Frosty morning

Here are a few pics from our frosty morning  :o) There are 2 of each as I played around with the processing methods on them :o)

 

 

 

New Glasses

  It amazes me how fast things can change….. Weekend before last J let me know that her eyes hurt her when she reads. I called and our Ophthalmologist who, thankfully, had just had a cancellation and we could get in that afternoon! So, that was Monday, we went in and found that her distance vision was GREAT!  She did need a little aid for close work and so we picked out glasses.  I knew what I wanted for her before we went in but, of course they didn’t have anything like it….. Oh well, the ones she got are pretty cute. ♥

She was very excited about the cute design on the side

We have already noticed a definite improvement in her hand writing and in her reading. I am so thankful that the option of corrective wear is available!

   

Totally changes her look, doesn’t it?

A trip to Mexico

  This last week was a very full week as we changed our country focus to Mexico.  The kids were very excited to be learning about a new country and so we “flew” to Mexico. I set up an “Airplane” in the living room and acted as stewardess and captain.

I believe they are fastening their seat belts in this pic  ;o)

 

Upon landing in Mexico they had their “passports” stamped and were directed to the cultural information center where they watched a few short movies on Mexico.  It was great fun!  

  One of the movies was on the Naica Crystal Caverns  (we watched a video here but you can also google for some fascinating information! This inspired us to learn a bit about crystals and try some experiments. Our first experiment was a crystal growing kit.

We laid it all out and discovered we had a kit for rose colored crystals

 

We followed the directions and added water and the toxic crystal growing powder to the larger of the to containers and stirred.

   

We were supposed to stir until the chemicals dissolved but that never happened. After 2 hours of alternately stirring and waiting we gave up.  We placed the rocks in the smaller container

and then poured the solution over them. There was about twice as much solution a there was room in the container.  But we did our best

Feeling frustrated because this likely will not work I turned to google and found a recipe for growing edible crystals from sugar (aka rock candy) and, later in the week, we started that. Here are some pictures of that process.  We used got all our equipment together, measured water and started it to boil

Measured our sugar and added it to the boiling water

 

 

  Put sugar on a wet piece of yarn as a starter for the crystals
  

Added the hot sugar syrup to a jar and then placed the yarn in it

We made enough for everyone but the baby ;o)

The lighting is kind of funky in this picture, I promise the real stuff doesn’t glow!  According to the directions we should have rock candy for our Fiesta at the end of the week. I am a little concerned though because, at this time, there doesn’t appear to be the slightest hint of crystal growth.  You know, it seems every time I follow directions the project flops! :oP  I will update next week and let you know if the crystals eventually grew.

  We also worked on our leaf collection and bark rubbings for the tree identification scrap book we will be working on throughout the winter. I wanted to take pictures because it was a glorious day but most of the time my hands were full of baggies, papers, crayons, pencils, leaves, and I was trying to keep children corralled. We were blessed to have friends join us for our excursion :o)  Here is a pic I took that day trying to catch sunflare. It is much easier with my kit lens than the one I had that day, but I was pleased with the result

Throughout the week they have watched videos about Mexican history, culture, and families, read books on Mexico and missionaries to Mexico and, in general, just had a really great week.  Please excuse the mess in this pic. They were all watching a movie on the history of Mexico and it was too cute to pass up, mess or no.

 

Now, if any of you have stuck with me through all of the pictures and rambling I commend you!  Lol.  Being brief and to the point is not my gift!

Seven

   Yesterday we celebrated 7 years with our amazing B. She is such a special girl ♥  There are not words to describe how much I love her and how thankful I am that she is part of our family. 

  We started the day with a birthday haircut, by me, and then sorted all of her clothes so she would know if she needed any because she was going shopping with Grandma! She has been counting the days and making shopping lists for a month at least! ;o)  When she got home I asked her if she had fun, her response?  It was perfect! I can’t wait for my birthday next year! :o)  She added to her wardrobe, picked up a purse, some jewelry and some nail polish.   We had a girl party when she got home and the 3 of us painted our finger nails and toe nails

  Here she is with her new haircut and jewelry. She loves bling!  ;o)

 

She said, though, that her favorite present of all was that Daddy got to come home on her birthday ♥  A week in a child’s life seems forever!  

She has such a generous heart and made sure to buy little gifts for each of us at home ♥

  She is such a beautiful girl, both inside and out, and I consider myself truly privileged to be her mom!  What an amazing 7 years we have had together ♥ 

Weekly school update….

  Well, my big plans for a weekly school update are not going to materialize for last week as we got kicked in the fanny by the stomach flu.  We got in a little school here and there, but not enough to write about.  So, in it’s place, I thought I would share a little conversation between J and my 4yo (WM will stand wild man for now ;o) Using his initial just doesn’t work well.  I need cute nicknames for them!)

