8 months today 16th

Not a single single minute goes by in a day that I do not think about my Daddy. He has been gone now for 8 months and it still does not seem real to me. I am very happy that he is no longer in pain, but we miss him greatly. We are making lots of progress in life and helping mom settle into her new life. Not easy on any level. He would be so proud of Mom! She has worked really hard on all the things that he normally would have done. She has been creative in doing what she loves, steady in finishing projects, and faithful to honor Dad's name. Our next goal is to sell the Brenham house. It should be ready for  the market in two weeks. Then, we will reach for another goal. Here is the first table mom made when her heart hurt so deeply. 

One of my favorite pics. :) he was home for lunch break and had to snap a picture with his Rybear. 

When the girls found out about their new baby brother and baby cousin coming they put gifts on Grampy's gravesite. :) 

My husband

Thinking about the last 2 months and how grateful I am for you. Thank you for being my rock in the toughest time of my life. Thank you for holding me as I held my Daddy as he entered into eternity. Thank you for praying over me and walking out God's plan for our home. Thank you for loving my Mom with honor. Thank you for following your dreams, achieving your goals, and for your vision of what God has called you to do and be. :) Thanks for playing basketball again! Thanks for loving having a bunch of girls and watching girly movies with us. Thanks for loving my friends and my brother/sister/your brother/sister/nephew. Thank you for your Godly standard! Thank you for honoring my Dad with your words and actions. Thank you for honoring your parents with the same. Thank you for knowing when to minster to others and when to take a step back. Thank you for perception and wisdom. Thank you for being consistent without title. Thank you for all the extras you do that no one knows about. Thank you for our family to homeschool and go against traditional molds. Thank you for being honest with me. Thank you for loving me so well. I am not sure I could thank you enough, but from the bottom of my heart I thank you and love you! 

Day 1

And we are off...

We decided to break up our driving time so that Baby Liv would not have to sit in her seat for 7 hours. We stopped in Corpus Christi for the night at the Omni Hotel.

On the 3 hour drive Liv did great. She was ready to get out by the last hour, so I jumped in the back and we talked. I kinda got a bit car sick since I was leaning over talking to her and I was hungry. I was holding out for fresh shrimp!!

Our hotel pool was fun and Liv loved hanging out in the warm, fresh beach air.

We are up early and back on the road.

Randy and Emily Wedding!

Yippeee!! 

My girls with Mom and Dad standing in front of Old Blue. 

We are all ready for the wedding! 

The new HICKL family! :)

Mr. & Mrs. Randy Parr Hickl
March 17th, 2012

Our baby girl has a name...

Our baby girl has a name!!!

Liv Sophia Jackson

We prayed this over our 4th baby before we were expecting. :) 
Psalm 128:3

   Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes,
      your household lush as a vineyard,
   The children around your table
      as fresh and promising as young olive shoots.
   Stand in awe of God's Yes.
      Oh, how he blesses the one who fears God!

Liv (Latin: from the Olive Tree, Hebrew: Crown
Olive means wisdom, glory, power, pureness and peace.) 


Sophia: (Greek: wise and having great wisdom and foresight)

The baby is......

Big NEWS!

Guess who lives with us???

This was our Christmas card photo! 

 We went to Bethlehem on Main Street again this year. It was a BLAST!

 The library this year had a gingerbread house day. I was so happy they did this for our kids. It was free and I did not have to buy all the candy for my home. They really enjoyed it!

 Santa at the Sharps 2010. Even though we do not "do" Santa we love going to this party. The Sharps loved having Sing sit on Santa's lap for the first time at their party.

My daddy is CANCER FREE BABY!!!

One month ago my Dad rode 60 miles in a bike race. Two weeks later the dead tumor was causing an issue in the lung area. Basically, it had died and was sitting there causing problems.

Well, 2 weeks ago today he had 30% of his lower lobe of his lung removed. In less than 24 hours the x-ray showed the remaining portion of his lung at a 100%!!!!

Miracle...yes!

He was told that it would never return to 100 % and that he would not be able to ride to long distances in the future. Nah!! He will be riding twice as much! I just know it!!!

Surgery was VERY successful and that got all the cancer! He is recovering very nicely and went back to work today. He is still in some pain, but not as much as we all thought he would. Pure and simple...he is SUPER strong.

Look who came to live with us.....

SING!!!!!!!!! 

Welcome to the Jackson's Family Sing!!!

Mimi's Birthday!

We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and took pictures in the park behind the restaurant.

Sweet moment!

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTmas!

Mike took off the week of Thanksgiving, so he wanted to decorate the house inside and out for Christmas! And that is just what we did......

We picked out the BEST real tree this year! While we were buying ours an old customer from our tree stand saw us and had us help her pick out her tree. She really, really, misses us and wishes we were still selling. I have to be honest that 10 years was long enough for me. We made great memories, but now with the new season in our lives of orphan ministry, portable toilets and 3 children, I think we are ready to let that one job description go for now.

How sad!!! Cami's first real Christmas tree!

Let the work begin!

Even Papaw helped!

All special ornaments at the top and bows on the bottom.

I still have more bows to make for this tree.

CoCo's tree!

The Girl's tree! They love to play with EVERY thing on it too!

Now, if I could just get all the Christmas boxes back up in the attic!

Thanksgiving 2009

We spent Thanksgiving in Brenham with the Hickl's and the Kooi's. The Kooi's have a sweet  foreign exchange student from Germany named Felix. He was a pure joy to our Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for this year!

What a FUN and Blessed Day!