Bid for Sean

If you have been following my blog (scroll down a bit) you have read about my friend Rebecca's husband. I won't repeat what is going on again, but many of you have been waiting for the online silent auction to begin. It is now live! There are several items still waiting to be posted, however they will be posted in increments with later end times. Lots of good things listed! Start your bidding!

The link is: http://bidforsean.com/

Our 6th Wedding Anniversary! Our story!

On Saturday, June 5^th, Sean and I will be celebrating our 6^th wedding anniversary.

How we met:

As I think back six years ago I think about how we first met and how we believe that the Lord meant for us to be together. I was teaching at the time. I did not go to typical hangout where people meet others—bars, nightclubs etc. Our church had pretty slim pickings on single guys. It seemed like every single guy I worked with was into hanging out at the bars…something that just didn’t interest me. I had my check list in my head. First and foremost he had to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, he had to at least take care of himself. There are a lot of losers out there. So I was pretty much leaving it in the Lord’s hands. One night I got an e-mail from Yahoo Personals. I usually just shot those e-mails to my spam box, as I had an outdated profile with outdated pictures. I also didn’t want to pay for their service. For some reason I opened up the e-mail and to my surprise it was from this guy named Sean. After exchanging several e-mails that night and through out the next several days we decided to set up our first date to meet. I was a little nervous, because it felt like I knew this guy really well by just writing back and forth, but what if he ended up being a complete loser?

Our first date:

The day before our first date, he sent me a beautiful bouquet of roses at work. I told a co-worker of mine that I really think this is the guy I am going to marry. Not because of the flowers, it was because everything that we had written back and forth matched up with someone that I felt I could spend the rest of my life with. Someone that would be a good husband, father, and best friend. On our first date, he pulled up in his fancy sports car—actually scared me to death riding in that thing. We went to a really nice restaurant and just clicked. It seemed like we had known each other forever. I then found out that he was a manager at my friend Jeff’s work…so my mom checked out Sean to make sure he wasn’t married—thank goodness he wasn’tJ We then went on a second date to the movies and out to dinner and then the rest is history. When he wasn’t traveling we spent pretty much every evening and weekend together hanging out at my parents house or going out. We joke that we should have just gotten married after 2 weeks because we both knew how our relationship was going to turn out.

The proposal:

After 6 months of dating he proposed to me. Not the most romantic proposal, but I will take it. I had just built a house and moved in to it. I had thought he had left to go somewhere and he surprised me while I was cleaning out a closet. I knew it was coming, just didn’t know when.

Our Wedding:

We got married 2 months later. I had always dreamed of getting married in this particular park in Pierce City, Missouri where my grandma used to live. It has this beautiful waterfall and I just had really good memories from that park. Neither of us wanted to have a big hoopla wedding, so the venue was perfect. We had 50 family and friends attend our wedding. Had a nice little reception in Pierce City and then a reception in Omaha.

In the past 6 years:

A lot has changed in the past 6 years. We have moved once already. (Sean twice I guess if you count moving in with me after we got married). We have 3 beautiful kids and one more on the way. Our relationship is still as strong as it was when we first got married. I really feel blessed that the Lord put us together and that I am able to spend the rest of my life with this amazing man!

What we are doing on our anniversary?:

I have a surprise in store for Sean...so stay tuned!

If you are happy and you know it!

My girls have been attending MOPPETS during the school year every other Friday-- well actually every Friday, but the 2nd & 4th Friday's of the month it is more structured with activities. One favorite activity was when Mr. Jeff Haase came in and played his guitar and sung with the kids. On our last meeting of the school year, the 3-5 year old's got to show off a few songs to our MOPS group. Jocelyn is in this group...Katelyn is still with the 2 year olds so she did not get to show off her pipes! This is just one of the songs! Enjoy!

Let it grow, Let it grow, Let it grow!

I have never been a gardener. I love planting flowers (that you just have to stick in the ground), but they always usually die on me during the summer. Growing up, the only successful thing I remember planting was a sunflower seed in our front yard and watching it grow 6 feet. Last year I attempted to plant tomatoes, watermelons, strawberries, and pumpkins. Nothing grew.

So this is a new year and even though I am still clueless on gardening I am trying this gardening thing again. I got a few pointers from some friends. Sean cleared out a really nice area for me and I started planting away. Sean planted some tomato plants and I planted rows of lettuce, green beans, watermelon, carrots, pumpkins, and cantaloupe. The girls, neighborhood kids, and I all planted sunflowers along the edges of our woods. I labeled everything with pretty little popsicle sticks so I can keep track. I have water the garden diligently when it hasn't rained and guess what....things appear to be GROWING!!! Ok, I am having a really hard time distinguishing between what are weeds and what is supposed to grow...a really hard time...so many little green things growing up. I know for sure my lettuce is growing...there are two little rows of sprouts. My green beans also appear to be growing. So I will keep you posted if we have any success this year...I believe we are off to a semi-good start...if only I keep remembering to water them!:)

Oh and the strawberries...something that I would absolutely LOVE the grow...I am going to a farm next week to pick some with the kids...no need to waste my time growing those. Here are some pictures of the process so far! See our row of lettuce!!

So how did the garage sale go?

