Sisters Party!

Last weekend we went down to Brownsville to the sisters party there. Since we have so few sisters here they were nice enough to include us in their gift exchange. Sis. Trina didn't make it, but I had her name; so I was able to give her her gift early and see her unwrap it!

We all met at a Chinese restaurant. The only child there was baby Corrina. It seems like usually I'm so busy with my own kids that I don't get to hold her; so I had some nice Corrina time along with some good fellowship with my sisters. There was lots of good food and laughter. It was a very nice evening out.

We ate first. Each person had a little hollow Christmas decorations with a number and a letter in it. After we were done eating my mom brought a basket around and we each picked a gift out of it according to the letter we had. One person (I think it was Wenona) was a winner and got the door prize and all the left over gifts from the basket.

Next we played dirty Santa. It was fun! There were a lot of good gifts; so there was lots of gifts getting stolen. We laughed a lot!

Sis. Janette is opening the dirty Santa gift that I brought. Unfortunately someone stole it from her!

Here's Alicia with baby Corrina, on the table you can see the Angel tree topper that I won in the dirty Santa game, and yes I stole it! I think I actually had to steal it twice!! Sis. Trish Knight is enjoying herself

Finally we all one by one opened our gifts from each other. We all got some really nice stuff! Alyssa had my name. She got me a soap making kit (I'm really excited to try it out!), some smelly good bath gel and she got each of the members of my family little small gifts. They really appreciated that! I didn't think to get any pictures of me with my gift though.

Sis. Cierra Smith is opening her gift from Sis. Cindy. Sis. Marisela is watching.

Sis. Connie is opening her gift (I forgot who had her name). Sis. Cindy brought Sis. Deanie to the party. It was nice to see her again.

Sis. Sara was very excited to get this maternity dress that Sis. Cierra made for her.

My Mother-in-law had my mom. She got some pretty cute stuff!

Sis. Trish is opening her gift from Sis. Marisela. She got a Christmas welcome mat, among other things.

Sis. Tina brought Sis. Janette and Sis. Amber. It was a nice surprise having them there. We enjoyed them.

Sis. Cindy is opening her gift. She really put a lot of effort into planning this. She did a very good job as usual and we all had fun.

Wenona got a very nice skirt and shirt outfit from Sis. Trish.

It was a really nice evening. Matt had the kids for the evening. He took them to Shari's and then went shopping at Wal-Mart. I was worried that it would be too much for him to have to deal with all 4 kids by himself in town like that. He said they were very good though. I was glad that we were both able to have an enjoyable night. It would have been kind of a let down to come back to a grumpy husband and grouchy kids. Here was yet another small blessing to be thankful for!

Grandpa Mike

I finally got pictures onto my computer of our visit with Grandpa Mike. Here they are:

He lifted Ruby up so she could reach; and then gave her a push.

Here he is helping Christian too.

Christian wanted to make a funny face!!

Christian with his Grandpa Mike.

Anthony just woke up, so he's got a little frown on his face; but he let Grandpa Mike hold him. I think he enjoyed it

Am I a Teacher?

There is a family that lives here in our part that I would really like to reach out to. We've lived here for quite a few months and I just can't seem to figure out how to get close enough to them to be that light and example to them. I've been praying about some common ground we can base a friendship on, or something. They just don't really understand the faith and I would like to help them. I hope I'm not puffed up about it though. Anyway, it's been a puzzle to me how to reach out to them because their lifestyle is so much different than mine.

The other night we went to dinner at their house. We had a pretty good time; visited some and played some games. While we were there they mentioned how their Kindergartner was not at the right level. She does have a learning and attention problem. They said she's in a classroom with 30 something other kids. There's no way she can get the one-on-one attention she needs. They said that she doesn't seem to do well when they try to teach her.

After leaving their house I kept thinking about that conversation. When it dawned on me that here was my opportunity that I'd been praying for. When I was first married I helped my cousins catch up on their Math skills. I thought maybe I could do something like this again. Now I'm not exactly sure how to go about it; but I offered to tutor her once a week (maybe more if that works out) I really think she needs some one-on-one without the distraction of even my kids; so I'm really praying about how to deal with it. Matt car-pools with the husband; so he'll bring their little girl with him. So it'll be nice to have him home to help with our kids. I'm supposed to start next Thursday.

Anyway, I'm really praying about how to teach her. Because of her learning problems I know I'll have to go about things a certain way or it won't sink in. I would also like to know how to use this opportunity in the best way God would want me to. Just pray for me that I will know God's direction in this. Thanks.

Wondering

This morning I read the 11th Chapter of First Corinthians. This is the very first verse:

"Be ye followers of me,even as I also am of Christ."

This is Paul speaking to the Corinthians. I've heard and read this verse a lot of times; but this morning it hit me. Do I have the confidence to say this? Can I tell other people "watch me because I'm doing all the right things!"? In some ways you don't want to be puffed up, but it would be nice to know that you are trying your best and if other people followed your example they would be doing pretty good. I'm afraid I am all too aware of my faults and shortcomings to tell people to follow my example; but here's the scary part: There may be people (such as my children) who are following my example that may not be a completely good one. I do not want anyone to go the wrong way or do the wrong things simply because they were following my example. My motivation today is to give people a good example to follow.

