Fred is dead

Fred is my computer....he is needing to go to the hospital to have a nasty virus treated. Sigh. So he'll see Dr. David (my BIL) while we are gone.

Kevin and I are leaving on a mission trip on Saturday. I am so excited!! Please pray for us!!

In Christ
Tonni

My Bloggy Winners!!!

My Bloggy Giveaway Winners!!

I am pleased to announce my three winners! Thanks to all who left comments. The winners are:

Stephenson Family

Jessica

Titus2Heart

I have either emailed you or left a comment on your blog with info on how to contact me. I hope to hear from you soon!!

In Christ

Tonni

Thankful Thursday

I have so much to be thankful for.

My oldest daughter. Grace is such an amazing young girl with an incredible love for people.

Olivia is truly a princess. She is insistent about it. But she truly is one, to me.

Josiah, my little man. He is such a funny little guy. His favorite thing right now is to tell us everyone he loves. It's quite a list.

My Charis is such a funny little thing. Half of the time, she is pretending she is a puppy. But as soon as I sit down, she is my little cuddle bug, climbing up on my lap.

And my baby, Elliana. She is such a joy. She is growing up way too fast trying to keep up with the rest of the Jobe crew.

And lastly, my wonderful husband. You'll have to go back a few posts for just one example of how great he is!!

May you feel blessed today and be thankful for it!!

The Lord is good and his mercy endures forever!!!

A night on the streets

Last night, our church participated in the annual Norwood Day Parade. You would think that I would have had enough with parades during my days of working with color guard! But last night's experience was truly different.
Next week, we are having 24 hour prayer vigil at the church. We passed out prestamped prayer request cards to the thousands of people that were there. We passed out almost 1000 of them. I was a little nervous at first. You know, the whole going up to people to talk about God thing. But it was amazing. I just told people that we were having a prayer vigil and if they would fill out the card and pop it in the mail we would pray for them. People loved the idea. They asked for extra cards. The people around them who heard us wanted cards. I got to see a lot of familiar faces, old neighbors, former students, former band and guard students, etc. It was just an amazing and humbling experience. God is so good.
So my prayer is that people will use these cards. That the church office will just be flooded. I pray that we will reach our community for the Lord.
If you have a prayer request, comment to this post and I will copy it and add it to prayer wall in our prayer room.
May you feel the tangible presence of God in your life today!!

Because He Lives,

Tonni

Dog Days of Summer Giveaway!!

As a part of the Dog Days of Summer Giveaway...I am giving away 3 free custom made hair bows to one lucky winner! Leave a comment one day this week and on Friday I'll randomly choose a winner!! You can choose your own styles and colors if you are the winner!! For some other ideas check out http://s125.photobucket.com/albums/p79/tonnijobe/

I will pay shipping! (Canada and US only, please)

Have fun checking out the other Bloggy Giveaways!!

****UPDATE!!! Because of the great response to this giveaway, I am going to give away 3 !!! sets of hairbows, each set being 3 bows of your choice! I will stop taking entries at 12 noon on Friday so I can pick a winner!! ***********

Tonni

My Husband Rocks!!

Yesterday, my wonderful husband took all 5 kids swimming at his sister's house, giving me, are you ready? almost 7 hours by myself! Wow! What a gift. I didn't do anything too exciting. But I got an uninterrupted nap (gasp) as well as doing some small things around the house that are impossible with the little ones running about. The kids had a great time and I got a break!

Did I mention that MY HUSBAND ROCKS?!?!?!

A rough few days

As you may or may not know, I have clinical depression. I hate it. Counseling and medications have helped, but I still have some days that are rougher than others. Yesterday and today are those days. All I want to do is sleep. To be alone....like that every happens in household shared by 7 people. How can I be surrounded by people and still feel so lonely? Such a strange dichotomy. My energy is completely zapped.

Yet I know that it is temporary. In a day or two I'll feel just like myself again. Ready to face the world, be the helper my husband needs me to be. Be the mom the kids need me to be. These are the days when I rely on one of my favorite verses from Nehemiah. "For the joy of the Lord is your strength." Even when I am not strong, I can get strength from my Jesus. There is joy in my salvation, even on the days when I don't feel much happiness. Even on those days, I AM SAVED! There is strength in that.

So for today, I will meditate on that. And tomorrow, I pray I'll feel like myself.

Because HE Lives
Tonni

Thankful Thursday

I am so thankful today for the prayers of my friends. In two weeks and two days I am going on my first mission trip with 20 others. I am a combination of excited and anxious. I know the trip will be wonderful, but I am having pangs about leaving my 5 monkeys at home. I am so grateful for my friends who will be providing care for my kids and for those covering me with prayer. The Fellowship of the Forgiven is AMAZING!!

