It's Monday again...

Time moves so quickly!  It seems to be busy and full of seemingly mundane tasks.  Cleaning house, schooling children, working the schedule of who needs to be where and when, shuttle service to get the whos to where they need to be and when, laundry, making dinner...all to be repeated again the next day.  All of these tasks add up to the life the Lord has called me to as wife and mother in this family!  I need to get better at putting, "post on blog" on the list of to do's.

Recently I have been thinking about and praying for my sweet sister Lauren who has four children under the age of six!  Whew!  Although I never had four, I do remember back to the days when my three were under the age of four or five or six.  Such tiring and long days.  This past weekend I was looking through old photo albums to get some pictures of my sweet, oldest daughter who will be turning 14 on Sunday.  Such precious memories.  Lots of hugs, kisses, cuddles on the couch, reading together, arts and crafts, enjoying nature...together...together...together.   I want to tell my sister that these are really such sweet days, but she knows that.  The reality is that they are tiring, draining, and, at times, discouraging days, too.  But as that season passes and the Lord's faithfulness and goodness are what is seen "on the other side", it is a great reminder to me, too, that during these tiring, draining, and too often times, discouraging days that I find myself in, the Lord is faithful and good.  I know that I will look back on these years when my not-so-little ones are practicing spreading their wings and becoming more and more who God created them to be each day, and I will remember precious memories of talking, laughing, reading together, working together, enjoying life together!

I know that all too soon our together times will be fewer and fewer as they go to college and follow the path that the Lord has laid out for them.  Those times will, too, be filled with precious memories - just different from the season we are in right now..and certainly different from the toddler/young child season we have left behind.  I so wish that on a daily basis, I would remember how sweet these present moments are and enjoy them to the fullest.

The list of what I'm thankful for continues:

7. God's faithfulness in spite of my faithlessness!
8.  Children who are maturing in the things of the Lord and desire a right relationship with Him and with me!
9.  Breaks from school - our co-op is taking a winter break this week.  It is nice to breathe!
10.  Family visits...this should count as multiple items because I love it when family visits.  My sister Aimee and her awesome crew are coming this week for a few fun days.
11.  Unexpected quiet moments...Jerry and Abigail are enjoying watching Randy's basketball game.  I stayed home to shuttle to Alex from Show Choir.  She is diligently working on a paper, and I'm blogging...quiet moments!
12.  Diligent children - see #11.
13.  Warm socks...certainly not a very spiritual thing to be thankful for...but,seriously, I have the coldest feet E.V.E.R.  Thick, warm, fuzzy socks really make me smile :).
14.  Old photographs!  How often has the Lord used old photographs to remind me of His love, faithfulness, and goodness to me.  Like the commercial says:  Priceless!

One tired, but really happy mommy!!

Quotable Quotes...

A parenting nugget ~ "Encouragement after failure is as important as praise after success."

Mark Gregston

I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart...

One of my favorite blogs to read is Ebenezer Stories. Beth is someone that I would love to have tea with and learn from on a daily basis. She participates in 1000 gifts which is beautifully explained here. Oh, I have so many things to be thankful for on a moment-by-moment basis!

1.  For my sweet husband...I mentioned that I would like to change the look of my website, and viola!  I have to be careful of what I mention because he will jump all over it.  Sweet, sweet man!
2.  My lovely daughter, Alex, who spent all Sunday afternoon preparing for her new venture of collecting frozen casseroles for us to take to the Harvest Center in Charlotte.  She made four spaghetti casseroles (and did an amazing job cleaning the kitchen afterwards) and a cute-as-can-be flyer to pass around at dance.
3.  SNOW!  The Lord blessed us with a beautiful covering this weekend.  It was great to clear the docket and just enjoy peace, quiet, and family for the weekend.
4.  Snuggling close with Abigail and reading "Night Journey" by Avi this weekend.
5.  Family devotion times - great reminder today from Exodus 15...God moves mightily in our lives and days later, we can begin to complain.  Lord, help me to thank you in all circumstances.
6.  Great teaching and teachers who share their heart.  I've been so enjoying reading and listening to resources from Mark Gregston.  He has a free ebook, emails etc. to encourage parents of teens.  Good stuff!

So blessed...the adventures continue

My sister Lauren has been encouraging me to continue contributing to my blog. My thought: "What in the world do I have to contribute in the blog world?" Since then, I've had a few thoughts or ponderings that I would then think, "I could put that on the blog". Then my next thought: "Why would I do that?" O.K...the debate still rages on in my head, but I figure that I will use this place as a record of my adventures as a wife, mom, teacher, and follower of Lord...if nothing else than to look back on it and see how the Lord has so greatly blessed me.

I originally started the blog to record our trip to California, so that my awesome family members could enjoy the trip along with us. We had a wonderful snowy evening last night that has continued into today. What this means for those that don't live in NC is that EVERYTHING shuts down! The girls and I headed to the grocery store yesterday afternoon before the storm came in to grab something for dinner. When I commented to the bagger about the crazy amount of people at the store, he said, "Well, the world is coming to end...people want to be prepared!" It really did look like it from the amount of intensity in Food Lion!

