The Nativity...

 

Mary, a Wiseman, and the Angel...look a lot like Princess K, Prince E and Princess A...

Thankful Thursday-To hard to be Thankful?

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever! ~ Psalm 30:11-12 (ESV)

There are days when my mourning seems too overwhelming to be thankful about anything. I'm having one of those weeks. I find though, that rather than focus on the sadness and the trials, my spirit is lifted when I focus on the things (no matter how simple) I can be thankful for. I miss my mother terribly..much more than I can possibly express to anyone who hasn't lost a parent....but sadness was never in her plans for me, as it's not in my plans for my children. So today, I'm thankful, even though it's hard.

1. I am thankful for a God who invites me to dance, and who provides the music entice me to join him.

2. I am thankful He chose to give me a mother who spent my youth encouraging me to trust Him.

3. I am thankful for Him allowing me to see my daughter overcome her fears, stand up in front of strangers and sing!

4. I am thankful He put encouraging women in my life who make me laugh when all I want to do is cry.

5. I am thankful for trial that push me closer to Him.

6. I am thankful for a husband that loves me in spite of all the "craziness" I seem to attract.

7. I am thankful for hugs from my children. I hope they never get "too big".

8. I am thankful for kitties who know just when I need a snuggle.

9. I am thankful for fuzzy socks that keep my cold toes warm.

10. I am thankful that God provides my needs, all of them, even the ones that seem "too small".

Thankful Thursday- Eternally Saved

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” ~ John 3:16-17
(ESV - emphasis mine)

I can't even wrap my mind around the concept of eternal. Our minds are so conditioned to everything having and end that the idea of forever just boggles me. I do understand that if I have to be somewhere with no end, the I want it to be heaven and not hell... :) Which brings me to the next highlighted part of that text..SAVED BY HIM. Oh what a joy that puts into my soul!! What peace just washes over me. I didn't have to be good enough. I didn't have to make enough money. I didn't have to have perpetual good hair days...HE saved me! He loved me! He did what I know I could never do on my own, to provide me a future I can't even comprehend. Gotta love a God who knows what's best for me and offers it to me even before I know I need it.

Thankful Thursday- Not to Fear...

“Know that the LORD, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!”
~ Psalm 100:3-4 (ESV)

I'm hearing a lot of fear lately in all my
communications with others. Fear over the economy, fear over leadership changes, fear over just about anything you can name at any given moment. We were not made to fear. We are his! We are made to praise. We are made to accept his love and gracious gifts to us. He made us, he loves us he saved us. All he asks in return is our love and adoration. Fear chokes that out of us. Fear cripples us. Fear keeps us from receiving blessings and love from him. How do I fight fear you ask? Oh that's the easy part...you just praise. Enter those gates singing a song of joy to him. Dance before his throne with thanksgiving--I promise not to watch :)

It truly does not matter what is happening in the banks of America. New presidents are of little importance. God is God. He is big. He is Good. Nothing escapes his attention. He is more than able to meet your every need and no man can stop him. So fear not! This IS the day the Lord of Lords has made and you have every reason to rejoice in it!

Thankfulness 4-5

Nov 4- I'm thankful for a daughter who grows more beautiful everyday. I know that someday she will be a competent and caring mother and wife who has a heart to serve the Lord.

 

Nov 5- I am thankful for a daughter who brings beautiful sunshine and chaos to my life. She just shines, and its hard not to be happy when you're with her. She makes me proud with how hard she works.

 

Thankfulness 1-3

So I was challenged to post a picture a day through all of November that shows something I'm thankful for. I'm a bit behind.
Nov 1- I'm thankful for my puppy who is always happy to see me and loves me not matter how I look :)

 

Nov 2-I'm thankful for the imagination of Prince E and how everything is an adventure to him. He takes pictures of toy battles with my camera to show me what I'm missing by reading a "boring ole book"

 

Nov 3-I'm thankful for sweet moments like this. We couldn't get them both in the picture, but the shoulder you see to his left is his Papa who also fell asleep on the way home.

