One Day

It seems there are a few magical ages for a child. I always thought 5 was pretty big, because it seems most programs, sports and otherwise, don't let kids participate until they're 5. And, it would seem being 7 is pretty great too! Not only is Cora in 2nd grade, but she got to participate in church camp this summer! The church we attend owns/operates its own camp. It's a beautiful place that was built with the blood, sweat and tears of the people in this church. There is a lot of love and pride in this place and rightly so. The camp hosts an overnight camp for campers ages 5-7 and their parents. Cora and I made our way through the foothills of the Poconos and landed in a beautiful spot on earth. For the next 24 hours the kids are introduced to what camp life is like. We played games, sang songs, did crafts, ate in the dining hall, did a slip-n-slide, saw horses, and did the zip-line. The counselors did everything, and the parents were there more for moral support for the

Here is a short list of things that I am thankful for these days. Sometimes it's good to write these things out. Give it a try! You'll find you have lots to be thankful for! 1. A great home to live in. 2. A wonderfully hot summer! 3. The blessed up-coming relief of fall is coming. 4. My 2nd grader--she is a huge help around this house and is growing in maturity daily. 5. My Kindergartener--he keeps me laughing and is teaching me how to raise a man. 6. My preschooler--she has a big heart, loves people, is strong in who she is and keeps me on my        knees in prayer. 7. My husband-- see my post last week ! 8. My parents--they love me, they raised me to love Jesus, they showed me (continue to do so) how to live for God and showed me what it is to have a God-centered marriage. 9. My friends--have a friends literally all over the world. I'm thankful for each of them. They have each taught me different things along life. One of my biggest dreams would be to ha

I read this verse last week. Very encouraging and caused me to worship the God who created me, knows me and knows everything that's going on right now. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  1 Peter 5:10

At the beginning of summer David and I wrote down a bucket list of things to do/see this summer. We didn't want to waste the summer doing nothing. Plus, the kids have all hit a great age in which we don't need a stroller any longer, we almost don't need diapers/pull-ups, and they're all (mostly) old enough to remember and appreciate what we're doing! AND, we're in a new state with LOTS of places to explore. We were told about a cave not far from us and so embarked on our journey! It was a HOT and HUMID day the day we went. We almost didn't go because it was so hot, but we figured we'd be underground so it wouldn't be as bad, plus we really needed to get out of the house. I'm so glad we chose to go. The kids LOVED it!!!!! Ben especially thought it was so much fun and still talks about it! We went, paid an arm and a leg (ahem) and went below earth for a fun adventure. Our guide was a young college student who did a great job talking about the

I don't know about you, but I have 1 child who is super picky about what he eats. It drives us crazy. There have been many tears trying to get him to eat stuff at the table, and that's just from my husband and I! The most frustrating thing is that he will very rarely even TRY something. This is frustrating beyond belief, as you can well imagine. In any case, he doesn't get any special meals and often goes to bed having only eaten applesauce, or a slice of bread. BUT! This kid will eat pancakes! And, in fact, all 3 kids will eat them!!! That's a big score right there, amiright???? Pancakes is one of my most favorite breakfast foods to eat. I think I could easily eat pancakes every day. When I had to stop eating grains I was so discouraged. My favorite thing to eat in the mornings, or for brunch, or at a restaurant I could no longer eat. I sent myself on a mission to find pancakes I could eat. After about 5 years I do believe I have found the right recipe. The thing w

Tuesday we had another big day at our house! Ben started Kindergarten and Bekah started preschool! Our church runs a nursery school for ages 2-5. We had enrolled Ben in one of the 4s classes to finish up last year. He loved it, we loved it, it's just great!!! Plus, having David at church during the day helps with transportation. Ben is enrolled in the 5s program. He goes 4 days a week. When he gets home we do lunch and then do our own schoolwork. We opted to keep him out of a traditional K class so that we can focus more on his speech therapy. This seems to be a good combination. We feel the program at the nursery school and then what we do at home will compliment each other, at least that's the idea! He LOVES it, of course! There are 4 kids from his class last year also with him this year so that's been great. I love watching him grow and mature. Also, as we've been working together at home I'm realizing that teaching him will be WAY different than it was with Co

Today I'm going to give a shout-out to my husband. I am thankful for him . We have been through a lot (haven't we all?). Our marriage hasn't always been sunshine and roses (is anybody's?). We've had our fair share of fights, disagreements and arguments (yes, I think those are all different). But, we're still together. It's been over 10 years of married life together. I have not always been a peach to live with or do life with. I can be cutting in my words, lazy, selfish and just not nice. I haven't always put his needs before mine, and there have been times I've just not wanted to put the sometimes HARD work into it. I'm thankful for David for not giving up on me. Through all 3 of my pregnancies I was a mess physically. He took up the slack and not only did his job but did mine as well. He goes to work, works hard and provides for our physical needs as a family. He prays for us, for our children, for our family, for our future. He leads us spir