  Wearing Daddy’s shoes and carrying his tool case, WM: I’m doin’ to work on du hout you want to buy J (translation for those of you whose second language isn’t 4yo: I’m going to work on the house you want to buy J)

J (in a bit of an ornery mood): I already bought one.

WM: Yep an (and) I’m doin’ (going) to work on it

J: Do you know where it is?

WM: Jus down du street, in Mekico (Mexico)

J: No, my house isn’t in Mexico

WM: Oh, is it in New York lity (City)?

J: No, I bought a house in Namibia and I have a job there so I am now a Namibian.

WM: Ok, I’ll go to Mamibia (Namibia) too

 

  It is amazing where our geography lessons sneak into our everyday life and play  :o)  

Great Quote!

I stumbled upon this quote today and had to share….. It shares, much more eloquently than I ever could, something that God has taught me.  :o)

 

“My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes - many times - my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens - and it happens every day in some measure - I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.”
― John Piper, Finally Alive

A Whirlwind Week

  I realize that 2 posts in a day is unusual but I just couldn’t help it!  ;o) 

   When God decides to move it can be a whirlwind.  Last Monday Brian went out to do a work interview for a company that repairs and installs manure management equipment on dairies. The company had called him the week before asking him to please apply for the job. Anyhow, he went out and really wasn’t impressed. There were just too many things that he wasn’t comfortable with, but he decided not to make a decision til he heard their offer.  He got home Mon. night, rather discouraged, and received a phone call from another company asking him to interview with them for a position (I find it rather funny that after years of applying for jobs and being rejected for said jobs, that he would get 2 companies calling him in one week!!!). This company is a dairy equipment repair company, so he would be working on the cleaner side of dairy equipment ;o)  Anyhow, he had a 1 hr phone interview Mon., a 2+ hour interview with the company rep Tues., and a 3-4 hr meeting with the owner of the company (who “just happened” to be in state and only 2 1/2 hours from here) on Wed.  The owner of the company hired him on the spot and offered a wage we can support a family on!  He will be commuting for a few months to the shop that is 2 1/2 hours from here but after that he will be the local service technician for our county.  He will be on call, pretty much 24/7, but we won’t have to move out of state.  It is a blessing to be able to stay close to family!  Today was his first day on the job.

  This will be a pretty big transition for our family as we are used to having him available all of the time, but we are so thankful that, after 3 long years, we will have a steady income.  It was such a confidence boost to have someone look at his resume and say “Wow!  You can do a lot of different things, you have a lot to offer”.   We are praising God for his provision and trusting Him to carry us through this time of transition. Hopefully within a few months we will be able to get caught up and back on our feet. What a blessing!

Week 3 in review

  Last week was a real whirlwind and so, though we did school every day, I am struggling to remember all that we did! Lol. 

    The kids are loving the stories from Hero Tales. Week 3 was about the life of Dwight Moody. Each day the kids begged me to read ahead!  I love the conversations that follow our readings as we discuss the character traits at the end of each chapter. We are also reading the story of Cameron Townsend. The kids struggle with the concept that some people groups do not have the Bible in their own language and how many years it can take to translate the Bible.  It really opens your eyes to the privilege of having God’s Word in our language.  We take it for granted far too often!

   We are in the U.S. this week and the kids have enjoyed finding states on the map and I was pleased with how many they knew.

For our art project we made a Coup Stick.  Once again, what I envisioned is not what we ended up with, but I still think it turned out nice.  :o)  

Here are the 8yos story medallions:

   

The 6yos:

The 4yos:

and the finished product:

 

We also made Matthew bookmarks, writing Matthew in Greek as well as English, as we will be memorizing verses from Matthew this year.

J(8):

 

B(6):

We still have not started our leaf collections, I need the rain to stop so we can collect in the dry and get bark rubbings too.  I have grandiose ideas for those too but I am sure the reality will be nothing like the idea!  ;o)    

3 Years

  I’m very unhappy with my technological limitations again today…..  Today marks 3 years since my brother went HOME and I found the CUTEST picture of him in my wedding photos. I wanted to put it here but I couldn’t, I wanted to put some of my faves from my phone on here but they are all on the old phone and not on my newer phone. Sigh…. A post without pictures just isn’t the same!  (My wonderful Mom saved the day and e-mailed me pics! So there will be pictures after all. Thanks Mom! ♥ )

   Today we went and tidied up at his grave and took flowers. The kids like to go and to remember. I think the best part of today though was how God spoke to me.  In the amazing way that can only be Him, He showed me how He had helped me, ways that He had used hard things to heal me, things that I couldn’t see at the time. 

