Happy Valentines Day!

For almost six years I have been married to Mr. Raymond Beckles and what a wonderful time we are having.  Someone has said that the honeymoon, "starstruck" time of your marriage lasts only about two years maximum.  I strongly disagree!  You can continue on your honeymoon for as long as you are willing to fight for it.  I can honestly say that when I married my "Mr. Right" I didn't know what I was getting myself into.  I can think of five people in my  family (including my grandmothers sisters and brothers) who actually took the time to get married.  Only three of those ten realationships remain today. One couple I have never met - my grandmothers brother and his wife.  Another of the three I have only met the husband - my great-uncle. The last of those three recently ceased because my uncle (my mothers 40 year old brother) died (heart attack); and I am happy to report they he was saved and that they were happily married. I wasn't raised around happily married couples.  After I was saved I was exposed to many homes and I payed close attention to the parents' relationships in those homes.  I learned a lot just by observing.  I thought our marriage would be easy to keep "heavenly" because I married the best man in the world and I am pretty easy going and I forgive and forget easily.{I didn't expect to have much to need to forgive and forget... after all, I married God's perfect choice for me...}  Boy, did I have a lot to learn.  Even "Mr. Perfect choice for Me" isn't perfect...and neither am I.  The purpose of this post is just to encourage you to fight for a heavenly marriage.  The Devil desires to "steal, kill and to destroy" (John 10:10)  The Destroyer and our enemy desires to destroy our homes.  One easy way to do that is to destroy the romance and love between a husband and wife - the foundation of our homes.  I have learned (most of this this year):

1.  Anytime you have a negative thought enter your mind about your beloved, realize who is the originator of it and replace it with positives.  My husband jokes now about how he used to call home before he came home just to make sure the Devil hadn't convinced me that he was the devil in disguise.  Sometimes I would get so upset about some little thing (he left his dirty socks on the floor again!, He forgot to .... blah blah blah...you get the idea) and it would snowball.  By the time he came home I would be so upset and would become cold and stiff.
2.  Tell him how great he is...and don't let him get out of it.  My husband doesn't always recieve compliments very well, so I have made it my goal to help him by giving him practice.
3.  Schedule "sugar" days.  Certain days of the week are mine and certain days of the week are his.   It is scheduled.  How un-romantic  you may say; but it works. This is very important!  You didn't go through your honeymoon a day without it, why stop now. His "sugar" is always...um..."sugar"; but sometimes mine is a back rub or a foot rub.  We leave one day a week open.
4.Make sure he knows he is in first place in your heart, not the children.  Not your parents.  When our children are infants I pay special attention to this.  I spend so much time performing their necessities (I also enjoy holding them, smelling them, and kissing them when they can't complain) that it is easy to leave him out.  (Our special "sugar" schedule helps with this point too!) One thing I have learned is to not let them interrupt him when he is talking to me.  No matter how important they think what they are saying is (unless there is a REAL emergency.

Four tips to keep you sweet for your honey!

Until next time,

Our Special Guest

Introducing my little three year old niece Devorianna Mishanna Doncha Ceasar (my sister's name is Devoria).  We call her Anna for short.  We were in a conference in OKC and she spent the night with us, and she was such a joy that I asked my sister if I could take her for the next two weeks and bring her back home when we returned for another conference in the area.  She agreed; but with tears.  Understandably!  I let Aaliyah stay with her grandparents in California for two weeks last Christmas...and let me tell ya, that won't happen again (at least not any time soon). 
Honestly, I didn't know what to expect.  Her home is quite different from ours and I didn't know how she would adjust to lets say...having to go to church at least three times a week. (Sometimes we visit other churches in Ark. for fellowship which can come to as much as six times a week.)  No cable television, watching only a few DVD and VHS (she didn't know what a VHS tape was...gasp!) etc, etc.  You get the picture.  Also in our home everyone is expected to obey right away.    Let me tell you, she wasn't the one in trouble most of the time.  My little, sweet, precious Aaliyah got into most of the trouble.  I only had to get onto Anna once or twice the whole time she was here.  How my ornery sister ended up with such a sweet and precious child I will never know. 
Seriously,  I found myself convicted about how little I pray for this dear child.  She absolutely LOVED sitting at the table for all of her meals, taking a nap everyday, and having story/song/prayer time every night before bed.  By the time she left she was praying on her own for anything she ate ("Dear God, thank you for Jesus.  Amen") and singing "The B-I-B-L-E"  word perfect.  If you think of it please whisper a prayer for my little Annas.  She needs the Lord's protection and grace in her life. 
Recently I was able to get in touch with a brother in the Lord who started a church just like ours in the area where she lives.  I was so excited.   this was just one of the blessing we received after attending the conference in Oklahoma. I gave my family's address to this dear pastor and his wife and they will be trying to get them all in church.  My heart will be so blessed if she gets to ride the van to church with them.  I would be even more blessed if my whole family got into church and let the Lord do a might work in their lives.  They all have a tremendous respect for my husband and I; but have not jumped onto the Truth that we embrace.  Once again, Please pray with me about this matter.  Thank you!!!

After her last service with us at church (She just woke up.)

Allie and Anna read a book before naptime.

Her first full day with us we went to the Care home to read scripture. 
You can see on her face that he is unsure about this whole thing.

Anna and Allie sing a special "The B-I-B-L-E" after church.

Annas favorite Sunday dinner.

She is a chocolate fan!... A girl after my own heart.

Cousins

For the past two weeks I have been a little busy.  We decided to bring my niece back with us from OKC since we had to head back that way in a couple of weeks anyway.  We all had a blast!!!  I will post more about this fun time later.  Ta-ta for now.

