victory in jesus

Sunday mornings are so rushed that I never have time to get on the computer. I am not sure what was different about this morning, (or at least I didn't know at the time), but I woke up before anyone else in my house. I had already had my shower the night before, so I had some extra time. I sat down and powered up my laptop.

I am so thankful I did.

I pulled up my face book page and read something that set the tone for my entire day. My uncle's status update is never displayed on my homepage, but this morning it was front and center. It was about my cousin Jonathan. I have written about Jonathan before on my blog. When he was born, he caught meningitis in the hospital. As a result, he is mentally challenged. He has paralysis on one side of his body and his speech is not always recognizable. Having said that, he is the most BEAUTIFUL person I know. He is so simple. I do not think that he is aware of his impact on those around him, or the way Jesus uses him to love other people.

Every time Jonathan gets sick, he has seizures. Unfortunately, there have been a few episodes recently that have landed him in the hospital. Each time is the same. After the emergency room doctors check him, they send him home. He is fine for a while. Last week he had strep throat. He had his first seizure out in public. My aunt called EMS and he was admitted to the hospital for a two day stay. Jonathan had more than one seizure this time, so they kept him longer to run a few more tests. Thankfully the tests reveled that everything was okay.

The day that they carried him home, he was a little unstable on his feet and a little weak. They put him in the car and headed home. During the drive, Jonathan began singing, "Victory In Jesus" from the backseat! Those of you who have heard Jonathan talk/sing are tearing up right now...

I have literally cried on and off all day long thinking about him singing his precious little heart out on the way home from yet another stay in the hospital. Ironically our sermon this morning at church was titled, "Why Bad Things Happen To Good People." My pastor said one thing that really stuck with me. Don't miss this..

"We can allow our circumstances to determine our belief in God, OR we can let our belief in God reign over our circumstances!"

Life has issued Jonathan more adversity than he even realizes, but he still has a song in his heart. Over the years, God has used this special saint to teach me so much. Today I was reminded that even when life does not turn out exactly like we plan it, we STILL have victory in Jesus!

she is sleeping

We took JP to his first receiving of friends today at my parent's church. Our missionary friends in Guatemala lost their mother this week. George and Helen welcomed us into their home in 2007 when we went to pick up JP. We were there five or so weeks. They have always been so special to our family. They have not seen JP since he was a baby, so I was so excited for him to see them. It went well. JP stood quietly in line with me awaiting his turn to give a hug and say hello. As we inched up to the family, I realized that the casket was open. It did not occur to me to talk to JP about this. I chose not to make a big deal out of it. I was not going to hide him from it, nor was I going to point it out!

Of course he noticed. "Mommy, who is that lady?" "That is George's mommy," I said. He continued, "What is wrong with her?" I said the first thing that came to mind, "Nothing is wrong, she is sleeping." THANKFULLY, this explanation was good enough for him! "Oh, okay. We'll be very quiet so we don't wake her up!" I told him that, that was a good idea.

The conversation ended there. Later in the afternoon, I put JP down for a nap. When he fell asleep I stayed a little longer just to look at him. His skin is so beautiful and his eyelashes are so long. He looked so peaceful. Just like George's mom did.

I almost cried. Obviously, Mrs. Hardeman was not sleeping. However, a few days ago you could say she "went to sleep." Only this time when she drifted off, she woke up in the arms of her Savior!

What a blessing!

movie review

Tonight was our Family Fun Night! We ate spaghetti on t.v trays and watched Toy Story 3. If you have not seen this movie, WATCH IT! It is great! And yes, I did shed a few tears at the end.

I hope everyone has had a great Friday. I am retiring to the bed....

how cute is he??

I have changed my mind about my blog schedule. I am going to just post about whatever is in my head each day.

I had forgotten all about this picture of JP..how darlin' is it??!!! I am so in love with this child. Most days, he makes me want to pull my hair out, but he sure is a lot of fun. I was reminded during this past snow storm of how I am NOT cut out to be a stay-at-home-mom! I absolutely LOVE JP, but I am a better parent if I am out of the house for part of the day. I do thank God that I am blessed with the work hours that I have. It is nice to be home in the middle of the afternoon.

Recently, we turned in JP's kindergarten enrollment packet! Talk about the tears! The thought of him in K-5 makes me excited and want to throw up all at the same time! He will be going to school with Scott at Blythe Academy. They have a Spanish immersion program there. We thought it would be good for JP and would educate him in his original culture. The first part of every day he will be required to speak Spanish! That makes me so nervous!! I fully expect JP to love it. He switches his DVD movies to Spanish now. LOL

Well, I hope everyone has a great night! JP is hanging out with his nanny and papa tonight while Scott and I go to a KidSpring training at church!

Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!! Yippee!!!!

i love my child

I was in the WORST mood this afternoon. I will save the reasons for another post, but basically, we received our Charter bill today. It was ASTRONOMICAL! Apparently, I signed up last week for a disappearing promotion with an invisible representative!

I will leave it at that.

Satan was working overtime to discourage me from my new found home organization project. It worked for about an hour. But, I will NOT give up! LOL

Anyway, my mood was beginning to lighten when I walked into the bathroom to get JP out of the bathtub. He says, "What's up, playa!"

I came out laughing. Thank you God for this CRAZY child!

There are times when I feel like I have absolutely NO control at home. Do you ever feel that way?! I am so ashamed to admit that we have been in the horrible habit of eating in front of the television and letting JP watch as much t.v as he wants to. By t.v, I mean Nick Jr. and age- appropriate DVD's. I think Scott and I both have stressful, tiring jobs and all we want to do in the afternoons is be lazy and rest. Still, we are done with it. I was lying in bed the other night and God really convicted me of this.

