One Day

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

I'm trying to bring more order to my blog in attempts to help me remember the things I enjoy writing about, to help me come up with ideas each day and well, I'm a textbook Type A person and it just seems the thing to do. Mondays I hope to use to post some of our favorite meals, recipes, etc. Most of what I post will be GRAIN FREE , GLUTEN FREE , and  PALEO . I have a lot of dietary allergies and sensitivities, so as a family we tend to eat differently than most. I'm not going to go into my story again about why we eat this way. Nor do I think it's for everyone. In fact, in our family of 5 I'm the strictest because I NEED to be, but David and the kids are way more flexible. Also, please know we don't eat this way because we want to be part of a fad. We are about as far from "fad-followers" as you can get! HA! This is what we know is best for MY body and digestive track, and we find it's helpful for the rest of the family too. ANYWAY! All that to say

With all of our moving and change my sister had a new baby! My newest nephew was born in April and he was 2 weeks old before I got to see him. I was so sad I didn't get to see him right away, but was thankful the Lord worked out a time for us to go see him before he got too big! Anyway! Quincy Zaire is super precious and so kissable and squeezable! He's a fantastic addition to our clan, and we all love "Baby Qincy" (as Bekah says) very much! Quincy at 4 months!

It's been a long time since I posted photos of the kids so I thought I would do that today with an update on them! Cora is now 7! She has grown, not only in height, but also in maturity. It's been so fun to watch her interact with her siblings, starting to be the "teacher" for them. She's started to help out by making breakfast some mornings! Her specialties are toast, cereal and sausage! She's also growing in her faith in the Lord, which is so special. Cora is loving her Sunday School class at church and having lots of girls there her age. She recently got her ears pierced--she had to meet a goal of reading 10 books to get them pierced (I'll talk about that in a later post!), and I can't believe how grown up that makes her! At the end of August she'll be heading off to school to start 2nd grade. After visiting several private schools we decided on the public school for her to attend. No, we weren't expecting that, but God made it very cle

I have been feeling the itch to start writing again. I see it's been a good, long time since I last wrote. Our lives have changed and so much has happened it's hard to fully put it all into a post that won't take you hours to read! I think I'll just tell you the highlights for now! *In January we finished packing for our move to a new state, city, church, everything! *February 22 was move day, and we traveled to the neighboring state. My mom, the kids and I were in our van, David and the animals were in my parents' car, and my dad drove the Uhaul with most of our earthly possessions, pulling our "baby" car behind! It was a long day, but we got to our new home and were greeted by lots of folks from our new church. The job of unloading 4 vehicles of stuff was done quite quickly, and I will be forever grateful for those people! *March saw us getting even more settled in, figuring out where to put everything, finding our way around town, getting involved