Learning Through Trials

I have not blogged in a while because of my arms. A week ago my left arm started hurting and a couple of days later, so did my right arm. I had tendinitis 9 years ago when I was a cashier and I think that's what I'm dealing with again. I see my doctor in a week, so I will talk to her about it. I'm seeing her for a follow-up to find out my x-ray results. I've been having pain on + off by my tailbone, exactly where I had a cyst removed 7 years ago. The doctor couldn't see anything from the outside, so I opted to get an x-ray done. Some days I've been incredibly discouraged by the almost constant pain and having to always think, "How can I do this activity so that I don't further hurt my arms?" On those days that I get discouraged I go to my journal where I have Scripture promises written down about healing, who I am in Christ and fear. When I feed on the Word the fear and discouragement starves. I keep on thanking Jesus so that I focus on all the good instead of all the bad. It's definitely a struggle, though. I'm learning that I can try to eat as healthy as possible, avoiding gluten, most dairy, sugar, even substituting coconut oil for butter, take vitamins, minerals, fish oil, etc. and still not be immune from health problems. I'm not saying that those are bad things to do. I want to honor God with my body as it is where the Holy Spirit lives and I want to take care of it, but I am not ultimately in control, as much as I try to be. I do the best that I can and I need to just trust God to take care of me. The almost constant health issues since last year are so tiring, not just physically but also mentally and emotionally. At the same time, my compassion for those with chronic illness has grown immensely and I pray for those people I know often. I don't want to complain about it but I also want to be honest with where I'm at right now. The tears have come frequently lately and, "Lord, I need you," has come from my lips often. I was reminded of that verse, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 He has overcome and I can rejoice in Him! No matter how much pain I am, I can still choose to praise and look for things to be thankful for. It doesn't mean that I have to keep a smile pasted on my face but even when the tears come I can still worship. I pray that God will be glorified in my body and I pray for healing daily not only for myself but friends and family as well. If you want to join me in praying, you are more than welcome to! :)

March + April Photos

I have pictures from the past couple of months that I haven’t posted yet, so here are some that make me smile:

I have been keeping my eyes open for a Strawberry Shortcake toothbrush since Kiera saw one this past winter and wanted it but I didn’t buy it at that time.  I found these at Wal-Mart for the kids and they definitely like them!

This “after bath” hairdo

She likes the double chocolate spelt muffins that I make.

At the old house, Kiera liked to come with me to get Haley when she woke up in the morning, and she would sit Haley down on her lap and slide her way down the stairs with her and then sometimes sit with her on the couch.  I love how she loves her baby sister!

I tried to get a good picture of Haley in her Easter dress, but she just wanted to move around all the time and not look at the camera.

Kiera came home from school one day looking like this, which was a cute surprise.

It’s hard to get a picture of the three of them together all holding still at the same time, so I got one when they were watching a show.

Blake spilled some iced tea on the counter and this was his way of cleaning it up, funny boy!

The hours they have spent drawing colorful pictures at the counter while I am cooking, baking or cleaning in the kitchen.

Blake’s drawings are really progressing: I think the dinosaur is having a party with balloons.

I can always tell when she has enjoyed a meal because her hair and face are covered in it!

She may have been pretending to be an airplane….not totally sure.

She has a lot of space to push her little stroller around.

Her hair is getting in her eyes and we don’t want her to have bangs, so I’ve been starting to put it in a ponytail on top of her head.  She doesn’t like to leave it in for very long most days, but I managed to get a picture of it before she pulled it out.

I think they were doing sock puppets, but again, I’m not sure.

Kiera painted herself and Blake at school and I thought it was funny and cute.

I came home one day last week to find her fast asleep in her high chair at lunchtime.  I think that’s the first time she’s ever done that!

My favorite flowers are bright-colored daisies, and my friend brought these over as a housewarming gift, having no clue that they are my favorite!  What a blessing!

