Sometimes it is Good to be Wrong

Yesterday morning I came to the conclusion that my uterus is too small. I thought for sure the baby had stopped developing and died a couple weeks ago. My morning sickness dissapated a couple weeks ago and that is too early for me. I was able to get in to see the doctor this morning. The doctor said my uterus was about normal for 11 weeks, but we couldn't hear the heartbeat (also not unusual for this age). Then the doctor did an ultrasound to see if he could see a beating heart. He did see one, to my surprise (and delight), but he did say the baby was small and that I must have had my dates messed up. I could only be off by a week at the most. I suspect my dates are right (I double checked them this morning). Next Thursday I will get a real ultrasound and we'll go from there. I'm at peace with whatever happens. I know God is in control and I trust him. I was prepared for the possibility of having a miscarriage this weekend and now I have hope that I won't for now.

Questions

For a while now we've often used questions at the dinner table that help us share what's going on in each other's lives. We don't do it every night, in fact, we used to do it more than we have been lately. The two questions we do are "What is your high for the day?" and "What is your low for the day?". The kids love going around and sharing about their day. This past week I heard about some new questions to ask. This is in light of a study on churched youth. Fourty to fifty percent of youth from good churches end up turning away from their faith after high school. I sure would like to keep that from happening with our own youth. It can start now, while they are young. As adults, we need to be sharing our own personal walk with Christ with our kids. So in light of that, here are some questions we are going to start asking at the dinner table on a regular basis:

"How have you seen God working today?" and "What mistake have you made today?"

I think these are great questions to open up communication on spiritual matters. The kids will see Mom and Dad aren't perfect and we need to rely on God's grace. They also see how God is working in our lives. I also think the mistake question is good for those kids who think they never do anything wrong. They can see that we all mess up and it is okay. God's grace covers our sin.

Also, do your kids know how you came to faith in Christ (if you are a believer)? Many kids don't know their parents' testimonies. It would be good to share it with them.

A Nice Day...

I love this time of year and seeing the leaves change color. The temperatures are starting to cool down around here and they are quite comfortable. Yesterday I decided to do a different schedule, just for the day. I wanted to get some cleaning done. We started at 7:30 and our schedule looked somewhat like this:
15 min. clean
20 min. Bible
15 min. clean
20 min. school
15 min. clean
20 min. school
15 min. clean
15 min. break
20 min. school
15 min. clean
You get the idea. We did that until 1:00 and then ate lunch and finished up school. Then I took a nap around 2:00. At 3:30 I started getting dinner ready and James made it home before 6:00 and I surprised him with a dinner date. The kids served us on our private deck. We started with fruit and homemade bread. Then we had salad. Then the main course of salmon, roasted potatoes (sweet potatoes for me), and green beans. Then apple crisp with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was a lovely time. We watched the sun set, which wasn’t too impressive with no clouds. We got to watch the deer grazing in the woods. Then we took a bath. It was a nice date at home. Jonathan took care of the kids, but we ended up cleaning up some before bed.
With this schedule we got the floors and carpets all cleaned and the bathrooms too and we had fun doing it for the most part. By the end of it, they were starting to goof off while I was running the steam cleaner, but besides that, they did pretty well. We may try it again the next time I want to get lots of cleaning done and still do school.

The Word is Out

We tried to keep it a secret, but the word has leaked out and is spreading like wildfire! That's okay, we are fine with that. We are so excited to announce that we are expecting #8 to join our family next May. Never say never, because I said we'd never catch up to James' sister Linda, who has 8 kids. Lord willing, we will. We are truely blessed beyond what we could have imagined.
I am doing fine. I'm eight weeks along and have my typical evening sickness, which is pretty mild overall. I also am pretty tired and have started taking more naps. Other than that, life is carrying on as usual.
Something exciting that started this past week is prayer with Josh. I decided God wanted me to start my day with Josh by praying with and for him. This has helped things go smoother with him. He responded well to it and it helped him have more obedient days. I hope to take opportunities to do the same with Jonathan, who has his own heart issues to conquer. It seems like such an easy thing, I don't know why I didn't start this a long time ago. I hope that we'll form a good habit that will bring with it many blessings.