Girl Weekend/ Boy Weekend

I had the opportunity this past weekend to attend my first "Women of Faith" conference with about thirty ladies from our church. First of all, I just want to give a shout out to my amazing husband for making this trip possible. Aaron did not bat an eye at staying home with Korben for two days. He fully embraced my instruction sheets, and was very enthusiastic about their "man time" together. I am well aware that most husbands would not be willing to do this with an eight month old, and I am blessed beyond measure. Every time I would call and check in, he would say don't worry about us, we're great, enjoy your time away, and you deserve it! How sweet is he? He seemed as excited for me to get away as I was, and he never made me feel guilty. I know Korben will greatly benefit from being raised by a man like this.

When I walked in the door Saturday night I heard Christmas music playing...then I noticed mistletoe hanging in the doorway...THEN I noticed lights and garland on the mantle! It was so pretty I almost cried! Aaron said that he and Korben saw a commercial that Lowe's was having a Christmas sale so they wanted to surprise me! Well, this fully got me in the Christmas spirit, so we picked out our first Christmas tree after church on Sunday. It is the biggest thing I have ever seen. I knew we had twelve foot ceilings, so a nine foot tree seemed appropriate. I had NO IDEA a nine foot tree would be so big. It pretty much lights up the whole house. We re-arranged the furniture in the living room to fully accommodate the tree. We are crazy about Christmas, so we don't mind the fact that it is over the top.

So, back to the Women of Faith conference. The speakers and music were fantastic. The laughter and worship did good for my soul. However, my favorite part of the weekend was just the fellowship with other ladies. There were people on the trip I had never met that I had the opportunity to get to know, as well as people that I already knew I loved that I was able to get to know better. I love being around people that model "what I want to be". You can only hope when you are around people like that, they will rub off on you. I hope some of these ladies rubbed off on me somehow.

A mother of a student in our youth group was on the trip. She and I had actually never met. We started talking and she said, "I've been wanting to tell you that I've been praying for you ever since Jeff announced you and Aaron were coming to our church." I expressed my gratitude. She said, "I want you to understand, it was God who kept laying you on my heart." "So I don't tell you that I was praying for you for you to think I'm a really neat person, I'm telling you this so you know how much God loves you." That taught me so much. So often we think when someone pops in our head to pray for that it is OUR idea, and we tell people "I've been praying for you" hoping that will make them feel special that we thought of them. But it is GOD who lays people on our hearts. It definitely makes me feel loved that God would lay me on the heart of so many people just to tell me that he loves me through others.

I will post pictures of our Christmas decorations and Korben soon. The latest Korben news is that he has two bottom teeth! They have broken through the gums, but they are not yet big enough to see when he smiles. I promise I will post a picture as soon as they are.