Catching Up

It seems the past several weeks have flown by and so much has happened! Unfortunately on Memorial Day, we learned that James' grandmother, Catherine Telford, passed away unexpectedly. We were all so sad and miss her so much still, but at the same time, we are all rejoicing that she is in Heaven with her Father and husband! The funeral  was a nice and simple one, but the trip to Georgia and back was a fast and long one! We were there for about 21 hours and then made the trip back home. James' older brother Robert traveled from Maryland and rode with us, so he traveled a lot more! It was so great to ride up together and catch up!
Since we've been back, we have both been so sick! James and about half his family caught a stomach bug or something a day after the funeral and then I think I had laryngitis mixed with something else. Both of our illnesses knocked us out for a good 24 hours straight, but at least it was only that! So, we are both now getting better and healthier and we were able to go on a nice date last night, which is one that we've been trying to go on for several weeks - yay!!
Several weeks ago, my friend Grace and I got to go to the Duke Gardens at Duke University in Durham. I met Grace about a year ago through our really good friend Janice. Grace moved to the area from Philadelphia and is a doctor completing her residency at the hospital at The University of Chapel Hill.  Since she lives about 45 mins. from me and is busy completing her residency, we don't get to see each other as much as we would like, but when we do, we have so much fun! This time we met up at Foster's Grill in Durham (which is an amazing place and I highly recommend it!) and then went to the gardens. The gardens are just as beautiful as Duke's campus! It stormed a lot that morning, but after lunch, it was a beautiful day! There was even a wedding that had just taken place and the bride and groom were taking pictures around the different gardens. I wish I could make my back yard look like a nice garden, but I do not have the time or the money, so it's nice to go to a place that does! The gardens are so big that we spent most of the afternoon there. Here are a few pics we took:      

The main garden area - the picture doesn't do it justice

Can  you see the bee?

My beautiful friend Grace!

A beautiful pavilion

Sitting in front of my favorite tree - a Weeping Willow

So many different beautiful flowers! Makes me think of the verse
in Mathew where Jesus says that God cares about dressing
the lilies of the field and how much more He cares about us!

I thought this was a pretty door :-)

                                                                   

A Busy Memorial Day Weekend!

James' brother Robert and his wife Paula were in S.Korea adopting a little girl they have been waiting for a few years to get! It was so touching to hear their stories and see the pictures of their time in Korea and the long anticipated wait of seeing their little girl for the first time in person! I love adoption and love to hear adoption stories! They serve as such a great example of how we are adopted as sons and daughters of God! Just as an adopted child is paid for and longed for and waited for, so is our adoption into God's family. The price paid was a sacrificial and bloody one, which we never deserved. This is where God's grace and love are so evident and makes me fall to my knees in wonderment and thankfulness. I have been reading Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss (which is a great book so far!). I like what she said about this: "Guilt, grace, gratitude are the heart of the gospel. All three are freely given. Our gracious, giving God generously and gladly bestows grace on recipients who deserve His judgement and wrath. Those who have received such an undeserved gift of grace, respond to the Giver in generous and glad gratitude." Have you accepted His free gift of grace? If you have, do you live your life in gratitude of the gift you received in spite of the punishment that you deserve?
Since Robert and Paula were in Korea, James' parents (who live in FL) watched their children and came up to our house for a visit this past weekend on their way back home (in Maryland). It was a very brief visit but a lot of fun! It was so great to get to see them especially since we don't get to see them very often! Here are a few pictures from their visit!

Grace and Ethan

Abby

She borrowed my necklace - she thought it made her look like a beautiful princess,
which she does even without the necklace :-)

Photographer: Abby Kendall

Another Abby Kendall picture

Picture taken by Abby Kendall - isn't she a great photographer?



Us with Abby, Ethan, and Micah - Micah loves Onyx and
really wanted her in the picture!



Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Saturday was the St.Baldrick's Saved and Shaved event that we told you about a couple of months ago. It is an fundraiser that is used to raise money for cancer research. There are shavees who voluntarily have their heads shaved at the event and donors who will donate money to the shavees/organization to have the heads shaved. Each shavee must raise their own support, which is why we asked for your help. Many people from our church attended the event on Saturday and many men from our church head their heads shaved. Our church helped make this particular event the 4th largest St. Baldrick's Saved and Shaved event ever in NC! Can I just say how amazing my church is? We are so very blessed to be a part of a church family that genuinely cares about people and will do anything to help anyone in need! The people who attend our church are some of the most amazing and self-sacrificing people I have ever met! They helped raise over $40,000 for this event! The total amount raised for this particular event was around $70,000! That is $70,000 that will be used to help find a cure for cancer.
We heard about this event through a little boy in our church named Cameron who is 9 years old who has been battling cancer for over 3 years. He has accomplished so much in his life! He has helped raise so much money for cancer research in his short life already. He is one of the most amazing little boys I have ever met! He is so strong and courageous! When you meet him, you can't but help to see Christ reflected in his attitude and demeanor. All of the men came out to raise support in honor of Cameron. It was such a great day for the event - it was bright and sunny and no rain (it has been storming here almost every day!). Some of the men who shaved their heads made some great sacrifices because they really loved their hair! There were even 3 women who had their heads shaved. One of them being Cameron's grandmother.When it was James' turn to get his head shaved, the DJ tried to raise more support since James was not able to raise that much. He suggested that James shave his eyebrows if people would donate more money! Everyone shouted "NO!". Many people around me said that he should not get his eyebrows shaved, because they probably would not grow back right. So, everyone started to give money and chanting, "Save the eyebrows!" They were able to raise enough, so the eyebrows are safe and I am so thankful :-)
Here are a few pictures from the event!

James starting to get it all shaved off!

His sweet hair stylist, Susan, volunteered her time to help shave!

Pre-shaved picture of the group

Post-shaved picture. They all look so great!

Happy 29th!

Sorry it has taken me so long to put a post up! I accidentally left my camera in a friend's car and just got it back. I can't blog well without pics showing you what's been going on :-) May 1st was James' birthday and 4 days later on May 5th was my sister's birthday. Yes,  you read that right. They are only 4 days apart. He snagged an older woman and I married the youngin'! They will both now be 29 for the rest of their lives. Speaking as an older and wiser person, I have told them that 30 isn't so bad :-)
My dad and James' sister both came over to celebrate his birthday with us. We went to Homegrown Pizza, which is the best pizza place, and had a great dinner! We mostly went there for their wings - they also have the best wings! I worked all day to make my first made-from-scratch cake. It took me a lot longer than it will in the future because I wanted to make sure I made it perfect. I usually just get the cake mix in the box and the frosting in the plastic container but wanted to make his birthday special. I got the recipe from my Real Simple magazine. I love this magazine because it has tons of helpful little things in it like recipes, budget advise, neat facts, decoration advice, etc. My favorite section is the New Uses for Old Things where it will show you many different ways you can use something like aluminum foil or a q-tip to help clean the house or practical uses for it. For example, did you know you can use an antacid tablet to lift bouquet residue from the inside of a vase? or you can use it to clean your toilet? I even bought the Real Simple book called 869 New Uses for Old Things :-)
The May issue had a great section on making homemade cakes and frosting from scratch. They had all kinds of flavors of icing you could make and fillings. It also had great cake decorating advice and great cake topping ideas. James said he wanted a chocolate cake with vanilla icing. For the cocoa powder, I bought Ghirardelli cocoa. James loved my cake! My first cake ever turned out tasting so good! It didn't look the prettiest, but I am working on that! I don't have a frosting kit yet and am hoping to by the time I make my next cake. I was amazed at how easy and simple it was to make the entire cake! It is definitely not the healthiest cake, but it is the best tasting cake! And, it's ok to eat because calories don't count on people's birthdays, right?  Now that I've had made-from-scratch cake, I don't know if I can go back to Betty Crocker!

