Friday Funny: Kids at heart

I made marshmellow shooters for the children, but David and Andy needed to test them out first, just to be sure they were working properly. wink! The two of them didn't give up until they had each caught a marshmellow in their mouth. It was really funny! Have a wonderful weekend!

"Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love,"- Joel 2:13

Bubbling with love for our girls

It was a beautiful day to blow some bubbles! JJ was napping, so it was just us girls, enjoying the beautiful spring weather! I love to watch our girls, and enjoy the different ways God has made them each so special.

Sweet Wubs. She stood in one spot on our sidewalk and blew bubbles happily. She watched them float away and sometimes she caught a few that were in her reach. Emma Grace is gentle. She loves others deeply. She is our gift from God.

The pictures below are a perfect reflection of our precious Bella! She used her little bubble gun to shoot at ants, run all around, and spin while blasting bubbles. Bella is filled with a boundless energy and a zest for life. Her laughter is contagious. She is our gift from God.

We thank God for all our children. We are so incredibly blessed!

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."- Hebrews 11:1

Wordless Wednesday: Love, love, love

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."- 1 Peter 4:8

Giving myself the giggles!

I admit it... I give myself the giggles! Sometimes I just have so many silly thoughts that I crack myself up! The other day, David had arranged for some of our church youth group teens to come and help fill the Easter eggs for the egg hunt. ( We filled 8, 000 eggs! Whew!) David wanted to make it fun, so he planned on ordering some pizza and providing small prizes to give to the team that completed their goal the fastest. He asked me to make some type of inexpensive award, or trophy. I came up with a plastic cup trophy idea and I filled the 'trophies' with Peeps, decorative grass, chocolate eggs, and m&m's. As I was standing in our kitchen, cranking out a dozen little trophies, I got to thinking..."Hmmm. I am making these for David, and I'm his wife, so technically, this makes me a trophy wife." ha ha! Hmmmmm. Okay, so it was much funnier at the time! wink.
"A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense."- Proverbs 19:11

red light prayers

We always pray in the car, usually praying specifically about our destination. (For example, if we are headed to the dentist, we pray about our time at the dentist office. If we are headed to a playdate, we pray about our behavior/ obedience and we thank God for our friends, etc.) However, we have been playing a fun new game with our children when we are in the car, and they LOVE it! When we are out running errands, we play the 'red light game'. We use our stops at the red lights as a time to tell Jesus thank you or to pray for someone. The girls think about their prayer requests and praises while I'm driving and then when we begin to approach a stoplight, they start shouting out all their ideas. We pray for many of our friends and our family, we thank God for a variety of his blessings, and we always end up laughing from all the excitement! It makes our car trips joyful and it helps us keep our hearts thankful. Even JJ gets in on the action, giggling and babbling right along with us! wink!
"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."- James 2:26

Gigglin'

It makes me giggle every single time I see this picture! (Pam, thank you, thank you, thank you for catching this moment with your camera. You have such a gift! ) Have a wonderful weekend!

"But the Lord has become my fortress and my God the rock in whom I take refuge."- Psalm 94:22

Technologically Challenged

Technologically challenged, that's me! I had several friends stop me at church this past Sunday morning to tell me that they could not send me an email. Apparently, my email inbox was full and it would not accept anymore incoming emails. Since I have been able to send email, I had no idea that I couldn't recieve them; nothing seemed wrong until I heard the news. I was baffled by this problem, and I thought perhaps something was wrong with our internet server at the church. I apologized to these friends and promised that I would check on it. (Ahem, I mean, I promised my friends that I would ask someone else to check on it. wink.) So on Sunday evening, I was telling David that I was going to need to inquire about my church email account because it wasn't working. David said he'd take a look at it for me and he opened my email. He said, "Honey, how long have you worked at Faith?" I answered, "Ummm, I guess about five years now." Then he smiled and said, "In five years, have you ever deleted an email?" I giggled because I knew I was busted! I usually don't delete emails, just in case I need to go back and reread them. Apparently, when you don't delete emails, your inbox can become too full to recieve anymore. Soooo, my kind husband taught me how to delete my emails. All 9, 981 of them. ha ha ha!!! I had NO idea I had that many emails! Yep, technologically challenged, that's me!

