November Photos

I recently realized that I didn’t post pictures of Blake’s 4th birthday party and other pictures from November.   That was when I was at an all-time low with my health and energy was scarce.  I figured maybe it’s too late but I would still like to post them anyway.  Blake asked for an Angry Birds cake and by the grace of God, it was the best cake I have made to date.  It actually looked like the picture I found online! 

Blake’s friend from church and Preschool gave him a set of Curious George books.

Lego from his neighbor friend Some people have theme parties…ya, Blake had 3 themes.  Angry Birds cake, Thomas tablecloth and Cars plates. We bought a ladder majorly on sale (before this we only had a 50-year-old small rickety wooden one) so that we (as in Jared) can change the light bulbs that are high up in our house and the pot lights outside

Blake’s Preschool picture made me laugh!  SO thankful my Mom-in-law is a photographer and we can get beautiful pictures of our kids!

I LOVE Blake’s expression…my Mom gave him a Lego fire truck set for his birthday.  He is a little bit (ok a lot) obsessed with Lego and wants to look at pictures of all the different sets online at shop.lego.com every day.  He wants them all on his birthday/Christmas list, so I think there are about 25 sets on his list right now. Since he doesn’t know how to put them together by himself, I spent an hour putting this together.

Happily eating popsicles after supper My baby who is exactly 2 1/2 years old tomorrow!

“Reading” Bibles together…melts my heart. Kiera after her bi-annual haircut

She lost her first top tooth…she already lost her middle 2 bottom teeth

Probably watching Treehouse, the only t.v. channel we get. The wind made the snow look really cool in front of our house. We have had the coldest winter and the most snow since 1949 or something ridiculous like that. I hunt to find the beauty and this particular morning I found it like this. You think with all this cold weather (often below –20) and being cooped inside I would have gotten these pictures posted sooner, but I’ve been busy with other things, particularly making things.  Stain remover, laundry detergent, body butter, diaper cream, face cream, and bread are just some of the things I’ve made in the past few weeks.  Speaking of making things, I gotta go start on supper, so I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!

A New Year

I haven’t blogged this year yet, as I’ve very much been enjoying our down time since our insanely busy Christmas.  Jared + I started watching Season 1 of The Voice, as we had never seen it before.  We like it and we just have the final episode of that season to watch.  Every January, our church does a 3-week fast.  Since I’ve already cut out SO many foods from my diet, I decided to fast from Facebook.  That has been going well, although I do feel a bit “cut off” from people.  I am trying to be more intentional with my time and spending more time with the Lord instead of filling my time with other useless activities. 

I always ask the Lord for a word for the year.  Last year’s was surrender and that was really hard, but so worth it.  I learned that as much I want to control things (like especially my health) I am ultimately not in control.  Trusting God during the challenges has caused my faith to grow.  I know how things will ultimately end and I will have perfect health and unending joy for eternity!!  For now, I battle on!

This year, God said His Word for me this year is healing!  I have been somewhat hesitant to share this because I think, “What if it doesn’t happen?”  God asked me, “Are you going to trust that my Word is true?”  So, I choose to trust.  I don’t know exactly what that healing will look like and yesterday my friend suggested that maybe I will pray for people and see miraculous healing.  Any way I look at it, healing is good! 

During this time of fasting, I feel like God’s theme for me is “persevere.”  As I am on the Healing Diet and there are many temptations to cheat, God tells me to persevere.  As I still have some health issues, God tells me to persevere.  I just read Hebrews 12:1-2 this week and it says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”  That encourages me!  I pray you will all run your race with perseverance this year, fixing your eyes on Jesus! :)

Christmas 2013

Our Christmas was once again insane this year.  We had 8 family gatherings, 3 Christmas programs, 2 work parties, plus other events in between.  All of us were sick with something last week (Jared and the kids had fevers and I had achiness) but we managed to make it to all of the family gatherings and God worked through the Ibuprofen I was giving the kids for fevers.  We celebrated Jesus in spite of everything else that was going on, which was the most important thing.  On Christmas Day, my sister, brother-in-law and niece flew out and are leaving today, so it has been WONDERFUL to spend time with them!  Christmas always feels more special when they’re here.  I’ll back up and start at the beginning of December:

We made a gingerbread train (well, mostly I did as the kids got really distracted and Haley had a meltdown because I wouldn’t let her eat all of the candy) In the middle of December was our church Christmas program The following week, Blake had his Preschool Christmas program and Jared and I were surprised and delighted to see that Blake was Joseph :) On the 23rd, we had supper and Christmas with Jared’s Mom at our house.

On the 24th, we went to a 4:00 Christmas Eve service, then had supper and had our own family Christmas.  I tried to get some nice pictures with the kids (who wouldn’t stop moving) and these were the best ones: We bought each kid a Busy Book, which is a board book that has a big play map and 12 story characters at the back of each book that they can play with.  Kiera got Dora, Blake got Toy Story and Haley got Bubble Guppies.  Blake and Haley saw them at Wal-Mart one day and wanted to play with them, so I figured they would make good Christmas gifts.  I’m glad the kids like them!

Kiera’s front tooth was practically hanging out of her mouth but she would not let us pull it out, so we convinced her to bite into a caramel.  Success! “All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth…” We spent the afternoon and evening on the 25th at Jared’s Dad + Stepmom’s.  The kids really were excited about their Lego, in spite of their expressions in this picture. I love Kiera’s expression here…Strawberry Shortcake books! Steve + Lindsay expecting their first baby middle of February! TJ + Amanda expecting their first baby at the end of April (which you obviously can’t see in this picture)! Haley napped through the whole gift exchange time (that was the day she was sick), so she opened her gifts when she woke up. At suppertime, we discovered that Jared’s Dad had made name signs for everyone which we all really liked! I liked this little tree in the dining room This was the only picture I got of all 3 kids in their Christmas outfits dressed for a gathering on the 26th.  I love watching them with their Uncle Art. Me and my beautiful sister…one of my favorite pictures from this Christmas season. Playing with one of his new Lego sets (he got 2 bigger sets, one medium set and a small set) I caught her dimple…yay! On the 27th, we went out for supper with Art + Jenene while my Mom stayed with the kids.  That was really great!  I don’t think we’ve ever gotten to spend time just the 4 of us, so for me, that was special.

We drove in this storm on the 28th to go to my Mom’s house for Christmas.  I praise God for safe travels as we gallivanted all over the countryside this past week. Haley got a shopping cart/check-out stand from my Mom. More Lego!! Sophia got a Princess Doctor kit which makes noise. The kids got these great little suitcases that they can also use as backpacks.  They didn’t previously have their own suitcases and they saw these at Wal-Mart, and once again, I thought they would make great gifts. At the end of the night We had a gathering on the 29th and I had a lot of hip pain (no idea why) that day.  2 of my cousins laid hands on me and prayed for me and the pain immediately got way less and today it is gone!  Praise the God of miracles who displays His power and His glory!

Yesterday, we enjoyed our first day with NO PLANS since the 21st.  We stayed in our pajamas ALL DAY and it was wonderful!  I am very grateful that most of our family lives close by and we get to see them all but I’m also grateful for rest after all of the festivities.  I wish you all a wonderful New Year and I pray that we will all see many more miracles as God is working in each of our lives! :)