Selah’s First Birthday Party….

On Saturday we celebrated Selah’s first birthday!!  I still CANNOT believe she is already a year old.  Time has flown by since she was born!!  We were supposed to do a joint party with my friend, Katie’s, little boy, Charlie, but Katie came down with a nasty stomach virus, so we ended up doing a party for Selah at our house with our family.  My parents, Michael’s parents and my grandmother, Sis Sis, came.  It was great fun and SO laid back.  I’m thinking these type of parties are the way to go…just family, low-key, no stress and enjoyable!!  I’m already talking to Myla about doing the same for her party this summer.  So far, she is in agreement!! 

The birthday girl having a “pre-party” snack.  She was in a pretty good mood yesterday, thankfully!  If she’s not in a good mood, you better watch out!

Myla was beside herself to have Sae Sae & Granddaddy AND Mimi & Bodie AND Sis Sis here all at the same time!!

She was ready to celebrate!! She was so sweet, and she kept telling Selah, “It’s your birthday party, Selah…YAY!!”

I had this cute birthday hat for Selah to wear, but you can tell what she thought about it by the look on her face!

Sweet girl having fun at her party!  She loved having the attention on her, I believe!

Pretty girl!

Myla put on several “shows” on her stage while all of her grandparents were here.

For lunch, we had bbq sandwiches and chips…did I mention this party was EASY!  Selah pretty much enjoyed a lunch of cheese balls, which I am pretty sure would now qualify as her favorite food!

Bodie, Myla and Sis Sis enjoying their lunches!

“Forget the bbq, Mom!  These cheese puffs are the way to go!!”

Selah with both of her grandmothers!  It is so wonderful to have our parents close to us so they can be here to celebrate with us at times like this!

The birthday cake!!  It was SO cute!  It smelled delicious, but since I’m on my weight loss program, I didn’t have any!! 

Selah’s “smash” cake!

Singing “Happy Birthday”!!!

I think it would be an understatement to say that she enjoyed her cake.  She LOVED it!! 

Digging in for more…

She couldn’t get enough!

Can you tell she LOVED it!!  I love how she gets tickled at herself while she is eating it!

I think this smile tells you what she thought about it!!

“Cheese puffs AND my OWN cake???  This is the life!!! I need to turn “1” more often!”

After lunch and cake, we opened presents.  Selah was interested at first, but she let Myla help her out!

Trying her best to get the ribbon off of one of her gifts.

Quite possibly my favorite picture of the day!  Love the pointed toe!!

Myla finished opening up the gifts!

This past week Selah started walking!!  She is not walking primarily, but she is taking lots and lots of steps everyday.  She is so funny to watch because she is so wobbly, but she is improving each day!

One thing about Selah is that she never stops!  Here she is crawling over my legs to get where she wants to go!

I love those big, blue eyes!

Myla getting some love from Mimi.

And Selah getting some love from Daddy!

Bodie, Selah and Mimi…it was getting close to naptime, so don’t mind the pacifier!

Sae Sae, Selah and Granddaddy

Sis Sis took Selah’s paci away, so you can tell things are going downhill!!

Mommy and Daddy with their birthday girl!

Our little family of four!!

Myla and two of her favorite people!

After Selah went down for a nap, Myla put on another show by singing songs and dancing!  She had a captivated audience!!  She would “invite” people into her show, and she told them they had to have a ticket.  HA!

Our little performer!

After Selah got up from her nap, Michael was eating an apple.  Well, Selah LOVES to eat on an apple, so she was trying her best to get some off of that core! 

After all of the cheese puffs and cake she had eaten, having a little apple was probably a good idea!

Getting as much as she can!!

I tried to get a picture of the girls before bed, but as you can see, that is nearly impossible these days with Selah always on the move!

Oh well, surely one day, I’ll be able to get a decent picture with the two of them together!

Wow..sorry for the awfully long post!!!  I just wanted Selah to have her day documented!

You Can Help the Orphans in Ethiopia…

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to LOOK AFTER ORPHANS and widows IN THEIR DISTRESS and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

I love this verse, as it was one that heavily spoke to us when we were praying about adoption.  We are ALL called to look after orphans.  You may not feel led or called to adopt, but you have the opportunity to look after the orphans in Ethiopia today. 

Last Friday, it was announced that the Ethiopian government might decrease the number of adoptions by 90%.  It was said that the courts were going to go from hearing 50 cases per day to 5 per day.  This would certainly affect so many orphans in Ethiopia as well as the families that are here waiting to bring them home.  It could change everything about the adoption process from there.  The wait time could become much, much longer, and it is already LONG enough for those who are waiting.  I am asking you to take a moment and sign this petition that will be sent to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi.  This petition is an effort of the Joint Council of International Children’s Services to persuade the Ethiopian government to not take such drastic measures.  Right now, there are over 11,000 signatures, but they hope to have 250,000 before Saturday.  Please spread the word!!!!!!