Below is a sweet picture of Bella and JJ, watching out their bedroom window for Daddy's truck. We love it when David comes home from work each day!

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."- Galatians 6:9

Wordless Wednesday: Marshmellow Shooters

"Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength; we will sing and praise your might."- Psalm 21:13

Sin is crouching

Yesterday morning, our girls were really struggling. About fifteen minutes into their 'free play' time (our break time from our homeschool and daily routine) they had already had several arguments. It's not that they don't fight with eachother from time to time, but yesterday, their relationship seemed especially strained. It felt like sin and temptation were lurking and the Lord put a scripture on my heart to memorize with Wubs and Bella. It is found in Genesis 4- "Sin is crouching at your door and its desire is for you but you must master it." The Holy Spirit gave me an idea on how to share this scripture with our children. I read this scripture to the girls and then our conversation began:

"Does anyone know what I mean when I say, 'The lion was crouching, waiting for the zebra.'?"

"Oooh! I do! That means that the lion is hiding and crunching up his body so he can JUMP out and eat a zebra!" (Wubs loves any conversation about animals!)

"Yes, that's exactly right! Can you and Bella pretend to be lions and show me how you would crouch down, waiting for your lunch... the zebra?" Both girls crouched on our kitchen floor and role played jumping up and catching a zebra, several times! I pretended to be a lion a few times ,too... wink.

"Wow! Okay, now I have another question. What does the zebra do when he sees that lion?"

"He runs away!"- Bella

"That's right! The zebra tries to get away, as fast as he can. Now, let me try another one. What if... the lion is crouching, and he sees a little baby rhino. But the lion doesn't see the mama rhino. When he tries to attack and eat that baby rhino, what do you suppose that mama rhino would do?"

"Oh, she would ram the lion with her horn! And she would try to stomp him!!"- Wubs said, matter of factly.

"Whew! You bet, that mama rhino would fight back, wouldn't she? Well... let's think again about our scripture. God could have used any word when he was describing the way sin waits to attack us. God could have said, "Sin likes to play peek a boo with you" or He could have said, "Sin will tiptoe around you". But that's not how God describes the way Satan waits to tempt us. God tells us that sin is crouching, ready to attack, simply waiting to hurt us and get us. What can we do when sin tries to get us? "

"I know! We could run away!"-Bella

"You're right, baby. Sometimes, the best thing we can do is to turn and run away from that sin that is tempting us. And just like that mama rhino, we can fight back! How can we fight back againt sin? Does anyone know?"

"We can read our Bible and love Jesus."- Wubs was loving this illustration! She loves anything that I can somehow relate to animals! wink.

"That's right! We can learn the Truth by reading our Bible, so we will know when sin is trying to attack us. We can pray and talk to Jesus, and ask Him to protect us and forgive us. Sin is crouching, but we don't have to be afraid."

Wubs copied Genesis 4:7 for her handwriting work and we posted it on our refrigerator. It is a good memory verse for all of us!

Below are some pictures of my little crouching lions! (And just for your entertainment, I am posting the picture that Bella took of mommy being a pouncing lion. ha ha ha!)

"Sin is crouching at your door and it's desire is for you, but you must master it."- Genesis 4:7

My boo boo eye

When I woke up last Friday morning, I had terrible eye pain and sensitivity to light. I tried hard to go about our daily routine, hoping it would just go away if I didn't wear my contact lenses, but it was no use. I needed to go to the eye doctor. The girls were very concerned about "Mommy's boo boo eye". (This is what Bella officially named my 'condition'. wink.) David was so sweet; he drove me and he entertained our children in the waiting room while the doctor worked me into the schedule. It turned out that I had an ulcer in my cornea. An ulcer in my eye?? Unfortunately, it sounds about as fun as it feels. I am using prescription eye drops and I have to go back to the eye doctor tomorrow to be re-evaluated. However, a yucky eye hasn't been keeping us from enjoying this b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l spring weather! We have been outside a lot and we even took a trip to our favorite park. The girls played at the park with their friend, Charlee, who happens to be our next door neighbor! It was such a fun surprise to see our neighbors at the park and enjoy some time outside of our cul-de-sac together!

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."- Matthew 5:7-8

Friday funny: Broken?

