We woke up to a wonderful surprise yesterday! Imagine, if you will, waking up one wonderful Sunday morning all nice and cozy warm in your bed. Nothing particularly different at first about this Sunday. Nothing different until we ventured from our bed to find everything outside covered in a beautiful blanket of snow! Now those of you from the North who are reading this blog are probably thinking, "Snow in March? What is so exciting about that? We are still waiting the Big Storm of '09!" OH, but this is not the North. This is ALABAMA! To most of the children who live here, snow is but a description to them, never to be experienced! Snow is something they have only seen in pictures let alone in person. I spoke to a teenage girl at church yesterday who had never seen snow until just last year when she went on a missions trip to Germany. Being Northerners ourselves, Zach and I probably took the snow a little for granted, but we were still very excited! We've missed it. And it was wonderful to play with our children in it! We made some great memories yesterday!Praise the Lord, we made it to church safely yesterday. We had a wonderful service and it seemed so fitting that our small yet never the less present choir sang "Holy is He". We made it safely home. In fact, the snow was already starting to melt by our drive home Sunday morning. We decided to eat lunch before we got out to play in the snow. We should have played first because much of the snow had melted by the time we made it outside. Nevertheless, we had a major snow ball fight, built a snow man and Ethan even made a snow angel! Here are some pictures we took of our fun filled snow day!




This is what it looked like when we first woke up.

Beautiful!

Getting ready for our snowball fight!

On the way to church!

The battle is on!

My Snow Angel!

My men and their snowman!

Thanks for sharing in our winter wonderland adventure!

Faith

I don't usually post my personal devotions and Scripture Study in this blog, but today, I really felt led to do so. Maybe the Lord can use this in some way! Our Pastor has so graciously given his congregations devotional books each month and this month is about FAITH. Hebrews chapter 11 is what he calls the "Hall of Faith" chapter. It is amazing to study! If we really, stop and think about ourselves, we have to admit that we all have "faith" in something! We may have faith in our money, and we have seen recently, that is not something very stable to have faith in. We may have faith in ourselves, family members, talents, promises (which can easily be broken). I say all that to say, where does your faith lie? Hebrews 11:7 says, "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Our faith must lie in God! So many argue the existence of God because they cannot see him, touch him or hear him. May I ask you a question? Do you believe in the wind? You can't see it but you can feel it. You can watch it rustle your child hair as he walks across the grass. You can feel its coolness on your face on a warm day. You can watch it cause leaves to fall from a tree on a crisp fall day. I've never heard anyone deny the existence of the wind, but so many deny God. If you've never accepted him as your personal Savior, that empty, hollow feeling you have is proof that He is there. He's just waiting to fill that void. Look around you! Everything around you declares that a marvelous Creator created everything and put his own personal touches into this world. When I look at my children, I can't help but see the miracle of the Creator perfectly designing my children! Hebrews 11:7 says that we cannot come to God unless we first believe that he is (that he exists)! Do you believe? FAITH! Our pastor defines faith as taking God at his Word in spite of my feelings, circumstances or consequences. Let me just make it clear that I choose to put my faith in God! Our verse goes on to say the God rewards those who diligently seek HIM! I feel so rewarded. I've much to be thankful for. I want to seek Him, and He will reward me for doing so. I claim this promise. Do you feel rewarded today, or do you always feel "tough out of luck". Trust me, luck has nothing to do with it! The Bible says, that God rewards those that seek Him! Are you seeking Him? The Bible also promises that if you seek HIM, you shall find HIM. Trust me, God wants all to come to Him! I hope I've made you think some, but this was just too important to keep to myself!

Loving all of you!
Cathy

Hiding God's Word in My Heart!