Here's some more scripture in that chapter that has always mystified me. If any of you have an idea what it means I would love to know:

"For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.
For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the Angels."

What I don't understand is the last verse there. I guess it's the "because of the Angels" part. Really it's one of those things that we don't really need to understand; we just need to follow what the scripture is saying; but I've always wondered what it meant.

One time I asked Sis. Cindy FlanderMeyer about it. She said she didn't really understand what it meant, but one time she was flying with Doug when he was little. I guess Doug was really being bad and disrupting the other passengers. Sis. Cindy said she said a little prayer. It went something like this: "Lord the Bible says that we have power on our heads, can I use that power somehow to calm Doug down." She said that after that Doug was good for the rest of the trip.

Anyway, if any of you have insight on this I would love to hear it.

Thanksgiving

I thought I would be able to post some pictures of our Thanksgiving, but my camera is so dead I can't even load pictures onto my computer, and there's not enough money to buy a new battery yet; so I will write my blog without pictures.

We went to Brian and Michelle's house for Thanksgiving. (I'll let her post the pictures, I guess) It was nice to get together with everyone. We hadn't been to their house in quite awhile. They've gotten a lot done since we'd been there last. They still have a lot to do before they're done. It was nice to relax with family and lots of good food! Bro. Dale and Sis. Chantel came over and brought their company. It was nice to get to visit with all of them.

The day after Thanksgiving Matt and I took the kids to Seneca (which is a 3 hour drive from Michelle's). Their Grandpa Mike McManus lives there and they had never met him before. He's not really living a very good lifestyle, but he is their grandpa; so we decided to make the effort for them to see each other. Most of the time when we are out that way there's only enough time to visit with Brian and Michelle. This time we had a few more days than normal; so we decided to take the time to go see him.

I was pretty nervous. For one thing, I didn't know if he would be sober or not; and I didn't know if he even cared to meet our kids since he had never made the effort to see them before. We only spent a few hours there since it was a fairly long drive and the roads were pretty icy (we didn't want to be out very late) I really prayed about our meeting with him and I thought it went pretty well. He was sober; and he seemed to had made an effort to look and act nice for our kids. Since they hadn't ever met before the kids were a little shy around him; but he interacted with them some. He even had his camera, and we both took pictures. We took the kids to a playground and they enjoyed that. He got to watch them play and he helped them to reach the high toys and stuff. I felt like it went really well. I'm very thankful for that. We may not get to see him very often, but I would like to make more of an effort to keep him informed with the children's lives.

Saturday Matt spent the day helping Brian put some new flooring in their kitchen. They didn't quite finish it, but it's looking very nice! Michell, Linda and I went to town for a little while. We went to this neat little shop and I found some cute things for Christmas presents; and they were really cheap! That evening we had a wienie roast at the church. I stayed inside the whole time because Garrison had poked my eye and it was really sore and irritated. I was afraid the fire smoke would make it hurt worse. By the end of the night I could actually open my eye; and by morning it didn't hurt anymore. I was thankful for that. I really enjoyed visiting with the brethren there and the others visiting for Thanksgiving.

I have to admit that church wasn't real lively; but Bro. Bill got up and made a real good talk that got me thinking. Hopefully I do more than think! Let me see if I can remember what he said that really got me... He was reading about Faith and the works of Faith. He said something about how God would give us what we need to have these works, and that we would be rewarded. So many times it seems easier to do what I want to do, instead of what I know is right. He reminded me that God will help me make my life what it should be; and my life will be better for it. We didn't stay long after church. There was a church dinner, and we got to visit for a little while, but left pretty soon because we didn't want to be caught on bad roads. We had a pretty good trip. We made fairly good time and God protected us. There were a lot of accidents we came across.

We had a pretty good weekend. There's something about getting away for awhile that helps you to be more motivated to get back into the daily grind. Speaking of daily grind... I have dishes to do, laundry to wash, kids to put to work and dinner to make. I hope you all had a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving!

Onion breath

The other night Matt and I were laying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep when I noticed he had onion breath. When I told him he had onion breath he said something like "that means one good thing." I couldn't figure out what the good thing was until he told me that it meant my nose wasn't stuffed up anymore. I had been suffering from a pretty bad cold; and of course was very aware of this fact. When he brought it to my attention that my cold was gone it made me realize that I hadn't even noticed when it had gotten better. This got me to thinking about how it seems like it's easier to notice bad things (like onion breath), than the many small blessings we have in life (like not having a stuffy nose anymore!). God wants us to give thanks in everything; even the bad things. And it seems like that even through trials there is always an upside and someway to be thankful for that very trial.

I've never watched the old movie Pollyanna until recently. In it Pollyanna was always playing a "game" where when something bad happened she thought of someway to be glad about it. I would like to be more like that. In honor of Thanksgiving I would like to make this list of things I am thankful for. I'm sure there's more than what I can come up with here, but here goes...