I have gotten quiet a few questions from friends about how the garage sale went...so I just thought I would blog about it!:)We were all geared up to open on Thursday morning. That didn't quiet happen as planned. It rained, and rained, and rained.... There was no way we could even open up the garage because it was jammed packed with donations. We did have quiet a few people come by with their lists and we helped them as best as we could. At 2pm, the rain turned into a drizzle and her dad bought a second tent. We opened up sale for a few hours and had a steady stream of traffic right away. Thursday wasn't quiet what we were hoping for, but we made a few sales.On Friday and Saturday we had a steady stream of people the entire time we were open. There was never a lull. We sold most of the baked goodies and quiet a few raffle tickets. We did sell most of our higher priced items...and most of our large items. We still have a few really nice items left that we are going to list on ebay soon, so we do not have a exact total. Right now we have made 1/4 of our goal. The leftover clothes were taken to a local churches clothing drive and the household goods were taken to various local charities.Our raffle is still going on and the drawing will take place on May 31st. If you would like to purchase some tickets please e-mail me. The details are in the previous post. An IT guy is working on setting up our silent auction. We set aside some other donations to silent auction off. I can guarantee that they will be worth bidding on....here is a sneak peak of just one of the items! For those of you that donated to the sale, shopped, or have e-mailed me about buying raffle tickets-- the Sedlacek family is extremely grateful and thanks you!

Sneak peak of one of the wonderful silent auction items: (Thanks Brandy Brown from http://www.etsy.com/shop/lovelylittleones) **Please note...the little girl is not for sale-- it is the dress and headband that Brandy made**:)

Our first camping trip of the year!

We have been talking about doing this for the past 4 years and we finally did it-- camped in our back yard! Sean and I both love camping and are hoping that our kids will enjoy doing it as well. My girls like spending time camping in my parents RV-- but according to my husband-- that isn't real camping:) Sean spent all morning mowing and getting our wooded area ready to set up camp. He made a real nice bonfire as well. We enjoyed roasting hot dogs and smores! After the kiddos went to bed, Sean and I sat by the fire and watched a movie on his laptop. Ok...so my goal was to make it through the entire night in the tent. Back in the fall when we were camping at Pawnee State Park about 15 minutes from our house, Easton and I left at 3AM. He would not sleep...therefore I could not sleep. I love waking up in the tent with the morning sunshine hitting my eyes...so this time I was going to make it through the night. That didn't quiet happen. Easton woke up at 1:00AM. He is normally a really good sleeper, however he wasn't having it that night. I tried to hold him and have him sleep with us. He still wasn't having it. Every time a cow mooed he would look around thinking he could find it. So I gave up and we went inside. He still wouldn't fall asleep. I decided to try putting some orajel in his mouth-- always a cure to get a baby to sleep-- and noticed his gums were bleeding and two teeth were breaking through. Poor little guy! So at 2:00AM we finally went to bed--at home! The girls and Sean made it through the night!:)

Our Church.....

In the past few years, many of my local friends have asked me where we go to church and some have questioned why we drive so far to get to our church…why not just find one closer? Yes, an hours drive may seems like a long ways to go for church, but for Sean and I we feel that we go to a church where the Lord wants us to be. Some fun facts about our church: Millard Community Church—in Omaha, Nebraska.

1. I have been going to church in the same building since I was a baby. It has switched hands once and one of the current brothers who preaches has been there for around 24 years.

2. The people: Everybody knows your name- I think that is part of some song! Well it is pretty much true. At our Sunday meetings we currently have at last count 103 people in regular attendance. It varies on Wednesday nights. There are quite a few larger families with 5-13 kids and some families who are just getting started with just a few kids. I believe there is always someone pregnant at any given time. One week back in August 2007 we had 4 babies born in the same week…I was 3 weeks off of that…must have been something in the water. We pretty much all home school at some point. No it isn’t a requirement…we all just do. Some give their kids a choice to go to public high school. Because everyone pretty much knows everyone, it isn’t an easy place to hide if you are in sin…fornicating, adultery, homosexuality, lawlessness etc.—common things that go on in lots of churches that are accepted because the world accepts those things.

3. We don’t have a denomination. We are just a Bible based church. The brothers of the church preach from the Bible. They have studied, studied, and studied the Bible some more. Our doctrinal statement is what the Bible says and is a good enough one for us. We have no paid pastors or staff. We don’t take an offering.

4. We believe that the Bible teaches that we have salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ only. We believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose again. We are all sinners. The Bible gives us four symbols only: one water baptism (as taught about in the book of Ephesians)—after we are saved (not as infants), the head covering for women during church (1 Corinthians 11), and the cup and loaf for communion (1 Corinthians 11:24-32).

5. We are not the only ones who drive an hour for church. Several other families make a similar commute—some drive farther than us. We have a potluck after church on Sundays to help the families out that have a drive.

6. Our typical Sunday morning—we start sometime between 10:00AM and 10:15AM. One of the brothers teaches for an hour. We take a break. Then we have another meeting. We sing three hymns, have announcements, and then have another hour of teaching from the bible. We get done around 1pm. My kids are usually sleepy and very hungry. Good thing we have a long drive home for them to nap! We also have bible study on Wednesday nights from 7:30pm-9:00PM.

I could go on and on. Some of my friends and families are lost…without Jesus Christ, don’t know what the Bible says, hear things over and over again that aren’t in the Bible or are made up. I just pray that if that is you, that one day you will accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and understand what he has done for us.

If you want to find out more about our church or listen to podcasts of our messages you can visit: http://www.millardcommunitychurch.com or http://www.biblestudy.net