Lovin' it

Here's a few things I've been really loving lately...

The Summer Olympics

Specificallly the girls gymnastics team.

Love them!

I have cried more this past week than I have in the  past year.

Seriously...all they have to do is show the parents and I tear up.
When you realize as your'e watching that your youngest child is now older than many of the athletes competing...well,  I've have reached that place where I identify more with the parents. lol.

Have y'all seen this video?

I'm really loving it!

My boy, Philip Philips made his oympic debut too!

I was so proud when I heard it.

I feel like he's family or something.

And the song is a perfect fit to honor our girls.

So excited about that.

***Well..blogger is being all wonky and I can't get it to work for me. I'll try again later!***

I'm also loving this pic that Lydia posted.

Last week was my mom's birthday and it is so neato to us how much these two look alike.

That's my gorgeous momma on the left and my beautiful Lydia on the right.

Craziness.

Loving finding my favorite hat that I thought I had lost for good.  I've had a few scares through the years but I hadn't seen it for a while this time.  I'm glad to be reunited. 

Anywho, It's nasty and grungy but perfect.

(I know my girls are sad about this...they hate my nasty hat.)

I'm loving coffee this week (and every week) ..specifically this kind though.

 And I'm really loving it out of my two new cups.

This one is from Lauren.  Monopoly..another fave of mine.  

Do y'all have that app on your iPad?  Don't get it.  Unless of course you have a lot of time to waste.  Then that would be perfectly fine cuz it's kinda addictive.

And I'm loving this cup. A sweet friend on Instagram (Jenni.. holla!!)  posted hers one day and I drooled over it and commented on how awesome it was.  She told me where to find one but alas.... our closest Target is an hour and a half away. Bummmer.  But then she tells me she wants to bless me with one! How sweet is that? Very sweet I tell you. And it showed up all packaged happy, filled with all kinds of goodies.  Wow.  I'm so lovin it.  And Jenni.

 Go follow her on instagram y'all.

She spreads sunshine wherever she goes with her encouragement.

@ragamuffinbeauties

I'm also loving poppin in to visit Mrs. Linton in her new house and how she puts her daddy to work.  So sweet.  I might have to give y'all a little house tour one day soon if she'll let me.

Speaking of Mrs. Linton and her living in her new house...I now have a craft room/studio/guest room to work in and I'm really loving that! 

 Along with watching LOST on  my IPad while I work.

I'm loving Camellia red beans on Monday nights (of course) ..

With fried chicken on the side.

I'm lovin this ministry that my friend, Laura is heading up.

You can read all about it here.

I'm also loving this necklace and the reason behind it's prettiness..
Please go read about it here.

As of a text from her last night, she has already sold over 25 of them and I could not be more over the moon tickled for her and her family!

I'm loving these corsages I made for my cousin's son's wedding that is this weekend!  I can't wait to see some of our family  back home.  Which means a little road trip is in the very near future.  As in  several hours from now and I still haven't packed..

So to wrap things up, I'm really loving that my shop is now open again!!!  

Woo Hoo!!

All the shabby chic vintage loveliness  from Lydia's wedding has kinda spilled over into the shop.  I'd love for you to go check it out!  Heck....I'll even through in a discount for all my faithful friends who keep up with all our shenanigans on here.  

Use the code HONEYPOTPALS20 for a 20% discount! 

 Woo to the Hoo for discounts!

I'm loving these darlings in my shop.  

Their dresses are made from vintage handkerchiefs I've collected through the years. 

 They are my faves.

And I'm loving  packaging it all up pretty and shipping them out. 

Well I gotta go y'all.  I still haven't picked out what I'm wearing nor painted my toenails and I'm supposed to be pulling out in in a couple of hours.

But I'll leave  you with this.. last night on one of our many runs to Sonic for half price shakes, my boy Philip tweeted that he had JUST debuted his new video for "Home".  It's great y'all..

You can watch it here just in case you didn't get enough earlier.

I'm lovin it!

Happy Friday Y'all!

Stephanie :)

ps.  DON"T forget to write your post about your thrifty love swap!!