  I woke up thinking back and remembering, remembering the pain, the sorrow, and surprised to find that the pain was gone and has been for quite awhile.  I miss Nathan, I wish that there were more good memories and less hard ones,wishing he could have met our youngest, knowing now how much I love him,  but it’s been a long time since there has been pain associated with talking and thinking about him and I can just be thankful. Thankful for all that God has done through such a dark situation, thankful for His mercy, and thankful that the good memories that we do have.  I almost felt guilty at first, wondered if something was wrong with me, and that’s when God showed me His handiwork.  You see, He reminded me of a lot of situations that we went through after Nathans death that were hard but that healed.  After Nathan died I got his phone and spent a lot of time sorting pictures and such, for which I am so thankful, and, while I had his phone, it received a number of texts from his friends. Texts with farewell messages, love, and pain.  I took the numbers and texted from my phone to offer my time and consolation, to offer the hope that I had.  I spent hours, literally, texting with girls I had never met, and it was hard. Today God showed me how He used that to help me get past the selfishness of my own grief, because in being forced to pour His love to others I was able to heal. He brought several of Nathans friends into our lives and gave us different ministry opportunities for them and again, the pouring of HIS love into their brokenness and hopelessness brought healing.   

  He also showed me how He used my sweet children. They helped me to put self aside also so that healing could take place.  Since his death they have talked of him a lot, often daily and answering their questions, knowing they were watching me and would see any discrepancy between my words and my actions, really put things in perspective.  I had to be honest with myself, so that I could be honest with them.  And, last but not least, He showed me how he used my amazing husband to look at the situation logically, to not let my emotions get too carried away, and to keep me grounded.

   Not only did God’s gentle voice show me how He had worked in this situation, He reminded me that, just as He carried me through the unexpected death of my brother, He would continue to carry me through the hard times ahead. Though the things that He uses are seldom what I expect and I seldom see at the time just what they are doing, He uses them for HIS glory and to make me into the person HE wants me to be.  Isn’t HE awesome?!?!?!  Today His voice was so clear, the lesson so sweet, that I just had to share…..

Frosting covers a multitude of sins…..

  Well, this was going to be a post to honor our 11th anniversary, complete with pics from that wonderful day.  Pictures that evoked such tender comments from my children, heartwarming comments like “Wow! I didn’t know they could make such beautiful cakes way back then!”  or “Um, Daddy looked kind of weird back then, he sure looks better now!”  ;oD  BUT, technology got the better of me and I could not for the life of me get the pics onto the comp, because way back then we didn’t have digital pics.  Back in the dark ages cameras used something called film….. if any of you young whipper-snappers don’t know what that is, google it.  Anyhow, I tried taking pictures of the pictures, I even tried the portable scanner thing that I got for Christmas….. I couldn’t get anything to work for me!  :oP  So, instead we will focus on school again.  We have been studying the world and memorizing continents and oceans and our activity for yesterday was to make a continent cake.  This ended up being a bigger headache, er, project than I expected.  We were supposed to make paper dolls of kids from around the world but that didn’t go so well. I am blaming it on the plastic backing of our butcher paper. My folds were not even and we ended up with a bunch of headless dolls. It was quite disturbing. I gave up and thought we would try again this weekend, if I get brave enough. 

  Now, as many of you know, my little family suffers from a plethora of food allergies. I went ahead and bought an allergen free cake mix and decided on a butter cream frosting made to suit.  I, naturally, assumed that our teeny, tiny, health food store would carry natural food colorings.  It just seems like something that every health food store should carry because so many people don’t want, or can’t have, those nasty fake colorings. Well, a few days ago I discovered that NO local stores had them. Sigh, so much for blue oceans and green continents!  I almost gave up but, after posting a question on an ECC forum, I decided to just do white/vanilla oceans and brown/chocolate continents.  Now, in my minds eye this was going to look very artsy…..

  So, Friday came and my kids were beyond excited.  We made the cakes and, in what I hoped would prove to be a stroke of utter genius, I decided to line the cake pans with parchment paper. Our allergen free baking is notoriously sticky and I didn’t want out worlds to shatter.  I *thought* the cake batter would be heavy enough to push the paper out and make nice round cakes that didn’t stick. Well, my genius missed the mark and the cakes looked like our planets had been struck by a meteor storm:

 

  Great!  I wondered if our planets were going to look as if the apocalypse had already occurred!   Well, thankfully, frosting covers much!  We frosted and decorated.  The kids had trouble trying to get all of the continents on such a tiny space but they were pleased with the end product.  We took it to Papa and Grandma’s and shared it with them. The girls were both able to say all 7 continents and J(8) knows all 5 oceans as well. B(6) knows most of the oceans.  So here is the finished products (the first is J’s the second B’s):

   I hope you have enjoyed a little peek into our school projects.

