Visit with Noah and Johanna

We had a great visit with my sister and her baby Noah this week. I thought Emily was going to get upset with me holding Noah. She's done that when I've held other babies recently (she's in a very clingy stage!). But she got upset when it wasn't her turn to hold Noah! She just loved him.

Amy, of course, was a great helper and enjoyed her cousin a lot too. I don't have a picture of Evan with Noah because when I was taking these pictures (unfortunately, the only time I had my camera out) Evan was helping my sister carry in her luggage and baby stuff.

A Story of God's Goodness

Twelve years ago today Sean and I were married. It was a sweltering 115 degrees outside. (Praise God for air-conditioning!)

For those of you who missed it last year on GirlTalk, during the bookclub discussion, here is the story of how we met.



Just like Ruth, the story of how God brought my husband into my life started out with difficult circumstances. I was starting my fourth year of college, helping to organize Bible Studies for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. During an event designed to reach out to students, a young man handed me a love letter saying that "God had told him that I was the one he was to marry". It turned out that this man was not a student, but a homeless schizophrenic man who now knew my address, since one of the Bible Studies was at my apartment. Over the next few weeks he dropped off letters at my doorstep, in the middle of the night, that became increasingly obscene and threatening. I decided to call the police.

I was advised to get a restraining order and not walk alone. God met my needs abundantly. My roommate's father was a lawyer and filed the paperwork for me free of charge. Twelve other believers lived next door, underneath or across from me in our apartment complex. They took turns walking with me to class and going to the police station with me to drop off more letters as they came. At one point three young men slept on my living room floor with baseball bats "just in case". During finals' week when my friends were busier and my life was more stressful, my dad took a week off of work and came to be with me.

During this time I met three police officers who were handling my case. I would find out later that all three were godly Christian men. Two were my fathers age and viewed me as a daughter in Christ. One was a good looking single guy. He ended up being the one who came and arrested the man who was stalking me.

Over the summer break, the stalker was released from jail. I ended up having several conversations with the young police officer about it all. Each conversation would start out "Hello Officer" and end with "Good-Bye Sean". By the time I returned to school, at a different address, the homeless man had written me one last letter saying that "God had told him to move on". The return address was in another state. The case was closed. Sean helped me move into my new apartment and took me out to dinner, our first date. We were married 10 months later.

Last year when I was talking to my son about Romans 8:28 he looked at me and said, "Mommy, that's just like how you and Daddy met! God used it for good!" Amen to that. He sure did!

I Love You Sean!!!

Here's to many more great years together. Thanks for being my "Knight in Shining Armor"!

Summer Fun!

We've got fruit galore this year and it all ripened at the same time! I'm busy, busy picking and making jam this week!

And The Winner Is.......

Margie!!!

I'm long overdue to give you a call and set up something for the girls. Now we have one more reason to get together! Congratulations!

Thanks to all of you for entering and making this fun! I'm on a cleaning and purging spree. The homeschool closet is next and we're going to have a garage sale next week. So maybe I'll find another good give-away. Is anyone looking for any curriculum in particular? You never know, I just may have it and not need it anymore.

"Win-a-Book" Week

It's official! Fishmama even made a button for it! If you have a book to give away let her know and she'll keep a list of who's giving what away. Sounds fun, huh?!

Win Another Book!

My friend Jessica is having a book drawing too! Check out her blog at Fishkids.

She also had a great idea and apparently the guys over at Desiring God thought so too. So do you have a good book or two that is a double that you'd like to give away? "Win a Book Week" sounds great to me!

Contest to Win a Book

I've been going through my bookshelf to make room for the books that I ordered this past week. I found an extra one of my favorite garden books.

"Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots" by Sharon Lovejoy is a delightful book on gardening together with children. Chapters include: Top 20 Plants for Kids, Theme Gardens (like the pizza patch, sunflower house, and moon garden), and Gardening Basics. It is full of great advice and bright captivating illustrations.

If you would like to win this book, just leave me a comment! I'll draw the names out of a hat next Saturday. If you've never left a comment here before, please feel free to enter the contest also!

As an added bonus, this book is even signed by the author.

"Healthy Cookies"

I've been making this recipe for our cookies since Jessica posted it. Several people have asked for it. Here's my version tweaked a bit from her version. Enjoy!

