Meet the Hamiltons

Ha ha, I'm sure you (most of you) already know them. They are some of the dearest people around! Love you guys :o)

more from the wedding

The day of death

A good name is better than precious ointment;
and the day of death than the day of one's birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning,
than to go to the house of feasting:
for that is the end of all men;
and the living will lay it to his heart.
Ecclesiastes 7:1,2

Yesterday marked one month since my mom left this earth to be with her LORD. I see more and more how the above verses are true. Hard, but true. Death is real. Death has come and will continue to come. Only God knows who will make their death appointment next. It may be me. It may be you. Death makes a person think. And that's a good thing.

I think one thing I'm learning is that God never intended for my mom or our Jada (the baby I miscarried) to have ANY MORE TIME ON THIS EARTH than what He gave them. For my mom it was 54 years, almost 55 and for Jada it was just a few weeks. My mom was never intended to celebrate our Jadon turning 8 months old with us. She cared so much for her grandchildren, mainly for their souls. I truly believe she left them enough lessons/care/love/words/prayers/tears/kindnesses/gifts, etc. for a lifetime. She taught us all of God. What a heritage to leave. As Psalm 31:15 says, "my times are in thy hand." As humans we tend to think that they had so much earthly "potential." There is a far bigger and greater picture. God has total knowledge, total control of EVERYTHING. All that He does is good.

Death is so painful for those left on this earth. Since my mom died, several others have lost their lives as well. We are not isolated in our pain. SO many people are hurting and looking for comfort and wanting healing. Only God can truly give it. One reason death is good is that it sobers us. How easy it is to go through life hardly ever having to think of death. I know I had one of the most "cream puff" lives that I've ever seen. Our family had not had much experience at all with death. I even have both sets of grandparents still living, which is probably not extremely common.

Through my mom's death, I think more of eternity. More of God and his sovereignty and his goodness. What a HUGE blessing it was to have my mom for all the years that I did. Some people- LOTS of people- don't have that privilege. She was faithful. Not perfect, but faithful in the things that truly mattered. I can learn so much from her life.

I don't even remember the last time I talked to her. I know it was sometime that week before she died. We talked on the phone nearly every day. When she would call, my cell phone would show up "Mama Risse." Since my dad inherited her cell phone, I changed the name to "Papa Risse." The last time I saw my mom was on Monday, July 5th. We spent that day together shopping and just being together. She and my dad had spent Sunday night with us. Looking back, I'm grateful for the time we had together. I LOVED the time I got to spend with her. always!

I plan on eventually posting some entries on the different lessons my mom has taught me. I want to always honor my dear mother. I hope I honored her in life and I hope to honor her in death. One thing my mom wanted to see in her lifetime was revival. That was not in God's plan for her life. I'm sure what she's experiencing now is more than making up for it!!

I would say to those of you who have a mother living, "don't take her for granted!" But, I want to say: Enjoy your mom. Learn from her. Help her. See how you can be a blessing to her. Call her and talk with her. Send her a note. If she's lost, pray for her salvation. If she's saved, fellowship with her. Pray with her. In reality, we are always taking something/someone for granted. We are human! If we truly realized every single mercy/blessing that we receive, there's no way we could be as thankful as we would need to be. I wanted to take care of my mom when she got older. Boy, did we ever have it planned out. We wanted (want!) both sets of our parents to live with us or very near us when they got older and needed help. With my mom, that won't be necessary. She's getting the absolute BEST care possible. In fact, it's out of this world! :o)

Kevin and Rikki

Beautiful wedding I was able to "shoot." Will post more later.

4th of July

My mom and my son

This is the last picture I took of my mom before she met her Saviour. It was in Comanche, TX on the 4th of July at their fireworks display. We had such a sweet time that night. My mom was halfway happy that Biggie (Joseph) was so scared because he held on to her so tightly. What a fitting goodbye picture. Thank you, Lord, for the 30+ years I had being unconditionally loved by such a beautiful, godly woman- my mama.

On the way home from Coleman today, Mikayla asked me if I wanted another mommy. No, I sure don't. I had the best.

Left behind

My favorite

This is my favorite pic of all the ones taken the day of my mom's funeral. On the left are all my brothers, my brother-in-law and my husband. My mom's body and my dad are in the center. And my dear sister is on the right. sigh. I love my family. The Lord has blessed us tremendously with his great grace and comfort.

My mom- my best friend

She is now with her Lord. She entered eternity in the early morning of Friday, July 9th in her sleep. She had told me several weeks before that she didn't want to die alone and God so mercifully saw fit to call her HOME while she slept with her husband by her side. I'm so thankful for that!!! I hope to soon post some pics from her funeral and the family she left behind. I'm so happy for her. Praise the LORD for her life.

Does life get any better than this??

Our Jadon Michael is almost SEVEN months old. wow! What a delightful little baby he is. He has just started crawling... today! And to think I didn't get to witness it, but my husband, mom and dad did while I was busy making some enchiladas (yum!). He made up for it after supper was over. :o))) I love you, my Jadon!! So thankful to have you for my son!

Happy Father's Day, Joseph!

The man you see in this picture means so much to me. I'm terribly grateful for the Lord crossing our paths and eventually bringing us together as husband and wife. He excels as a husband and as a father. He truly is a faithful man, and I have found him!

Our children are growing up!

I'm so in love

more from the Ledbetter photo shoot

These are my nieces and my nephew from our photo shoot so long ago; trying to get caught up on posting my pics. Love these kiddos!

The birthday t-shirts

As you can see, I ordered 4 different colors of t-shirts with "let us run with patience the race that is set before us" Hebrews 12-1. Instead of putting a colon after the 12, they put a dash. oh well. We like them anyway :o)

We celebrated Jody's birthday by spending the morning/afternoon at Lake Brownwood State Park. We hiked a REALLY fun and challenging trail that took us about an hour to complete. My husband loves to be outdoors and we all enjoyed it tremendously. The weather was perfect- a little overcast and windy, which kept us cool. I needed it b/c I carried our 17.5 pound bundle of love the whole time. A great workout! After the hike, we picnicked by the water. Then we came home and napped. My parents brought supper and gave Jody some Nutella (the BEST!) and a red velvet cake for his birthday. So sweet!

All in all, a most pleasant day was had by all. Thank you, Lord, for my loving/godly/faithful/fun/hard-working husband. I would never be able to show my gratitude for the family you have given me. Thank you.

It's strawberry time!

This is (most of) our group that went to pick strawberries a few days ago. My son Joseph decided he was not interested in being the pic, and by then, I really didn't care too much. We had a fantastic time picking strawberries and taking pics :o) My husband's birthday is not until Sunday, but we celebrated a little early today. I had some t-shirts (with the latter part of Hebrews 12:1 printed on them)made for him. He really liked them! After a trip to Wal-Mart, I made him a strawberry pie. It turned out SO liquidy, as you can tell from the picture. rats! It tasted pretty good anyway. I love love LOVE my husband, and I thank and praise the Lord for him!

Jadon joins us!

Our son Jadon is now 5 1/2 months old. He finally decided to join us at the table. It's always a fun and momentous time when that happens. Mikayla gave him his first few bites of cereal and, of course, loved it. What a PRECIOUS son Jadon is. The more kids I have, the more I fall in love with them. Being a mommy is wonderful :o)