God's Sovereignty

In light of last weeks events I've come to a greater understanding and conviction of God's power and control of our lives. A dear family at our church said "Good-bye" to their two sons on Mother's Day as they entered Eternity. As a mom myself, it is hard to fathom the difficulties and heartache this family is facing. Their great faith is carrying them through. As I was processing and grieving myself, I could only come to the conclusion, based on scripture, that God is fully in control and he orders our steps. He could have prevented this car accident, as He has so many times, but He didn't. In Him not protecting, He was allowing it to happen. We can do our best to be as safe and cafeful as possible, but in the end, His will will be done. We may not like His plans, but in the end all He does is right and good, because He is GOOD and His ways are perfect. His perspective is so different from ours. His grace is great and so is His love. He knows the number of our days before even one of them comes to be and we don't know when that last day will come for us. We just need to make sure we are living closely with the ONE who holds our future in His hands. We need to know Jesus, the Savior, and know his grace and forgiveness that will allow us access to spend eternity with Him. Are you ready? The life we live is but a breath and then we're gone. I am so glad I can trust in my Heavenly Father. Even though I don't understand His ways, I can trust trust them. I go on, living in hope and not in fear, for perfect love casts out fear.

Thank You, God, for the Internet

This modern tool of the internet has become such a powerful thing. It can destroy and it can be so helpful. It is such a wealth of information, some good and some bad. We keep a password on our computer (that only I know) that will not let people go to any site they want, unless it is approved by me. Anyways, that is a side note. Yesterday I decided to move a mower that we've been basically storing for a couple years. It's been in the garage and I thought maybe I'd move it outside, under our deck. Then I thought maybe I'd take a look at it. This mower was given to us by our good friends, the Whitbys. They told us it wasn't running because the carborator needed to be cleaned out. The mower was just a year old at the time, so we figured we'd get it fixed and have a fairly new mower that is nicer than our current push mower (which is over 10 years old). We don't know much about mowers and so it sat. I got online and found the manuals. First I drained the oil and didn't know what to do with it, so I put it back in (it didn't look that black). Then I started to google about fixing lawnmower carborators. That brought me to youtube. They have all kinds of helpful videos of people showing how to fix things. I watched a guy clean a lawnmower carborator and thought I'd give it a try. I was hoping to get the boys interested in learning about it too. Jonathan didn't help until the end, because he was busy with other things (he has been gone for a few days and had stuff he wanted to do). The others were down at the river. So I basically did what I saw on the video and then gased it up. After priming it, Jonathan gave it a try. It didn't take long and we got it started. It smoked a bit (probably from oil in the muffler - again, I learned from the internet). Anyways, it ran great, cut great and is more powerful than our other mower, which is out of commission at the moment (the primer bulb has a rip in it). I was not expecting a miracle of the thing actually working, what a blessing! I was pretty excited. Now I'm thinking maybe we'll tackle the old mower at some point and see if we can get that one going. The boys are doing more mowing and actually starting to get paid for it (James' office and James' parents). Without the internet, I would have never been able to figure this out, so I'm so thankful that I can find just about any answer to any question out there. Most of all I'm thankful to my Heavenly Father, who provides so abundantly!

A Visit from Uncle Chris

We had a nice weekend visit from Chris Wood, James' best friend from Harvard. They were roomates and he was the best man in our wedding. He recently became a true follower of Christ and it was fun talking with him about what God has been doing in his life and the amazing changes that have taken place. He has become a new creation. The kids really loved having him here. Rachel was a baby when he was last here. Rachel especially took to him, but she kept forgetting his name. "Mommy, is that boy, that big boy coming to church with us," she'd say. Chris is 6 foot 8 inches tall; thus she called him "big". Unfortunately, James came down with strep throat, so that wasn't great. At least he should be over it by Thursday when him and Jonathan head down to the Smokey Mountains for their 4 night/5 day backpacking trip. This trip is a "you're about to hit the teenage years" talk. He'll be 12 in August. Lots of things to discuss there. I'm just thankful I don't have to do it.

We have a lake view in our backyard again today. The river flooded from all the rain we've gotten the last couple days. I'm itching to get back to my gardening. Before church tonight I just had to get a peek out there and see if any seeds have sprouted. It is so much fun to have this big garden. I talked to James last night and we're going to put a fence around it. Last week a cow walked on some things in there and soon there will be rabbits and deer starting to eat our fresh produce. That will be my big project for the week, once the mud dries up out there. I'll have to take some pictures of the garden and post them. Maybe next time.

A Fun-Filled Easter Weekend

We had a fantastic Easter weekend. We started out with our first family backpacking trip on Thursday night. We went to the state park that is very close to our home. The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. There were no bugs, we had so much fun! Here are some pictures from the weekend.