1. I'm thankful for my husband's onion breath, because that means I can smell.

2. I'm thankful for all my dirty dishes because that means we have food to eat.

3. I'm thankful for the times my children keep me up at night because that means I have children.

4. I'm thankful for all the laundry because that means we have plenty of clothes to wear.

5. I'm thankful for the tears I cry because God is always there to dry them up again.

6. I'm thankful for the times I feel lonely because God reminds me that I am never alone.

7. I'm thankful for the concrete dust in my bathroom, in the laundry room, on the floors, bed etc because that means my husband has a job.

8. I'm thankful for the messy diapers because that means my children are healthy!

9. I'm thankful when my children misbehave in church because that means we are free to assembly ourselves together.

10. I'm thankful for the times our vehicles require maintenance because that means we have vehicles to take us where we need to go.

11. I'm thankful for the house work I have to do because that means we have a roof over our heads.

12. I'm thankful for the many trips up and down the stairs I have to make each day because that means I can walk.

13. I'm thankful for the daily routine of clothing, feeding, and picking up after my family because that means I have the health and strength to do these never ending tasks.

14. I'm thankful for my trials because God and the brethren are always there to help me through.

There is so much more I'm thankful for that's not necessarily connected to a bad thing, but my point is I would like to look past the discouragements, frustrations and the mundane aspects of life and see the joy and blessings that are always there to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I will be very busy the rest of this week; so you probably won't hear from me. Hopefully I can look beyond the stressfulness and see that there is so much to be thankful for that I have no reason to be stressed out!

After re-reading my blog I have uplifted myself somehow!! Now on to the messy house, noisy children, and the never ending to-do list!!

Wedding Vows

"Do you, Bro. Matt, take Sis. Tisha, To be thy wedded wife?

To Love and to cherish,

For better or for worse,

For richer or for poorer,

In Sickness and in health;

To comfort and honor,

Provide for her and keep her;

Cleaving only unto her,

As long as you both shall live?"

"I Do."

"Do you, Sis. Tisha, Take Bro. Matt, to be thy wedded husband?

to love and to cherish,

For better or for worse,

For richer or for poorer,

In sickness and in health;

To comfort and honor,

Obey and keep him;

Forsaking all others,

And from this day forward,

Keeping thyself only unto him,

As long as you both shall live?"

"I Do."

When we were engaged to be married we asked Bro. Dean Higgins to be our minister. He had never done a wedding before; so in some ways he was a new as us to it all. I couldn't find anybody who had a copy of wedding vows for the ceremony. I went online and searched it, but the only ones I found didn't seem to have everything that I thought needed to be there. So I decided to get my Bible out and research what the Bible said a husband and wife ought to do. That along with the basic vows I found online helped me to come up with the vows we made on our wedding day.

The reason I have been thinking about wedding vows is because yesterday Christian asked me how people got married. I explained to him that we had a piece of paper that we had to sign so that people could tell we were married; but I told him that most importantly we made vows (which I explained to him were like promises) before God and to each other that said we would treat each other good and stay married.

Our children have a way of keeping us on our toes and keeping us humble.

Soon after we were married I typed up our wedding vows and framed them. After speaking to Christian I got to thinking about what those wedding vows said. Now I've always been faithful to Matt, and I've always loved him, but if I'm completely honest I don't always cherish him like I should, or honor him like I should. How many times do I comfort him when he really needs it. Sometimes I might even be so caught up in myself that I don't see the times that he needs comfort from me. I've stuck with him through the hard times (and we haven't really had REAL bad times); but have I actually been a help to him during those hard times?

Now I know Matt pretty well, I could really pick him apart if I wanted to. He's human just like me. Most of the time I think I'm more faulty than him though. Sometimes I don't like the way he does things, or I just take for granted the many good things that he does for me and our family. Where is the cherishing and honoring in that? Fulfilling my wedding vows is a lot more than just continuing to live together as husband and wife. I'm glad for the little reminder from my 5 year old that I need to try harder to follow my wedding vows. A vow before God is a very serious thing after all.

Haircut weekend

All the menfolk in my family were getting pretty shaggy looking (except they baby who's curls are too cute to cut still!(:). So we decided that haircuts would be on the top of our list of things to do this weekend. I cut Matt and Christian's hair, I'm not a perfect stylist, but they look acceptable. Matt did Anthony's hair because we were just going to buzz it. Anthony's hair tends to stick up; so it's easier to just keep it extra short. Matt took him out to the garage and Anthony came back looking like this:

I've never thought I would give my kids a Mohawk. I've always thought they looked funny, but somehow I like this. Am I weird? Somehow I think it looks right on him. Maybe it's because he's my wild child! Christian's been bugging me about giving him a Mohawk. I won' do it. He got a boring regular haircut. I just think it would look funny on him. Of course maybe it looks funny on Anthony, and somehow I'm blinded to the fact! Matt says it'll only be for a few days. I guess we'll have to see how long it lasts. Let me know what you think of Anthony's new do. I won't be upset if you don't agree with me!

Halloween, Finally!