That goes up Monday and I will keep you posted as to how and where to link it up to!

Something Beautiful

As I have said many times,  I have been so blessed by the friends the Lord has crossed my path with  through blogland.  I've met some amazing, encouraging and inspiring women.  And this sweet lady I'm about to introduce you to is one of them.   

Meet Carina. She and her family have been called to the incredible journey of adoption.  As y'all know, adoption is expensive. So I've asked her to come share a little bit of her journey and how we can help be a part of this blessing. 

We may not ourselves be called to adopt a baby into our family but as Christians we are all called to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering (James 1:27)  and helping other families bring a baby home is one way we can do that. 

Please take a minute to see how you can help.

Besides the sheer blessing of it, Carina has figured out a way that you get to help AND get something pretty taboot!  You can't beat that with a stick!

***************
Hello! I'm Carina and I blog over at a punk, a pumpkin and a peanut.

I am mama to three little rascals, lover of vintage and coffee and chocolate, among other things.

For the last year, my husband and I have been waiting to adopt our fourth baby.

We have two biological boys, and one adopted, and feel so excited to be adding to the sweet chaos that is our every day.

Two weeks ago we got the call that we'd been chosen to adopt a baby girl due this August. 
And we are over the moon.
We know that God is already writing our love story with this little peach
and His hand is so evident in the details.
You can read more about all of that here.
The reality of adoption is that it takes a serious chunk of change to make it happen.
Like $25,000 when all is said and done.
We've saved and saved and had a little pancake breakfast to get the ball rolling,
but we are still well away from that number.

We are not ones to ask for something without offering something in return,
mostly because it makes us feel weird.
I've been making jewelry for my little etsy shop for the last few months and
after a lot of thought, I decided to design a few adoption necklaces to help make up some of the difference.
I am dreaming big here: my goal is to sell 100. My dream is 200.
300 would knock our socks off and put a serious dent in that total.

 Would you consider helping us out?
Spread the word and buy a necklace (or two)...
you'll be helping us bring our baby home, supporting adoption
and you'll even get something pretty in return!
And please come follow along on this super exciting journey -
it's sure to be an adventure!


shop  blog  twitter

************************

I can't wait to get my hands on this necklace!!
 I have the pleasure of already owning one of Carina's designs and I tell you her pieces are beautiful!  They are so dainty and pretty.  See for yourself.

Thanks Carina for sharing your journey with us.
I can't wait to meet your little "peach" !

And thank y'all for reading Carina's story.
I do hope you will join me in having a small part in something beautiful.

Stephanie :)

Our Family Tree

Here is our family tree for all of you inquiring minds who have asked.

Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a ride...

This is me and my husband.

Nick and Stephanie

@nickholden and @honeyholden on instagram.

We have three daughters.

Elizabeth, Lydia  and Lauren.

 @babylady3 @lydialovesmarcus and @laurenalexis19

 This was the original 5 Holdens..

Then our girls began to meet their guys.

I'm gonna go from RIGHT to left to keep it all chronological and stuff.

Elizabeth married Chris (@chrissirven) and they became the Sirven family.

They have three children who call me Honey.  Rosalyn, Julia Rose and Nate.

Next we have Mr. and Mrs. Linton...Lydia and Marcus (@mlinton1215)
You've been reading quite a bit about these two lately ;)

And last but not least is Lauren. She's still a Holden.  (Woo Hoo!!)

But the really tall guy on the left is crazy about her so we will  probably have another wedding in the near future.  His name is Blake.
He's not on instagram but you can call him Blakey-Poo like the rest of us.

 Ok. That was easy to follow.

Now let me kick it up a bit.

A lot of y'all have put two and two together and have figured out the other "Holden girl" in blog land and instagram is indeed related to me.  In fact we are sister-in-laws.  Our hubs are brothers.

She is @heatherholden and she's got a really amazing blog called wearetheholdens.
If you aren't following her, you should.  She has the skills of Martha Stewart and Paula Deen and dresses like she stepped out of an Anthro catalog  all while buying just about every cute thing she wears and owns from the thrift store.. the girls got skillz I tell ya.

