Oh, What a Wonderful Day

Verse 1 & Chorus of "Heaven Came Down, and Glory Filled my Soul" :)

Our Home

I know, I know...it's been forever.

I'm sorry.

I've been trying to focus on making memories instead of documenting memories. :)

But...I miss blogging, and hope I can get right back to it.

For now, I wanted to share a picture of our new home.

I love this photo!  Thanks to Pastor Bob for capturing a snapshot of the view from the end of our dirt road.

Do you see the wind turbines on the horizon? 

Ours is the one with the open garage door and 3 vehicles parked in the driveway.

We're enjoying our home.  I'm excited to share more with you about all that's been going on....mostly about how God blesses us each day much more than we deserve.

Another Dreams Post

Oh, man...I've got to get this down before I forget.

This morning I had my funniest conversation to date with my 2nd oldest.

Me: Hey, buddy...did you have any dreams last night?
Him: Yeah.
Me:  What was it about?
Him: Lost.
Me:  What?!?!?  
Him:  Yeah, and I was in a blog.
Me: {Laughing hysterically}
Him:  Hey, don't laugh about it.
Me: {Trying to stay composed...feeling kind of bad for laughing at him} Ok, tell me about your dream.  What happened in Lost and on the blog?
Him:  {Long pause} Hmmm...hard question.
Me:  {Can't control the laughter}

For those of you who haven't been following my blog for long, I'm addicted to ABC's Lost, and I often have dreams about Lost on Tuesday nights after the newest episode has just aired. :)

Music

I was a teacher for 3 years before I had my first baby.  I taught middle school, and discipline/classroom management was a big issue.

An older cousin of mine who also taught middle school once gave me the best advice: "Put a big sign in the front of your room that reads 'No Arguing'".  If a student starts to argue with you, just point at the sign.  I followed her advice and found that it was very helpful in keeping myself sane. :)

Though my occupation has changed, I still employ the "No Arguing" policy with my "pupils". :)

My 3-yr-old has a hard time in this area.

Here's a typical conversation:

Me: Sweety, I need you to put your toys away.
Him: Because I don't want to.
Me: Just say, "Ok, Mom."
Him: Ok, Mom.


Me: Honey, I want you to go get your pajamas on.
Him: Because I want to be naked.
Me: Just say, "Ok, Mom."
Him: Ok, Mom.

THEN...one day last week, we had a conversation like this:

Me:  It's time to turn off the Wii.
Him: Ok, Mom.
Me: What???  I LOVE YOU!!!!  Come give me a hug!  What a sweet boy you are!!

"Ok, Mom." = Music to my ears

Somber

I recently read this book:

If you can't read the caption at the top, it's the theme of the book:

"A Mom's Look at Heart-Oriented Discipline"

The idea behind the book is that we shouldn't discipline to simply change our children's behavior, but we should be working to train their hearts.

We are born with sinful hearts, and it's our job as moms to help our children understand their sinful natures and their need for a Savior.

It makes sense to me.

Tonight, at the beginning of our nightly "Family Time", we were going through catechism questions.  We've learned a lot about the sin of Adam and Eve and how that sin condemned us all.  Now, we're just starting to cover questions regarding the Covenant of Grace.

These are the questions we covered tonight:


Q: Why can't anyone be saved through the covenant of works?
A: Because all have broken it and are condemned by it.


Q: How did you break the covenant of works?
A: Adam represented all people, and so I fell with Adam in his first sin.


Q: How, then, can you be saved?
A: By the Lord Jesus Christ through the covenant of grace.


Q: How did Christ fulfill the covenant of grace?
A: Christ obeyed the whole law for his people, and then suffered the punishment due for their sins.


Q: Did Jesus ever sin?
A: No. He lived a sinless life.

Since these were relatively new questions, we talked a little bit about what they mean.

My oldest said that Jesus suffered by dying on the cross.  He said that he saw the holes in Jesus' hands and feet. (a picture in a book perhaps?)  He knew that the holes were made by nails that kept Jesus on the cross.  We talked about how Jesus was sinless but died for our sins.  My boy looked...sad.

I quickly transitioned to the singing segment of Family Time.  My boy did not sing along with the first song.

I asked him, "What's wrong?"

He said, "You told me Jesus died on the cross for my sins," and he started to cry.  A very genuine,  heart-aching cry.  I was touched.  It was so sad to see him, but it was so encouraging to see how personally he views the death of Christ.