I'm finally getting around to posting about our Halloween. We were actually very boring and just went trick or treating in our neighborhood. It's actually the first time I remember doing this with the kids. Usually it's so cold and/or rainy that we just take the kids to a mall; but this year the weather was really nice. We still thought about taking the kids somewhere, but this was easier and I thought they would enjoy it just as well. It was fun. They were all pretty hyped up. At first when we would go to the doors Ruby would ask for more candy. We had to tell her that one piece was enough and you don't ask for more. So after that at almost every house she would tell them "One is enough, we only need one." I don't know what makes my kids, especially Ruby, blurt out absurd things to strangers. One guy opens up his door and Ruby says "My Papa can't see, he has ears that don't let him see." We all laughed about that! Well, here are my pictures. They are proof that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. I was busy, and asked Matt to take a picture of each of the kids by themselves, and one of all of them together. The one of Christian I didn't even put it on here because he wasn't done putting his costume on; so you couldn't even tell it was a Halloween picture. Next year I'll make sure to take the pictures myself.

The Deed is Done!

Well last night I went down to Brownsville and signed a lease option to buy with a couple! It feels nice to get that done. It seemed like getting our house taken care of has dragged out, but we never missed a payment; so God really provided for us there. We figured we would only be able to make it to August or September, but every month that came we seemed to have just enough money to keep the payment paid on time. I'm thankful for that. I'm going to try not to worry about if these people don't pay rent. It really does no good to worry about things before they happen. That's what I'm trying to tell myself anyway....

Garrison & Kylee's Birthday

I finally got the pictures of Garrison's Birthday onto my computer. It was fun having a double First Birthday party. For those of you who don't know Garrison and Kylee were born 17 hours apart (18 if you count the hour lost that night during the time change). Sis. Cindy FlanderMeyer delivered both babies. They are first cousin's by the way, I think I forgot to mention that. Anyway, we had a good time, it's always fun watching a first Birthday party. Ok, now I'll quit rambling so you can see the pictures...

No, this isn't Kylee or Garrison, but this picture of my sister Alicia's baby Carrina is soooo cute I had to put it on here!

What he wanted more than the cake was that candle. I'd get his mouth real close while I held his hands and he just kept trying to bite the candle, flame and all!

Here they are together. Trina, these pictures are reminding me that I need to give you your chair back.

Eating the cake.

Kylee made quite a mess with her cake! It was fun to watch!

There's the Birthday boy.

Isn't she cute???

Chistian's First Tooth!

Ok, it's really late, but I finally got my pictures onto my computer today and I have a lot of posts I want to get up here; so... here goes...

Christian lost his first tooth the other day. I was loose for a few days. I was a little bit squeamish about having to pull it. I wasn't worried about the blood or anything; I was just worried about the battle it would be. I can remember put my parents through some fits when they tried to pull my teeth. Anyway, I put off the tooth pulling long enough that it came out on it's own! Yah! Christian just kept wiggling it around and it finally just fell out. It didn't bleed at all. It was a very nice first tooth experience for him. Here he is with his new gap.


Matt and I don't teach our kids that Santa is real. We just feel like that's lieing to them. I'm not sure if we ever discussed the tooth fairy. We didn't tell Christian anything about what usually happens when you lose a tooth (maybe we were hoping to save some money!) A couple of days after he lost it he told us that if you put the tooth under your pillow the moon will change the tooth into a dollar. He heard it somewhere, and we let him believe it. So he put the tooth under his pillow. We had quite a search for it. It had been in a plastic baggie; and for some reason he took it out. We almost couldn't find it. Anyway, we put the dollar there and he woke up amazed that his tooth had magically turned into a dollar.

I was debating within myself about whether we should allow him to believe the lie. I hadn't discussed it with Matt still, but he eventually sat Christian down and told him the truth. It just doesn't seem right to lie to your kids about things, even if it's something fun like this. I want my kids to always believe me and not wonder when I'm telling them the truth. Someone once told me that someday when your kids learn that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy etc. are not real, will they wonder if all those great Bible stories are made up too? Anyway, just to set the record straight, I don't think it's a great sin if you let your child believe these things, but we have chose not to.

My Sister's Blog

As some of you might have noticed, my sister Wenona has started her own blog. I just thought I'd post this little blog to let all of you know. I have some pictures from our weekend in Brownsville for Garrison's Birthday. I'll post a blog about it when I get the pictures on my computer. For now my husband has told me that he wants housework to be my top priority today. Sooo, I better go....

Where's Garrison?

The other day I was blogging away and when I was done I went to check on the kids. I found the other 3 kids playing together. Garrison was not with them. Usually Garrison is either with me or the other kids. It's not too often that he goes off and plays by himself; unless he's found a special treasure like a bathroom! So I wandered around looking for him. I couldn't find him anywhere and I didn't hear him anywhere either. My imagination was just started to kick in with all the little scenarios that could have happened when I found him! He was in the laundry room asleep on top of the dirty laundry!

Sadly, yes we do use a large cardboard box for our dirty laundry pile. I figure that 's one step up from just having a pile on the floor, right?