Becoming parents has changed Zach and I so much in so many different ways! I'm so thankful for that though because it has made us desire to be closer to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ! It has made us strive to raise our children for Him and Him alone. We cannot think about what people think of our parenting and how they may or may not agree with us. Our sole desire is to make our Lord happy with how we raise our children. So, how do we know that the Lord will be happy with our efforts? I'm glad you asked. He gave us a wonderful guide book call the Bible to show us the way. This BOOK is so amazing that it tells us everything we need to know about how to make it through this tough life, and most importantly, how to make into heaven for our life after this world! I love this BOOK! It challenges me to be the woman God wants me to be. It challenges me to be the parent God wants me to be. I think you would agree with me that our troubled world could use a GUIDE BOOK such as this. We can see from our troubled youth of today, that not many parents are using such a guide. God gave me two wonderful gifts in my children! I don't want to mess this up! I make mistakes of course, but I confess it and ask the Lord to help me do better. The Bible tells us to, "Hide God's Word in our hearts." meaning to memorize Scripture. Memorizing anything has always been a challenge for me, but not so with my little Ethan. He loves the Bible and truly enjoys memorizing Scripture! I'm so excited about his love for God's Word! I want to cultivate it! So we memorize Scripture so that one day Ethan will be completely filled with God's Word! Some parents choose to fill their children with movies, video games, and selfish desires. I'll ask you, which do you think is better? I pray that Ethan will one day love God's principles not because mom and dad say so, but because God says so. God has really challenged me lately to teach Ethan the Romans Road (thanks John and Tascha for this wonderful suggestion!) This is series of Scripture in the Bible, the book of Romans to be exact, that will show a person exactly how to get to heaven. Ethan has such a desire to tell others about this so the Lord laid it on my heart to give him the tools to do this! We've memorized four verses so far. There are more, but I would love to share with you the progress we have made! Here is a short video of my precious Ethan:

Please pray for us as we try to raise our children for the Lord. It can seem like a daunting task when we see such wickedness around us.

On a cute and funny note, I wanted to post a couple of pictures of Ayden right after his nap. His hair was so crazy!

I slept good!


Why are you looking at me like that?

It's been so long...

I'm sorry it has been so long since I have given an update. It just seems like life doesn't slow down. We have been doing well. Ethan had a Birthday on January 21st. I can't believe he is 4! And let me tell you, Mr. Independent has arrived! He has really taken this 4 year old thing quite seriously! He tells me, "I'm 4 now mommy, I can do this!" Ayden is full of life and into everything. It was so nice yesterday, we went to the park. Ayden thought he could do everything that all the big kids were doing! I tell you that kid has no fear! He's so full of life! Below is a video of Ethan singing in his children's choir! Their choir sings every third Sunday of the month.

My Birthday Boy!

Birthday Cake!

My Sweet Baby loving on Daddy!

Thanks for checking in on us.

Fun Times At Christmas

Wow! I have so much to post! I feel like I have such little time to update the blog, and when I do I have days and days worth of updates! Well, I will just jump right in and start with Christmas Eve. Zach started his vacation on this day and doesn't have to go back until a week from Monday! Praise the Lord! We had a busy day of baking cookies, making buckeyes and preparing a big meal. We had great fun, though! Ethan cut out the sugar cookies with cookie cutters. I frosted them and he sprinkled them with sprinkles. Let's just say, very memorable! That night, we opened up our stockings from mom, which really got everyone excited for opening presents the next morning. Christmas day, I cooked a big breakfast, and when Oma arrived, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and the opened presents! Needless to say, we had lots of fun! Ethan really got into it this year, but Ayden at 14 months of age liked ripping the paper and chewing on everything. Among other things, Ethan got a new bike from mommy and daddy, and new nascars from Oma. Oma went all out and got Ethan and Zach a round of golf at a local country club. It will be too funny watching my four year old on the golf course. If you know Ethan, he loves golf and CANNOT wait to go. In fact he told his daddy today that it was the PERFECT day to go golfing. Our wonderful friends, the Piatt family, came over for lunch and spent the rest of the day with us! We had such a good time. Our children love to play with each other so you can imagine how much fun the kids had! We got to share some wonderful fellowship with them! We ended the evening at my mother's house where we all shared Christmas dinner together. We are so thankful for such a wonderful day. I must pause here and say that although, we had lots of fun, food and presents, we always kept the true reason for Christmas in the forefront of our minds. Christmas is Christ Jesus' Birthday and without His coming to this earth to die on the cross for our sins Christmas would mean nothing. Unfortunately, Christmas has been so commercialized, but the Lang family still celebrates the true meaning of Christmas, our Saviors birthday! We love you Jesus and thank you for coming to this earth for us! You love us so much!

Yesterday was spent relaxing and the boys played with all their new toys. I even got to take a nap! Today was busy with lots of running around and one very memorable event! Ayden got his first haircut today! It was very difficult for me to give in but it was time. People were starting to think he was a girl. He had these pretty little curls and he is such a pretty little baby, I can understand the confusion. He did really well! My hair dresser had Ethan sit with Ayden in the chair which really worked out nice. I think it helped to have Ethan sitting with him. Ayden played with my chap stick while Mommy, daddy and Ethan talked to him. He did great! So gone our the beautiful curls and instead you see a handsome little boy. He is too cute with his hair cut!

