‘Tis the season…..

13 Dec

Well, I missed a month of writing but now is the time to catch up on all the happenings. I thought that it was a little busy before but December has been crazy with Thanksgiving a week later this year. We were blessed to have Thanksgiving day together as a family, decorate for Christmas and then the day after we travelled up to Wichita, KS to be with friends and Mike’s family. It was a great trip and it is always good to catch up with family and friends. August’s birthday celebration was a very exciting event, after it being cancelled on the scheduled day because of a trip to the ER with him. Come to find out, he had a virus that caused the ugly rash on his body and not measles, thank the Lord! We all enjoyed celebrating with him and thank God for a blessed first year of his life, he has brought us all so much joy and entertainment!  As Christmas (and my birthday 🙂 approaches, I am blessed with so many good things in my life and thank God daily for all the blessing my family and friends have been to me. I doubt whether I will be on here again before the New Year, so please have an awesome Christmas and New Year!  Be safe and be blessed!

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My first Birthday!

Click on here to view my Birthday Album!

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Decorating!

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Three Christmas Elves!

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Uncle Brad and August Nov. 2013

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Look at me…last year I fit into that helmet!

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Where are the keys uncle Brad?

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Uncle Brad and August, Nov 2012.

A new years resolution in Sept…..not that I believe in them.

11 Sep

It has been months since I have posted on here, accepting that the resolution I made to write weekly, never came to pass. With that said, I am now committing to write in here monthly. Maybe I can keep to that, so let’s see how it goes…. It is worse that I thought, taking a peek at my last post, it was in January, failed mission I would say!  Well here goes….

Our new grand baby, August, has added so much to our lives with joy and excitement. He turns one year old on October 4th, so the Mickey Mouse party is in full planning with plenty of pictures to follow! Summer was a whirlwind with going to South Africa for three weeks, celebrating with my sister Ann as she turned 70 this year. It was great to see and spend time with family and friends over there. Michael was able to join us as he led a leadership conference in Francistown, Botswana and visited Jerry and Jana Lackey with the Love Botswana Outreach Mission. Sarah had the opportunity of going with us and we enjoyed the visit and travels of Africa together. Now with Sarah in her last year at Concordia University here in Austin, we are kind of empty nesters. It is an adjustment as we really miss having our kids living with us but we really can’t complain as none of them are more than 15 minutes or so from our doorstep! 

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August at the Austin Zoo.

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Celebrating with Ann!

Family!

Family!

September is a really busy month for us at the church with tons of fun things happening plus we are participating in exploreGod.com which is an outreach ministry going on here in the city. God is moving in people’s lives at TOLC and it is exciting to see what God is doing and waiting in anticipation to see what He has planned for us all!  Plus football season has begun so let’s watch some Cowboys!

Today being 9/11, let us never forget the brave heroes who gave their lives trying to say other….I will never forget. Praying today for those who lost their loved ones 12 years ago and praying for the healing and restoration of our Nation.

“If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave,and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

A New Year…..

3 Jan

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Let me start by saying, happy new year from our home to yours! I am excited to see what the Lord has planned for each of us. I have posted a scripture below that I am praying over all my family and friends this year. I also asked the Lord to give me one word for this year and He said, “Pray.” So I am going to focus on prayer more in everything! Do you have a word, ask God for one and then share it with me in the comment box below. Last year my word was choose, and the year before was hopeful. God defiantly expanded my life in both those areas over the past two years!

“9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him,being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Col.1:9-14.

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Jeremy, Kristen and August (Batman) enjoying Christmas day.

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Best little Christmas gift, August under the tree.

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Sarah looking so cute!

Michael and Lacy celebrating!

Michael and Lacy celebrating!

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My heart is heavy…

17 Dec

I planned on sharing a gift-related and holiday family fun post today, especially seeing that my birthday is in two days but in wake of last weeks tragedy here in the USA I decided to change gears. It is simply not possible to ignore or act like nothing has happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Sadness and anxiety is felt in most places and close to the surface. I am reminded how precious life and time really is. I am sure people and family around me have noticed that my mood is not as jolly as usual even though I am still going around tackling all the tasks and events around me. I do not have all the answers to tragedy and trials but one things I do know is, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

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Nana……

5 Dec

I can’t believe that I have not posted on here regarding the birth of my grandson yet! What an exciting time it was and has been! Let me introduce August Michael Sistrunk to you. He was born October 4th,           weighing 7.7 lbs and 19 inches long!

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Kristen did such a great job in the hospital and the delivery went really well. Being Nana and Papa Johnson has been a joy and I know now what everyone alway meant by saying that there is nothing like it. Aunty Sarah and uncle Daniel are thrilled to and there is defiantly not a shortage of love to go around!

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Changing seasons….

