Becky's Blog: "I am the vine and you are the branches….apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5

The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with JOY. Psalm 126:3 I can not believe it, but my baby is one-year-old today! I am brought to tears this morning, overwhelmed with thankfulness to the Lord for this precious little boy. When I say “precious” I mean it. He has brought our family so much joy, laughs and love I can’t put it into words. Luke is special. The Lord has ordained his steps (none of which he has yet taken) to be impactful and important. Luke brings JOY with him everywhere he goes. I pray a special ONE-YEAR-OLD birthday prayer over this sweet, little life today…Lord, THANK YOU for Luke. Thank you that you chose to bless our family with him! I pray Luke will grow in wisdom, stature and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:52). I pray he will grow to love You and Your word. I pray you would protect him from harm and that your goodness and love would follow him all his days (Psalm 23:6). I pray he and his older brother’s would grow to love eachother and be the best of friends. I pray Luke will have a love for learning, be a carrier of the Gospel and be successful in this life. I love him so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you Lord for Luke. I treasure every sweet moment with him this past year. In Christ’s name, AMEN.

Well, the annual Crenshaw family beach trip to Gulf Shores has come and gone, but the memories will last forever! We had the best time! The cousins LOVED being together! They made forts, built princess castles in the sand, wrestled — Livi won!, jumped waves, splashed in the baby pool, played games and Legos, ate fun snacks, popscicles and laughed, laughed, laughed! Mimi classically made fun memories for them, too. She had a birthday party for all 6 grandkids at once since we can’t always make it to eachother’s parties. She brought sparklers for the 4th of July and a fun Pinata for them to demolish! We had the unique opportunity of staying at a house located directly in front of an old sunken Civil War ship! How cool is that?! Brent and Brian buried “treasure” for the kids and made a map for them to hunt! Erin and I took long walks on the beach almost everyday and solved the problems of the world. Brian, Brent, Vicki and Randall surf fished and caught a ton! Sadly, Brian caught his ring finger on a hook and had to go to the emergency clinic. Ouch!! He was such a trooper. Blair, Mason, Erin, Brian, Brent and I all went out one night to hear live music at Lulu’s (Jimmy Buffat’s sisters resturaunt!) It was so fun to be with all of them! We took our infamous adventure to Lambert’s for dinner – The home of throwed rolls! We did SO many great things, but the best part was just being together. I am so thankful for such an amazing family. God is so good. Here are some pics. Enjoy!
See you soon Gulf Shores! Thanks for the memories!

Very Messy Jello-popsSilly BoysEthan’s Puppet ShowGrant and Luke! Breakfast-time! After Breakfast Craft time

On Monday, Brent and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. Brent always does such a great job making things so special. This year, imparticulary, the card he gave me was so touching and poignant, I just had to share. It reads, “Someday, many years from now, we’ll look back on this crazy time in our life together and wonder how we did it all…and then, those ordinary moments what we often take for granted will shimmer like stars as we recount them….I’ll sit close to you, you’ll take my hand in yours. We’ll look at each other and say: ‘I’d do it all again….and I wouldn’t change a thing.'” Ahh. Love you Brent. After I read this I had an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Helpless that I can not stop time; helpless because my boys are getting too big too fast and I can’t take it all in; helpless because my memory is limited with storage space. I want to remember it all. I want to fully live every moment. My prayer for myself and and my family today is that we would live the “everyday moments” fully with joy and an understanding that it is fleeting. I pray that we would not be so overwhelmed by the frustrations, noise and busyness that we miss out on the now. Thank you Lord for those messy heads, kicky feet, sticky hands, chocolate mouths. Thank you for Ethan’s morning sprint to give me his first hug, Luke’s precious sounds in the monitor when he wakes, and Grant’s relentless desire to play fight with his Light Saber. Thank you for the theme music to Elmo’s World, the smell of waffles in the toaster and loud rides in the van everywhere we go. Thank you for those chubby little fingers overlapping and overzealous squinting eyes during prayer. I love my life. God, your grace is so sufficient for me. I love you Lord. I am so thankful for the ordinary, everyday moments.

Just a quick update! Thanks to all who viewed Brent’s Birthday blog tribute. Brent you are so loved!! This picture was taken the night of his birthday outing! We went out to one of out FAV resturaunts, The Pizza Kitchen. Ahh, I heart the Pizza Kitchen. FYI – Monday and Tuesday nights are family nights. Kids eat free and all small cheese pizzas are 99cents. Side salad and a cheap pizza – BAM dinner! Anyway, after that we went to a fun little Irish pub in Turkey Creek and watched a super fun band play for an hour or so. THEN we went to Sonic for a Snickers Sonic blast. It was extra super-duper yummy seeing as how Brent has been eating so healthy and really watching his intake. We splurged! We had such a great time together. I just want to give a big shout OUT to our sweet friend/babysitter Jackie Newman. Girlfriend knows how to serve others. Talk about being awesome with my kids, in love with the Lord and ultra others-centered. Jackie, I love you and learn so much from your servant’s heart. Brent, thanks for a fun date night! Blessings…..

