I came home from Caribou last night after a closing shift and chatted with my mom for a while. She came to give me a hug after our conversation and I put my arm out and said, "Oh, Mom, you don't want to do that. I smell like Caribou (long shift)."She instantly replied, "It's ok, I love coffee." Unconditional love on display 🙂

Thanks to Ginny P for the link to these pics capturing the moments before the inauguration tomorrow. Pretty amazing.

Weather forecasters have called for snow tonight in Charlotte. It's the first snow of the year. I am cracking up, though, because people are calling for schools and businesses to be shut down. Grocery stores are loaded with people stocking up on milk and bread. All of this because they are forecasting 2-4 inches of snow. Now, I may be a Floridian, but somewhere in me is a trace of Michigan blood. I was just up there last week and there were several FEET of snow on the ground.I'm not quite so sure what all the ballyhoo is all about.

I wonder if people will still have Super Bowl parties even though it's the Cardinals vs. Steelers? That was a joke.I'm sure no one would've taken that bet at the beginning of the year! Crazy. This is one of the reasons that I love the NFL. So much parity. Each year can be a new, unexpected team. Last year it was the Giants. This year the Cardinals. Next year the Bucs.I love the NFL.

God's provision comes in so many ways. Here's a brief look at some of the things that have happened this month:- We started off the month with just over $200 in our fundraising account and no guarantee for February's salary. In the past two weeks, we have received $1,800 of donations to our salary. We're not there yet, but God is bringing in the finances. He always provides.- A family in our church gave us a $100 American Express gift card on Sunday. Little did they know that we needed that amount to get the double stroller that we had been looking at for our ever-growing family. (We are now...

I want to say a big thank you to Jon Gruden for bringing the Super Bowl Championship Trophy to Tampa Bay in 2003. I would also like to thank the Glazer family for FINALLY moving in a new direction! Gruden did some great things in Tampa, but it's time for a change, and I absolutely LOVE the hire of Raheem Morris as our new head coach.I love the trend in the NFL right now of going with younger, unproven guys with new ideas and tons of passion. It may take a bit of time, but I think this is going to work out really, really well for the Bucs!

What a crazy emotinal roller coaster the last two weeks have been.We welcomed Baby Ben on Tuesday morning, came home on Friday and then my grandfather, Bernard Docusen, passed away on Sunday afternoon. I headed up to Michigan on Tuesday night and spent a couple of days with my family celebrating the amazing life of my grandpa. More to come on grandpa in an upcoming blog. An amazing man that lived an incredible life. You can click on the link of his name if you want to read about him.I just got in last night to Charlotte and immediately went and worked a closing shift at Caribou. I woke up...

You'd think that after having our fourth child that we'd have this all figured out. To prove that point further, the nurses in the hospital would actually come to our room for a "break" from all the new parents. One of our nurses even asked us to teach a "parents of newborns" class for the other parents in the hospital.All of our expertise went out the window when we got home. We may have already successfully made it through the newborn stage 3 times, but we've never experienced THIS.We got home yesterday and the floodgates opened. Max (5), Mary (almost 4) and Jack (almost 2) are absolutely...

Gator Nation added one tiny little member this week with the addition of Baby Ben to our world! We are in the hospital room as we speak watching the national championship game between the Florida Gators and the Oklahoma Sooners.Go Gators!

I absolutely adore Baby Ben. He is so chill. Loves to cuddle, sleep and eat. Dara and I have spent the past two days in wonder of God's precious gift to us. He is perfect.We had a really cool moment with one of the doctors that came in today to check on Dara. He asked us about our church planting endeavors and we shared with him for a while. Turns out he is actively involved in church planting and he shared an amazing story of Hudson Taylor with us about how God provided every financial need he ever had, even when the provision came to the last day before he lost it all.I'm amazed by God's...