Destin's First Haircut

My nephew, Destin, got his first haircut yesterday. He is 15 months old. My mom took the pictures. Destin cried the whole time. Even though Britt sat in the chair with him, he did not understand why my mom and brother would not pick him up out of the seat. Poor thing, but he survived.

Sweetness itself.

Playing

Getting a sip of coke

Torture begins

This is worth 1,000 words!

After the whole ordeal

At Last: COLOR!

It's the moment you've all been waiting for!!! Our walls with color! Hope you like it!

Living Room - someday a new stair rail!

Kitchen - the red is going to be gone though and there is a purple accent wall - see above.

Sunroom

Our room - it's grey (and sink for our bathroom)

Upstairs bedroom 1 - I love the brown!

Upstairs bedroom 2

Not pictured are the bathrooms - but they are a nice tan color.

We have a new countertop in the kitchen now that looks amazing and soon there will be a backsplash where the red is - although the red looks good with the yellow.

Also - there is carpet in the upstairs bedrooms and our bedroom and the living room and hallways now have hardwood. We hope to finish the hardwood this week!

Someday I will post new pictures and maybe there will be some funiture in the house!

I've bought a few new items to decorate with and Brent and I bought a new couch for the sunroom, along with a set of bistro table and two chairs for the sunroom. We also got a new chair to go in the living room - all we have is a couch!

Pagan Christianity

Well I am on the 3rd chapter of this book. It's about the sermon, formation of it, and a few great orators. I've been reading this book for about a month now and it has been a very slow read.

I do not have the book in front of me right now, so I will not be able to put a few quotes that I thought were good. There are really interesting history bites in this book, such as pews. When they were first invented they were sold to families. Each family would sit and decorate their bench. No one else was allowed to sit there. It became almost a competition to see who could decorate their bench as the best with pillows, curtains, and such. It became a source that caused fighting between the church members. So finally they quite selling the pews and decorating and just had benches. I think that it is pretty funny that still today people have "their" pew or section, or side of the church that they always sit on and you better not sit in "their" seat. I guess that traditon has not completely died out.

Also Sunday night church. I have been in churches that have Sunday night church, churches that do not have it, or churches that just meet once a month on Sunday nights. I must tell you am a fan of either not having it at all or just meeting once a month. Viola and Barna point out that Sunday night meetings were first started by John Wesley, who lived in the 1800s, I think. When I read this I laughed and said "so it's your fault, thanks, John". Haha! (i don't mean any disrepect to Mr. Wesley.)

There are more history bites like these, such as how the steeple was invented, why churches have graveyards - this is really interesting, the architecture of the building, and even the definition of the word "church".

So far what I have gathered from the book so far is that our church is so completely rooted in tradition that sometimes we cannot tell the difference between following Christ and his commands or following tradition that someone began or took from someone else practices.

I hope to finish the book by March - so I have a lot of reading to do. Let me know if you have thoughts.

Happy Valentine's Day

I actually got Brent a present for today. It's amazing, really, an accomplishment.
See, my birthday is tomorrow and today is my brother's birthday - so growing up Valentine's day was not real big around our house because we were always busy celebrating birthdays. This is not a big deal to me, but for poor Brent it could be. He's lucky to even get a card for today.
Last year was the worst - I even forgot to get a card - (although I think card are dumb and pointless, esp. if they are empty, so don't even think about sending me a card, unless you put something in it, thank you.) And so at 9:00 at night there I was trying to make my own card "because it's more special" - whatever - that's a crock - even more so because it was 9:00 at night. So - well that was over with - onward to next year!

This year I was determined to get a gift for him! And mission accomplished! It was great! I even got it 3 days early - with a card. I can't wait to give him the gift. I got him a deep tissue massage at a local spa and salon. He's been working so hard on our house and it's Valentines, so I though it would be perfect for him! I think he will like it!!

I hope you have a happy valentine's day!

Little Children

The week after Christmas we took some of our youth to the Scott Dawson conference - Strength to Stand. It was a really great time. In fact, it was one of the best youth conferences I've been on in my entire history of youth conferences.

One of the speakers at the conference mentioned the verses in the Bible where Jesus is speaking to His disciples. He's telling them they must become like a little child. I've heard all the analogies about having pure and simple trust and faith like a child and that we should not be childish, but childlike with humble and sincere hearts. I agree with this. But this speaker gave a new thought on it - at least I have never thought of in that way. He said that in the days of Jesus, children were considered insignificant (insignficance - the lack of importance or consequence). So if we are to do great things for the Lord, we (ourselves) need to become insignificant compared to Him and His plans.

Well I have new pictures to show you of our house - but alas I forgot my camera cord, so I cannot upload them on this computer. So you must wait in anticipation! Perhaps they will appear on Wednesday!


Brent is going to the doctor tomorrow. His ankle is not moving and he cannot walk without the help of crutches or a wheelchair! (the wheelchair was used to go to the Winter Jam concert Saturday - it was hilarious!!) So hopefully Dr. Layton will be able to find something.


Adoption update: We are back at square one. For a few reasons:1. this house thing is taking longer than we thought and we are pretty sure that instead of domestic we are going to adopt internationally. Peru being the country of choice. :) I'm really stinkin' excited about this.