The Lord is great, is he not? It doesn't take much to look around and see the GREATNESS of the Lord. A sunset, a baby, a perfectly red apple. There are so many things that show us that God is God, he's great and he has created many things for our enjoyment. Probably one of my favorite things God created is the ocean. I have always loved the ocean. I don't care how many times I've been, I am always in awe of God and his greatness when I see an ocean. I mean, think about it. A ginormous body of water, whose tide is controlled by the moon. It can lull you to sleep and bring giant ships to ruin. And, thing that gets me is it seems mankind hasn't even begun to know all there is to know about oceans. There are often articles about some new creature being discovered in the depths of the sea. It's fascinating. This greatness causes me to fall to my knees and worship. If this God created something so great as an ocean, with creatures still unknown to us, don't yo

I  mentioned last week  there has been some wonkiness with my sleeping and health. After having an appointment with a sleep specialist we have a plan of action! The gist of my appointment is that I most likely (as in the doctor would be surprised if I didn't) have sleep apnea and he's guessing I also have narcolepsy. We totally expected the sleep apnea, the narcolepsy was a surprise. However, after talking with him extensively about it all we see his point. I'll be doing an at-home sleep study next week for 2 nights. This will determine the sleep apnea, which the doctor figures I'll "show in spades." The idea is that being in your own bed for 2 nights a person is more relaxed, the results are probably more accurate. If this test does show sleep apnea then the office will loan me an automated  CPAP  machine to use until we can determine if narcolepsy is also a factor. In October I'll have an extensive sleep study (almost 24 hrs) at the sleep clinic. The

Today is Labor Day in the US of A! Being away from any and all family we weren't entirely sure how we would celebrate. However, a family from church (who we've become friends) are going to join us at our house today for a picnic, although I'm guessing we'll eat inside as we have nothing to eat on outside! My husband is going to marinade and grill a roast, we'll have French fries, baked beans, a salad and dessert. I wanted to share my baked beans recipe with you. I LOVE baked beans. It's something I have always loved to eat, however, when my eating had to change I found that all canned baked beans come full of ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, soy, cornstarch, wheat, etc. Folks, baked beans are NOT hard to make, and there is not reason to have all these crazy ingredients in them! In reality, these are simply fillers anyway. I was on the search for a baked bean recipe that I could make from scratch. A friend of mine passed one to me. I hav

Tuesday was Cora's first day of 2nd grade! I honestly don't know how we have a 2nd grader, kindergartener and preschooler. David and I looked at each other the other day and both said, "we must have blinked!" It's true--they grow up so fast. When we lived in Ohio we homeschooled Cora. When we moved we finished out the year homeschooling but knew we would be doing something different for 2nd grade. We looked at 3 private schools close to us. I think we were fully believing God was wanting us to do the private school thing, and we were surprised after looking at these 3 we had ZERO peace about any of them. We went to visit the grade school which is closest to our house and the moment we walked in David and I felt washed over with peace. To top it off, Cora's face lit up, and you could see how excited she was. After applying for open enrollment (yes, it's closest to our house, but since it's not our home school we had to be accepted into open enrollment

Friends. They come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. I can look back on my life and see the different key friends the Lord has blessed me with over the years. Being a missionary kid one tends to move a lot. And, if you don't move chances are the people around you are moving. You can become best friends with someone and after 2 years her family moves and doesn't come back. I learned early in life to make friends quickly, and not to waste time with surface, fluff stuff, but to get to the heart of a person quickly. I learned you just never know how long you have with a person before they go. As an adult, I'm finding that not everyone sees life this way. I'm learning not everyone wants to share their heart of hearts with you right away. And, that's OK! I'm seeing it's one of the quirks left over from being an MK. During my childhood my mom always prayed for my sister and I to have a good friend when we would move to a new place. The Lord always answered those

With all the anxiety and sleep issues I've been having I've been turning to music a lot more than I usually do. Music has always been soothing to me. And by music I mean Christian music--hymns, contemporary songs, instrumental, etc. I love it. I always have and when things are hard I find myself turning even more to music. I have a Pandora station set to calm music and have been listening to it a lot. God speaks to me a lot through the music of others, and that includes the Bible. The book of Psalms is the Bible's hymnbook. I have found it helpful to have the Psalms open and my music going. This keeps my mind on things that matter. Helps me keep my mind from wandering to places that aren't helpful. My friend shared this song with me, and I about cried when I listened/watched it. It spoke to me in ways that I needed. I felt the artist wrote down my thoughts and words, things I've been trying to get out. I also love the visual the video gives. Watch/listen to this

