such a slacker am I  :) I feel like my weeks...weekends...months have all been running together with trips, and photo shoots, and a sick babe. I recently participated in the Thrifty Love Gift Exchange, I was paired up with a blogger Jami (you can find her here) and you have a $10 spending limit to be thrifty and send a package to the person you are paired with. I must say I loved it, and I loved the salt and pepper shakers as well as the drying rag I got. Thank you Jami :) Since Ava sometimes gets up in the middle of the night I decided to put mini lights in the salt and pepper shakers and they light up our kitchen at night. 

Here are just some brief photos from our vacation to Charleston SC, we loved it. Jeremy and I went there a few years back for a wedding and fell in love with the area. This year for vacation we decided to go back and bring Ava this time. We stopped in Atlanta to hang out with family for a few days and had a blast. Ava seemed to fall in love with my uncle, part of it is because he is just a fun guy, and the other reason is because he would do WHAT.EVER he wanted..including wearing mardigras beads, including dancing around quacking like a duck. You can tell her no.  We had a good time though, just the three of us. We revisited some of our favorite places and restaurants from our last trip, as well as found some new favorites. I will never get enough of that place...the history, the food, the multiple beaches. Love it. I was sad to come home.

updates

i have been slacking in the blog world :( we have had tons of stuff going on this past week. get me through this week and the next then its off on vacation we will go. for now, here has been the life of the butcher family.

 

ava and i got to spend the afternoon hanging out with my sister on saturday and we went to 2nd street market in downtown dayton, always have wanted to go there and i am in love. 

 

got a red velvet cake frape. delish.

 

and ava went for a cookies and cream popcicle with a oreo in the middle

yesterday my mother in law kept ava for the day, i got jeremy tickets for a reds game and we took of in the morning and spent the day in cincinnati. it was a great time, great game, but it.was.hot

here we are melting. 

this little guy...we became bestfriends. free small cups of ice, i think i got 4 because it was really hotter than hades...and i look like a lobster to prove it.

 

oh, and not to mention...we won!

something to think on

I met up with my quad of women from house church not too long ago, at our every other week meetings and they always make me walk away immensely blessed. They are such a sense of encouragement and accountability to me. 

One of them provided a sheet of paper..I don't know where this excerpt is from but its something  that I have been meditating on for awhile now, and it says this:

Nothing is so small or trivial as to escape the attention of God's sovereign control; nothing is so great  as to be beyond His power to control it. The insignificant sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his will; the mighty Roman empire cannot crucify Jesus Christ unless that power is given to it by God. And what is true for the sparrow and for Jesus is true for you and me. No detail of your life is too insignificant for your heavenly Father's attention; no circumstance is so big that He cannot control it.

Sometimes I get caught up in life, sometimes I feel repetitive in my prayers and what I am asking for. Sometimes I feel as though what I am asking is insignificant to what others might need or are coming to God with. 

A lot of times, I just slack in talking to him...because I am too busy, too tired, because I would rather sit and read a book rather then spend quality time with him.

No matter what the source is; I mean something to him, he cherishes those moments that I spend in the word and talking to him. Whether it is my frustration with getting Ava potty trained, my challenges I face as a mother to a toddler and my insecurities with parenting, or my illness; this is not insignificant to him...these are all things he cares about. Whether it be the smallest insecurity or a huge struggle in my life, whether it's just talking to him about my day and checking in, or going to him in prayer. ALL of these things mean something to him...ALL of them, no matter how big or small it may seem to him. He will guide me, he will control it, he will get me through whatever it may be. He wants that quality time with me.

updates

lots of stuff going on, I feel like our weeks have been filled with craziness...here is some updates on the butchers. 

her obsession with tutus has far out exceeding anything I could imagine..because we wear them all.the.time.

ava and i got to spend the afternoon with my sister and went to 2nd street market for the first time. i have always wanted to go here, and soooo want to go back again.

i fell in love with this...red velvet frappe

                

and ava this...a cookies and cream popcicile with an oreo in the middle

jeremy and i went to a reds game, i got him tickets for fathers day...man was it hot!!!

it was a good time, reds one, and i got burnt to a crisp. i look like a lobster. swear.

melting.

cinci skyline, i am a city girl at heart. love it there.

this was my best friend...free cups of really small ice. i think i made 3 or 4 trips because it was really hotter than hades. 

summa summa summa time...

oh how I love summer, oh how I wish I could take June through August off so I could post camp by my parents pool, go to to the farmers markets, and garage sales on Friday anytime I wanted. 

 

Here is our summer so far 

 

cousin love

for real...she's 3!

take 1,2,3,4,& 5

happy birthday baby girl! 

birthday loves

:)

 

yep, thats what we've been up to. 

adoption weekend

It was adoption weekend at our church...I L.O.V.E this weekend so much, it tugs on my heart so much. Adoption has always been something that I wanted to persue. I have always "talked" about wanting to do it, more so than ever I really want to do it. I don't know what God's plan for us in this journey...if it is local, international, becoming a foster parent prior to adopting or even the ages. We really need to pray to him and see what he reveals to us. My heart breaks for these children without a parent. I can't help but hope that I would have the opportunity to give them a gift of a mom or a dad. 

 

oh how time flies...

whew..it has been forever, I need to keep up with this more, so much has happened...lets see. Ava met her uncle last week, it was the first time I have seen my brother since June 2007 and he melted her heart. It was so sweet to see them together. 

Ava was a cup cake for Halloween, she. HATED. it! HATED it I tell you, we made it to one house, it was off with in 30 minutes...pics are soon to follow.

Our pastor at church has been talking about "white hot worship", when you are really worshiping the Lord that is when we start to see a change in our church. After reading this I came across this from Francis Chan

Lukewarm people tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives 

 

Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin. They don’t genuinely hate sin and aren’t truly sorry for it; they’re merely sorry because God is going to punish them. Lukewarm people don’t really believe that this new life Jesus offers is better than the old sinful one 

 

Lukewarm people are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act. They assume such action is for “extreme” Christians, not average ones. Lukewarm people call “radical” what Jesus expected of all His followers

 

Lukewarm people say they love Jesus, and He is, indeed, a part of their lives. But only a part. They give Him a section of their time, their money, and thoughts, but He isn’t allowed to control their lives 

 

Lukewarm people love God, but they do not love Him with all their heart, soul, and strength. They would be quick to assure you that they try to love God that much, but that sort of total devotion isn’t really possible for the average person; it’s only for pastors and missionaries and radicals 

 

Lukewarm people love others but do not seek to love others as much as they love themselves. Their love of others is typically focused on those who love them in return, like family, friends, and other people they know and connect with. There is little love left over for those who cannot love them back, much less for those who intentionally slight them, whose kids are better athletes than theirs, or with whom conversations are awkward or uncomfortable. Their love is highly conditional and very selective, and generally comes with strings attached 

 

Lukewarm people are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control. This focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God 

 

Lukewarm people feel secure because they attend church, made a profession of faith at age twelve, were baptized, come from a Christian family, vote Republican, or live in America. Just as the prophets in the Old Testament warned Israel that they were not safe just because they lived in the land of Israel, so we are not safe just because we wear the label Christian or because some people persist in calling us a “Christian nation”

Thoughts? Sometimes I feel like I am unfortunalty a part of this check list...I have some of these issues and I don't want tobe this. Thank goodness for Gods grace for me.