 

Trunk or Treat pics

 

Princess A waits to play a game

 

Indiana Jones goes treasure fishing

 

Princess K and friend have had far too much sugar...

Halloween IS scary!!

 

OK so you've heard all I do is eat Bon Bon's all day...here's the proof...

 

 

 

major cutie!!

Self-portrait?

 

 

 

 

Here's what a small boy does when he takes the Queen's camera for a spin. A silly small boy that is...

Game day video

This is the entire competition in super fast forward. I'll have regular pictures later.

Mall Day

 

 

 

 

These are photos of RADAR at our practice run at the mall in Sherman. Princess K is the "spotter" (helper) and her job is to help the driver navigate RADAR into the warehouse to retreive parts to build an airplane. Its not really as easy as it looks....

So it's Robot time again...

 

Cooler temperatures, dying grass, and the sound of power tools can only mean one thing--it's time to build a robot! Science has never really been my thing, but face it, robots are cool. They do what you tell them (sort of) and they don't make messes (well the people operating them do, but can we blame that on the robot?!?!) and they don't talk back (because we don't give them voices!)

The above photo is of some of our brightest students and their lovely parents at the kick-off meeting where we learned our mission. We must assemble and deliver an airplane...piece of cake! Check us out here

Friday Foto

 

10 Blessings

Many of the people in our church are emailing each other with the ten things they are thankful for each day. Here are mine for today

1. Forgiveness
2. A husband who loves me enough to provide for me
3. A son that is learning remorse for his actions
4. Girls who have more hormones than they need (its a blessing to know they are normal)
5. A dog that wears the goofy clothes I put on him
6. Kitties that like to snuggle
7. chocolate- and lots of it...
8. My back that is feeling better
9. Honesty among friends
10.Being able to give someone something they need

Its always the little things....

Sometimes we spend so much time and energy preparing for the big events and the big catastrophes, we forget that its the little things that seem to pack the most punch.

Like ants. I'm not fond of them. In fact, I'm less than not fond of them. On a scale of 1-10 my fondness for ants would be somewhere around a -7. I understand they are part of the food chain and necessary. They are not, however, necessary in my home. That's where they are today. They're in the kitchen, causing me to pull everything out of cabinets. They're in the bathroom, crawling all over the toothbrushes. They're in my bedroom crawling all over my jammies and underthings. I get the kitchen thing, there is food in there. I get the bathroom, there is water in there. But my pajamas?!?!? They are clean so there's no food or water to sustain them. I'm much, much larger than an ant so don't fit them. Perhaps they're jealous because I have lots of pink ones and they don't?

I find it odd that something as small as an ant can derail my entire day. Every time I got an area discovered and sprayed, then tried to sit down to start school with the kids, someone would find another trail. They weren't here yesterday, yet today they have completely taken up the better part of my day. Its almost 3 PM and we've only managed to do reading. Oh, and had a science lesson on mass extermination with a vengeance and why the Queen shouldn't be given a can of chemicals while she's angry... Will having them count all the little dead ant bodies suffice for math today? :0)

Well, I'm off to buy new toothbrushes, more soap to rewash all my jammies and just in case, another big black can of poison...

First Day of School

It's here, It's here..the first day of school. Don't they look so happy?!?! It's 10 AM and only three meltdowns so far. I must be loosing my mean streak.. LOL

Moments of Joy

I don't know about you, but I often wonder if I'm doing this right. I wonder if anything I try to teach my kids is ever going to amount to anything other than "doing the time", and that's not what I want my children to take away from this schooling experience. Somehow, in the midst of the pity party I was having, my child presented me with an opportunity to see into "the future"...figuratively, of course.