But you should know that I was really beginning to struggle with adopting in the first place. Esp. since I feel like we haven't even gotten the ball rolling. Our friends Jay and Tanya are adopting a little boy from Nepal. They started the whole process I think almost the same time Brent and I met with the agency in Birmingham. When Jay told Brent in November, they were about to have their first homestudy. Their adoption seems to be speeding along. Click here to see Tanya's blog.

I though maybe it was just an emotional thing since Brent and I do not have kids yet. Nothing was taking off for us it seemed. Maybe we were just trying to do this ourselves and what we wanted and not what God wanted at all. I was praying through it one day and just asking the Lord and telling Him about all my concerns and worries and the next day - what comes in the mail - Southwestern News - what is the WHOLE. ENTIRE. magazine about - ADOPTION. I am not kidding. Plus the rest of week it seemed like everything I saw or picked up - was about adoption. It just happened. I didn't plan any of it. I thought okay Lord - I got it now. Thanks. :)

Now we are just waiting until we are in our house and ready to fill out the application form. This will probably be March or April, but as soon as possible. :)

I am also apply for a job this week. I'd really love to work at this job. So please pray that the Lord might see fit that I get the job. Thanks!! :)

It's finished!

Well the painter finishes today anyway!! It looks like a completely different house! Amazing! I hope to take pictures today or tomorrow and hopefully i can post them by this weekend! We also have a few new furniture items! A couch and a bistro table and chairs for the sunroom and a new chair for the living room! We will one day buy the matching chair for the couch in the sunroom and we are looking for an ottoman that opens to put in the living room - but we are waiting for our tax return! Also did you know that if you buy a house, the next year on your taxes there is a 1st time home buyer credit where the governement will send you money to help on the new house? Granted it will be paid back to them. They automatically take it out of your refund the next few years. So I guess it's a good thing. It does help with a few things though!

I have a couple of things to blog about.
Adoption update and something I learned over Christmas. But I am working on a few things for Wednesday and Sunday night, so I will have to wait and blog later.

Have a great day!

Extreme Home Makeover: Colee Edition!

Extreme Home Makeover: Colee Edition has begun! And trust me, there is a lot of work to be done!! Below: this is the very first picture taken in November. The former owners still had most of their belongings here. First - all the wall paper had come down. A bit of flooring had to come up. The door and window caseings had to come down. We had to find a painter and people to lay tile and put down hardwood. So by now all the wallpaper is down, we found a painter - he started Tuesday, we have a guy putting crown molding up! MJ, Michael B., Brent and Brent's dad - Greg laid the tile. My dad, Brent, and Brett are going to lay the hardwood, and a pro is going to put the carpet in the 2 rooms upstairs. Whew!

This is the back - an in-ground pool used to be here,

but Brent wants to put in a koi pond!

Yes, we are offically rednecks! Toilet in the front yard!! HAHA!

(it WILL be gone soon)

Kitchen Living Room, Upstairs rooms and part of kitchen

A new stair rail is on the way!!

Living Room and great ceiling Barksdale loves laying tile! HA!

Newly tiled sunroom and laundry....Brent laying tile in the master bath! Isn't he cute!

So he and his dad did this bathroom in 20 degree weather -

no joke it was 8 degrees the next night!

(Still a cutie!)

Okay, below is the ceiling in the laundry room.....are you kidding me? what??

I gave up asking questions after we discovered that DUCT TAPE was used to seal some of the sheet rock together!!!! Yeah.

We are so excited about this house! I can't wait till the color is on the walls!! We have great plans for this house. The Lord has really blessed us greatly!

So come stay with us sometime!

Ode to Chris and Christy

Flashback to December 13 - a memorable day in the Willcutt household. Chris graduated from Southwestern!!!! Hallelujah! Brent and I went out to the great state of Texas for the occasion!
Chris and Christy wonderful friends. Chris is a youth minister and Christy is a PE teacher and Coach. They have a baby girl - Ryleigh Michelle - who is so cute. We are so incredibly grateful to be apart of their lives. We miss them like crazy!

While we were in Fort Worth - we met our friends Greg and Jaime for lunch at this restaurant. The owner is Giaciamo He was in the TV show "Hell's Kitchen"! So needless to say the food was fabulous! He is also very friendly. Greg and Jaime eat here frequently, so they have gotten to know everyone.

These are few pics of Christmas:

Below: me and Cody. I still don't have any pics of Hurley - butI took him to the vet yesterday and the dog is 10 weeks old and weighs 22.1 pounds! He's a chunker!!

I love these pics (except for the nice flash in the background)

Reading

The past few months I have heard about or come across several books that I want to read. I try to hurry to read a book, just so I can finish it and get to the next one. This is not good for me, esp. if I want to retain what I read! However my friend Amber mentioned in her blog recently a quote by John Piper about reading. Basically if you read for 15 minutes a day, you can average 10 books a year! How fantastic! Here is the full quote below. To see Amber's full blog - click "Amber's Blog" on the left side of the screen.

"He recommends setting a goal to read for 15 minutes a day:
“Suppose you read slowly like I do--maybe about the same speed that you speak--200 words a minute. If you read fifteen minutes a day for one year (say just before supper, or just before bed), you will read 5,475 minutes in the year. Multiply that by 200 words a minute, and you get 1,095,000 words that you would read in a year. Now an average serious book might have about 360 words per page. So you would have read 3,041 pages in one year. That’s ten very substantial books. All in fifteen minutes a day.”(When I Don't Desire God, p. 129)"