Thanksgiving and such

 Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We did! We had the "traditional" Thanksgiving breakfast at Michael's grandparents house with the whole family. Homemade waffles, fresh coffee, and deer sausage. It is always the BEST! And then later on we had dinner with our very good friends, basically family, Don and Brenda, and their two kids, and our other friends/family Jeremy and Jessica Vess:

Here's a video of all of us (The Roseman's and Vess') during a warm-up  We ended up having to put Michael in the back of the room during the recording because his voice carries so well.
He's a human-trumpet in so many ways. :)

Anywho, we all hung out and watched the Thanksgiving Charlie Brown Special, which I had never seen! It was pretty great. It was so nice to be around my closest friends again. I have kinda lived in a hole since John was born. But for crying out loud, he's going to be a year old later this month! AHHH! Time for me to get out of the freakin' house! :) I'm workin' on it

In other news, the Jar Buddy is officially patent-pending! We are now in the process of marketing to different companies. Hopefully somebody will be interested within the year. A year from now, we have to front a bunch of money to get it actually patented. But, it's all in God's fully-capable hands, so I'm not sweatin' it.

Here's a few shots of Michael's homecoming (from work) yesterday evening.
And a couple from Thanksgiving, too :)
Enjoy! Thanks for stopping by!

Daddy's Home!

Hi Dad!

John's loves his Daddy

John actually wasn't interested in Thanksgiving food!

Me and my sister-friend Brenda Sue! She is due at the end of January :)

Melaleuca Monday : Cellwise

Antioxidants are our friends! I had no idea how important they are until I started reading into some of the amazing products at Melaleuca. I'd heard about free radicals and antioxidants but I honestly didn't know anything about them. But free radicals are bad-news-bears (ooh can you tell I'm a mom?) Basically, they attack the cell and can cause some pretty major damage (premature aging and even cancer) if you don't provide your body with the antioxidants it needs to counteract them. Cellwise helps give your body what it needs to live a long healthy happy life. They contain important antioxidants like Vitamin C, mixed Carotenoids, mixed tochopherols (like Vitamin E), lycopene, olive extract, and grape seed extract.

We keep these in stock at our house! It's one of those things that you might not feel like it's making a difference (not like the Vitality for Life vitamins) but you know, in the long run, it'll definitely pay off.

Joy Ride

John got a front facing car seat, thanks to Aunt Sarah! Sorry- there seems to be no audio. :(
But you can tell, he reacts in true John-style. He took it all in and was inspecting his new chair and pondering the impact that this new chair will have on his life's perspective. Very serious little boy. Me and my mom-in-law, Wendy, drove around the block. She's the one driving so that I could get a video without crashing. It's a little long and mostly boring if you don't LOVE John! :)

In other news, my invention, the Jar Buddy, is finished being made into a virtual prototype and is ready to be marketed to potential buyers/manufacturers. Now, it's totally out of my hands and totally in God's hands. I'm just praying for favor with the companies that will be shown this earth-shatteringly-genius invention! :)

Melaleuca Monday : Luminex

My Monday's have usually consisted of cleaning the house and watching Once Upon A Time on ABC's website. Love that show. We don't have cable so that's the only show that I follow. But I am adding another fun thing to my Monday regimen: Melaleuca Mondays! I figured it would be an easy way to remember to blog about my favorite products, available exclusively at Melaleuca!

This week's product is Luminex

Luminex is a St. John's Wort supplement that also has Griffonia seed, Vitamin B12, and folate that help to support the neurotransmitter, serotonin, which helps regulate your mood. So, instead of resorting to chemicals or hormones to get your mood under control, Melaleuca developed this patented blend of natural ingredients that helps your body gently regulate itself naturally. How great is that?? That's a fancy way of saying that it gave me my sanity back! :)

I have been taking it for about a month now and I can definitely feel a difference! I give glory first and foremost to God for giving me such abundant grace for every day, for helping me deal with my emotions, and helping me respond to challenges with love and patience. I would not make it without Him. Absolutely.

But I do believe that God knows what we need- He knew that I needed this! :) Me and my family have benefited from me being less like an emotional roller coaster these last few weeks. :) So, Thank You God and thank you Melaleuca for making Luminex! :)

Look Who's Walking!