Our house is surrounded by mud since there is no yard yet.  When we were moving, I was packing the kids up to leave the new house and go back to the old house.  They were all in the van and I had forgotten something inside, so I quickly ran in to get it.  When I got back in the van, Blake said, “Haley is all muddy.”  I was confused as to how she would have gotten that way, so I turned around and this is what I saw:

This picture doesn’t even quite fully capture it.  She looked like someone trying to camouflage themselves in the bush, there was SO much mud covering her entire face!  There was mud all over her seat, Blake’s seat and a couple of the windows.  I asked him what happened and he had quickly gone in the mud before we left the house and had decided to wipe off his dirty mittens all over his sister and the van!  Haley looked hilarious, especially because she seemed quite oblivious to it all but I was not impressed by the mess I had to clean up.  At least I got a picture out of it and now I can laugh about it!

Is Tattooing Taboo?

Recently, someone I know got a tattoo. I have always thought tattoos were wrong because of this verse in the Bible, ""Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the Lord." Leviticus 19:28 I mentioned my view on tattoos to a friend yesterday and then I started to wonder, "Why did God say that and what were the circumstances around that?" I did some research and found out that this passage in Leviticus, including the surrounding text was dealing with the pagan rituals of the people living around the Israelites. God's desire is to set His people apart from other cultures. The focus was prohibiting worldly, heathen worship and witchcraft. In this same passage in verse 26 it says, "Do not eat meat that has not been drained of its blood," and verse 27, "Do not trim off the hair on your temples or trim your beards." Well, many Christians today eat non-kosher meats and get haircuts without participating in the forbidden worship of pagans. Back then these customs were associated with pagan rites and rituals. Today they are not. So, I don't think the main issue is "To tattoo or not to tattoo?" but to ask, "What are my motives?" "Am I seeking to glorify God or draw attention to myself?" "Will this be a source of contention for my loved ones?" "Am I being led by the Holy Spirit?" We should be asking ourselves that with everything we do. I've always thought this was a black and white issue, but perhaps it's not. I haven't really come to a firm conclusion and I don't know if I need to right now. I need to look at my own life and my desire is for my life to line up with this: "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:17

Kid Snippets

I came across these short clips today on another blog and thought they were very funny! There are many more on YouTube if you like these ones.

This and That

It’s been a long time since I blogged.  I’ve been a tad bit on the busy side, with moving on Easter week-end and trying to get all unpacked and organized as quickly as possible.  We started moving all of our boxes on Wednesday, March 27, and we did that for 3 days.  Then on Saturday, March 30, we had about 9 guys come and help us move all of our furniture and the other stuff that hadn’t been moved yet.  They started at 8:00 a.m. and were done by 10:30 a.m.  I was cleaning most of the morning and packing up the last of our stuff.  I had 3 ladies come and help me and we were totally done by 11:00 a.m.  By 11:30, we were all at the new house eating pizza for lunch!  By Monday, April 1, I was done unpacking (except for a few boxes in the basement, which will most likely stay there) and everything was organized.  Yesterday, Jared hung up 6 pictures for me and I have 3 more that I want to put up and then I’m all done!  It feels SO good and it’s slowly starting to feel like home.  Since we moved to a different area, Kiera will have to change schools.  At first she was quite upset about that but now she can hardly wait to start at her new school!  We will switch her when school starts again in the fall. 

I will post pictures of the new house hopefully soon.  In the meantime, I’m still behind on photos, so here are some of the things that the kids have been up to:

There’s love in between the fighting.

A couple of months ago, we used the Juppy Baby Walker for Haley to try to encourage her to learn how to walk.  Praise God she doesn’t need that anymore since she is officially walking and almost running!

We had our family Christmas with my parents close to the end of January.  It got postponed 2 or 3 times for various reasons.

They got this train set for Christmas.

I made heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies on Valentine’s Day.

They like to dress up.

Occasionally Blake ends up in a dress.

I think the hat suits him better than the dress.

The kids found the Lite Brite hidden away in a closet (I bought it at a garage sale a long time ago and forgot about it), so we got that out and it brought back memories for me.

I see a lot of these smiles, which are my favorite.

Kiera has been wanting goggles for a long time, so when she saw a 3-pack at Wal-Mart, she bought them.

February Extra Long Week-end

I was loading pictures from my camera onto the computer yesterday and realized that I haven’t blogged about the little trip we took in February.  We were given a gift certificate for a 2-night stay in a 2-room suite at a hotel in a city a few hours away, so on the February long week-end, we had a little getaway!  My Mom generously took Haley for the week-end and we left at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning with Kiera + Blake.  We went out for breakfast before we hit the road.