It has been super duper beautiful outside this week! We have been blowing bubbles, coloring with chalk, riding bikes, walking with the stroller, you name it! The other day,Wubs was ready to go outside a few minutes before I had finished cleaning up from our snack and she asked to go on out ahead of me to start riding her bike. I told her that was fine but stay close to our driveway. I wiped the floor and went to change JJ's diaper when Emma Grace had already re-appeared inside the house. She looked discouraged. "Mommy, my bike is broken." *sigh* Now, I am no mechanic so I didn't even second guess her discovery. "Oh no, reeally? What do you think is wrong with it?" "Well, it won't even pedal and it made me mad." Hmmmm. At this point I'm thinking maybe the chain fell off of it and we'd need to ask Daddy for some help. I followed Wubs outside only to discover that her bike wasn't broken at all! She was trying to ride her bike in our sloped driveway and it was simply too hard for her to pedal uphill! ha ha ha! I guess we've always started her bike rides up in the flat cul-de-sac, rather than down at the base of our driveway and she was stumped! wink!

(This is a picture of Emma Grace and our neighbor Kyle. That chalk line on the ground was their 'race track'. Kyle offered to allow Emma Grace to double up and ride on his bike with him, and she politely answered, "No thank you. That would be dangerous... and crazy!" ha ha ha! )

"Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always."- Psalm 105:4

Knowing our sheep

I just finished reading an a.m.a.z.i.n.g book, Loving the Little Years by Rachel Jankovic. It was encouraging, challenging, and filled with practical, Biblical tools for parenting. I have to say, this book makes my top ten list for sure! One chapter that really spoke to my heart was titled Know Your Sheep. I confess that I sometimes spend my days parenting 'the girls' rather than spend my time being a mommy to Wubs, and being a mommy to Bella. Does that make sense? I can forget our children each have different needs, different struggles, and different love languages. The words jumped off the page when I read, "Christian childrearing is a pastoral pursuit, not an organizational challenge. The more children you have, the more you need to be pastorally minded. Look in each of their souls and each of their needs. Study them. Seek them out." I am trying hard to make an intentional effort every day to learn more about each of our children, and minister to them individually . These years will go by too quickly... the Holy Spirit has reminded me ot that. And learning more about our children is lots of fun! In addition to asking lots of questions, intentionally trying to spend more true quality time (and not thinking about my to do list in the midst of that special time, wink) I have tried to be creative! The other day, I gave the girls a few magazines, scissors, and glue. Their only instructions were to cut out pictures of things that they liked. I wasn't very specific because I wanted their search to be broad. It was so sweet to watch them flip through the pages of my parenting and cooking magazines, looking for favorite pictures. It was neat to watch Emma Grace carefully choose each and every picture, glue it with precision, and neatly write the name of each item. Bella, on the other hand, was cutting page after page with great excitement and slinging glue! wink! When they were both done, they each described each picture to me, and told me why they chose it. I modeled, "I chose this picture of chocolate cake because it looked so yummy to me." to help get them started. Both girls were chatting away about their collages in no time! And they enjoyed looking at the pictures that their sister had selected as well! I am so thankful that the Lord continues to guide us as we raise our children. It is such a joy to be a mommy! "Love each other as I have loved you."- John 15:12

Wordless Wednesday: Just standin' around!

"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the Lord."- Jeremiah 9:23-24

Some cute chicks!

We've enjoyed a special treat this week! Our friends, the Cottrells, just purchased six baby chickens and they invited us over to their house to see them. These little chicks were only one week old and Wubs' heart was melting! (She is the passionate animal lover in our family!) We are going to chick-sit when the Cottrells' go away on vacation, coming up soon. We'll get to go out to their house daily to give the chicks fresh food and water, and of course, hold them and love on them! The chickens are currently living out in the Cottrell's garage, but they are in the process of building a coop. When the chickens are four months old, they'll start laying eggs. Yum!
Wubs was eager to hold all the little chicks! She sounded a bit like a broken record, repeating "Awwww, they are so cute! Awwww!" over and over again!

I have about ten pictures of Emma Grace holding the chicks and they all look exactly the same. She was oh-so-happy!

Bella was a bit timid at first. She wasn't so sure about holding these furry little fellas...

