I Have No Greater Joy

I feel so blessed to be a mom to four kids who love the Lord and truly desire to follow Him.  

I am so humbled when I think about the kind of life I once lived 

and now see my kids making choices that are so much wiser than mine were.  

I know that all the glory goes to God alone for who they are.  

January 6th we celebrated the birth of our first born son's 22nd birthday!

Where has time gone?

It's been good.... and no, I wouldn't rewind time if I could.  

I have enjoyed each stage of their lives and look forward to the years ahead.

To begin the celebration we enjoyed a delicious, luxurious meal at Red Lobster.

We love Red Lobster but rarely can afford to go there.  

A couple from church blessed us with a gift certificate to Red Lobster

which made it possible for us to go.  Several of the other kids paid for their own so that 

also kept our bill down.

We were honored to have Grandpa and Grandma Weaver join us, too.

It's always special to have them join us.

Hope Fellowship was having Revival Meetings with Dave Miller so we were planning to go there after dinner.  We thought church started at 7:30 and knew it would push us to get done eating by then.  Dustin was late coming home from work, we had to wait in line for awhile at the restaurant, and then found out that church started at 7:00 instead of 7:30 so, we missed church.  

The youth had a surprise party planned for Dustin afterwards so we had to delay him as long as we could at the restaurant.  Finally we decided to go to Walmart and "help" Kyle buy what he needed for the youth car wash (next post).  We were sure Dustin was going to get suspicious that we insisted that we ALL go to Walmart shopping but he just went along with our plans, which is pretty typical of his personality ever since he was little.  He was never one to raise a big fuss if things didn't go his way but just accepted life as it came.

FINALLY it was time to take him home where the surprise awaited and SURPRISE they did! The youth had all parked at a nearby vacant lot so he wouldn't see their vehicles.  As he arrives home and is obliviously walking in, jabbering away to KaShondra, suddenly streams of silly string and shouts of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" come from all directions!  Three of the guys were on the roof and got him good while others came running around the corners of the house!  To say he was surprised would be an under statement!

A camp fire was already burning in the back yard, hot dogs, cupcakes, s'mores, etc. were the topping on the evening.  Instead of gifts they all donated some money, wadded it up individually, and mixed it with paper confetti, yarn balls, sprayed it with some horrible smelling "old lady" perfume and gave it to him to put towards a new guitar.  He plays guitar quite a bit for the youth and at church sometimes.  The guitar he has was given to him quite a few years ago so a new one would be in order. He was overwhelmed with their generosity! 

You are never too old for "under ducks"!

A firecracker was buried in a hot dog and "roasted" over the fire where 

of course, the girls were calmly visiting!

Not naming names here, but moms, you may recognize your son's shirts here.

(Mm-hmm, yes NY mom, you, too!  )

The guys are standing back, gagging, sputtering, and coughing from the "old lady" perfume smell.

 a purple piggy bank stuffed with yarn balls and one dollar bills!

What great joy to have a whole group of kids who love to have fun and know how to bless each other!

(Any moms identify shirts with heads yet?!) ha!