We talked after that about how joyful it is that Jesus came back to life.

Oh, Lord...give me the heart of a child.

Hurdles

My dear husband is graduating from college in 24 days.  I'm so proud of him.  He is an incredibly hard working, determined, positive-thinking, big-dreaming, man of integrity.  I love that God blessed me with him.

Since we decided 5 years ago to embark on this journey of higher education, we've added 3 babies to our family and changed residences 3 times.

Now, we're so excited to settle down with our beautiful family.  This involves moving to a town about 150 miles away.  The job is secure, but the housing is proving difficult.  

After viewing over a dozen homes, we made an offer on the only one that fit our criteria.  The offer did not lead to a contract, and we felt we'd exhausted our options.

So, I started getting a little more creative.  I started looking into the possibility of buying land and building.

Pictures don't show the majesty, but this is the view from a lot that I fell completely in love with.  Challenges: no well (yet), no electricity (yet), relatively high price

I spent a week trying to figure out how to make this land 

work for us.  I looked at modular homes, picked out a couple floor plans I liked, got prices for home, basement, well, electric, septic, driveway, etc...

I started thinking about all the things I'd like in a custom home.

Wood.  Hickory.  Cabinets, trim, doors.  Ahhh...love it.

This door is actually alder...but imagine it hickory, and that's what I have been dreaming about at night.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to make this idea work in real life (yet).  And, just around the time we realized it, we got a call saying that we could maybe get a contract signed on the house we originally made an offer on. :)

So...we are currently negotiating the contract on that house...it's not going as smoothly as we had hoped.  But, if it pans out, I'll let you know.  It's a very nice house, and I'd be very excited to call it home...and I have plans to start installing some hickory. :)

We're praying....you can too if you want. :)

2 months

It seems like just yesterday, I posted my birth story.

Now, my baby is 2 months old already! 

Thought you might want to see some pictures. :)

A Positive Contrast

No need to despair about the hair tragedy blogged about a few days ago.

I trimmed it up, and it looks decent.

AND...

Today was the day of the first braids for our Little Pigtails!

I love having a little girl. :)

Mr. Independent

My boy decided to cut his own hair today.

I think he wanted to keep it a secret.

I found out.

:)

Oh, my....

With much futility, I have spent the last hour searching my hard drive for a photo I took last summer....
Update:  Found the picture! :)

In the process, I'm coming across pictures like this one:

My babies are growing up....

I'm a little sad about it.

Sweet

We're planning a big move in the next couple months.  As a result, I'm spending much of my time and energy trying to figure out what dwelling place we will be moving into. :)

This can be very consuming (time-wise, thought-wise, energy-wise)...and today I'm trying to focus on other things, like my children and housekeeping.

I was just getting a movie set up for my 2 oldest boys.  As we were waiting to get through the previews, my oldest said, "Let's pray real quickly."

I thought he would pray about wanting the movie to start faster, or maybe that he was going to request that God give him his new favorite toy at Walmart.

Instead, this was his prayer:

"God, please give us a new house to move into."

What a sweet boy...and what a sweet reminder from my God that He is in control.

Just wanted to share...I'll try to share some pictures of the kiddos soon.

Reading Progress Again :)

Just before Little Prince was born, I decided to a take a break from formal home-preschool/reading training.

My oldest seemed distracted during our reading lessons, and I was getting more frustrated than I liked...so we just stopped.

A couple weeks later, he started gaining interest in recreational reading.  He started asking me to help him sound things out, etc.  It was encouraging.

He has always been interested in spelling.  He will get a piece of paper out, and ask me to give him spelling words essentially.  He also likes to make grocery lists for me, where he writes, "SOBRS" (strawberries) and "GREPS" (grapes) so that I remember to get him his favorite fruits at the store (if they're on sale. :) ).

Here is one of his spelling sheets:

"JoJo" (From Horton Hears a Who...My boy knew how to spell JoJo, because we keep the closed captioning on :) ), "Dad, "Mom", "Fox", "Box", "Hot", "Sun", "Bed", "God", "Red"

Since he loved spelling so much, I was thinking about how I can use this passion of his to help him with reading.  

With the paper he wrote above, I asked him to read it back to me.  It was fun for him!  He read the words quickly and easily, and he was very excited.

So...I think I've found a loophole of sorts. :)  Now, I just need to figure out a way that I can use this new information more often in our reading lessons.  

Here he is, reading a library book to his new baby brother. :)  Love it.