Here are the curls before the haircut!

This is the front view before the haircut!

During the haircut with his big brother right next to him!

No more curls!

Big boy haircut from the front!

Thanks for sharing in our memories! We make lots of them, and we love to share them with you!

Love,

The Lang Family

We're Home!

Thank you so much for your prayers! It was quite the eventful trip, but we made it home safely. Our original intent for going to Ohio was to help my grandmother move to her new apartment. We did help with this task, but there was a major kink thrown into the whole equation. My grandmother has diverticulitis (sp?) which is a disease that can cause one to spontaneously hemorrhage from the rectum. Sounds pleasant doesn't it? Well, it decided to flair up on the first day of the move. To make a long story short, my grandmother is doing well after several blood transfusions, days in the hospital, and she almost had to have surgery. She is now recovering at her new apartment. Please continue to pray for her, and that she doesn't have another "episode". Much of my time and my mother's time was spent at the hospital so the move did not go as quickly and efficiently as we had hoped. In fact, my mother is still in Ohio trying to wrap things up and making sure my grandmother is going to be ok! When we realized that everything was going to take so much longer than expected, I called my wonderful husband and begged him to come get us. So Zach jumped in the car and came to get us! He drove straight through to come rescue us! He truly is my "knight in shining armor"! The drive home was fun. The boys were antsy in the car so we made a few extra stops. One of the stops was at the Corvette museum. My guys truly had fun at that one and I did too. Than we stopped in Brentwood, TN (home of Dave Ramsey) for lunch. My hubby got the bright idea to drive around town to try to find "Financial Peace Plaza", Dave Ramsey's office! If you can believe it, we actually found it! We were so excited as we walked into the lobby of his building! When you walk into the lobby, you can see his radio room and they actually have seats outside the soundproof room so you can watch him do his broadcast! The best of all was that he was actually doing a live show at that time, and we got to witness it! He waved at us too! For those of you who know that we are "Financial Peace" coordinators, you know what a thrill that was for us! Needless to say, we were pumped. We made it safely home, and I have never been so happy to be home! Look below to see some recent picks of the boys.

Ayden with his comfy pillow for the car ride!

Ethan with his comfy pillow!

My angels in front of our tree!

Look how tall Ethan is. That's a 6 foot tree!

My Baby!

I hope you enjoyed stopping by to catch up with us! There's always something going on with our very busy family!

Was Your Thanksgiving Wonderful?

Was your Thanksgiving wonderful? Ours was! Zach's family came to town to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, and we had a wonderful time! Ethan was so happy to have Papa, Grandma, and Aunt Jen with us, and they certainly kept him very busy. Ayden loved being with them too. We were sad to see them go, but they have arrived safely home already. We are so grateful for God's hand of protection over their travels! I don't know about you, but I have done nothing but eat these last few days! God is so good to have provided for us so bountifully. We have so much to be thankful for! Did anyone brave the "Door Buster" sales they day after Thanksgiving? Thanks to my "pro" of a mother-in-law, I was initiated into my first experience this year! My mother-in-law thrives on this stuff and she actually talked me into going to, of all places, WALMART!!!! I may be sick but it was actually a thrill for me. I think I enjoyed it so much because I actually got what I came for, and there were only seven of this item! Needless to say, after being shoved into the entire display and gaining some bruises and scratches, I got what I came for and got a great deal!!! Thanks Teena! However, I have to say that I have never seen anything like it before in my life! It was utter mayhem! Oh, and I also got a camera and a FREE printer! Yeah!!!
Please be in prayer for us this week! My mom, the boys and I leave this Tuesday to go to Ohio to help my grandmother move from the house she has lived in for 50 years. It is a long story but the short of it is that she has been evicted. We would greatly appreciate your prayers for safety and for wisdom in helping my grandmother. She is not at all happy about leaving the home she raised 8 children in! Pray for Zach as he has to fend for himself for over a week. Just kidding! He can handle it, but we will certainly miss each other. Please let me know how all of you Thanksgiving Holidays were! Thanks for checking in with us!

Sincerely,
Cathy
P.S
I will ask Zach to post some pictures while I am away!