John is officially walking! This was taken just a little bit ago at Tastebuds in Salisbury, NC. If he gets any cuter, his face might be kissed into smithereens! :)

morning sun

The path of the righteous is like the morning sun,

shining ever brighter until the full light of day.

Proverbs 4:18

*acrylic on cardboard... yup... I'm fancy...

generations of beauty

I think I have finally found a blog background that I will keep! Sorry for the design whiplash some of you may be suffering from. This one here totally fits me! I love quilts. They make me smile. They make me think about generations. I know, quite a jump. Think about it though.
So many women (do men quilt? I think not.) have handed down their lovely quilts from generation to generation. I can remember the quilt my own mother has in her house that was made by several women, all in community with one another. Each one stitched their signature in a piece of white fabric with the date "1932" underneath and then artfully joined them all together amidst happy scraps of fabric to form this beautiful heirloom. From one generation to another, the art, whether the artwork itself and/or the artisan skill, is passed on. Ah, quilting... It's just a beautiful tradition.

through the fire

Here's what we've been up to:

Michael is waiting on an interview with the City of Charlotte for a job that would help our family A TON. And it would be doing what he enjoys and is good at (well, he's good at pretty much anything he does... besides putting up his clothes in his closet.. :) .. besides that... )  But he seems to be enjoying his new and improved "steady" job batching together chemicals to make creams and lotions at a lab close-by. I say "steady" because he gets 40+ hours a week which is GOOD, a vast improvement from the other contractor type job. But he's been pulling 12 hour days a lot lately. It's a good job... but it would be really nice to get that job in Charlotte. Pray that he'll hear something this week.


 I have been hanging out with John-John and I've also been reading Lord of the Rings in my spare time. And yes, with just one child, I still have some time to spare :) I was always daunted by the size of the LOTR, but I'm totally hooked now.  It's a reeeaallllyy good read! Puts Twilight to shame, even though I have to admit that I really enjoyed reading those books too. It was like Teenie-bopper soap opera in book form. But LOTR is infinitely better written. I'm kinda at a good pausing point in the book though. I think this week I will spend more time going over "The Healing Path" by Robin Pasley. Isn't that a grand idea?? Inner healing vs. leisure reading... I know, it's a no-brainer.

Lastly, John burnt his hand on Saturday!! We built a fire. (photos below)  I was making breakfast when we heard a scream that I would rather not hear again. He had climbed up on the hearth and placed his hand on the glass. Thankfully, we had only just closed the doors so the glass wasn't hot enough to cause more than a minor burn, probably less than the heat of an iron. He only has a couple red spots on his hand. I freaked out though (in a not good way, at Michael, who said he would watch him... we have two slightly different parenting styles, we are finding out.... this whole parenting thing is a hard learning process. It has definitely put our marriage through the fire) So anyway, John is fine. He took a nap later that morning and he woke up and seemed to not even remember anything.

So that's the scoop! Later Taters!

and the journey began

I'm up and at 'em before 6am and I don't care. John has been sleeping like a champ the last few nights and I have finally had time for myself. It's a wondrous thing. I even got to see Michael off to work this morning. It's always nice to have a few minutes alone together (contradiction in terms? eh.) in the morning. Somethin' about it really rejuvenates our marriage... It's the little things, I guess.
My coffee this morning is half.caf with pumpkin pie spices added to the brew basket. It's pretty yummy.
Since last week, God has really started me on a journey of self-discovery and inner healing.

mercy triumphs!

I've got the afternoon off!
My wonderful mother-in-law has whisked away my child for a few hours and I am loving it!
I had a Melaleuca party and now I'm just sitting at the computer, the windows are open (it's a BEAUTIFUL Fall day!) and my heart is humming with excitement and gratitude of what the Lord is doing in my life.

Firstly, any time I am getting ready for my parties, I get so excited about Melaleuca products! I know it sounds totally lame, but this stuff is seriously awesome. [ notice the new page for my business partners! ] And then the actual party comes and I get to talk about how this stuff totally rocks... It's not a bad part-time gig. :)

Secondly, I am really grateful that God is working in me and changing me.