I literally could not get my brain to shut off. I have been praying and asking God for direction in some areas as far as my career goes. Since I prayed, He has been flooding my mind with SO MUCH STUFF!! Lots of creative and fun ideas. However, I realized the other night in bed that if I do not organize my home life, I am never going to have the time to pursue these new "dreams" of mine.

So, now we have a new schedule. When we get home in the afternoons we go outside, (weather permitting), and play for a couple of hours. When it rains, like today, we will improvise. JP went with me to the grocery store and helped me cook. Normally, I would have left him home with Scott. He can play in his room or whatever until dinner. Dinner will be AT THE TABLE, with the exception of maybe Friday night. We decided that we would set up t.v trays together on the couch and watch a movie while we eat. It would be more like a treat that way. After dinner, we will give him a bath and he can watch a DVD or t.v in my bed while he winds down for bed. I am hoping this will work! We'll see. I will keep you updated....

As you know, we just recently got the Internet back in our home. I have spent so much time cleaning off our laptop. It was so full of JUNK that it would literally overheat and shut down almost immediately after turning it on. I deleted over 4,000 pictures and documents that I had already saved onto a thumb-drive. The computer works so much faster and it rarely overheats. (It is a really old laptop.)

When I was lying in bed dreaming up this new routine for JP, it hit me how our lives are a little like my laptop. Our days are cluttered and often times we leave little room for what God wants to do in our lives. How much more productive could we be if we re-structured and "re-booted" a little bit? The "clean up" process might take some time, but it might just prevent us from overheating and shutting down!

charter communications & nikki haley

Scott and I switched from Direct TV to Charter this past week. We have never had an issue with Direct. Charter's new "bundle" appealed to us after receiving one of their ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND mail advertisements that was sent to our house!



Just in case anyone is considering making the same decision...DON'T!!!!!! Part of the package includes HD-DVRs. We still do not have the DVR. According to the FIRST technician that came to our house, " I guess we just didn't think this many people would sign up..." Apparently, they get a shipment of like 10 or 11 DVRs every week and they obviously disappear quickly. They are at least three weeks behind in their installations. We have left work to be home for THREE different appointments and we are still waiting.



ARGH!



And Nikki Haley..Really?! Part of her school district budget cuts includes a 10% pay cut for teachers? WOW! I mean, I can understand how this would save the district SO MUCH money.

To top it off, I saw on the news this morning how Nikki H. reserved $26,000 for bonuses for her campaign staff. Awww, that's awesome!



Okay, well I have to get ready for work now. Where else can you go first thing in the morning and receive encouraging, insightful, and informative news?!!! LOL If nothing else, I guess this post lets you know what kind of mood I am in today!



Forgive me!

this is how my blog will roll...

Miscellaneous Monday (Whatever the heck I want to post about...)
Thoughtful Tuesday (Something insightful, possible devotion of some kind..)
Wordless Wednesday ( Just a pic..)
Thankful Thursday ( What I am thankful for that day/week...)
Flashback Friday ( Old school pic of JP...)

I will begin this next week. I think it will be fun. Thanks for your comments and emails! You guys are awesome! Have a great night!

monday morning again

Yesterday I felt ready for today. This morning I am so stinkin' tired! I am also a little bit irritated. I have spent so much time trying to change the overall look of this blog. I saved all of the font types etc and when I clicked on my site, it had not changed. I did this THREE TIMES!! I am not sure what is going on. So I will be working on it for a while, I guess.

For now, I hope everyone has a great day!

feedback please

I am asking for your opinion. I am currently trying to "clean" out our laptop. We have not had the Internet in over a year, so I have not even turned it on in FOREVER! I was traveling back through my blog last night trying to determine what pictures I wanted to erase/save onto my hard drive. In doing this, I re-read all of my posts from my adoption experience. Everyone who commented during that time was so sweet and encouraging. I realized that I missed that! It was so much fun to pour my heart out and end up developing so many relationships.

So.. I am thinking of re-structuring my blog. As it is now, I upload pics of JP from time to time and I may share a little about what's going on with us. I am thinking of changing the template all together and go back to using this platform as a journal-type blog. Of course, I WILL NEVER stop posting pics about JP and our family. I just think I would write more since I now have the Internet again.

The bad part about a blog, is that you never really know if anyone is even reading/looking at it. This is where you guys come in. Please share with me your opinion on this change. If you enjoyed the blog at one time and would journey with me again, leave me a comment or email me and let me know! If no one really reads this anymore, I can "journal" in my notebook. I would still post pics.

I will leave the blog as is through the weekend until I hear, (or do not hear), from everyone! Thanks so much! I hope everyone has an awesome Friday!! :)

Email: abeam@greenville.k12.sc.us ( I check this one throughout the day)
andreabeam@live.com (This is my home email)

fyi

We are scheduled to get the internet today at our house!!!!! Yay!!! I am so excited. Now, for those of you who may still read my blog, I should be able to write/post pics again now!!!!

shovelin' snow

more snow....

3D never looked so funny!!

who needs a sled???

This would be Scott "demonstrating" to JP how they were going to slide down the big hill.... You will see in the pictures below that JP rode by himself! But this moment was PRICELESS!!!

Getting ready..

Re-situating!

Hold on..

Going...going...

GONE!! We searched all over Greenville for a sled. I am actually glad that we did not find one. This worked great. You cannot tell by the pictures, but it was SO FAST!!

HAPPY SNOW EVERYBODY!!!