Productivity

Ask me what I did today...Okay I will tell you, because I am very proud of myself...well proud of us. Today I got up, exercised, took Izzy to play group, stopped on the way to take Joel to work and before that, ran an errand. I Stopped by Gap to see that the blazer I had my eye one was 100.00 out of my budget, and then suffered through seeing, and smelling a Starbucks right next to the play place without begin able to taste it. I managed to keep Izzy awake on the way home, and within the 30 minutes before laying him down, I got pizza dough cooking, and made chicken noodle soup. I got an hour nap, finished making the pizza for tonight's supper, got some bread baking, cleaned up the kitchen made some phone calls, all before Izzy woke up. Oh and while all this is going on, Jim is putting the finishing touches on our new front door! After we picked up Joel, we went to Lowe's came home, ate dinner, and then we FINALLY put up the valaces in Izzy's room, and put the finger pulls on the closet door! Just those two things made me so happy because for the past two year we have needed to finish the closet doors.

Izzy's room now has new windows, new blinds, and the valaces up. Now I just need to finishe painting the trip around the windows!!!

A lot was accomplished, and yes, I am very proud of myself. That is okay right?

As I laid my 14th month old down for a 30 min morning snooze I was faced with two choices: 1. Make my bed and 2. Blog. As you can see I chose to blog. I have to sneak time to do this and I figured that I could make my bed when he was up and then I could see him flop down on the pillows ans squeal with delight.

Anyway...Life has thrown some curve balls our way lately and I for one and a little tired. For some reason the Lord has seen fit to take away some of my piano students...most of them...instead of answering our prayer for more. I got mad. I hate to admit it, but I did. I got mad and couldn't understand why, when we weren't asking for something bad, did He choose to do something completely opposite of what we asked. Then He surprised us by allowing Joel to recieve a big bonus!!! We were thrilled, thanked Him for His provision, and then our car broke down and the cost to fix it was 3.00 more than the bonus. Obviously the Lord has provided the money for the car, for which we were thankful, but a little bummed at the same time. We just can't seem to get ahead. There have been other puzzleing things the last few months, of which I am not free to share at this moment, but as I look back over this month and see that we have not only survived but have been able to splurge on other people, I see God's faithfullness and His provision. It wasn't easy, and Joel had to do some extra work outside of his regular job, but God doesn't promise that it will be easy. He just promises that He will provide. And He did. When I start to worry about next month, I remember this past one, and am calmed by the peace that He gives that He indeed loves me and everything He does is good. If He witholds something from me He has something even better waiting for me, even if that something better is not of this earth, but a closer relationship with Him.

This has nothing to do with what I wrote above, but it made me smile and I hope it will make you smile too. Israel is saying so many things and we are having so much fun watching and listening to him. One thing that he does that makes up beam is pray. He will bow his head, mumble some Izzy words, and then lift his head and say "Amen" then he laughs or clasps for himself. One of his new words is "Bible". So today he saw Joel's Bible on the table. I wasn't watching at this point and I heard him say "Bible". I didn't know that this is what he was saying because it sounds a lot like his other new word..."Bubble". But when I turned around and saw what he was playing with I new immidately what he had said. I walked over to him and watched him as he opened it, bowed his head, mumbled some words, and then said "Amen!" It was soooooo cute!!!! It made me so happy that he has picked this up. Yes we pray a lot because we need God's grace and guidance everyday, but to see that he had noticed this just warms my heart.

Giving in

Okay, so my last post was raving about the extra time we had in the evenings since we were on a tv fast for this week. Well tonight we are giving in. We were craving some down time with each other, time where we didn't have to run down our voices reading out loud, time where we could just cuddle up and veg. I know it sounds pittiful, that we can't even make it a week, but here is the deal. Last week, I left town Monday and didn't get back till Saturday night, and during that time there was no tv, except for a little bit on Friday afternoon. So there was already a week of fasting. Joel and I have fun with our little shows and we have come away from this knowing and wanting some nights where the tv stays off. Anyway...we gave it a shot, and really this is the only night that we are cheeting. Tomorrow night we are busy, Friday night is company, and then the week will be over. We needed this, it was good, but we are looking forward to cuddling up, eating popcorn and oreos and milk, and having some laughs.

Time Mulitplied

You know how you are always wanting time to be mulitplied? Well, I have found a solution. Cut out tv watching in the evenings! Joel and I are taking a tv fast for this week and it has been pretty nice. We have gotten some reading done, we have gone to bed early, we have played games, he has worked on pictures. It has been pretty peaceful. It makes the evening last longer. Try it sometime.

Perseverance

My little 14 month old is now walking. At first I thought it was taking him too long to start this, seeing that all his little friends were doing it already and some of them younger than he was. Then I realized that he had his own pace and that I need to just let him develope at that God given pace. So I started enjoying the process a lot more. It was fun to see him go from being frustrated with us for asking him to walk to which his reply would be sitting down on the floor and gruntig, to initiating it on his own. It was fun to see how each day he became more confident and took more and more steps. It has been fun to see him go from crawling more, to walking and crawling the same amount, to walking most of the time. This process has been gradual and I have loved seeing the process.

I have been watching him closely and notice how many times he plops down on his cushy bottom because of a loss of balance, only to get right back up. He will do this over and over again! I am amazed at his perseverance and determination and patience to keep getting up and doing it again.

Israel, through life you will fall on your bottom, but don't stay there. Keep getting up and seeking the Lord for guidence and strength to combat the trials and setbacks that life brings so that you can have an abundant life of joy in the Lord Jesus! I love you son and thank you for the example you are to me at this young age.

Weddings are exciting things. Especially when you first get ingaged. Romance is in the air. People are congratulating you, and offering to help with the wedding, you and your fiance are communicating well, and you can't imagine EVER having an arguement. The start of planning even goes well, and you enjoy picking out your flowers and finding THE dress. But then the week before the wedding arrives and everything changes. That is where we are right now with my sister-in-laws wedding. Thankfully she came to town last weekend and we found out how frazzled she was and that she could really use the extra help. Amazingly enough I was able to find a place for Izzy so that I could leave with Juls on Monday to help be her brain. We have gotten a lot done, and we just finished moving them into their new house...but it has been the last week of the wedding if you know what I mean. Emotions are hight, things are tense, and if you say "call the minister" one more time, she might bite your head off!!!

We look forward to all the hustle and bustle that starts tomorrow as guest start coming in, and flowers are picked up and the party begins!!

I thought I'd never...

Have you ever done things that you said you never would? Well, I said that I would never use cloth diapers, and would never make my own bread. This week, I have looked into starting cloth diapers, and I just bought my own bread machine to be able to make my own bread! It is amazing what a little motivation to save some money will do. Cloth diapers have come a long way...I know that now, but we are still not sure. I have my name on a list to do a trial run with several different kinds of diapers to see if it is for us. As for the bread machine? I am SO EXCITED!!! I have right now as we speak a lemon poppyseed loaf cooking and it smells delicious! I did this to see if I could save some money, but also to be able to make healthier bread. We don't eat that much so making one loaf at a time is great. I can't wait to try all these yummy recipes!

Oh, and my little man is walking more and more each day. He still crawls most of the time, but he today he took the most steps that he has ever taken before. I am hoping that he is walking by August 11th because I am thinking he will be easier to handle that way while we are doing wedding stuff! But all in God's timing!