Russell Family Blessings

I can hardly believe our baby is 10! It seems just like yesterday that Wayne and I were calling our family telling them that I would be induced the next morning. Now here we are with a ten year old! Do you realize that in eight short years I will be sending my sweet Eli off to college? That is so wrong!!! Where has the time gone? Eli has had a great time celebrating his birthday. To start it off, he had a joint birthday party with his friend, Cutter (whose birthday is 9 days after Eli's). Friday, Cutter's mom, Wayne and I were very brave souls. We picked up 17 children from school to attend the party which was held at Aunt Missy and Uncle T's pool. The boys enjoyed swimming "Olympic" relays, shooting each other with water guns, and eating pizza and brownies. The birthday boys, Eli and Cutter Saturday, Wayne took the boys to the Gun and Knife show in Andalusia so that Eli could buy a knife with some of his birthday money. He ended up buying two! One for himself a...

It's now time to get back to reality. The Russell family has had two very abnormal weeks! First, Wayne was in Venezuela on a mission trip for a week. He returned last Saturday evening. He spent Saturday night at home, we attended Homecoming at Ino on Sunday and we left for the beach Sunday afternoon. As I reported in my earlier post, we spent the week in Destin with my sisters and their families. We were blessed to be able to stay in an amazing and beautiful, but noisy house across the road from the beach. The weather wasn't the best and the water was dirty, but it was nice to spend time with my family and just be away for a while. Eli and Max absolutely love playing in the water. I'm still not sure if the skim boards that we bought for them were a good idea or not! Despite the jellyfish, seaweed and the rainy/cloudy weather, we still enjoyed the beach. The children all enjoyed catching jellyfish and crabs, looking for sea shells and just playing in the sand and surf. Beach...

I wanted to share some pictures from our 2nd annual trip to Destin. This year my whole family (my sisters and their families) are staying in the same house! It's a little bit crazy with eight adults and four children 9 and under! The nice thing is that we all have separate floors! We have visited the beach several times, shopped and eaten out...I hope you enjoy the pictures! Hopefully, I'll post more soon...

The children and I have had a nice, but busy week. With Wayne gone, I thought I would get a lot accomplished...not so! I have found myself up extremely late each night because I can't seem to go to sleep without him here. I know I'm being a big baby, but I'm just not accustomed to him being gone. Out of 13 years of marriage, we've been apart probably less than 50 nights. As crazy as it seems, I have to almost be to the point of passing out before I can lay down and sleep. I can only imagine what those military husbands/wives must go through being separated for extended periods...All that to say this...I've been up late every day since Saturday...Thankfully, Wayne is coming home soon!!!! If you're wondering, he's been on a mission trip to Venezuela. From what I've heard, they have had a great time in the Lord with many accepting Jesus as Savior. Hopefully, I will persuade him to write a post detailing their trip soon. I thought I'd share some cute pic...

In my Bible reading tonight, I was reading in Psalms when I came across a scripture that gripped my heart. The fact that God loves me never ceases to amaze me. He loves you and me and He is never too big or too busy for us!!! Psalm 144:3 Lord, what is man that you take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him? The side note in my Blackaby Study Bible says, "It is incomprehenisible that God concerns Himself with us. In truth, we are nothing compared to His greatness, yet He loves us and cares about the smallest details of our existence." Wow!!!

I spent most of the day Saturday visiting with my sisters. It's not completely unusual during the summer for me to get together with my sisters, Gail and Missy; however, this day was special because our step-sister, Chandra, was here from Mississippi. Now that we're all grown up and she lives away, we rarely ever have a day to relax and enjoy each other's company. Usually when she's home, she is running from one place to another to holiday get-togethers, but not Saturday. She and her son, Tucker, (who is 4 months younger than Eli) came to my sister, Missy's. All of the cousins played so well. They enjoyed a day of swimming in the pool and several lively games of bowling on the Wii. Chan, we're so glad you came. We had a great day! In case you've never tried, it's extremely difficult to get this many children to look at you for a picture! Aunt Gail tried to get everyone's attention so that we could get a picture...hence the laughing...I'm not incl...