling's store "Inventori" on Ventura Blvd. LOVED IT!
Matt and I got to go on a date while the in laws babysat! Yummy food at Salt Creek Grill, movie, and sipping Starbucks while we walked around Barnes and Noble. That reminded me so much of college date nights!
I couldn't find Lucy and she was in a tent "reading" a book.
Taking the girls to Scooter's Jungle to play.
Ending the day at Ivy's favorite place to eat, Panda Express, to celebrate signing her up for Kindergarten. She's so happy and I want to cry about it. Where did the years go?
So...what have you been up to?

I had been wanting to get Lucy a Baby Be Blessed doll when she was officially adopted and part of the Elliott family. I finally ordered it right before Christmas. You can get a doll that looks like your child. I chose the Maria doll (named after Maria Sue Chapman, Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter that had passed away) That one is for Hispanic or Asian children. I got to choose the clothes that I wanted and choose what I wanted the label on her belly to be. I love it and so does Lucy. Ivy has a doll named Sissy Babes so we call this one Lulu Babes.
Her doll says..."Lucy Ann

Great is Your faithfulness. Lamentatians 3:23

Gotcha Day August 18,2010"
The girls with Lulu Babes and Sissy Babes.

The Smokin' Joint

As usual, my pictures stink! Haha but I wanted to tell you about this great place we went to eat at last weekend. I have had this Groupon to a place called, "The Smokin' Joint" across from the Beverly Center down in LA. It is a yummy BBQ place where they play blues music the whole time. I think they have live music at night but during the day they have concerts on big screens playing. They played alot of BB King and Eric Clapton. They have a lot of sign guitars from rockers. It is a SMALL restaraunt but the food was AMAZING!B.B. King

My beef brisket sandwhich.
This amazing number was an onion with bacon and BBQ sauce baked in it!
This is what we ordered the girls and they didn't love it. Ivy ended up eating half my sandwhich. This was Mac and Cheese with a hint of jalapeno in it. It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!
Did I say the word amazing too much? It was really good. Being that I am trying to watch my portions, we left the rest of the mac and cheese there and I went without dinner that night. Well worth the sacrifice!

DIY Project

My sister had given me a black frame a while back. I knew that I didn't want to keep it black but wasn't sure what to do. I tried to brank out and make it pink. Matt voted a big no! He was like," Enough with the pink!" Haha I thought it turned out a little too "crafty" so I went on to paint it white.When I distressed it, the pink poked through which I thought was fine.

Pardon my pictures! I know nothing about taking pictures and all of these were done on my I phone. I don't know if I will keep things like this (in my master bathroom) as my whites don't totally match. But for now.....