Trail Mix Cookies
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
3/4 c. canola oil (or ½ cup oil and ¼ cup applesauce)
3/4 c. ground flax seed meal
¾- 1 c sucanat
1 c. white whole wheat flour
1/4 c. wheat bran
1/4 c. wheat germ
1/2 t. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
Dash of cloves and ginger
1 t. baking soda
2 c. rolled oats
1 c. trail mix (cranberries, raisins, sunflower seeds, pepitas etc.) I usually just use dried cranberries
1/4 c. dark chocolate chips

I mixed this in the Kitchen Aid, combining the eggs, vanilla, and oil first, then adding the flax and sugars. When that was well blended, I added the flour, wheat bran, wheat germ, salt, soda, spices and oats. Then, the trail mix and chocolate chips.
I made large cookies: about 9 per cookie sheet. The total recipe yielded about 20.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes

Win Some Money, Save Some Money

In case you hadn't heard yet, next Wednesday and Thursday (June 27 and 28th) Desiring God's bookstore is offering ALL their books for $5 each. The special is good online only.

Westminster Bookstore is also having a great sale on children's resources that ends next Tuesday June 26. I was able to buy what we're going to use for our Bible curriculum next year at a great price. (Thanks, Leslie!)

Finally, if you have kids and have a garden, your pictures could win you some money. Enter the contest here.

Playdough Recipe

My kids love playing with clay. While the older two have graduated to Sculpy clay and ceramics that can be fired, Emily has just discovered the joy of Playdough. Here is our favorite recipe given to me by my MIL. It smells so much better than the store bought stuff!

Playdough

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup salt

2 pkg. kool-aid mix (grape is our favorite)

3 Tablespoons oil

2 cups water

Stir together. At this point the playdough will be very sticky. Add more flour, stirring then kneading until it gets to the consistency you'd like. Store in a Ziplock bag or air tight storage container.

Two New Blogs

Mark Dever from Capital Hill Baptist Church now has a blog. Sean and Evan got to visit CHBC when they went to D.C. and enjoyed it very much. "The 9Marks blog aims to stimulate a helpful conversation among pastors, church leaders, and Christians about life together in the local church." (Taken from their blog.)

In other news, my other sister, Shauna, now also has a blog. If you want to see the cutest picture of my nephew, CJ, click here.

I'll be adding both of these to my sidebar.

Emily Hiding

Lately if we can't find Emily, she's likely hiding here....

"Peek- A - Boo!"

"Now, go away!"

Children with Disabilities

My friend Kristen is adopting a little girl from Guatemala who has Down Syndrome. Because of her, I was excited to see GirlTalk's new series on children with disabilities. You can catch up here, here , here, and here. They linked to an excellent article by Peter Avery. "Then Shall the Lame Leap Like A Deer: God and the Disabled."

We're waiting and praying with you Kristen!

Noah

My third nephew was born on April 25. I didn't get to go and meet him since it was so close to Sean and Evan's D.C. trip. He was due earlier that month!

Johanna, (my sister) and her husband Ben have their own blog now too.

The last picture is a recent one of Noah. There is a picture of my sister when she was a baby with that exact same expression. Too cute! I can't wait to meet him.

Eight is Great!

Amy turned eight this week! She wanted a party on her actual birthday so we had a midweek park party. I found some bucket and pail sets at Michaels for $1 and got those as party favors. The kids spontaneously decided to hold a sand castle contest. They had such a great time! It was fun and low stress for me since I didn't have to clean my house or plan party games. One of the little girls asked what the "theme" of the party was. Park, of course!



Our neighbor and good friend, Tawni has the same birthday as Amy. It's been fun to share their special day together. We get to go to her party this weekend!

Two layer dairy free chocolate cake!

Sandcastle contest.

The three little girls really liked their party food.

Happy Birthday Amy!!!

Our First Sunflower

Doing Hard Things

Sean has been pouring concrete this week. He is building a path around our house and a shade structure over Emily's window to keep out the heat. It's been over 100 degrees here.

Evan has been helping Sean. The first day he went out eager to "help dad". This morning he wasn't so chipper. "It's hard work, mom!"

The guys over at The Rebelution have a motto. Do Hard Things. I got a chance to remind Evan of that this morning. Evan is almost as strong as me. I want him to use his strength for good and not just laze around playing computer games. The image of the boy in the Little House on the Prairie books who didn't help his pa and ended up getting stung by an entire hive of bee's came to mind. Evan isn't quite a teen yet, but he's close. Today his dad had some hard work to do and he needed real help. Mixing cement in 100 degree heat isn't my idea of fun, but thankfully God worked in Evan's heart to accept the challenge. Tomorrow it's supposed to be a bit cooler!

Garden Pictures

Here are the promised garden pictures. The ones of the roses were actually taken last month. They all had their first bloom at the same time. Now everything is taller and thicker and the roses are getting ready for another round of blooms, but not as spectacular as the first. The rest of the garden pictures were taken this week.


