Foundation

After weeks of waiting, our foundation was poured this morning for our new house. Blake's cell phone rang at 7:45 this morning. I went from a sound sleep to shaking Blake and saying excitedly, "Answer it maybe its the house people!"  Sure enough it was the superintendent calling to say the cement truck was on its way!  We jumped up, got ready, grabbed granola bars and the camera and headed that way. 

  

We spent over two hours in our new neighborhood. We played for a long time at the lighthouse in front of the neighborhood while we waited for the cement truck to come back from his refill trip.

 
 
 



After the work crew was done smoothing it out, we each put our hand-print on the patio concrete and then Blake wrote our names and the reference to the verse, "as for me and my house we will serve the Lord."

 
 
 
We also wrote the scripture references to the verses we picked out for the kids when they were born.

Camden's verse: 

"I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand,You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence."  Acts 2:25&28

Hope's verse: 

"You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit." Job 10:12

Our pastor told Blake that he feels like the Lord has shown him that this building process of our new house is symbolic of the building that God wants to do in our family this year.  I have been thinking a lot lately about what is truly important in life. Striving to focus on that which is eternal. Our house is an exciting blessing for us, but it is temporal. The foundation of our house will not last forever, but the foundation of building our life on Jesus Christ and keeping our hearts turned towards what His heart beats for is everlasting. I love what Isaiah 50:7 says, "Therefore have I set my face like flint" Nothing in this world will ever bring us fulfillment, peace, adventure, and passion like living your life with eternity on your mind. This is how I want my family to live. I want eternity to be the mission statement of our family.

 

"He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure." Isaiah 33:6

 

Mommy Mercy

Last night I was praying and journaling. My heart was on my seven year old: Camden. I was admitting to the Lord and myself what a bad habit I have developed of not really listening when he talks. I refused to push it to the back of my mind and really, really thought about all of the times he talks to me and I distractedly say, "uh-huh" or sometimes not even that, while I continue whatever I am doing. I was slapped with what that must be doing to his little spirit. He loves me. He wants to share with me what is going on in that amazing brain of his and I am "screaming" I don't care with my more than obvious lack of interest. I begged the Lord's forgiveness and asked Him to please heal the wounds that I have caused. Please, Lord fill him with your love and acceptance where I have failed him. As I closed my journal, my heart was heavy with remorse. I picked up my Bible, but then remembered that I had already read it that day so I started to put it back down. At the last second, I thought, well since I have it in my hand, I'll just let it fall open and read a few verses wherever it opens.

The Bible opened to the last page of Hosea. Here are the first two sentences that were on the page...

"He will flourish like the grain. He will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like the wine of Lebanon."

In my heart, I feel at Jesus' feet. "Thank you, my merciful Savior. You will take care of my little guy. He will flourish. He will blossom, and He will do all the amazing things you have called him to."

I flipped to the page before to read the whole chapter and saw that the chapter was titled, "Repentance to bring Blessing."  How perfectly appropriate. How perfectly God.

Changes

I am trying to make some changes in myself these days. I came to the conclusion after a week of reflection that I was stuck in a rut. I had become lazy. Any part of my days that didn't go perfectly smooth made me feel deflated...tired.....ready for the next break. I came upon a blog on Saturday as I was looking for something to inspire me, to jump start me that did exactly those things.

I was remembering today a night in my dorm room at East Texas Baptist University. I was finishing up my freshmen year and had just received a letter that the grants I currently had, would not continue the following year. It was such a weird feeling sitting on the floor of my dorm room and realizing that I would not be able to afford to come back; hence my life plan sprouted wings and flew out the window. Yet, completely opposite of my personality, I felt an excitement rise up in me. I sat down at my roomate's computer and looked up the website of a Bible school that I had been hearing about from a friend for years. As I read over their website my heart literally began to beat faster and my hands started to shake. This school that I had heard about for years and never thought much about suddenly seemed like a huge "stop here" sign in the road map of my life. I did indeed "stop there" for three years of my life and I never doubted for a second that it was God's plan for me.