This was sweet to see Josh holding Jesse's hand, trying to help him along. The three of us carried up the rear most of the time on Thursday night. We made it to camp just before dark.

This is the camp we stayed at. They have a nice fireplace already set up and we used it to cook hotdogs and marshmellows the night before.

Jesse did really well the first night, hiking over a mile and a half. The next morning he was less enthusiastic about hiking and he was carried quite a bit. Fortunately that hike was less than the night before. In the picture above Jesse is catching a ride on Daddy's pack. It got pretty uncomfortable for James after a few minutes.

On Friday afternoon, we had our Easter scavenger hunt. The kids followed the clues and read through the Easter story as they went. I was surprised at how well they did figuring out the clues. They fought a little over who got to find the egg and sometimes we had to make the older kids let the younger ones have a chance.

We made the kids hold hands some of the time to keep them together, especially at the end.

The empty tomb is the prize, but this homemade candy sure tastes good!!!

What handsome gentlemen. I wasn't planning on Jesse getting in this one, but he thought he'd just get right in there too.

After church on Easter Sunday
Later on Easter we had all James' family over for dinner. We also celebrated Josiah and Rachel's birthdays. What a fun-packed weekend.

Jonathan's Song Writing

I feel like I got to see a bit of Jonathan's heart this week. He wrote at least three songs. One day his friend, Timothy, came over and they wrote this song together (I took out the chords and repeat choruses):

There are those who do not have love
It is sad but it is true
So we are the ones will tell them
So they can have Gods love too

Spread the word
So everybody hears it
Spread the word
So they’ll know about his love
Spread the word
To the ends of the whole earth
Spread the word
Jesus told us to

If they refuse we must keep on going
So that we can keep on showing
That God loves them with all of his heart
And he wants them to be his own

Because somebody had to tell you
So why don’t you tell everybody else
Do not hesitate to do itFor they might never hear it again


Wow, it brings a Momma joy to see that this is what her son is doing during his spare time.
Here's another song he wrote by himself:

We will stand firm

Our nation has fallen into darkness
We are very sinful and rebellious
It was founded on biblical truths
But they still do not care

We will stand firm in our faith
When our nation has lost it’s way
When they have turned away from God
We will stand firm in our faith

They will not like you
They will try to hurt you
They will try to destroy you
But God will be with you

Do not fall into temptation But stand firm in our God


And then he wrote this song called:

When you follow him

You are looking for a savior
For someone to rescue you
For someone to save you
Jesus is the one

He will always be by your side
He will never leave you
All you have to do is follow him
And he will be here

When you follow him
He will be there
He will help you
He will guide you through

When you follow him
When you keep your eyes on him
When you do it all for him
He will be there to help

Jesus will be your savior
He will come and rescue you
He will come and save you
Save you from your sins

Whenever you pray to him
He will hear you
Keep your eyes on Jesus
For he knows the way

When you feel like he has left you
Believe in him
When tomorrow might bring trouble
Trust in him
When you don’t know what to do
Pray to him
When you do not know which path to take
Just follow him

Wow, I wrote songs when I was his age (or maybe I was older), but they had nothing to do with Jesus. How cool to see this. Now if we can only get him to live all this stuff. I guess that's up to the Holy Spirit in him and HIM using me to guide his heart. Jonathan has been trying to practice on the guitar about and hour a day. Yesterday he plugged into his Daddy's amp and Joshua played on the drums and they were playing together. It didn't sound that great, but give it time. Some day we'll have a whole band. Sometimes it is hard to listen to all the noise, but I just remember that someday it will pay off. I know, you are thinking, "better me than you" right?

Why I Homeschool

I heard a talk recently from Lisa Welchel and she said something that really resonated with me. She was asked why she homeschools and she said it was so that she had time to pour into her children and mold them according to the standards of the Lord. With the demands of sending your kids to school and then homework and other things, that leaves very little time to do that. It really struck a cord with me. There are many secondary reasons to homeschool that are of great benefit, but to get more time with my kids and to train them to follow the ways of Christ is why I do it. That was my motivation from the beginning when I started homeschooling Jonathan after kindergarden. I missed him and felt like he was gone too much of the time. So that has got me wondering about high school. We have been leaning towards sending him to public school and we still may, if the Lord leads us in that direction. I'm just wondering if He's going to lead us to continue to homeschool all the way through. I really feel like if he went to school everyday, I'd never get to spend much time with him. Fortunately, we still have a few years before we get there.

I have more to post on last weekend, but I'll find time for that later.