Chocolate Cake

1 c. unsalted butter at room temperature

3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder, spooned and leveled

2 c. all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled 

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2  c. sugar

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

3 large eggs at room temp.

1 1/2 c. whole milk

- Heat oven to 350 degree F. Butter the pans, line the bottom with parchment, butter again, and dust with cocoa, tapping out the excess. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt; set aside.

- Using an electric ,mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high until fluffy, 2-3 mins. Beat in vanilla, then the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

- Reduce mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions and the milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Mix just until combined. 

- Transfer the batter to the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  

Vanilla Icing 

2 c. unsalted butter, at room temp.

1 pound confectioner's sugar sifted

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract.  

Pinch kosher salt

- Using an electric mixer, beat the butter on high until light and fluffy, 3-5 mins.  Reduce mixer speed to low. Gradually add the sugar, then the vanilla and salt, and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. 

James and his sister Catherine

My first cake!

 

A few days later we celebrate my sister Tracey's birthday. I made her homemade lasagna and  ice cream cake. The cake was so easy to make too and it was so good also! I made it when we were invited to dinner with a family from our church. Their kids liked it so much that they wanted me to make it for their birthdays :-) I used to get the Kraft Food and Family magazine until they started making you pay for a subscription. Now you can get all of their recipes online for free! 

Oreo and Fudge Ice Cream Cake

1/2 C. fudge ice cream topping, warmed

1 tub cool-whip, thawed and divided

1 pkg. jell-o instant choc. pudding

8 oreo cookies

12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches

1. pour the fudge topping into a medium bowl. Stir in 1 c. of the whipped topping with a wire whisk until it's well blended. Add in the dry pudding mix; stir 2 mins. or until well blended. 

2. chop the cookies into chunks. Stir into the pudding mix

3. arrange 4 of the ice cream sandwiches, side by side on a 24x10 inch piece of foil; top with half of the pudding mixture. Repeat the layers. 

4. top the pudding mixture with the remaining 4 ice cream sandwiches. The layers create a neat stripped effect when sliced. 

5. frost the top and sides with the remaining whipped topping. It doesn't have to look perfect. (This part was hard for me, b/c by this point, the ice cream sandwiches are starting to melt so it's a little messy!)

6. bring up the foil. Double fold top and ends to loosely seal the packet. Freeze at least 4 hours before serving. Let stand at room temperature to soften slightly before serving.  

Tracey's birthday cake ( I didn't have a 9 candle, so there are 9 singular candles beside the 2)

Tracey and Cody

We love the sunshine state!

During my Spring Break week, we decided to take a trip to sunny Florida to see James' family. We love traveling to FL. because we both love the warm weather and the sun- just as long as we don't get too much sun :-) Plus I love visiting my in-laws and just spending time with them especially since we don't get to see them very often - maybe twice a year. I am very blessed to be a part of an amazing family!

I would like to introduce you to my nephew Michael and my niece Hannah.

 



We visited them the second day we were in FL at their house in Gainesville. They are aspiring photographers! Right now, they are not very expensive, and will probably work for candy, but in a few years their work may become very  famous and you will wish you bought their work! Here are a few amazing pictures that they took: 

This is their mom Lydia

This is their piano



This is their sister Charis



I am not sure whose cup that is?!

This is their baby sister who they will get to meet in August

This is grandmother

While in FL we also helped my mother-in-law throw James' dad a surprise party. It was our job to get him out of the house for at least an hour and a half. It is so hard to come up with things to get him out especially for that long! So, we came up with an idea! We told him that we wanted to take him out for lunch for his birthday on Saturday with just James and I (his real birthday was on a Sunday). He agreed to it! We really did want to get to spend some one on one time with him and it was good time to talk and catch up! Then, James' mom said that she needed a few things from the store to help us distract him longer. After getting all of the supplies, we headed back to the house. He didn't know a thing until we pulled into his neighborhood and he saw all of the cars! He then said, "Oh! I see what's going on here." Inside waiting for him were many friends and Daniel and Lydia came up from Gainesville to surprise him! It was so much fun!