Although winter is my least favorite season and the cold often takes my breath away, that morning, the beauty of the hoar frost also took my breath away.

I could not stop taking pictures of the trees

Possibly my favorite one

Driving through the mountains this past summer I saw powerful beauty that made me want to shout and this February morning I saw a quiet beauty that made me want to get down on my knees in worship of the Creator.

Haley is usually the queen of faces in our family, but Kiera is not far behind!

Our room: this couch had a hide-a-bed, which I slept on the first night because Kiera kept rolling into me and elbowing me.  I slept on it for part of the 2nd night when Blake didn’t want to sleep on it anymore, so he went and slept with Jared and I took the hide-a-bed again.

The lobby of our hotel could have been a bit bigger and more spacious but the kids still had room to run around, ha ha!

We had the most amazing brunch buffet at the restaurant in our hotel.  We had sausage + egg frittata, waffles with strawberry sauce, cake, fruit parfait, bacon (which is all Blake wanted all week-end), fresh fruit, danishes, breakfast sausages and probably some other things that I’m forgetting.  It was also a lunch buffet, so hence the cake.  I skipped the spaghetti since we were having breakfast.  I like how everything on the table was curved.

We spent a ton of time at the pool.  They provided life jackets so we didn’t have to worry about the kids falling into one of the pools and they really enjoyed the waterslide.  The hot tub was on the far right.

There was some sort of big wrestling match going on in the city that week-end, so finding a restaurant to eat at on Saturday for supper was WAY more problematic than we had thought it would be.  The first restaurant we went to, there was a 45 min. wait.  The next restaurant we tried, there was a 60 min. wait.  The next restaurant there was an 80 min. wait.  The next restaurant we tried there was a 90 min. wait.  We drove around for an hour, looking for a place to eat.  Ya, we could have just stayed at the first restaurant for the amount of time it took us to find a place.  We found Famous Dave’s and they told us it would be a 25 min. wait, so we decided to stay there.  It ended up being closer to 45 min.  Oh well.  We order the feast for 2-3 people and it was AMAZING!  SOOOO much food!  The feast for 2-3 includes a half slab of ribs, half a roasted chicken, 1/4 lb. of chopped pork, coleslaw (which we substituted and got mac + cheese), beans (which we also substituted and got broccoli), 3 corn on the cobs and 2 corn muffins.  I asked God to provide and He sure did!!  We ended up eating supper past the kids’ bedtime, probably around 8:30, so they were super tired by the end and so were we. 

On Sunday, we went clothes shopping.  I found a new purse for under $20:

We spent more time at the pool that day, too.  In the evening we had no trouble finding a good restaurant that we wanted to eat at.  I had a coupon for a free appetizer and for some reason, they gave us the kids meals for free, too!  I’ve gained 5 pounds in the past month.  Half of it was probably from that week-end and the other half was probably from the lady’s retreat I just went on.  I LOVE good food! 

On Monday, we were intending on coming back home, but the weather changed our plans.  A big snowstorm blew in.  We managed to drive what was supposed to be an hour to another city and ended up being a 2-hour drive.  The kids were tired.

We got stuck there for the night.  Thankfully, we had booked a hotel room before we started driving because every room in every hotel in that city got booked up!  They had to put up 200 people at the arena.  We booked the governor’s suite at a cheap motel.

Our friend said, “If the governor came to that city, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t stay in that cheap motel.”  Ha ha!  It wasn’t anything fancy but it was big with 2 king beds. 

We had leftover pizza for an early supper and then went out for ice cream in the snowstorm later on. 

The next morning, we woke up at 5 a.m. to try to make it home before our first house showing at 10 a.m.

We found an alternate route to take, since the main highway back home was still closed.  This is what it looked like at 8:00 a.m.

I saw sun dogs for a long time which was really cool!

We didn’t actually make it home before our first house showing, but thankfully we had left it in a neat + tidy state and it ended up selling that day!  By Tuesday, we were all more than ready to come back home and see Haley again, as it was our longest amount of time away from her.  We had a great extended week-end away and enjoyed some quality family time!