I am so thankful to the Lord for my children. I am so thankful that I have the privledge of being at home with them and enjoying them all day long. However, my confession to you this morning is that I am not truly “enjoying” them all day long. I am breaking up fights, cleaning up spills, picking up legos, directing, redirecting, reminding and herding. I have boys. They like to compete — “I got in my seat first! I held the door first! My tower is better than yours!” If I had a dime for everytime I said, “That is pride. We do not boast,” then I could pay for myself a baby-sitter and go get a pedicure! So why do I tell you all of this? Well, one of my favorite parenting references is http://www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com by Elizabeth Krueger. I love her stuff. If you go to her website, and I encourage you to do so, you will see that one of her earmarks is called “tomato staking”. She writes, “a tomato plant which has been properly cared for, will produce an abundance of excellent fruit. From the beginning it must be watered, cultivated, pruned, fertilized, examined for pests, and staked up. The branches will grow the way they were propped and trained. Tomato Staking is a powerful tool that enables preemptive parenting. When you Tomato Stake, you can anticipate wrong attitudes and misbehaviors and nip things in the bud before they become ingrained habits. You are right there to encourage right behavior as well. And, of course, it’s easy to get to know your child when you spend time with him. And the better you know him, the more likely it is that you will develop a close, loving relationship, and will remain close throughout life. Tomato Staking provides you with the avenue to be a teacher, mentor, friend and more to your child.” Wow. Who doesn’t want this? Tomato Staking is the art of keeping your kids close to you in order to really train them. My prayer for my boys, especially Grant and Ethan, is that they would learn to really ENJOY each other this summer. They really have no other choice. They are together all of the time! Now last summer we were in a completely different place. Ethan had just turned 2 and I said a thousand times, “Grant be easy. He is little. He doesn’t understand.” Well, that gap has closed and they are at a place where they can really learn community on a small scale. They are little, but they can still learn to put others first, die to self and serve those around them. Absolutely. So this is my summer challenge. To stake some little tomatoes in order to train them to live in a harmonious community :). I want to be close to my kiddos this summer – Involve them in everything I do and vice versa. I am praying we come to a place of really enjoying each other. So I invite you to join me in my tomato staking. Is there an area that your kids really attention? A behavior that needs nipping? I’d love to be praying for you. I will keep you all posted, pun intended, on how things are going with my journey. Please be praying that my boys will continue to grow in their love for Jesus and eachother. Happy Staking!

Today I celebrate Brent Crenshaw! It is his 33rd birthday and I am so thankful for him. Lord, thank you for the BLESSING of being married to him! Thirty-three years old! What a significant age in the Christian life. The climatic year of Jesus ministry. So let it be with Brent — that his ministry would continue to thrive, flourish and grow. Thank you for all the time, prayer and energy he spends investing in the lives of young men on UT’s campus. I pray a special blessing today over Brent….a blessing of health, wisdom, stature, favour with God and men. Thank you for the husband he is to me. How he treats me with love and honor. How he serves me daily and treats me as special. Thank you for putting us together and blessing me with the opportunity to serve with him in this life. Thank you, Lord, for the father he is to our sons. Our goal is to train our children to bear the image of Christ. Brent is such an example — what a Godly dad. He is such a rich example of Christ. Brent understands the importance of time spent with his boys; being present and active in their lives. Brent is a man of God, a lover of the Word and a pursuer of wisdom and knowledge. Brent pursues all things true, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praisworthy (Philippians 4:8). We love you, Brent. Happy birthday. We are all so proud of you!

I am SO SO happy to announce that Mamaw is doing SO amazing after total hip replacement! I asked her the other day if she was surprised at how well she is doing. She said, “well, kindof.” 🙂 She is out of the hospital and we went to see her last night at rehab. She was sitting in her wheel chair watching wheel of fortune! Make-up on. Dressed so cute. She is a true Southern Lady. We all (boys in tow) “wheeled” around for a tour of the facility. Nice. I told her I am going to stay the night with her for a little vacation! It is like a resort! Anyway, I am so thankful to the Lord for His grace and healing. Please pray for her as she has a LONG road to recovery ahead.

This is the happiest baby on the planet. He brings our family so much joy. We have found that “Lukey Pookey” can be inserted into every song ever written. We sing to him all the time. Today I sang “Hokey Pokey” to him exept it was “…you do the LOOOOOOOKKKKEEY POOKEY!” 🙂

We were at Target last night. A simple trip to buy Grant some swimming trunks. We passed a lady pushing her little boy around in the big red buggy. He was precious – eating the dollar combo of popcorn and a soda, surrounded by all of her groceries in the back of the buggy. With desperation and sorrow she looked at me and said, "Three boys?". "Yep!" I replied. She said, "I had a little girl first. Sweet, little, easy. Then I had him. He is big and just wears me out. Good luck." Wow. I wanted to tell her that I bet his ears work, but I didn't. You know, I get this a LOT. People looking at me with pity because I have been BLESSED with three amazing little boys. I wish I had my wits about me to respond with something clever or recite Psalm 127:3 "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from Him." Or maybe I should have told her, "I am just a fruitful vine within my house, my sons will be like olive shoots around my table." 🙂 Psalm 128:3 but she would have really thought I was crazy. Anyway, I am so thankful in those moments for my boys. They are so awesome and altough they do fray my nerves at times it is NOT because they are all boys. It is because they are children. Raising three is hard, but it is equally amazing. So here's a shout out to all the moms today who are tired or feeling defeated…what a blessing our children are! They are God's reward to you! I always say that having children is more about my refinement than theirs. Thank you Lord for my three boys. Thank you for making me more like your Son because of them. Happy child-rearing!

Grant, Ethan and Luke. Sweet little loves.