This is her good looking mister

(sorry heather...i had to.)

No..really they are an amazing looking bunch.

There are 3 Holden brothers.

This pic is totally out of chronological order. 

Nick is the oldest (on right)

Jeremy is the middle. (on left)

Jode is the youngest (in the middle)

They are married to us...

Joice belongs to Jeremy.

I belong to Nick.

Heather belongs to Jode.

This is Jeremy's clan.

Joicey-Poo (yes she's the other "poo" in the family) has some serious skills too.

She can homeschool a house full of kids, whip up supper for her and two other families, then go visit  those families, gather eggs from their yard full of chickens, put together anything you give her without the directions, teach a bible study and rub Jeremy's feet all in a days work... and never complain. I wish she had a blog.  I'd learn so much from her.

She and Jeremy's bunch are as cute as they come.

Ok...So all that is pretty normal right?

Well here is where it gets fun...

Here are the Holden boys and their dad, Mr. Bubby.

Handsome bunch huh!

 Now this sweet lady is their momma.... My mother-in-law.

And this guy in the pic is her husband. 

Who also happens to be my brother. 

Yeah... you read that right.

My brother is married to my mother-in-law.
So my mother-in law is also my sister-in-law!

This is my big bother, my mom and me.

He is also my father-in-law and my mom is my grandma.

Have I lost you yet?

Before you start thinking we are some crazy family from the south who marrys their cousins...

I promise this is all legit.  No blood relations at all.

  

Funny thing though.. My mom is my mother-in-law's mother-in-law.
Yeah go ahead and re-read that again.  I know you need to.

This also makes my mom my girl's grand maw and great grandma at the same time.

Oh and this makes my girls my great nieces.

This also makes Nick my nephew and 

his mom is technically his sister in law.

My brother is his step-dad... 

I could go on and on.

I know by now I have totally lost you.

So here is a very brief bio to explain it some.
Nick and I got married at a very young age.
His parents divorced that same year.
She then met my brother ( who is quite older than me for the record).
They began to date, fell in love,  and eventually got married.
And in case you're wondering, no... the entire family was not exactly thrilled.
All of this was before any of us knew Jesus.
It was quite a turbulent season for all of us.
My brother at the time had an addiction to drugs and alcohol and was not exactly great "husband material".  Our family was dysfunctional in every essence of the word.

Well y'all.  God showed up and interrupted our lives and began to sweep through our family like a wildfire.  Two words that stand out during this time is
1. Grace
2. Change

You see until this time...the only ones who knew the Lord in our family were my mom and my step-dad. (my dad passed away when I was 13, my mom eventually remarried and he's a pastor) I have no doubt it was their intercession and prayers for us that were instrumental in us coming to a place of saving grace. (That's a whole post right there!)  We look back at old videos and see all the drinking and cussing and carrying on and I'm SO ashamed we acted like that around them.  I asked her years later why they never fussed at us and told us how offensive we were and disrespectful to their position of being the parents.. the "head" our family...  In her wisdom of knowing the Lord for 41 years now, she said, "Stephanie, there was no need to fight with y'all..  I knew the battle was a spiritual one. So we just prayed for y'all."
 She loved us and prayed us right into the Kingdom.

Well, Ms Dianne (my mom-in-law) was the first to get intterputed by Jesus.

And wow let me tell you it not only interrupted her life but all of ours.
I can remember that first Thanksiving after she had first gotten saved. (by saved I mean when she realized she was born a sinner and yielded her life to Jesus and He then redeemed her and saved her from a self-centered life and eternity apart from Him).  Well, that Thanksgiving she was so different!
And it made me so uncomfortable!  All she wanted to talk about was Jesus and tell us about her church and she kept smiling and stuff.  It was a total interruption to our family get togethers....All the drinking and cutting up seemed to stand out that year and for me it was the first time I was confronted with my life full of religion.  I had been brought up in the church all my life and professed to know Jesus but it was at that Thanksgiving that I realized I didn't have what she had.  At this point, I wasn't even sure I wanted what she had...maybe a little bit of it but definitely not as much of Jesus as her!
 I mean she had become a little "finatical"  in my book. lol  Little did I know back then.