Until next time,

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  We sure did.  It was more a day of relaxation and refreshment.  We also had a wonderful New Year's Day.  All of our members were in church!  What a wonderful way to start the new year.  I am so thankful that the first day of the year was a Sunday.  We also had a wonderful Sunday yesterday.  A couple of weeks ago we visited the home of a woman who recently moved to Newport.  She saw us at McDonalds and told us she wanted to come to our church.  (We've heard that before!)  Well, she called me Friday and said she needed a ride.  (Surprise #1)  Then when I went to pick her up on Sunday she was waiting by the door (Surprise #2)!  When I dropped her off after church she was so excited.  She said she will be back next week with her daughter.  What a blessing! 

The purpose for this post is to tell you that I will probably be MIA for a few weeks.  We have a couple of meetings to attend out of town so I will be away from my local library.  Please pray for us as we share our burden for Newport with those who may never visit; but will possibly be pledging their support and prayers.

Until next time,

Christmas Cookie Help

Every year we decorate Christmas cookies as a family and give them away to the kids in our church.  One year we invited the kids over to have a cookie decorating contest, and then let them eat the cookies.  This year we invited the girls to decorate cookes at church  while the boys went out and collected food for the orphanage.  We had a blast!  The girls did a great job and I am looking forward to eating them at our Christmas party; but maily this post is to share with you what I have learned over the years from baking cookies for Christmas.  I have now picked out my favorite recipe for Sugar cookes as well as my favorite icing to decorate them with.  This recipe for cookies tastes sort of like pop tart dough to me {which I like!}; but mainly I chose this recipe because it uses less eggs, it is a joy to work with ( the cookies hold their shape really well after they are cut and baked), and did I already mention that it tastes good! I chose this icing recipe because it is very easy and keeps a nice gloss, it also tastes good!

Cookie recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• Tinted icings, colored sugars, edible glitter and nonpareils

Directions

• In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.

• On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-in. thickness. Cut out with Christmas cookie cutters of your choice. *Using a floured spatula, transfer cookies to greased baking sheets.

• Bake at 375° for 8-10 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks.

• Decorate cookies with frosting, sugars and candies.

*Tips: I prefer to lightly flour wax or parchment paper to roll my cooled dough onto for cutting. This allows me to “plop” the shape onto the cookie sheets. If necessary sometimes I cut the paper around the cut dough, then plop it onto the cookie sheet. This prevents me from disturbing the shape. I also line my cookie sheets with foil instead of greasing them in order to save my cookie sheets and my oil.   Another thing I like to do is cut a small shape inside of a shape and fill it with crushed hard candy after baking the cookies for about six or seven minutes.  I then return the cookies to the oven and let the candy melt for about three or four minutes.  This give me the stained glass window look inside a cookie. 

Icing recipe:

1 cup powdered sugar (C&H truly is the best; but others will work)
1TBS.  milk
1 TBS.  light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
assorted food coloring (drops or gell)

Directions

1.In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup and/or milk 1 tsp. at a time. Keep in mind that the corn syrup is what allows the colors (when using dye) to stay nice a bright. Add flavoring to taste once you get the amount of icing you want before adding color.
2.Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or paint them with a brush.

This will ice about a dozen cookies.

Photos of our adventure

My Favorite!  She is really concentrating.

Un-decorated Christmas tree cookie pops!

Alliyah enjoyed eating all of her cookies.

Cookie icing color palate!

Patiently waiting to get started.

The brave boys who went out in the cold to get food for the orphans.

Thank You! (4)

I would like to say thank you to a very special person whom I will not name.  (Really this thank you is for a special family.)  When I was a Senior in high school I moved out of our home and moved into the dormitory of our church's college.   Because of this my needs were not immediately apparent to my family as the number of times they saw me decreased drastically.  {Knowing what I know now, I wish I had waited until I was in college to move away from home; but the Lord knows what is best.  I say this because that year I lost one of my brothers to a car accident; and a couple of years later I lost the other one to a drive by shooting.} 

 I can only imagine how I must have looked that would inspire such generosity; but in August of 2000 a lady took me on a shopping spree.  How cool is that!!!  I spent no money; but returned to the dorm with SEVERAL undergarments, slips, and pantyhose; four new skirts; and several blouses.    What a tremendous blessing this family was to me during my time in college.  I will NEVER forget that.  So, to you wonderful people who look around for someone to bless, Thank you!!! 

 Lesson:  Don't ask someone if they have a need when they obviously do; Do what you can to help, or keep your mouth shut. I mean that in the nicest way possible, of course!

Until next time,

Battling the Whine!

 Anyone who has little girls, and maybe even little boys, in their home knows how annoying it is to hear whining all day!  Well, we may have had a breakthrough!  Sometime this Summer (maybe around June) I asked the Lord to help me help Aaliyah not to whine.  I didn't want to have to spank her every time she whined.  I subscribe to No Greater Joy publications and they had an article in their magazine about dealing with anger in small children.  One the Pearl children is dealing with that in their home and their solution was to sometimes spank, but sometimes tickle it out of her.  Well, Aaliyah begs me to tickle her sometimes {Strange, I know} so I felt like the tickle trick might be a reward for whining rather than a punishment.  So my trick is the "Happy face" trick.  When she starts whining because the answer was No I immediately say to her, "Happy face!".  She might think it's dumb; but her forced happy faces are so funny that I ALWAYS start to crack up laughing!.  This inevitably causes her to smile (sometimes even laugh) for real. 

I say that we may have made a breakthrough because this morning when I told her she couldn't take her baby doll with her to the library, she started to whine; but immediately said to herself "Happy Face!".  I was so proud of her!  She is now training herself not to whine!  Isn't that great!  If you have any other tips about Battling the Whine that has worked for you please share!

Until next time,