Evan posing in his Colonial Williamsburg costume in front of a heirloom rose that Sean's grandmother gave to us.

Three of my favorite roses. The one on the right is called double delight. It is a climbing rose. The middle and left are old fashioned roses (I forget their names). They smell wonderful!


Here is the bush that the rose above right is from.

The view from our walkway. Sean and the kids made a bunch of bird houses for my birthday and hung them in our fruit trees.

Sean took an areal view of the yard last month standing on top of the trellis around our house.

Hollyhock blooming.

Emily having a tea party in the back yard.

My raised bed with flowers for cutting and tomatoes.

On the left, a crazy weed that wraps itself around the plants. It's a spore and doesn't have any roots!

Mint growing in front of the kids playhouse.

View of the sunflowers, cosmos and tomatoes from the path behind it.

Gophers! Sean caught one by the fruit trees. He hasn't caught the one that ate almost all my delphinium. See all that empty space next to my ONE delphinium. I originally planted 18! They were there one day, and gone the next!

The Meaning of a Word

Yesterday I learned the meaning of the word "Pugnacious". Someone who is combative or argumentative. It's right there in Titus 1:7 (NASB).

We are continuing to be blessed through our new church. Yesterday, being the first of the month, Evan sat with us for the sermon. This is something new for us. At the church we came from the kids went straight to their classes before service even started. They didn't always do it that way, but as the church grew and space became a premium, they changed from kids leaving after singing, to kids going straight to class. Anyway, that happened long before Evan was old enough to notice the difference, so all he's known is Sunday School.

The church we came from has a big service at the park (combining three services into one) at the beginning of each summer. This was actually the one time the kids sat with us for a very short sermon because afterward was BBQ lunch and a concert. As we drove by the park on our way home from our new church yesterday, we saw tons of cars and remembered that this was the Sunday that they had in the park.

Two years ago at the park, Evan squirmed and complained through the very short sermon (pep talk). Yesterday, at our new church, he sat through a much longer and meatier sermon without complaint. As the pastor was talking about addictions (also in Titus 1:7) Evan leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Mom, he forgot one on his list: video games!"

I have been talking with Evan over the past few months about guidelines for video games and watching out that it does not become addicting or an idol in his heart. I was so glad that the Holy Spirit used the sermon he was hearing to reinforce what he is learning at home! I was so blessed to see him cuddling up to his dad and not wiggling too much! When the pastor quoted James 1:20, "For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." Evan was nodding his head. The funny thing is I don't know if he was nodding in agreement (It seems like I'm reminding Evan of this verse at least once a week!) or because of his Tourette's Syndrome. His latest tick is nodding his head!

It was quite a contrast from two years ago in the park. Now that there has been some time away, I can look back and see how much God has done for us. Leaving our old church was really hard. At times it was painful too and we had to check our hearts for any bitter root, forgiving those who hurt us unintentionally. Driving past the park, I was so grateful that God pulled us away and brought us to a place where we are growing more. At the "big church" even though we were really involved, it was getting easier for church to be, well, easy. Drop kids off in high entertainment room with good staff to kid ratio, listen to sermon via video feed, that met a "felt need" while I sip my mocha and eat my donut, pick up kids, go home.

Yesterday even though the sermon was relatively long (and on one verse too!), God used the pastor's words and HIS Word to convict and bring hope at the same time. It was harder to listen to than a "Fluffy" sermon, but it was so much more powerful too. And I don't mean "hard" in a bad way. The pastor is a very good communicator, but just as it is easier to sit at the edge of the bluff and look at the ocean and it is "harder" to walk down the trail and get a good look at the tide pools, it is easier to skim the surface of scripture, than to go deep down. But...I want to go deep. Hard in this case is good. Instead of meeting a "felt need", God's word, faithfully preached, meets my true need. And as a side benefit, I'm expanding my vocabulary. I never knew what "pugnacious" meant before. Did you?

Amy's Pet Snails

I dislike snails because they eat my plants. Amy has rescued 8 of them and is keeping them as pets. She got an old lettuce tub (from Costco) and made it into a snail habitat. Free pets!

School is officially out for us, but the learning never ends. She checked out a book at the library and learned how to take care of them. She had a sleepover last week and took the snails along. Apparently they were a big hit!

Here's what she wrote for this blog.

I caught some snails in the backyard. They slithered all over me!

Their cage was too small so we had to get them a new one.

My snails put on a circus performance. Sometimes they sumo wrestle too. They know a little bit of gymnastics. They like to rock climb too. They eat in the middle of the night. They make lots of slime and poop which I have to clean up as my daily chore. Baby snail loves his daddy. And I love my snails.