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!