Free T-shirt! & ice-cream sandwiches

On Saturday we decided to go to the Market here in Hillsboro that carries Ruby Jewel ice-cream sandwiches. Even though it was cold outside we couldn't wait any longer to try these beautifully named treats! It was a nice treat for the kids and some fun family time. The place we went had an eating area so we sat down and ate our treats. They were pretty good! We tried the Chocolate Chip cookie with Vanilla Bean and the Double Chocolate with P-nut butter. Boring old me liked the chocolate chip cookie vanilla one. Our Ruby Jewel liked the chocolate p-nut butter one. We only got 2 to share. It was enough for us though. They're pretty good sized. They are a little spendy though. $3.50 a piece.

When we got home from eating our treats we checked the mail and there was Ruby's T-shirt! They had also enclosed some magnets with the company logo on them, some stickers for the kids and a gift bag stamped with the company logo. Ruby was really excited! We had her wear her new T-shirt on Sunday and we took some pictures. Here they are!

I guess you could say she's all natural, but I can't say she's all good!

Now you all who live on the West Coast are going to have to find a Ruby Jewel distributor near you and try out these wonderful ice-cream sandwiches, just to say you did!

I just did my spell check and I guess spendy is not a word. Oh well, I'm going to use it anyway!

Puke bowls

Doesn't that sound like a lovely title?

Last night Christian and Ruby were really good about getting their chores done so I told them I would play a game with them on the computer. Christian started complaining about his head and stomache hurting; so I told him to go downstairs and get a bowl in case he felt like puking. Of course then Ruby decided she was sick and needed a bowl too. A few minutes later they came back up with their bowls. I looked over at the bowl Ruby had gotten for herself and it was a colander! I got a laugh out of that! I explained to her that bowl wouldn't help much if she were to puke in it! (of course she wasn't really sick, so I wasn't too worried about her choice of bowls).

Christian did seem like he was running a slight fever, but he never had to use his bowl. This morning he seems fine.

Another small Blessing

I believe that God is pleased when we thank him for things and let others know about them; so even though it seems kind of small I have another small blessing to share with all of you.

Yesterday I washed a load of laundry and had Ruby put it in the dryer and start it up again. (I turned the little knob to put it on the right cycle, and she just had to push the button) I meant to do more laundry, but got busy with other things and didn't get around to it; so that load sat in the dryer the rest of the day.

When Matt came home he must have been running low on work clothes because he put a load of work clothes in the wash for me. (What a nice husband!) Anyway, we went to dinner at Bro. Sean and Sis. Marisela's house. (dinner was very good) so that load got ignored also.

Before we went to bed Matt remembered the laundry. Because I was nursing the baby he went to change the loads around (he really is nice, isn't he?). He came back to tell me that the clothes that were in the dryer were still very wet so he had to turn them on again.

When the dryer was done again I was still up; so I went to switch the loads around and the clothes were still wet. Now it seems like a lot of things like this has happened to us lately; do I decided to anoint the dryer and pray that it wouldn't be another thing that we had to get fixed. I put the dryer on a different cycle this time and started it up once again. It was still going when I went to bed. I thought that if the clothes were still wet when I got up in the morning I was going to have to call Trina for some emergency help.

I got up this morning and the clothes were dry! yahhh! I've done a couple more loads today and no more problems! I've been thanking the Lord all day for another small blessings!

I've really been trying lately to acknowledge the many good things in my life. When I really start counting my blessings they outnumber the hardships over and over.

Bible Reading

I've decided that I need to read the Bible more. I say more, but I really haven't been reading it at all. So last night and today I've read a few chapters. What I read this morning was really what I needed; so I thought I'd share it with all of you.

"Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As is is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that Loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:35-39

Let me repeat the verse that especially helped me because I like it so much!

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that Loved us."

Sometimes I feel like I just can't get through something, like I can't conquer a problem I'm having that's bogging me down in the Faith, but God is telling me that through Christ I can more than conquer these things. Just please pray for me that I can walk in the spirit and allow God to help me.

Little Blessings

Today I went to Christian's school with all my kids for Teacher's conference. It wasn't too big of an ordeal. The teacher gave them paper and crayons and they were pretty happy. Christian's doing pretty good in school too, by the way. The teacher says he's showing potential of being a good leader. I guess he tries to help the other kids when they need it. He does have a problem wanting to doodle instead of doing his schoolwork; and sometimes he has to be reminded to do what he was told to do. All fairly normal stuff I think.

Anyway, today was payday and there was a few things I needed to get; so I thought I would brave the Dollar Tree and Jo Anne's without my hubby to help with the kids. I stopped and got a cheap $5 pizza and bread sticks and let the kids eat in the van. Then off we went. I went all over both stores because it took me awhile to find everything I wanted. My kids really did pretty well; but there's always a certain amount of "I want, I want." It really didn't go too bad, but by the time I got back in the van and had all the kids buckled in I was breathing a sigh of relief because it was over. The baby was also getting pretty cranky by this time because he had missed his nap. I got in the drivers seat and went to pull my keys out of my purse... and they weren't there!! I was imagining the ordeal of having to unbuckle all the kids back up; loading them in the cart again, and going through the stores looking for my lost keys. I was sitting in the van dreading the inevitable when I looked up at our abandoned cart and there were my keys!! They were hanging by my key chain in the front right where the baby sat. I was soooo thankful! I said a little prayer of thanks to the Lord right then and there! Just wanted to share this little blessing with all my blogging buddies!