I have always said, adoption is not the answer to the global orphan crisis, but it certainly does help.  Children that would otherwise not have a family, have one through adoption! You can help these sweet babies.  Please take a moment to sign the petition on their behalf.

Yard Sale…

Let me begin by saying that when I decided we would have a yard sale, I had NO IDEA what that really “looked like”!  I knew we would find an indoor place to have it, and I knew that we would ask people to donate things that they would like to get rid of, and I knew that I was going to have to have A LOT of help, but I never knew how much our God would show up and provide!

First, I knew I would need an indoor place to have the sale. After checking several places, nothing was panning out.  Then, one night I call my friend, Sarah, who’s husband is the pastor at The Orchard Church, to ask her who to call about renting a place where their church used to meet.  We talked for a few minutes, then hung up.  Hardly anytime later, Sarah called me back and said, “Meredith, we want y’all to use our church to have the yard sale.  You can use the building, the parking lot and you can have availability to the church the entire week.”  Can you say ANSWERED PRAYER??  I was so thankful, but I had no idea how perfect their church campus ended up being for the sale.  I worked in the church every day during the week, which was such a blessing.  Then, it poured down rain Friday and Saturday, so it was wonderful that everything was INSIDE so I didn’t have to worry about the weather!  I cannot thank Pat, Sarah and The Orchard Church family enough.

Okay, then onto people donating items.  YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE AMOUNT OF STUFF WE GOT!  Oh my word…it was seriously overwhelming!  Never underestimate what people can dig out of their houses…ha!  We had collected a lot of stuff prior to the drop off days, but things started pouring in throughout the week.  Tons and tons of things!  It was so exciting!!!!  And, yes, we priced every single item with the exception of clothing, thanks to the suggestion of my friend, Stephanie.  It took an army….and speaking of, God provided that too.  I cannot even express my gratitude to my friends and family that spent HOURS, YES HOURS, helping me.  Unloading, sorting, pricing, organizing, staying up late and getting up early…they did it all.  AND they had smiles on their faces and encouraging words on their lips the whole time!  God has blessed me with unbelievable friends.  Unbelievable! 

I took lots of pictures, but not nearly as many as I would have liked.  I wish I would have done a better job of this, but to say that we were all busy is a huge understatement! 

Another person I cannot thank enough is my sweet husband.  I was gone EVERY night last week until late.  He had the stomach virus, but was able to keep the girls so I could work at the sale.  I’m thankful for his patience and the patience of my girls.  I’m sure Myla is very excited that the “lard sale”, as she calls it, is over!  I’m also thankful for my mother-in-law, who kept the girls Friday and Saturday, and even spent the night “camping out” in the den with Myla on the air mattress!!

We started taking things from our garage to the church on Tuesday.  I was actually there on Monday to set up bunches of tables to hold everything.  As you can see, our van was LOADED down!!  We made several trips like this.  The poor girls look lost in the van…in fact Myla was behind the table on this particular trip!

Selah had no idea what was going on!  Poor babies had a tough week being out of their routine and being away from Mommy!

This was on Thursday during the organization!  The room in this picture is the churches sanctuary.  I wasn’t even planning on using this room initially because I had NO IDEA how much stuff we would be getting.  Needless to say, we eventually realized we were going to have to open this room up and utilize the space.  It’s a good thing we did, because it was practically full.  It ended up being an extra blessing because of the POURING RAIN that came down on Saturday.  Everything was inside, thank goodness!

The pulpit area became our mini shoe department.  Shoes eventually came out several rows deep from the stage!

This is the churches foyer where we had the home/kitchen goods as well as our “holiday’ section and purses.  HA! I’m telling you, we had our own little department store going on!

Another shot of the home section…..keep in mind, this was early on.  We got so much more stuff…it was CRAZY!

Another home goods area shot!

This was the extension of the foyer with the linens and holiday section.  We eventually had to add another table to the right of these tables, and the ground ended up being covered with mats, rugs and more Christmas stuff as well as an overflow of purses!

This is looking into the sanctuary from the foyer into the clothing section.  We had so many clothes!!!!!!  The way we sold them was that you could fill a Wal*Mart sack for $5 or a garbage bag for $12.  I bought a roll of 84 garbage bags, and while we were packing up the left over clothes to donate, I RAN OUT of garbage bags!  A lot of FULL garbage bags were sold!

The toy section….this was eventually OVERFLOWING!!  The chairs behind the tables were covered as well as the ground all around the table!  Kids that came in were in paradise!

Me and Holli being silly LATE on Thursday night!!!  Someone donated some ancient cell phones…probably around a 1994 model.  They were huge!  It was hysterical!  They also donated some beepers that we were sporting on our waist bands!!  We were a little delirious as it was nearing midnight, and we had been working all day!

The furniture section…I wish I had gotten a picture of it right before the sale.  Christina and Holli set it up to look like a living room!  It was so cute!

