Notes from Nicole

I always wanted to be a cheerleader and the good Lord knows that I have the lungs for it! I love the idea of someone actually giving me permission to cheer as loud as I can-awesome! I also like words that you can take and turn into an acrostic. An acrostic, as some of you may know is when you take a word and for each letter in that word assign it a word that starts with that letter. For example, F.R.O.G. means Fully Rely On God, or how about this one, C.O.W. means Cloud Of Witnesses. Anyway, you get the picture. I began thinking about the word GRACE and how this word should be one that ALL christians use and share freely with everyone. After all, God's grace is free and anytime there is something being given away for free everyone wants to hear about it-right? Can't you just see the Sunday morning service with the minister giving his sermon flanked by cheerleaders on each side dressed appropriately, of course, encouraging the crowd to cheer, "Give me a G, give me a

I am told that stubborness runs in our family, but of course I don't think I was in line when that particular gene was being passed out-was I?? I know I am stubborn, but of course I am also a control freak so I think that the two balance themselves out-most of the time ;) I have two children and they both have that stubborn streak, now if only I could harness that power for good instead of evil.... Just kidding, neither one of them are very evil-just stubborn! I remember one time my daughter had said a bad word and I told her that if she said it again that I was going to put soap in her mouth. She looked me right in the eye and said the bad word again, but this time with an "I dare you" attitude! I got the bar of soap and made her hold it in her mouth. She did not bat an eye or even shed one tear. She just sat there and willed herself to not show any emotion. That is stubborn! I began thinking about how sometimes it is good to be stubborn. If you are being stub

I always enjoy a good story that can make me laugh out loud, especially if it involves members of my own family! My family lives in the midwest but we do have relatives from the south. My dad was basically raised in southern Missouri but he does not really speak with a southern accent, however he does use "southern" phrases or slang that always makes me giggle. When I was younger he would say things like, "I garantee you...." The word should be guarantee, but the way that my dad said it was GAR-UN-TEE. Of course I believe he yelled that from the other room at my sister and myself when we were supposed to be cleaning up the kitchen from supper, but it ended in a food fight! The minute he left the room we just fell down laughing! We will tell this story and others like it when we all get together, but usually my children don't understand what we find so funny about it, until they experience a similar situation themselves. That is exactly what happened to m