A Huntin' we will go...

Hunting for renters that is. Yes, it really looks like we will not be selling our house. Our Real Estate agent advised us to start looking for renters. He says he's going to try to get us the $500 earnest money from the deal. It's not much, but it would pay for one of our house payments. I hope he can get it.



Renting is not what we wanted to do, but the Lord must have this planned for us. I guess being debt free was too big of a dream. If we were debt free we would have a lot more money to do things that we want to do. I think though that it might not have been good for us to have too much money. As things are we should have enough to get by.



I will interrupt this blog to tell a little story:



When I was I think 14 I got my first job and worked until I was about 16. I think my mom did have us contribute a little to the household expenses when we were working, but the rest was ours to spend. And that's just what I did, I spent my money. I didn't hardly ever save up my money for important things. In other words, I wasn't being very responsible with my money. When I was 16 I got to reading the Bible where it said that a woman should be a keeper at home and I felt like God wanted me to stop working and stay at home and help my mom around the house; and learn the things that a wife needs to know. So I quit my jobs. There was every once in awhile I would babysit or something and would earn a little money. Mostly though I asked not to be paid. Sometimes (not very often, because we were pretty poor) my Dad or Mom would give me money. I learned more about being financially responsible when I didn't have much money than when I had more money. I could save my money for a long time when I didn't know when or where I was going to get more.



I think maybe God wants us to be more responsible with our money; and more content and happy with the necessities of life.



I was thinking last night about how God wants us to be content with what we have. God always takes care of us, and he wants us to be happy with what he gives us. If we're not happy and content with having the things we need; how will having more of what we want make us any happier? I think we would be more spoiled than anything.



I could feel sorry for myself about this because things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, but I'm going to try to count my blessings because they are many. God really has done a lot of wonderful things for me. Just please pray for us that we will have the attitude that God wants from us. Also please pray that as we look for renters that we might find some who will take care of our home and pay their rent on time.



Thanks again for your prayers and support!

Ruby Jewel

I'm not real sure how she found it, but my mom stumbled upon an interesting website that she found. It's called http://RubyJewel.net. I guess they make ice-cream sandwiches. Anyway, they sell apparel that says Ruby Jewel on it. It would be so neat to get my little Ruby Jewel some of their stuff. The best thing is, they say that if you can prove your name is Ruby you get a free T-shirt! I'm checking into that right now. If and when we get this T-shirt I'll have to post a picture of Ruby in her new personalized apparel!

I looked up the locations where they sell these ruby Jewel ice-cream bars. I guess it's all in the Northwest. Supposedly it's a unique and bold flavors of ice-cream sandwiches made from local all natural ingredients. Anyway, I'm not usually that particular about things, but because of the name I can tell I'm going to have to try at least one of these Ice-cream bars! There's a lot of locations in Portland, one in Hillsboro and one in Beaverton that sell these little gems. When I find one I'll have to let all of you know how these beautifully named ice-cream sandwiches taste! For any of you that live in the Northwest there's other locations in Washington, Oregon and California. It's all on the website if you want to check it out just for fun!

The Comfort of a baby

Garrison, my baby, is almost 1 now. I have 4 children and the oldest is 5. All of my children are about 1 1/2 years apart. After Anthony, life was getting pretty stressful with them being so close together; so we decided to slooow down. God had other plans! I'm so glad he did.

Garrison is such a joy! He's not a perfect baby by any means, but he's fairly happy and content. As I've posted before, our life has been pretty stressful at times lately. There's moments when things just aren't going right, there's even somtimes when I want to have the freedom to be in a bad mood (why do we do that sometimes? When we actually don't want to be cheered up?) Anyway, then I'll look at my baby or he looks at me with that sweet little face. I mean who wouldn't melt when they look into this face?

The circumstances haven't changed at all, but somehow just looking at my baby, or cuddling with him makes things seem better. It is very amazing the comfort that a baby can bring when they don't even do anything!

Just to clarify things, today has not been an aweful day. It actually went pretty well, but I just wanted to share this little bit of sweetness with you. I'm so thankful that God sent us this blessing. God sure knows what we need even if we don't agree. It so nice that God doesn't always do for us what we want. I would have missed out on a beautiful blessing named Garrison!

Joseph

Last night Matt told me that he'd been having a lot of dreams lately. For some reason this caused me to think of Joseph, from the Bible. I thought about the dreams he interpreted for Pharaoh. If you didn't already know what those dreams meant, it would be hard to understand what they meant. Then I got to thinking about why Pharaoh believed Joseph's interpretation enough to set him up over all of Egypt. I mean this was Pharaoh, why did he believe some measly little servant who had been spending years in prison? Then I remembered the dreams he interpreted for his fellow prisoners. It was one of these that told Pharaoh about Joseph and how his interpretations were so accurate.