Anyways...all of the plans for the weekend were cancelled...yay! Always loving a great family moment, Jerry put a long in the fireplace, hooked his laptop to the tv, and made the announcement, "FAMILY VIDEOS!" We spent over an hour watching the slideshows and videos and reliving our awesome trip to California this summer. I was reminded again about God's gift to our family in the form of special time together! I have become keenly aware of how fast time is moving...my oldest will be getting his license in just over four months. Special times all together are a real blessing!

So...full circle back to contributing to the blog...it was definitely a fun part of our trip...each night documenting the fun we had for that day and posting the pictures. Let's see if I enjoy posting on a more daily basis as our family journeys together...

We're going HOME!

We are sitting in the Sacramento airport waiting to board. We originally were going to drive from Yosemite to Sacramento early this morning to catch our flight. The first night we were in Yosemite, we had some bug "issues" - major ant attack while we were on the back porch of the house eating dinner and then the girls found several large bugs in their room before they went to bed. Ab woke us up about 3:30 saying that she couldn't sleep because there were so many bugs. I got into the double bed with the two of them for a bit to help her fall asleep. The next day, I called them the Mexican Jumping Beans because they would both start to fall asleep and then would startle awake thinking that bugs were on there (or maybe they actually were). The next night we had the mouse in the house incident. In talking with the owners, they have the view that they live in the country and they don't like to kill anything - even in the house. Hmmm... It was to the point where when we left for the day for Yosemite, we came back and there were spider webs in the kitchen just from when we had left before. We figured we needed a bugless/rodentless night sleep, and so we used some of Jerry's AmEx points to get a hotel in Sacramento. Jerry said if he wanted to sleep with bugs and rodents, we would have camped...and we all know what Jerry thinks about camping. It turned out to be a great decision because Old Historic Sacramento is a fun place. We walked along the Sacramento River last night and enjoyed walking around in the historic district for awhile.

We have had a GREAT trip! It is cool to think about how initially we all had to learn to "enjoy" one another in smaller spaces and sharing a bathroom...12 days later we are really good at it, and have practiced great teamwork (think about moving to 6 different locations with all of our STUFF!), and have enjoyed wonderful fellowship with each other. What a blessing from the Lord this time together has been!

Thanks for following us...we can't wait to catch up with all of you when we get home....

We're leaving on a jet plane...(sorry, I couldn't resist the John Denver, that song always goes through my head when I'm traveling!)

mouse in the house

California is so cool! San Diego, LA, Pacific Highway, Sequoia, and Yosemite were really fun. Alex and Abigail already blogged about their favorite parts of the trip and they wrote about the same thing I would write. So Im going to write about something different because it would probably get boring reading the same thing three times. We stayed at a house outside of Yosemite and it had a river, bball court, and pool. Last night I was in bed and I heard the something like little feet running and plastic bags being moved around. I looked and next to the couch I was sleeping on was a mouse. Now Im not afraid of mice but I was like "man I wish I could catch that mouse." So me and my dad built a homemade mousetrap. We got a cooking pot and held it up with a chapstick bottle. Then we tied a shoelace to the bottle and I held the other end of the lace. Then we put some peanut butter under the pot. I held the other end of the string and waited for the mouse so that if he came I would pull my end of the string and the pot would fall over him. Now it was probably about 1:30 at night and my dad went to bed. I stayed up and waited for the mouse. 3:30 came around and the mouse still hadnt fallen for the trap.(the only way I stayed awake was by listening to some rock music) I would like to say that the mouse came I pulled the string and caught the mouse. Then I killed it or put it outside(I probably would have killed it) But that didnt happen. I finaly fell asleep and when I woke up the next morning none of the peanut butter was gone. So I wouldnt have caught him anyway. Thanks for reading!

Alex's favorite parts of the trip

Since this is our last day I thought iIwould tell you the best parts of our trip or what I thought were the best. I had a really fun time at Sea World except the beginning when i almost passed out but the rest of the day was awesome! We saw some cool shows and went on Atlantis and the rapids. That was really fun. Oh and it was really awesome when we got to kayaking in the ocean! (I do not know how to steer very good so we bumped into at least everyone twice.) The beach was fun but the ocean was REALLY REALLY cold!!!!!! So i just tanned and passed the football with Randy and this other guy who let us pass with him. (It was the other guys ball we did not bring one.) Sequoia was really cool! The trees were giganormas!!!! One day in Sequoia was not my day because I fell at least 4 times on one trail. The first time I fell on a rock on the side of the path and scraped my foot and leg up and they started bleeding and then I fell again and scraped up my other leg. Then one time I was right next to a river and I put my feet in and then I fell into the FREEZING cold water. Ya that was not my day!! Then we went to Yosemite whitch has a really cool water falls!! We went on a raft down Merced River in the Yosemite Valley. There were these girls and they had water guns and were spraying some one who I think was their family. Well after a little while they stopped and so we went to the girls and Abigail stole one of there water guns! So we had a really fun fight! Then when we tried to give them there water gun back it fell into the water and not in the boat so I jumped in to get it and my foot hit a rock which really hurt...but ya that was fun!!!! oh and we jumped of this twenty foot rock into the water it was super fun!!! The place was called Rainbow falls. Well that was it!!!! I had a really awesome time!!!! Can't wait to wake up early tomorrow and jump on a plane!! jk see ya soon