We also took out James' youngest sister Grace for some ice cream at Brewster's ( I love that place!) to celebrate her high school graduation. She doesn't graduate until the end of May but we can't attend her graduation because it is the same day my preschool kids are graduating :-(   It was so great to get to spend some one on one time with her too!

 My work was so gracious and let me take the Monday after Easter off so I could celebrate it with my in-laws! It was such a beautiful day! We spent most of the time outside after eating a wonderful meal that my mother-in-law made! Then, we had an amazing cake designed by Anna who is an amazing artist and aspiring cake decorator! Here are a few pics from the day!

Anna's amazing cake depicting the story of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection!

Anna, Lydia, and Grace

Hannah and I with Onyx. She is scared of dogs, but she loved Onyx!

Charis in the infamous Kendall swing

Michael being silly!

Most of the family gathered for Easter! We were missing James'
older brother and his family and James' sister Catherine and wish they could be there!

Beautiful Anna!

Anna and Charis on the Kendall swing

Also, while in FL we helped James' brother Aaron create his rap video :-) He is a great musician and wrote a rap of his resume! It is really good! He has been having a hard time finding a job, as is everyone in this economy. So, he decided to get creative and market himself in a unique way!  If your place of business or church is hiring, let us know! He would be a great addition! I will put up the video once it's complete! But in the meantime, here's a little video of how much Michael and Hannah enjoyed the song:

We were able to take a day to travel down to Orland to meet up with our good friends the Root's! For those of you who don't know, our friend Adam was in a bad motorcross accident last May. He had been in a coma for a long time but has been coming out of it! God has done amazing things in Adam's life and has used his accident to reach and touch so many people! His wife Amy has been such an amazing wife to him through all of this! She has been such a prayer warrior and a great example of what a godly wife looks like. If you haven't read their blog, you should! Their story will touch your heart! You can read more about their story at:  www.adamrootfamily.blogspot.com

It was such a blessing that they were even in FL the same week we were! Adam had been in a facility up in Boston for the past several months, but was able to transfer to an amazing facility in Orlando. This facility is located in an amazing community that seems like Pleasantville! You can walk to all kinds of restaurant, shops, grocery stores, bakeries, the YMCA - everything you need! There's even a church they can walk to! We had the honor of taking Adam, Amy, and their daughter Mackenzie out for their first dinner together since the accident. Adam even picked out the restaurant! We ended up going to a cute little family-owned pizza place that had the best pizza I've ever had! Afterwards, we took them to get some ice cream! We had so much fun together and a great time of fellowship! Adam's life is a testimony of the amazing power of God! You will have to read their blog to see their journey from the beginning to now and see how much God has worked in them! 



Amy and I



I apologize for such a long post! I hope you enjoyed getting to know some special people in our lives! It was a great week not only being able to be with family who we rarely get to see and sweet friends who we also rarely get to see but also was a great week to reflect on the purpose of Easter. Easter is not about bunny's and eggs but about Christ and the cross. It was a punishment that Christ paid for us - for our sins - so that we may live eternally with Him. If you believe what Christ did for you, I would encourage to take your focus to the cross every day, not just on Easter, and to reflect on what Christ did for you. God is a gracious, loving, and merciful and what He did on the cross testifies to that!  If you don't know Him personally and never accepted what He did for you on that day, I would encourage you to seek out why He would do that for you and why you haven't accepted that.