You see, now my Mom and Mr. Roy had a partner to join forces with them in battle for our family spiritually in prayer.  And God honored it y'all.  Within a month... My brother (the one married to Nick's mom) got saved and set free from all of his addictions!  Then a few months later, I got saved.  Then Nick got saved and right around that time.. both of his brothers, Jode and Jeremy got saved.  It was crazy y'all in an incredible unbelievable kind of way.

And God was SOOO not finished doing His thing in our family....

We all began to grow in the Lord and love His word and then the Lord went and shook things up even more.  He began dealing with the men in our family....As in calling them to preach.
Now anytime He does this it's a miracle and incredible.  But y'all.  If you only knew my family before, you would know this is like "part the Red Sea" kind of incredible.

• He called my brother first.  A high school drop-out drug addict to preach His glorious gospel. Pretty awesome huh!  
• Then he called my husband. At the time he was one of the shyest people you could ever meet.  I had never even heard him pray out loud and he's telling me he feels "called" to preach.  This is a man who had never even read an entire book and now he is eating up his bible every second of the day.
• Somewhere along the lines...he called Nick's youngest brother, Jode, into ministry and gifted him with crazy talents to lead worship and lead students. 
• And Nick's other brother, Jeremy is one of the most gifted teachers of the word I know.  He serves faithfully in many different capacities at his church. He's one of greatest servants I know.

None of these men were brought up in church.
None of them had a godly heritage or foundation.
Their lives are just an example of what God does when He saves a person. 

 Change takes place.

And y'all...my my, how our family has changed.
 Everything about our family has changed.

This was my brother back in the day when drugs was what he lived for.

Now he lives to help others be set free!

(Well he lives for deer season too but that's another story, lol)

This picture was taken when he graduated from New Orleans Theological Seminarry.  God did that!!

This was taken a few years back at Marvin's church when they were celebrating a new family life center that they had just built and had begun worshipping in.
These are all the men in our family (minus Marcus who we didn't know at the time BUT his family actually played bluegrass at this very celebration!! Lydia now tells us she was scoping him out all day!)
All these men serve the Lord with their lives and lead our families within our homes.
Good googily woogily!!  God did that!

Here's me and Heather back in the day.
(just felt like throwing that in...we call that lagniappe back home...a little something extra)

And here is our entire crew today!
Just one big intertwined- crazy- Jesus loving-family.

Remember...y'all did ask for our family tree!
Don't hold all the craziness against me....
I'm just along for the ride but I do admit..
I'm loving every second of it!!

Stephanie :)

Dear Monday,

I've been meaning to tell you how much I like you. I know you get a lot of flack from people and you aren't liked very much.  But for me you're one of my favorite days of the week.

When you roll around it means a fresh start...new possibilities....so much potential.

Dear Monday, you're  like getting a brand new notebook, or a fresh pack of crayons.

When you arrive each week... I feel like I have SO much time and I can conquer it all. 

Like time for crafting...

And for cleaning and rearranging...

Thanks so much for that.


And Dear Monday, 
I've been thinking how sad I thought I would be today because I wouldn't be able to wake up to this like I've been doing all last week...

But waking up this morning right next to my man was pretty awesome too. :)


And Dear Monday,
Another thing that makes you so great in my book is you're the day after Sunday.  I always have lots to think about in the morning meditating on all the things I soaked up while in worship with my church family. And on this Monday, I'm especially liking that when I pray for my crew up in North Carolina,  I can picture them now in their new home and surroundings.

And Dear Monday,
What makes you the BEST in my book is that it means it's Porterville Night! 
And that means I get to see these two....

And on this particular Monday it happens to be their one month anniversary!! 

 Wow.  How did that happen?

So thank you Dear Monday for being so great. The only request I have is that you ask the rest of the days of the week to take their time coming around. Cuz y'all seem to really be in a hurry lately coming and going so quickly. That would be really sweet of you.  Ok. Thanks.

Your biggest fan,
Stephanie :)