Where to Begin??? (updated)

Well, there are so many things I have wanted to blog about, but just haven't gotten around to it. Let's see...A couple weeks ago we had the cool experience of making our own maple syrup out of the backyard. We have been slowly enjoying the fruits of our labors and it is so yummy! We collected sap from two trees and only got to do it for about a week. We collected about fifteen gallons and boiled it down to about two quarts. I did it in the house in our electric cooking pan (I don't really know what the thing is called, but it holds a lot of liquid). The main batch I did, I let cook in there for two days and then when it got near the end, I finished on the gas stove. It is the best syrup I have ever tasted and I'm sure that has something to do with the fact that I processed it myself.

Jedaiah turned six months old last week. He finally rolled over about a week before that. He keeps trying to sit up, but he can only lift his head off the ground (picture, "I've fallen and I can't get up). He has started eating some foods, but not real regularly yet. So far he has only had cereal, squash, apple sauce and bananna. He is quite adorable and many people say he looks like his Momma.

Jesse is still potty training. He's still pooping in his pants too. I don't really make a big deal about it and I figured out today that making him clean his underware would not really deter him from doing it. I caught him going in the bathroom today, taking off his pooped in underware and cleaning them in the toilet (but they weren't getting very clean since he didn't turn them inside out - I'm okay with that). I took over, but he didn't like that, he wanted to do it. So, I let him do a little and left the room for a minute. When he got done, he brought the underware (dripping wet) to me in the laundry room. Yuck (at least it wasn't on carpet)! He is quite a character and I see a lot of Josh in him, but he doesn't seem quite as stubborn.

This past weekend the kids played in the AWANA games. Jon and Josh's team got first place and Jay and Josiah's team got third (out of three teams). Rachel got to play on her brothers' team because they didn't have enough girls. It was quite fun watching her. I hope to get some video uploaded in the next few days.

Baseball has started. Jonathan is one one team and Josh and Jay are on a team together (what a blessing!). We don't have grass to play on yet and we won't for this season. We're supposed to get it seeded this Spring. So that leaves them practicing on the driveway or out in the field. I'm looking forward to watching them play games this year.

Projects I've been working on:
Loosing weight - that is going well, I've now lost around 15 pounds since January. I think Bob beat me and reached his goal already, but I'm in second place in our biggest loser contest. I've only got 2 pounds to reach my goal, so I think I'm going to set a new goal and go for five more pounds. It will probably take until the Fall to reach that goal (after I'm done nursing). I can get into my jeans again, but they are still tighter than I'd like.

I'm in the midst of spackling the garage. I didn't get to work on it last week because I was too busy. There is a lot still to be done, but I'll work on it as I can on rainy days.

I've been doing some researching and thinking on the garden. I bought some berry bushes to plant (Blueberry, rasberry, blackberry, strawberry and gojiberry). I hope to get outside this week and start working on the ground for the garden. I bought a bunch of heirloom seeds that I plan to plant. I also want to harvest the seeds and dry them and start a seed bank for future years. I got the seeds from the Sustainable Seed Company online. This will all be great learning for both me and the kids!

The kids started making their own Easter candy today. I decided I don't want to go out and buy a bunch of candy this year. I thought it would be fun to have them make their own. Today Jonathan and Jay made Tootsie rolls and they were pretty easy and very tasty. They also plan on making Butter fingers, Twix bars, and probably another kind or two. This year we plan to do an Easter scavenger hunt around the house here (per their request).

I'm still in the process of eating healthier and serving healthier foods for my family. Last week I had a few ladies over to teach them how to grind wheat and discuss ways to eat more nutritiously. I learned lots of things. I learned what coos coos is (I don't know if that is how you spell it). It is a grain and works well as a side dish. I think I'll try it one of these days. I also learned about different natural sugars like Agave necter and others. One thing I'm going to try and do more of this summer is making yogurt pops instead of popsicles. I am also going to try and make hummus (another foreign thing to me). We'll see if the kids go for it. I'm looking forward to having a big garden and getting lots of veggies to preserve and have throughout the year.

Today I bought rope for a clothes line. I want to try drying the clothes outside and see how much that takes off our electric bill. My sister-in-law said she saved quite a bit of money doing it last summer. I think I'm going to start by drying the clothes under our back deck. I can set a line there easily and take it down if I decide it is not for me. I never really enjoyed doing it as a kid, but I'm hoping it will be more enjoyable now, it will be a good time to pray. The only thing is there is dirt under there and if I drop a wet something, it will probably need to go into the washer again. If I send the kids out to do it, I think it would be defeating the purpose of saving energy as I'd probably have to rewash stuff. The hope is that someday we'll have a patio under there, but for now we have dirt.

We should finish up the school year at the end of April, but we'll keep going and try to get some hours in when we don't have much else to do (does that ever happen??? it does for the kids, not for me). Well, I'm sure there is more I could write about, but it seems the minutes in a day just fly by and I'm out of time.