8 Sep

Yes, are you not enjoying this fall-like weather?  This is my favorite time of the year with the seasons changing, football starting and cooler weather.  It reminds me of our lives, and how we enter into new seasons. I look at it as new beginnings and lessons learned from things ending.  Let’s embrace the changes in our lives, just as we enjoy the refreshing changes of this season. I have personally gone through a few changes over the past few months, embracing some of them with open arms and walking by faith through the others. One of our new seasons is becoming empty nesters and then one that should be happening soon is, becoming grand parents! New seasons entail, embracing things learned from the past and learning new things from the present seasons in our lives. Some seasons we love and others we walk through by faith but whatever your season is, let’s try to remember that God is always present and He never changes regardless of where we are at and where we are going. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever! He is our constant!

What is your favorite season of the year and what are some of the seasons of your life?

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Enjoying the journey.

25 Aug

Summer has been a very busy time with so many comings and goings! I planned on have a quiet one but it never happened! I am not complaining as it has been very adventurous and great to see God doing tons of good things. It all started off with visiting 3 countries in 7 weeks. First, Mike, Jack, my sister Linda and I went to Mozambique, Africa to visit with some missionaries there to help in supplying wells for fresh water. We had a very successful trip and plans are moving forward to support this. We had the fun time snorkeling there  and the guys went deep-sea fishing!

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My sister, Linda and I in Mozambique.

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From there I went to Pinetown, South Africa to visit with my family, which is always a blessing and such fun. A week after getting home from Africa I had the privilege of co-leading a mission trip Costa Rica. We went from San Jose on a boat, ministering on an island about 1 1/2 hours out in the middle of no where! It was such a great experience to do VBS with about 100 children who had never had anything like that before and minister with a pastor there in a local church. God did some amazing stuff.

Costa Rica here we are.

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Michael stayed behind here in the USA as he felt he had been traveling to much. Sarah was blessed to visit Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to visit with Nate’s extended family, plus she went to Orange County, California to visit with Nate’s parents and sister! She also did her share of traveling this summer. Daniel moved out into a new place of abode and is really enjoying his job with Apple, Inc. He works a fraud specialist so watch out you criminals out there! Jeremy and Kristen are anticipating the arrival of their little boy in October, so is Nana and Papa Johnson!

Kristen and Jeremy.

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Kristen, Sarah and Baby!

We had a great baby shower and he is a blessed little boy. No name is chosen yet, so all your suggestions or favorite boy names are welcome in my comment box!!

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Made of Clay…

25 Apr

” . . . will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish-

. . . stones that were burned?” Nehemiah 4:2

Made of Clay
A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to
bake. They didn’t look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.
He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock .. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.
Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!
It’s like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. It isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.
We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well-known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.
There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.
May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

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And our family grows…

18 Feb

I was really trying to write in this blog at least once a week and so far I have failed miserably, now hoping to change that as I try again. No excuses to make, so let’s just move on. The year has started out with tons of stuff going on but at least they are things that I enjoy and cherish doing. I am so excited to share the great news regarding our new grand-baby that is on the way! Congratulations to Jeremy and Kristen, my middle child, who will be having their first child in October this year.  Words cannot explain the joy and excitement that I felt as we watched the little one’s heart beating at the doctors office this week.

Our newest addition to the family!

Another great milestone in my life is the fact that I have been at the gym working out which I thought I would never do.  The word choose, which I felt was my word for the year, has been interesting for me. One of the areas of choice has been in the area of my well-being. I started at the gym, working out 5-6 days a week and really did not believe that I would do it. Notice I did not say could not but would not, as I really dislike gyms, especially how they smell!  Well, I have been very consistent and realized that it really is my choice if I do this or not. I know that this is a very important choice to stick to and hope to stay faithful with this choice.  I must admit that going has been becoming easier and I think I am starting to enjoy the torture just a little!  Let me know if you have started doing anything new this year which you thought you would never do or could not do. I would also love to hear about any new exciting events that have happend or going to happen this year for you.

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New Year…..Choose

23 Jan

I really want to do better with my blog this year…. it is not a new year’s resolution, as I never keep those!  I have started working-out at the gym.  I have always said in my life that I hate gyms and will never go to one, well now I am the only one with a gym membership in the family!!!  The end of last year was great and a little hard. For one thing Sarah ended up in the ER with some health stuff but is doing well again. We were able to go to Wichita, KS for our annual Thanksgiving trip which was a lot of fun. December was a milestone birthday for me and I was so blessed to have my sister Ann and her husband Rob come and celebrate with us all in December. It was also Rob’s birthday and Christmas, this led to lots of parties, dinners and entertainment. Every year I pray about a word for the year that I believe the Lords wants me to focus on. This year my word is “Choose”. I know that it will be a season of choice for me and that I will have to choose which is what is for me. The scripture that the Lord placed on my heart was, “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,…” Joshua 24:15  I want to choose life instead of death, compliments instead of criticism, joy instead of sadness, love instead of hate, health instead of sickness and the list goes on.

Photos from December 2011

Out with the old in with the new.

Do you make new years resolutions?

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