Here Joseph was, He'd been despised all his life by jealous brothers; then those jealous brothers sold him to a servant trader. So, he got sent away from his father and mother, whom he loved (and who also believed he was dead). Then he was bought by a man who was fair and good, but his wife accused him of rape; so Joseph gets sent to prison. So basically, this guy has had a horrible life! Why did he have to go through all this?

Because God had a plan. Things had to lead up to the moment where he could interpret Pharaoh's dream; and Pharaoh would appoint him over all of Egypt, so that he could bring his family (God's chosen people) to Egypt when they would not have survived elsewhere; not to mention all the character building that probably went on inside Joseph throughout all this.

Joseph didn't know the Lord's plan. It wasn't like he could tell himself "if I get through this, someday I'll be almost as high as Pharaoh". There were probably many times he was in despair and didn't understand why God was doing all of this to him. But God knew what he was doing all along.

Now, there is a reason I've relayed all this to you. I don't really want to go into a lot of little details; but things aren't going according to my plans lately. Yesterday I talked to our Real Estate agent and he seemed to think that the selling of our house was going to fall through. We are still praying about it though and the Lord could work it out. I believe that God caused me to remember the story of Joseph so that I could be reminded that God ALWAYS knows what he's doing!! Just please pray for Matt and I that we could trust in God and not worry. God might have different plans than we do and we need to trust that he knows what he's doing and he will help us get through.

Thanks to all!

I really enjoy the fellowship and encouragement that I've received through this blogging. It has really been a help, joy, comfort ect... to me!

Shut-up!

I really don't like that word, and I especially don't want my children to say it. It just sounds really rude to me. Now I say this, but the other day I got mad at my kids who were all screaming at once and I yelled at them to all shut-up! Well they did! But every since that day my 2 year old has caught on to that one word and now it seems to be his favorite word. As far as I can remember it's the only time I ever said that word to them. So now I have the problem of trying to teach my 2 year old to not say a word that he heard mommy say; and she said it very loudly too! This is what I get for letting my anger get the best of me. Why couldn't I have just said be quiet like I usually do?

Well, there you have it, the confessions of a young mother!

Ruby's Birthday in Brownsville

Ruby's birthday was last weekend, but I am just now getting around to posting about it. We enjoyed our weekend in Brownsville. We had good fellowship with the Brethren there. We had Ruby's party and Josh and Alicia's house. It was very nice of them to have everyone over. Let's see if I can remember who all was there... Us, Josh & Alicia, Marshal & Connie, Mark & Kim, Travis & Wenona, Dad & Mom, Linda, Trish, Vern & Cindy, Bill, Daniel (it was his Birthday too) Let's see, that's 18 adults and I think 21 children! It was noisy and chaotic, but nice to get to visit with everyone.

The birthday girl trying on her princess crown that Gramma Linda gave her. Nana Hays is putting some lip gloss on her lips.

Daddy got Ruby her own personal Elephant cake, and a bigger cake for everyone else to share.

The Trollz doll that Daddy and Mommy got her.

Her new baby doll from Gramma Linda.

Her chest of dress-up clothes from Daddy & Mommy. She already has them all strung out all over her room, but she LOVES it! Some other people got her some other dress-up stuff and accessories and she has really had a blast with it!

Well, there you have it!

The Lost is Found!

Matt found the missing clips and bullets! Yayyy! It turned out that they were in a box that I had already unpacked and put away in our upstairs hall closet. So the missing clips were all my fault. I will have to say though that throughout this whole search I've said that I have a terrible memory and there was a possibility that they were hiding in just such a spot. It's a good thing that Matt thought to look there.

Anyway, just wanted to share this little bit of news with you.

Busy Bees

Matt and I have been busy today. After living here for 4 months (has it really been that long?) we finally got our big bedroom closet done just like we want it. All the boxes that we needed to unpack are finally unpacked and gone through. Of course we have a whole new heap of stuff to get rid of. Here's a picture of our closet. There's nothing real special about it. We didn't buy any fancy closet organizers or anything, but it's DONE!

Matt's brother Mark & a friend of his want to buy Matt's rifles; but we can't find the clips and bullets that go with them anywhere! This has really motivated us to finish unpacking and see if we can find them. Well, they're not in our bedroom closet! Now I need to get busy with the closet downstairs! Especially since I took down all of Garrison's clothes (notice the empty baby hangers?) and the tub with his 12 month clothes are in that closet some where. So here I go back to work!

Utensils, Utensils & more Utensils!

Here is a picture of my utensil drawer:

I know it's a cluttered mess!

Matt went through a Pampered Chef stint,

and we got a lot of neat stuff!

there's definitely WAY too much here,

but I've went through it before and there's nothing I want to get rid of!

Everything has it's own little neat use!

Someday I'll have to try going through it again.

The horrible thing is that's not all!

Behold! There's more:

Just a thought I'd give you an interesting little glimpse into my life!

Silly Me!

Since yesterday's blog was a little on the heavy side. Here's something lighter to balance it out...

Here's what happens when you get up too early to make lunch for your husband to take to work...

