Hailey arrives today

Well, today is the day that we have been waiting on for the last 8 months (since we found out Nicki was pregnant); and the day we’ve been waiting on for almost 6 years. Our first two children were boys, Gavin and Tristan, who we love dearly, but Nicki has been wanting a little girl for just as long…so today is the day!

The hospital we will be at does not have WiFi as far as I know, so as soon as mom and baby are ok and taking their post-surgery naps I will run down the street to Panera to upload some pictures. Sorry folks, I’m poor and do not have one of those fancy iPhones that enable me to streamline my life 🙂 – So thank you all in advance for your prayers, thoughts, and support – Pictures coming soon!

The Final Countdown

The Final Countdown has started. In approximately 24 hours
Hailey Elizabeth Carnes will arrive!

Nicki is scheduled to be at the hospital at 10:00 am tomorrow and the surgery is scheduled at 12:30 pm, so Hailey should be here around 1:00 pm (weird time for a c-section). We would appreciate your prayers for a safe delivery and for a healthy baby and mom. (Of course you can add that she is beautiful as well…and smart…and whole (meaning she has all of her normal body parts and functions) if you want) 🙂

Nicki and I are going to celebrate one last evening without a crying, poopy baby with dinner and most likely Batman the Dark Knight (if we can get a ticket) since the boys will be with their MeMaw.

The Countdown Begins

8 days…and Hailey Elizabeth (Stallone) Carnes will be here. The surgery date was moved up from Thursday, July 24th to Tuesday, July 22nd, which I know Nicki is excited about. Thank you for any and all prayers that everything will go smoothly. My prayer for 9 months has been that Hailey will be born completely healthy and completely whole, and that she would be smart and beautiful…selfish I know! 🙂

Join the Conversation, What’s the next big thing you are looking forward to in your Life?

Blog Pirates

A Blog Pirate: Someone who tries to steal the spotlight from a more successful blog in order to make their blog noticed and to increase their traffic stats.

This is usually done by pointlessly criticizing posts in order to drive traffic to their blog. Most blog pirates surf the “What’s Hot” on the front page of blog hosts (I.E. WordPress.com) hunting their next victim. They also search through the tags pages to see what blogs have the most comments (thus a high level of traffic) and rips into the author of the blog and/or their content. If you have ever crossed a Blog Pirate you will see why they have to steal the spotlight, its usually because their content is not good enough to draw their own crowd and keep them.

Blog Pirates know that most authors will defend their content thus linking to the pirate and driving their readers (traffic) to the pirate’s site, they also know that when people search for key words pertaining to the victim’s blog in Google the searcher will be driven to the pirate’s blog as well, thus attracting extra traffic. Blog Pirates are interested in one thing, signing on to WordPress and immediately going to their daily stats and seeing how many hits they had that day…nothing more, nothing less.

Watch it! You may be hijacked by a Blog Pirate today 🙂

Join the Conversation! Have you ever been attacked by a Blog Pirate? Know anyone else that has? I’ve been attacked and I know others that have been attacked as well.

Does God Promise Protection?

I was reading the entry for My Utmost for His Highest this morning and was a little torn. Here is the section that brings me to this blog post:

. . . I am with you to deliver you,’ says the Lord —Jeremiah 1:8

God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally— “. . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . .” (Jeremiah 39:18 ). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives.

Now, I am fairly new at reading Oswald Chambers’ stuff. There are times that I read it and I can hear some of his influence or at least an identical influence in some of the people who have helped form my thinking. One of those people, once again today, is Louie Giglio. Yesterday, as I piggy backed on Pete Wilson’s blog, I posted an audio message from Louie called “Prayer-a-Remix” where Louie points out how unbiblical many of our cliche’ American prayers are. [Download the Full Message Here – Requires Quick Time]

In the message Louie talks about how one of the typical things that we pray is “Lord Protect Me!” – However, in the post Cross/Resurrection teaching of the Gospel, we are never promised protection or safety. Louie points out that in the Old Testament all the heroes (David, Daniel, Noah, Etc.) were victorious and lived, but in the post Cross/Resurrection portion of the New Testament all the heroes suffered and died (Jesus, Peter, Paul, Etc.) – The bottom line is that sure we can pray for protection, and trust me I pray for protection for my family daily, but in reality, if you are living totally abandoned to Christ and truly mean that He can use your life to further His mission no matter what, then I believe there is no promise of protection, because sometimes His mission is greater than our lives!

**You have got to listen to the audio message about Louie’s example of Graham Stains – It puts this into perfect perspective – I admit I have used the illustration numerous times now!**

Join the Conversation, What Do You Think?