Wordless Wednesday

strategy

Focus on giants and you sTuMbLe

Focus on {{God}}and your giants sTuMbLe

What I'd tell them...

...if I was leaving them till heaven

Use your God given gifts well, and always for His glory

Do not be afraid to be different

Do not follow anyone or anything but Jesus and His truth

Seek first God's kingdom above all other goals or desires

Be a servant, serve with your whole heart, but only after caring for the needs of your family

Never forget to enjoy God's creation- He gave us 5 senses; use them to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell the tangibility of your Creator

Follow God's plans as laid out in His word for guidance with your material wealth, and give generously of everything you have been given

Remember that your heavenly Father is merciful; there is no sin you can commit that He will not forgive if you ask

Forgive as you were forgiven

Be confident in yourself; no matter what you hear from the world, you were created in God's image and you are who you are for a specific and divine reason and plan

Read your Bible every day, the word of God is powerful and alive, and will guide you when you feel uncertain

Always remember that Daddy and I love you, you are our treasures from Heaven and even if we are not with you in flesh, we will always hold you close in our hearts.

Wordless Wednesday {the Bee Hunter}

tokens of {love}

How are you showing 

{love}

to your mom this week? 

1000 words

I don't have a picture, so I need 1000 words, right?

Monday is here, and we have a very fun week ahead!  

Ava starts her ballet/tap/tumbling class tomorrow, we have our last choir rehearsal before the concert, we have a field trip to Dawes Arboretum with our homeschool group, we have the first of two choir concerts on Friday, creeking at a local park with my parents (my dad is a volunteer guide and knows all the "good places" to play!) a birthday party for a darling little girl, and another mother's day celebration on Sunday with my in-laws

The Weather Man promises mostly sunny weather and temperatures in the low 70's

Is there an Attitude Man that promises mostly sunny dispositions and tantrums in the "low occurrence" zone?

9

{4.5.10}

Happy Birthday, Alec!

To my oldest:

you are

learning cursive and ready to learn to type

 ready for single-digit multiplication and division

an avid reader

every bit as excited as me (I think!) for our new curriculum this fall

a good student when you have a good attitude

sad that your best friend is gone

being brave about making new friends

excited to see your best friend at his new house

enjoying being social at choir (even though you say you're not!)

learning to be a leader instead of a follower

so creative

so good at playing with Benji

so good at doting on Ava and making her laugh

incredibly talented in the Lego department

beginning to enjoy "Dad stuff": football, basketball, hunting, shooting, mowing the grass (and Dad is loving it!)

You are my dependable one, always there to help out if I'm in a jam

I'm so much looking forward to the years to come,

watching you grow

into a man

(can we skip the teenage years?)

We love you so much!!!

This was our first time to have a birthday party somewhere other than our house.  We took 9 boys bowling.  It was cheap, it was fun, and the house was not messy! We may seriously consider doing this again!!!

We did come back for cake and presents, but by the time that was over, the parents were there. 

Get 'em sugared up and send 'em home!!

4.28.10

Today was beautiful outside, but windy and NOT warm. I'm soooo ready for the heat of summer. I feel like a lizard; I need to lay on a sunny rock to soak up some energy!!

I pushed aside other things to finally work on Ava's clothing situation. I do a little shopping ahead throughout the year mostly at thrift shops, and then when that particular season rolls around, I augment with a few brand-new items.

For some reason there wasn't a whole lot that I had for her this summer, so I ended up spending more than I would normally.  We got some cute stuff, though, and she had fun trying it on today while I made outfits with her old stuff and sorted out donations and too-smalls.

I also made bread, tweaked the recipe a little again, and was NOT disappointed! We'll see how it tastes tomorrow; that's always the test with homemade bread.

Benji had a really good attitude today while we worked on reading, and is progressing nicely all of a sudden. I have a feeling that by the end of the summer he'll be off and rollin'. That will be a big relief!

The kids ended up outside most of the day (when they weren't eating or doing math and reading), and played exterminator, filling the carpenter bee holes in our play set with silly string from the dollar store!!

I skipped my workout this morning, trying to give my poor shins a break. Since I"ve stopped running, they feel a ton better, but are still abnormally sore throughout the day.  I'm also still freaking out about my hair loss.  It seems to have tapered off in the past couple days, but now I'm left with about 1/3 less hair and it's making me quite depressed. My hair is one of the few things I actually like about my physical appearance, and never took for granted, since I had been a hairdresser and seen how awful thin hair can be. I guess now it's my turn!

It will grow back, and no one can tell (or maybe everyone is lying to me!), so I probably need to just suck it up and make the best of it till it's back to normal...Kick in quickly, B vitamins and thyroid supplements!!!

I played around with my new Speedlite flash today and made some progress...I'm a self-teacher, I learn best by trial and error. I have had some help from a friend's husband who is a photographer for our big-city newspaper, and that has been great to get me started. I'm looking forward to getting a better grasp on how to adjust everything.

It's late now, I really should be in bed, and the old drafty windows by my computer are letting in the cold night air and my hands are freezing!!

~till tomorrow

homeade Cough Remedy

A couple posts ago, I mentioned that I used a homemade Cough Remedy for my kids and had folks interested in my recipe. So...here's what we use at our house when my kids get that nasty, dry, croupy cough:

roughly equal parts of

RAW honey

and

FRESH, RAW garlic (minced or through a garlic press)

I mix it together and keep it in a glass jar in the fridge.  Then I give whomever is barking about 1-4 tsp of it, spread out through the day.  We have yet to see a cough that hasn't responded within 24 hours.

4.23.10

Today was beautiful!  I started it by waking up even earlier (WaHOO!, I'm slowly working towards my goal of 6am) and doing a really great 40 min. cardio session on the treadmill.  At my chiro's yesterday, she said she was worried about stress fractures in my shins because I was continuing to have pain when I was running, so no more running for me for many months! *sigh* So I resigned myself to an extra long workout of power walking.  It was actually great and after about 10 min. of reminding myself not to run, I actually (sort of) enjoyed it.

Then we had our women's group at church. We have a couple sweet girls that babysit for us, so it's unadulterated adult time, with good teaching and prayer. It was great today, we were wrapping up our series on the power of words, and we all shared testimonies about encouragement.

I'm going to head up a team to remodel the three bathrooms at our church building, and so we had our preliminary meeting after group. That also went really well and I am totally psyched about turning our drab,dimly lit, stinky bathrooms into welcoming retreats!! High hopes for a lowly bathroom, right? Something involving re-claimed chandeliers!

Afterward, I had to lay on a chair in the backyard while the kids played because on came another headache. It lingered through a dose of Tylenol, a siesta in the sun, an impromptu visit from a friend and her kids, and it's threatening to stick around for our bible study tonight.

I did not have the productive day I had hoped, but it was a beautiful day nonetheless, filled with sunshine and Sonshine!

I'm off to snuggle with an ice pack!

~till tomorrow~