I lost my mother in March. My dad, trying to be helpful, brought me all her sewing things knowing that I would want them when I was ready. Well, I wasn't ready. They have been sitting in a pile in the corner of the living room and I walk past and ignore them daily...until today. One of my girls is wanting to learn to sew and asked if she could have Gramma's machine if I wasn't going to use it. So, we got it out, cleaned it up and made sure it was working. Then she wanted to explore the boxes of treasures as well. Most of it was not worth saving because it had been in storage too long. When we got to the bottom of the box, we found patterns to make Barbie clothes. I couldn't believe my mother had kept them, but I couldn't help smiling. We sat and laughed at how funny the clothes looked (I was a 70's child..) and I told her about how I would sit and look through the scraps pile to pick the material for the clothes. What started out as getting ready for a school subject I wasn't looking forward to, quickly became a time to share old memories and make new ones.

Never underestimate the power of your influence on your child. You never know when what you may think is a small, inconsequential moment of your time will turn into a memory. A memory that brings joy, and remembrance of things you taught, to future generations. Enjoy home schooling your children, you're doing great!

His Grace is Enough

This story was forwarded to me not too long ago. My friend was shocked (with good reason) to read of this man's deception. The more I think about the story, the more it occurs to me that this man is just that, a man. We have all sinned and none of us is worthy of Grace on our own, yet God offers it to us so freely.

I can't presume to say why this man would choose to deceive millions the way he has. Perhaps he thought that producing a "miracle" would inspire someone else to believe. Perhaps he shamelessly had a plan to make money off the pity of others. I can't say. I do know that miracles are possible. My son is one. He was dramatically healed. I do know that not every prayer is answered with a miracle. Or is it? After 25 years of pain my mother went home to be with her savior last March. Is that a miracle? Maybe not the one I was hoping for, but the fact that God loved her so much He saved her soul so she could live with Him eternally sounds pretty miraculous to me.

I don't know what God has in store for this preacher who has so publicly fallen. I do know God loves him very much and is waiting with forgiveness and mercy and grace to wrap him in and hold him close. The same love and grace He offers to me every time I fail. He makes all things beautiful. Every sin I allow Him to cover with that unending grace turns from something ugly, to something He uses for His glory. His Grace is ENOUGH and I thank Him for that.

Abraham Lincoln

I'd like to share a quote that I think kind of sums up our mission as parents..

" A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting, and when you are don, attend to those things whoch you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they are carried out depnds on him. He will assume control of your cities, states and nation. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities and corporations. All your books are going to be judged, praised or condemed by him. The fate of humanity is in his hands" Abraham Lincoln

Now, obviously I don't agree with the last line since I believe all destiny is controlled by God. I do agree with the general thought behind the statement in that if we do not take careful and deliberate care to teach our children we will reap what we sow.

Proverbs 11:18 The wicked man earns deceptive wages,
but he who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.

Job 4: 8 As I have observed, those who plow evil
and those who sow trouble reap it.

Meet Samson

This is the newest baby at our home. His name is Samson but Mommy calls him Sam

health code violation??

We passed this sign at a closed gas station and we had to stop and take a picture...I'm pretty sure I wouldn't eat any BBQ smoked in a restroom regardless of the fat content...lol (just pretend you're not looking through my dirty windshield)

Happy 4th

The royal offspring posed for the Queen in front of the flag...I'm not sure just where the silliness comes from...lol

Thankful Thursday

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” ~ Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV-emphasis mine)

Its interesting that Thankful Thursday falls on the one month "anniversary" of my Mother's passing...even more interesting that this was the scripture chosen for today. The past month, I haven't really felt like a "chosen one". I've felt more like a "forgotten one". I know that we are not to be ruled by our feelings. I know that nothing separates me from his love. The fact is that as I focus on "me" and what I'm lacking, I forget to focus on Him. He hasn't forgotten me, I chose to look away. So as I ask for His forgiveness (again) I will also lift my praises and thanksgivings to him.

My thankful list today...
1. I am thankful he takes me back every time I come.
2. I am thankful for the family he put into my life to surround me with love.
3. I am thankful for the little things he uses to remind me of his love...a well timed card from a secret pal, small flowers that make it through the stormy night, and hugs in the grocery store from a friend I didn't expect to see.

My favorite photo

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Famous

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