Never-have-I-seen-this-in-my-life kind of day

Saturday was a crazy never-in-my-life kind of day. The morning was cold and dreary when I went to the gym and rained threatened to make a miserable day for a wedding we were going to at the church. The weather man said there may be a tornado and said that there would be severe storms. I didn't think much of it because we have never had a tornado in Holly Springs since we've been here and one hasn't caused a lot of damage since 1984. It seemed like the nasty weather would hold of before the wedding - and it did, but during the wedding, the clouds burst open! The wedding was still beautiful in spite of what was going on outside. After the wedding, we needed to make a quick run to Target since we would be leaving town on Monday and our Sundays are really busy! En route to Target, I kept getting calls from a lot people asking if we were ok. They said that there were some tornadoes spotted in Holly Springs where we live. I saw pieces of insulation all over Apex but thought that the wind must of blown really hard and that it came from a construction site or something. Little did I know that it probably came from Holly Springs since is right beside Apex. We hurried home worried that maybe something happened to our house. While we drove closer and closer to Holly Springs I didn't know what everyone was so worried about. All we saw were a few branches down and leaves every where - but once we turned on the road we live off of - that's where we saw all of the destruction. Power lines were down every where, trees on houses and cars, big and small trees down all over the place - many just uprooted, street and stop signs and street lights literally bent over almost reaching the grounds, fire trucks and people cleaning up everywhere. My heart sunk and I began to worry about our neighborhood and our house and even about Onyx since we have big trees in our back yard. When we turned on our street, it seemed like it wasn't hit the hardest - just every other street that surrounded ours was hit badly. There were a few trees uprooted and our neighbors fence was knocked completely down, but nothing happened to our house - not even a tree or plant was uprooted in our back yard! I know the Lord protected our house! While we didn't have power for several days and we had to throw away a lot of food, and I had to spend all day Sunday doing laundry at others houses who were so gracious - I have never been so thankful for my small house and thankful for the Lord keeping it safe!

It was so great to see our community come together to help others who were less fortunate than us! Everyone seemed to be out and helping others. We were able to meet several of our neighbors and those who lived in the neighborhood behind us. A group of us decided to walk around and drive around our area. As we did, we saw how truly blessed we were and how much destruction had happened. Many of the roads were closed and impassable due to huge tress covering the road as well as power lines. Our cell phones went in and out also since the tower was damaged and we didn't have a phone line so we couldn't contact anyone and didn't get any news updates. Not only was our area hit but so was downtown Raleigh which is only 30 mins. from us. They had a lot more damage than our little town! In Sanford, which is also 30 mins. from us a Lowe's Hardware was leveled to the ground! The news said that there were 62 tornadoes in NC killing 24 people that day. It helped remind me that our life is not guaranteed the next day or even second. For those whose lives were changed by the tornadoes, I can only imagine how helpless they felt in the midst of something so powerful and out of control. The only one who is in control is the Lord. He had control over that storm - even though we cannot really understand why He allowed that storm to cause so much damage, He promises us that He will take care of us and provide for us despite the terrible things that may happen to us.I am not fearful of death because I know that I will be with the Lord and I though I may worry about it from time to time (which is my sin struggle) I know that the Lord will provide for all of my needs. So, when the storms in your life whether they are actual physical storms the storms of life (the difficult times) come, who or what do you put your trust in?

Foto Friday

I usually don't take a lot of pictures and have realized that I really should take more because I am missing out on not only great picture opportunites to take some really good ones but I'm also missing out on capturing great memories! It's going to be my goal to take a lot more pictures! That way I can also share them with you and you can actually see what's going on in our lives! I am going to make Fridays a day to capture our week in pictures. Here are a few of our first Foto Friday pictures:


This was taken on our CDD (Cody Date Day) where we we take a Saturday to spend special one on one time with our nephew Cody. We helped him finish this really hard puzzle. He did a great job putting the pieces together!



Onyx LOVES to sing! She has a beautiful voice and loves to sing "Happy Birthday"! Usually on a family member's birthday, we will often call and Onyx will sing for them :-)



I got a new shedding comb and this is what came off of Onyx after combing her after less than a minute. I wish there was a way I could make money on dog fur!




We had some bad storms earlier this week but saw a beautiful rainbow after the storms! (Sorry you can't see it too well. We took it through the screened window in the house.) A great reminder of God's promises to us and that He will never fail us!