Jumping back to the present...as I read through this blog that I found on Saturday, I felt similar to how I felt the night I looked up Christ for the Nations Institute in my dorm room. A stirring from God that I was looking at my destiny. The author of this blog is a wife, a homeschool mom of seven, an incredible  photographer, amazingly creative, a take your breath away writer, and a passionate lover of God.  Seriously I don't ever want to meet her because she is my hero and I don't want to be disappointed! I read her thoughts and looked at her photos and was floored by the way she embraces her life and her family. Every day is an adventure, beauty is everywhere, hardships are opportunities, your kids are incredible treasures, and the day to day love affair with your husband puts the world's view of romance to great shame. I lay in my bed well after midnight surrendering to the Lord my life once again. I prayed and meditated on His word and listened to His nudging.  His nudging to listen more to my little boy, His nudging to serve my husband with joy, His nudging to have fun, His nudging to get rid of things in my life that have no meaning or purpose, His nudging to play in the rain, laugh at spilled milk, find my own style in my house, my clothes, my mothering, my "wife-ing", my teaching, my be-friending and forget about how it compares to anyone else. I want to be ME!!  I always thought I was being me, but its like God just came in dug a little, tossed a few things over his shoulder and then threw open a door and showed me a bunch more of me that I didn't know was there. Potential hidden by fear and insecurity. Potential hidden by laziness. Potential hidden by lack of faith. But I saw it - I saw a glimpse of the me that God wants me free to be. And I have faith that if God showed me - if He started it - He if faithful to complete it.


"being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  Philippians 1:6



I am going to work harder, play harder, laugh harder, love more expressively, pray more, and be crazy every once in awhile because this life is a gift, these two amazing kids are my miracles, and my husband is stinkin' adorable.

Strawberry Pie

Today we had a birthday luncheon for our church secretary Mrs. Corinne. It was an only-ladies party and we had such a fun time. Our associate pastor's wife made a super yummy lunch! I was supposed to bring a dessert that had something to do with strawberries. I immediately knew I wanted to make strawberry pie. My grandma made this for us when I was in high school and I loved it. I made it for the first time when my in-laws came for their first visit after Blake and I were married. Instead of condensed milk...I used evaporated milk and it didn't set. My father law and mother in law sweetly sipped their strawberry "soup" from a bowl with a spoon and told me that they still thought it was delicious. Thankfully, today it set quite well! I posted the recipe for any of my numerous readers who would like to try ;) Don't forget... CONDENSED milk!!

Ingredients:

2 - 3oz. pkgs. of strawberry jello
2 1/2 cups of hot water
16 oz. frozen strawberries
8 oz. cream cheese
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 - 13 oz. can of condensed milk
2 10 inch deep dish graham cracker crust pie shells

Directions:

Dissolve Jello in hot water. Let it cool slightly then pour it into a blender with the frozen strawberries and blend until smooth. In another bowl, mix cream cheese and sugar. Add the condensed milk and mix. Stir in jello mix and pour into pie shells. Let set in fridge for several hours. Add sliced strawberries and cool whip to each piece before serving.

Hope this makes sense!

Curious and Shy

My family has gone bird crazy. We started studying them in science and because we have such a wide variety of birds here in the valley, I decided to go all out and buy bird feeders and go looking for as many birds as we could find in the area. The kids are like little bird geniuses. I love to hear Hope hollar out, "Hey, Mama, come look at the titmouse in our backyard" and hear Camden yell, "I hear parrots!" and start searching the trees and sky for them in the middle of soccer practice. They sound like such little homeschool geeks and I LOVE it! Never thought I'd say that!! It has inspired me to make learning more hands-on in other subjects. I'm praying for God to help me find a way to inspire such excitement for spelling words!

We have two ducks that have started coming to our backyard to join the other birds at our bird feeder. They look so awkward out there among all the other birds a quarter of their size. They peck at what has fallen on the ground and when its gone they flap up to the bird feeder and cock it sideways until it tips some seeds out. It is a bit annoying because we have to go out there several times a day to fix it. They're so darn cute though that we really don't mind. This past Thursday the kids and I got home from running errands to find the bird feeder had been knocked off the tree and was laying on the ground and completely empty of birdseed. I asked the kids, "What do you think did that?" I went outside to fix it and hang it back up and then turned to go back inside and up on the roof of my house I saw this:



They were standing completely still like statues up there and we all laughed imagining them saying, "Maybe if we stand real still she won't catch us."

This afternoon we had a big storm. After it passed our little friends named Curious and Shy were using the water puddles as their own personal pond.







I wonder if we can talk these two into moving to Olmito with us?

well, thank you!

Last night at our youth girls' lifegroup we were eating snacks and talking about exercising/eating healthy/losing weight. I mentioned that I would like to be 10 pounds lighter and one of the girls gasped and said, "But you're such a pretty mom. I would like totally take you to the mall with me." I'm pretty sure that I was paid a high compliment and it is still making me chuckle today.

Promoting the Positive

Cultivate: To promote the growth of.

I am asking myself these questions today? What am I cultivating in my life? What am I am I cultivating when it comes to my attitude? What am I cultivating in my home? What am I cultivating in my marriage? I am constantly teaching the kids to cultivate hard work, concentration, good manners, kindness, and respect. I am almost frantic at times to see them growing in these areas, yet I am realizing that I need to take a look at myself and consider what I have been cultivating lately in ME.