We've moved to a new state, house and job. There's clearly a lot going on. There have a been a lot of change. This move has been wonderful. We LOVE where we are, we LOVE our church, all 5 of us are making friends. God is good, and he has blessed us richly. And yet, things are not good. In the past month I have been having lots of panic attacks. On one occasion I called 911 to get to the ER to make sure everything was OK with my heart (David was away at a men's retreat...). I'm not sleeping well at night, I have very low energy, and quite frankly, I feel like I'm a hot mess. Right now we don't know what's going on. Right now we have way more questions than answers. Right now we're relying fully and totally on the Lord. Right now we're taking one day at a time. I am meeting with a sleep specialist to see if I might have sleep apnea--our family doctor seems to think this is the root cause of everything. We're praying the Lord gives the doctor

There are several ways in which to eat "Paleo." This diet is also commonly called the "Caveman Diet," which means you only eat what cavemen ate, or what we think they ate...Some people are very strict and don't do any starches or dairy, ONLY eating meat, fruit and veggies. We are a bit looser with it in our house. We have dairy (in moderation as dairy seems to have adverse effects on all 5 of us), and we eat potatoes/sweet potatoes as well as some beans (kidney, garbanzo, etc). We are OK with this. It works for us. It might not work for you. In any case, it's Monday and I have promised meal ideas! Oh, and sometimes I might not do meals...I might just do 1 dish, or side, or dessert. I'm leaving my options open. We love meat in our home. Sorry, no vegetarians here! In fact, when we lived in OH we would buy sides of beef every year. We still have a freezer full right now. We also eat a lot of chicken, because I can get it cheaply (and good quality) at Ald

Fridays are going to be dubbed "Fun on Friday!" I plan to have more photos here, talk about family stuff etc. ************************** I love the beach. It has to be about one of my most favorite places on earth. I've been to beaches in the DRC, Kenya, Cameroon, California, Florida and now New Jersey! I've swum in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. I love them all. And, we are finally able to introduce our kids to the ocean! There's just something about the ocean. The waves are mesmerizing to me. I am so easily lulled to sleep with the waves. The sand...well, it's not my favorite part (how does it get EVERYWHERE????), but it IS a part of it, so I'll take it! We are blessed to live 2-3 hours from the ocean. We can go on a day trip, or a weekend trip. We've done both this summer and I think it's already one of our favorite family things to do. I look forward to making a lot of beach memories with David and the kids! Here are some of my fa

On Thursdays I'm going to talk about something I'm thankful for. It might be something (someone) just general, or could be from something specific. I read the book "1000 Gifts" by Ann Voskamp a few years ago and was challenged to see life through thankful eyes. I'm usually someone who can always see the silver lining. However, life has a way of getting us down, doesn't it? We can get so caught up in the details that we forget to see the bigger plan God has for our lives. I can get very bogged down in potty accidents, spilled drinks, a dirty house and forget that God has blessed me with 3 precious children. Today I am thankful for water . Such a basic thing, right? However, it is the most important thing, besides air, for us to live. And, I believe, in the USA we take water for granted. I grew up in a 3rd world country. We collected all the rain water into our in-ground cistern, then the water was pumped by hand into huge barrels that were hooked up to pipes

I'm going to have my Wednesday posts be those that bring worship. They will consist of a verse from the Bible, or a song, something I saw, or a thought I had, etc. Anything that has caused me to pause and worship the Lord. In the hustle and bustle of our days I think we forget that God created us to worship him. And, he has given countless things to worship him. I don't want to forget his goodness to me. I don't want to forget that if something isn't going well there is still reason and cause to worship the Lord. Today I want to share with you a song that I love.  Give Me Jesus  is a fairly old hymn. It originated as an African-American spiritual written during the time of slavery in the Untied States. It's been made popular by  Fernando Ortega, as well as others. This song has done a lot to show me that no matter what, I need Jesus. I've posted a video of the song below the lyrics so you can hear it. The words are simple and yet so powerful.  GIVE ME JESUS

Part of raising kids is getting them to set goals and accomplish them. I don't know if I've mentioned it in my blog, but I have talked about it a lot how reading was a struggle for Cora over 1st grade. Not so much a struggle in her knowing HOW to read, but rather a struggle in getting her TO read for me. She would read for anyone else, but when she and I sat down to do school she often acted like she was reading Chinese, or something. It was so frustrating, and David and I weren't sure what to do to get her over the hump. Then, Cora kept asking if she could get her ears pierced! DING! The light bulb went off and we saw we had our "thing" to get her over the hump. We told her that if she wanted to get her ears pierced she need to read 10 books. We encouraged her to try to do this before school started, making it a summer activity/goal. We picked out books for her and she got to it. We were impressed with her sudden ability to read (sigh...) and wouldn't you kno