This was on Friday afternoon.  You can tell the toy section was getting more full!

This hallway served as our baby section!

This was later on Friday…stuff galore!!

Another picture of the sanctuary getting full!

Christina working hard…I COULD NOT have done this sale without her.  If I was at the church, she was there too.  She, along with many others, were my lifesavers!

Christmas section

Purses and bags!

How cute is this banner that my sweet friend, Hilarie, made!  I was so excited to hang this up so people would know exactly what this sale was about!

Here are Holli, Katie and me testing out my self timer on the camera!  We had been out putting up signs around town advertising the sale.  I had spent HOURS on all of my signs, and I was so proud of them.  Well, the wind and the rain were too kind to them, to say the least.  Oh well!

So thankful for these friends.  This was midnight after putting out all of the signs!

Read for the preview sale on Friday night!!!

As people walked in, this is pretty much what they saw!  Both of the doors on the other side of the room led to other parts of the sale!

Katie and Sis Sis selling the raffle tickets for the Chick-Fil-A gift card and the birthday party at Holli’s sweet tooth!

These pictures are pretty rough of me (that’s what getting hardly any sleep and wearing no makeup will do), but I wanted to document. This is me and my sweet, energizer bunny Mom.  She was SO MUCH HELP!  She would teach all day, then come help me at night.  So thankful for her and my step-dad, Frank!

Me and Katie

Me and Michael

People shopping on Saturday morning

More shoppers!

Sweet Grace drew for our raffles….we figured she was a good choice since she couldn’t read the names and potentially “cheat”!

Don’t you love her Africa shirt!!  She thinks that Myla is getting a baby named “Africa”!

Whew…that was a LONG post!  What a crazy week and weekend this yard sale was, but it was a huge success.  Despite the pouring rain, we had a lots of shoppers and we raised a total of $3,750!!!! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We’re going to get this baby HOME!!!!!!

If you are thinking of having a yard sale and need some pointers, feel free to email me (meredithmeurrier@yahoo.com).  I will be happy to help.  It was quite the undertaking, but I felt like it went smoothly with a lot of planning and hard work!  I will be happy to help in any way I can!

First Things First…

This week has been SO crazy that we have just been trying to keep our heads above water around here, but a monumental thing happened on yesterday…our sweet, baby Selah turned 1!!  Unfortunately, we were buried in yard sale stuff, so I didn’t get to see her much on Friday.  BUT we are going to make up for it next weekend when we have a dual party for her and Charlie.  I am going to do an “official” twelve month post soon, but I wanted to document it today!!!

March 4th, 2010 @ 7:57 pm, Selah entered the world…what a wonderful moment in mine and Michael’s life!

And a year later, here is that little spitfire!!  I know the Lord has big things in store for Selah because she is a determined little thing when she wants something.  I pray that she has that same determination, as she grows, to know and live for the Lord!

WE LOVE YOU, SELAH!

I am going to do a post for the yard sale tomorrow, hopefully.  But, let me just say, it was amazing!  I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Overwhelmed…

Yesterday was a very overwhelming day for me, but overwhelming in a good way!!  A few weeks ago I was trying to think of ideas for something for volunteers at our yard sale to wear.  I thought about t-shirts, but I didn’t know if I wanted to incur the expense that would come with that.  I was sharing this with Mrs. Janet Simpson, a lady in my church, and she had the idea to get aprons.  I thought it was a great idea, so I got on ebay and found some for super cheap.  She said that she would make them cute, and she enlisted the help of two other ladies to help her sew!  Well, last night, they gave them to me a church, and they are SO cute.  They worked and made 25 of these in 1 day!!  And, every apron is different and unique.  I just love them, and I love their hearts for being willing to help!  Now, all of our volunteers will have something to wear and something to take home as a token of our appreciation!  (Men that are helping, don’t feel obligated to wear one!!! Ha!)

Here I am with the sweet ladies that worked so hard!  Are the aprons not ADORABLE!!  As they were giving me the aprons, Mrs. Janet mentioned that mine was different.  Before she pulled it out, she said, “We made yours different.  We wanted it to be special, and we wanted you to know that this whole process is not about us, and it is not even about you, Michael and your family, but is it about CHRIST! That is why yours have a cross on the top.”  Of course, I just started crying because it was such a reminder that it is about HIM. All of this is about HIM and our obedience.  Can I just tell you that I was overwhelmed and thankful!

Ben, the guy taking our picture thought it would be funny to get a shot when none of us were ready.  I thought it was pretty funny!

Another reason I was overwhelmed yesterday was because when I went to our mailbox, there were 3 cards with checks for donations for our adoption.  Completely unexpected….all on the same day.  I just cried as I opened them and read the cards.  The sweet words were such an encouragement to me…more than the ones that sent them will ever know.  GOD IS SO GOOD. He is our Jehovah Jirah.  He will provide, and He is faithful!