The baby had woke up, and I nursed him. I noticed it was almost time for Matt' alarm to go off anyway; so I made my way downstairs to make his lunch for him. I got bread out to make him a sandwich, snacks, I cut up a nectarine for him, got some drinks out etc, etc. Anyway, then I put it all in his lunch box; and made my way upstairs to try to sleep a little longer.

Did anyone notice something missing?

Well, I was going about my day; when at lunch time Matt calls me and says he took a bite out of his sandwich, and there was nothing in it!! I guess I had gotten the bread out, then got busy with the rest of the stuff and forgot to put anything in the bread! I did put his "sandwich" in a bag though and put it in his lunch! How funny! I did feel bad that my husband had to go without his sandwich, but I had to laugh at myself! Needless to say, this morning I made very sure that I made his sandwich correctly!

Infinite Patience

Yesterday was a pretty discouraging day for me. I actually wrote a blog about it all; but halfway through I realized I could never post it. I finished typing it out though and it helped a little just to have it all written down. So I just kept my woes to myself and prayed about them all day.

Anyway, because I was having a bad day I didn't have very much patience with my children. I really thought I was trying to have patience, but my patience could only stand so much. At one point I had 3 children standing by me whining (Christian was at school); I finally couldn't take it anymore and I took them all out of my room and shut and locked the door so I could have some time to myself. There was another point where I yelled at them. The truth was they weren't being extra bad; I was just frustrated about other things, and so that spilled out into my whole day and my whole outlook on life. So my poor children suffered.

As I said, I was really praying a lot yesterday. For wisdom in knowing how to deal with things that come my way. I prayed a lot that I would have the right attitude. All day I went about my day and my heart was just heavy with discouragement. Let me tell you it is impossible to be the way I'm supposed to be when I feel like that. I got to thinking about my bad attitude towards my children; and about how my bad attitude about the things that were getting me down was very similar to whining (the thing I lost my patience over with my children).

God NEVER loses his patience with me. When I whine, complain, ask for things I can't have; when I'm ungrateful, lazy and selfish. He is ever patient with me. Oh, he chastises me; and tries to teach me how to behave better; but he never shuts me out, as I did to my children, because he's tired of hearing my whining. He just patiently tries to help me with whatever my problems are. And let me tell you it requires way more patience than I will ever need with my children!

God has infinite patience! I'm very thankful for this!

Just to share with you all; by the end of the day my heart was still heavy; and I knew it shouldn't be, but I couldn't seem to shake it. I thought about calling and talking to someone, but I felt like I would only be discouraging to whomever if I tried; so I didn't do that. I knew that with God's help I should have gotten it taken care of, but I couldn't. I felt I needed some sort of little encouragement. God was good to me (in his infinite patience); even though I should have been able to feel better without extra help. Just before bedtime I got a phone call from someone. We didn't even talk about the things that were discouraging me, but he had some encouraging words to remind me what I was really striving for and how my discouragements were nothing, really, in the whole scheme of things. He reminded me how we need to live the old time religion so that we can make Heaven. It encouraged me to keep on keepin' on with a light heart because there is a beautiful reward waiting for me if I do!

Thank you Lord for your infinite patience and wisdom in dealing with me!

Our Coast Trip

It's been a few weeks ago that we took this trip to the coast, but I just got the pictures onto my computer; so I thought I would share them.

We left on Saturday, spent the night, and came home in time for church on Sunday. We were going to spend Friday night too, but decided we shouldn't spend the money on the extra night. Matt's mom met us in Lincoln City on Saturday. We had a fun day with the kids; and my nice Mother-in-law offered to watch the kids in our room that night so we could go out together. It was nice! We didn't stay gone too long because we mostly wanted some family time.

The room we got was really nice. It was actually a condo that you could rent nightly. It was very relaxing; and just a short walk to the beach.

Sunday morning we took our time getting around; and went to the beach one more time. We have really enjoyed having church in the afternoons. It's so nice to not have to rush around getting all the kids around on Sunday mornings. We can actually enjoy Sunday mornings instead of getting to church all stressed out! Anyway, I'm getting a little off track here. We've never taken a weekend family trip like this because we would feel too guilty missing church; and we would be way stressed out if we tried to get around early enough to make it to church. So it was very nice to take our time.

Anyway, here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure!:

Christian on the beach we went to Sunday morning

it was fairly warm; so we let them go wading.

Anthony & Ruby fell and got completly wet.

They had extra cloths, thank goodness!

The beach by our room had really nice tide pools to explore.

Anthony had alot of fun playing in the sand.

Matt, flying the kite. It was nice, but pretty windy.

Good kite flying weather!

Ruby & Garrison the wind was starting to get to them.

We left soon after this picture.

Somehow I got 2 of these pictures on here.

I can't seem to get this one off:) Oh, well!

Here's a 4 legged starfish that we saw.

Gramma with all the kids

Our dirty, wind chilled, happy family!

Here's a good picture of my Mother-in-law flying the kite.

She was very good at it.

For some weird reason it made me nervous to fly it!

I guess I was afraid it would fly right out of my hands, silly me!:):0