I am a part of the fellowship of the FORGIVEN.
I have Holy Spirit Power.
The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line.
The decision has been made.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still.
My past is redeemed, my present makes sense,
and my future is secure.
I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planing, smoothe knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving and dwarfed goals.
My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven,
my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few,
my Guide is reliable and my mission is clear.
I cannot be bought, compromised, deterred, lured away,
turned back, diluted, or delayed.
I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the eneny, ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won't give up, back up, let up or shut up until I've preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up and stayed up for the cause of Christ.
Im a disciple of Jesus Christ. I must go intil He returns, give until I drop, preach until all know and work until He comes.
And when He comes to get His own,
He will have no problem recognizing me.
My colors will be clear!
"I am not ashamed of the Gospel,
because it is the power of God for the salvation of
everyone who believes"

Wordless Wednesday

Kansas City Fun!

With their identical webkinz puppies
Olivia, Abigail, Madison, Grace

Olivia, Abigail, Madison, Grace

Maddy and Gracie

Abby and Livi

Webkins

The Weird Dog

This is the strange dog my sister and her hubby have in their garage. I don't know why!

Singing

Singing to "High School Musical"

Swimming

Taking The Plunge

Getting pretty

Painting our nails

Fashion Show

Our "Fashion Show"
models
Madison Rose
Abigail Leigh
Grace Margaret
Olivia Lian






Madison

Abby

Grace

Olivia

Kansas City Fun!!

Yesterday, Gracie, Livi and I drove all day to visit my sister in Kansas City! My neices are the same ages as Livi and Grace. We are having a great time having fashion show, playing with floam, all sorts of great things. The rest of our week includes a trip to Libby Lu and the Disney store, VBS, swimming and general girl stuff. Maybe even some Cosmic Golfing!!

Pictures will be coming!!

Prayer

Don't we work really hard to make everything complicated? I just did an internet search on prayer. Want to guess how many results came up? Hundreds? Thousands? Try 73,600,000! Yep, you read that right 73 MILLION 600 THOUSAND!!!!

Now, none of would say that prayer is optional. Jesus took time to pray. He went off by himself and prayed. He took the time to teach his twelve disciples to pray. In Mathew 6:5, Jesus says, "When you pray....." not IF you pray, but "WHEN." Okay, not a ground breaking revelation. But, still true. We are called to pray, to be in fellowship with our Father. I Corinthians 7:5 tells us to devote ourselves to prayer.

Prayer is defined as communication with God. When I communicate with a friend, I talk and listen. Sometimes I fear my prayer may be to God like my trip today to the grocery store with my son. Josiah talked NONSTOP. He must have said "mommy" 187 times! It started every single sentence. He asked question after question. He nagged for item after item.....hmmmm. Do I do that to God? Are my prayers just lists some days? God, I want 1,2,3,x,y,z....and so forth?

I know that just products with Spiderman on them are not the best choice for Josiah. He needs fruits and vegetables, protein, carbohydrates. Some of everything. So, I have to say, "no." And he whines and asks why. Is that how I sound to God? Do I ask and ask and then whine when I don't get my way? I am embarrassed to admit that I do this more often than I would like to acknowledge. But, when He tells me, his child, no, might it not be for my own good? Or maybe He wants me to slow down and listen instead of just make request after request.

I do know this. God wants relationship with me. And I have to be willing to communicate with Him in order for this relationship to grow.

8When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Rev. 5:8....our prayers our incense unto the Lord

Oh, my aching feet

Well, I did it! I met Andi at Sharon Woods tonight and we walked!! Yipee for us!! We walked regularly when we lost so much weight 5 years ago. Hopefully this is the beginning of getting moving and getting healthy again!!

My feet are hurting. 20 years ago I had a doctor say that my feet are 20 years older than I am.....you do the math (and keep the answer to yourself! It is depressing!!!)

I have been on Weight Watchers for a couple of months now and have lost approximately 10 pounds. That is 40 (yes 40) sticks of butter!! Keep an eye on the bottom of my blog to keep track of how close I am to my goal. I'll try to post some pictures so you can see my progress, but remember that I am an expert at being the one behind the camera!

Bedtime

We have all sorts of issues with the girls at bedtime...all 4 of them. I DO NOT recommend having 4 girls in one room.......I cannot wait until they are teenagers. Riiiiiiiiiight! LOL! Anyway, this kind of encapsules our evenings.