Teacher or Student?

   We are almost finished with our second official week of school, we also have an unofficial week under our belts, and I am reminded daily just how much I love our curriculum!  I sometimes wonder if the kids are learning as much as I!  ;o)

  This year we are learning World Geography with a focus on missions. We are only in week 2 and yet the conversations we are having do this Mama’s heart good! Last week we were reading one of our books and I came upon this little gem regarding prayer:

   When nothing seems to happen, remember that prayer is like planting a seed in the ground. For weeks and months you may see nothing, but a lot is happening underground. Keep on trusting God, because one day you will see the answer to your prayers (Matthew 21:22), one day you’ll see the plant begin to grow.                                                       (Windows On The World by Daphne Spagget with Jill Johnstone)

 

    I just keep mulling this over and over……  There is so much encouragement, so much food for thought, and so much hope in that analogy.  I think, also, that sometimes we (ok, I, but it seems lonely to say I! I want to believe that I am not the only one that does this!!!) plant different seeds than we intend.  We plant from the seed pkg marked violets, and often don’t even recognize what’s growing as the answer to our prayers because the seeds were in the wrong package, and actually belonged to a rutabaga!  ;o)  I have been pondering my prayers lately and wonder if my focus is off, not wrong per say just not best, and that if I prayed more for the courage to face what he brings, the strength to make it through another day, and the joy to accept what He sends, if I wouldn’t see more answers.  I don’t think that praying for a job for my husband is bad but maybe I need to pray more for how I accept it, for gratitude for a job even if it doesn’t fit MY requirements and ideals, and help to be the encourager my man needs.  Instead of praying for a job with 4 tens and little to no traveling, maybe I should pray for the strength, courage, and health, to be the the woman I need to be while he is working, regardless of hours, the ability to make wonderful memories with our kids regardless of how much he is gone.  Instead of reminding God of the dream for our family that we truly think is from Him, maybe I should be asking God to clarify our dream and to grant me the patience for His timing for His plan for us. Instead of asking for a time of reprieve from the trials I should ask for the grace to be an example to my kids during the hard times. 

   Lately I have just felt weary, done, and fearful.  Much as the last few years have provided us with a new “normal” that is not pleasant it is now normal, it is what we know.  It is hard for me to avoid feeling fearful over the future. Frightened that it will stay the same, frightened that it will change for the worse, frightened…..  I am not foolish enough to think that things can’t get worse than they are. I know that, though we have had some very difficult years, things could be way worse.  As we hurtle on down the path of life I find myself reluctant to leave where we are for fear that where we are going will be even harder, will be worse. I am weary and want a rest. Sadly, that seldom is what is beneficial for making me into who HE wants me to be.  My head knows that God will carry us through whatever He has planned for us but my weak faith is crying out in fear that it is too tired, too weary, too scared to go on.  Thankfully God doesn’t give me that choice or I could miss out on His blessings and, regardless of may failings, HE remains faithful.

  As there is no option but to keep living life, to keep on, to keep moving one tiny step at a time, I will try and change my focus yet again. To once more try and stay focused on HIM and trust.  Praise God, HE alone is worthy!          

For Emily

Dear Emily,

  It's gone..... you now have no excuse  ;o)
 Lol!!!

Your friend,
  B.  :oD

One Year

  As I have contemplated this post, edited pics (some old favorites and some never posted before), I kept wondering if I could put too many pics here…. You may count that as your warning that this will be a long post ;o)  
  Today my baby turns one and I just don’t know where the year has gone.  He has brought us so much joy, so much hope, so many smiles, and kisses.  I honestly can’t begin tell you what a blessing he is! ♥ Here is a little re-cap of his year

Right after his birth

  

Resting with Daddy…. Isn’t that just too sweet. 

 

Playing in a pretend beaver’s lodge at the High Desert Museum on his first vacation :o)

 

Practicing his crawling skills in March

 

Bath time

Playing outside in July

First hair cut in August. Man, that emphasizes his blondeness and makes him look grown up!  I had a harder time of it than he did!  

Playing outside at our favorite place this month….   This picture just melts me! He is just so full of fun and laughter ♥

 

He loves to explore 

 

Today, taking a birthday wagon ride at Papa and Grandmas. He and brother have so much fun together!

 

So, there you have it. A year of smiles, of laughter, of kisses, cuddles, love, and joy.  My baby is one…..