I held a little chick and Bella warmed up to the idea of stroking it's little head. By the end of our visit, she was wanting to hold all of them! Sweet baby girl!

"Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."- Romans 15:7

Tow Mater?

It has been brought to our attention (by a family friend who knows that we have a good sense of humor) that JJ resembles a movie star. She suggested that JJ looks a little like Mater, the lovable tow truck from the movie Cars. We all had a good giggle but then once we started really thinking about it... well... she does have a point... wink!

"Hey, what a second! Are you talkin' about me?"

We love you, little man, and your wonderful baby teeth! You are a cutie patootie!

"The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace."- Psalm 29:11

Friday Funnies: Bella-isms

Bella makes us all laugh often! She is at such a fun age! Every morning Bella wakes up with such an excitement for a new day, ready for adventures. Bella is growing up so fast and I don't want to forget all her cute little sayings! Here are just a few of the many Bella-isms we hear daily at our house:

feeter: On Sunday mornings and on Wednesday nights, Bella's class attends Bible story time in the feeter (theater). She LOVES theater time!

the Goldfish store: Sam's Club, that's where we always buy Goldfish in bulk for church.

checkup: ketchup

my favorite cookie store: Target. Bella enjoys getting a free cookie from the bakery every time we go to Target.

My crumbs: Bella always takes off her socks and cleans out the sock fuzzies a.k.a 'my crumbs' from between her toes. (Sorry, this one is kinda gross.wink!)

Funny show: Bella likes to watch the funny show, America's Funniest Home Videos.

the popcorn chicken store: Wal-Mart. Sometimes I'll buy a small popcorn chicken cup from the deli for the children to share while we do our shopping, and Bella thinks they are tasty!

Our forest: The wooded land behind our house. Bella calls it our forest!

Poptart crust: The edges of the poptart where there is no frosting. The 'crust' is dispicable to Bella and she always requests that I cut it off. (JJ happily eats all poptart crust! wink.)

teddy: Bella's pink teddy bear. She sleeps with him every night.

sickles: popsicles

We love this little girl oh so much! We thank God for Bella and we are continuing to pray for wisdom as we parent our sweet little blessing!
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."- Luke 12:34

A love letter

One night last week, Wubs was having a hard time falling asleep. I went into the kid's bedroom to check on them, and Emma Grace was still awake, nearly an hour after we had put everyone to sleep. David and I had just popped some popcorn, and he was studying. I had a fun idea, so I whispered to Wubs, "Baby, I was eating popcorn with daddy but I think we really need some help. It's too much for us! Do you think you'd like to come with me and be my helper?" Her entire face lit up! She literally jumped right out of bed and joined me in the kitchen for a late (9pm) night snack! We read two books and talked and giggled. It was a sweet time, alone with our big girl! I could tell Wubs was enjoying herself very much and she went to bed about thirty minutes later, just as happy as could be.

The next day, I received this sweet love letter! I asked Wub's permission to post it on our blog and she was happy to allow me to share it with you. Her letter blessed my heart so much, and I really believe that she wrote me this letter because of our special time together the night before. She loves quality time, just like her momma! I was excited about the way she spelled all the words phonetically, and also how she compared me to a puppy, a sweet rose, and a butterfly. Very creative! wink. I am definately keeping this precious letter from our six year old. What a treasure!
"Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near."-Phillipians 4:5

Wordless Wednesday: Friendship is sweet!

"In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence."- Ephesians 3:12

Homeschool activity: Poppin' Up Promises

Yesterday we worked on a project that was all about God's promises! I started our activity by asking the girls if they have ever broken a promise. I confessed to Wubs and Bella that I have broken my promises. I don't ever mean to make a promise that I cannot keep, but I'm not perfect. No one is perfect. Well... except for Jesus. Jesus is perfect, and when He makes a promise, He won't ever break it. Then I asked the girls to think of some of the promises that God has made, promises that we can trust will never be broken. We constructed popcorn boxes, popped some delicious popcorn, colored, glued, and wrote their answers on pieces of 'popcorn'. We had some great conversations about God's promises and our favorite Bible stories, and when we were done, our refridgerator had a new display! It was a lot of fun!

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to who we must give account."- Hebrews 4:13