Kittens

Anyone want a kitten? Nate and Amy Graham's cat had some a few weeks ago. They are trying to talk us into getting one.

My kids have already named "their cat".

Quote of the Week

“You must regard parenting as one of your most important tasks while you have children at home. This is your calling…There is nothing more important. You have only a brief season of life to invest yourself in this task. You have only one opportunity to do it. You cannot go back and do it over. You live in a culture in which there are opportunities for you to do things unheard of in history. You are presented daily with scores of opportunities. There is more than you could ever do. [But] to do this job of parenting well, it must be a primary task. It is your primary calling.” Paul Tripp

Prayer

I have been thinking a lot about prayer. Mostly how I pray more often, harder, and deeper when there is something "wrong". Either something going wrong in my life or others.

I do think a lot about how God is in control, that I trust Him, and that all things will work together for my and others good. The problem is that sometimes these, overall good thoughts, should not take the place of prayer. My trust in Him should not make me feel less of a need to pray.





“If any of you should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say that it is in one word- Prayer. Live and die without prayer, and you will pray long enough when you get to hell.”

Charles H. Spurgeon

Update

I am not sure I could have taken any longer to update my blog. I certainly hope to be more consistent, but am making no promises. I think my schedule pretty much fell apart during the holidays and I have been unable to catch back up. So, to start off my new found desire to blog, I decided to start with an update.

Kayla - Continues to grow, and learn, and be mommy's little helper. I am amazed at how competent she is with Danae especially. It is nice when that I can send her to give a bath, feed breakfast, or just keep her happy while I get whatever done. She is doing well in school, and her only downfall is her own mothers lack of consistency.

Wyatt - My little buddy turned 4 the end of March. Crazy that it seems like only yesterday he as my crazy, collicky baby and than my out of control toddler. He has really matured here recently and seems like such a little boy. He pretty much talks constantly, which can be interesting at times. He always has the most wonderful questions.

Anniston - Not much has changed with Annie. She is still as cute as can be and loud, and mean, and all the other awesome personality characteristics she has. I do love my little stinker and so enjoy cleaning up her various messes and destructions every day.

Danae - My sweet baby love is now 1. She still does not walk or crawl. Yeah, she is a little slow. I blame it on her eye infection last year. I figure all babies that have eye infections don't learn to walk until they are 5. Right?

So there you have it. I am doing well, already planning for next homeschool year (I WILL be organized, I WILL be organized) and plan on hopefully joining a small co-op to help me keep motivated for the year. I am pretty excited about my curriculum choices, actually, and looking forward to checking everything out at FPEA. Hopefully.

That is about it for now. Thank you for your patience, if you are still out there, whoever you are.






Wyatt and our newest addition, Titus



Anniston and Elsie



Kayla



Danae at her first birthday

Day at Disney

You can see all the pictures on Facebook. There are some really good ones, especially with Annie and Mickey. I think Mickey was in love with Annie. It was so cute!

We had a great day, all the kids did wonderful, and I realized that it really is the most magical place on earth. I just love it there around Christmas time. We also saw the Osborne light show at MGM. That was pretty awesome.

Thanks to mom for working all that out!! You are the best Granma ever!

I do not know how to get my kids back to normal life after The Magic Kingdom. Good thing it is Christmas time!

Tragedy

We had much sadness in our home on Saturday.  Our bird, Benny, passed away.  What makes this sad for Mommy and Daddy is we just bought the bird 4 weeks ago!

Apparently, Benny got a cold and died on Friday night when the weather was cold.  I forgot to turn on the heat that night and it got down to 65 degrees in our house.  I guess when birds (more specifically cockatiels) catch a cold, they die very quickly.

Well, Kayla and Wyatt were up for about two hours on Saturday crying and crying.  Kayla especially really did love the poor bird.  She played with him constantly and loved walking around with him on her shoulder during the day.

We had a beautiful funeral in our backyard at about 10pm Saturday night.  We talked of our memories of Benny and what we loved most about them.  We ended with a prayer.  Wyatt prayed that Jesus would make sure and tell God to be careful with Benny. He said "Jesus, make sure to tell God that Benny might bite his ears sometimes."   We are grateful Wyatt is looking out for God.

Since PJ and I had already decided that cockatiels are awesome pets for young children, and we want it to be a Merry Christmas around here, Daddy went out and replaced the bird.  The kids are thrilled that we now have Tweety.  

Benny will always have a special place in our hearts and we look forward to maybe seeing him in heaven since Kayla is convinced that he will be there.

May he rest in peace.  (and hopefully not be dug up and eaten by a stray cat)

Happy Veterans Day

Sleeping

I love watching these two sleep. They pretty much sleep together every night. So cute.

Change

Tonight was a difficult night for me as a Republican. It was hard to watch not only a liberal president being elected, but also the house and senate being pushed further left. I do fear the next four years, but I want to reflect on something historic.

The majority of Americans just elected the first African American President. No matter the reasons he was elected, this is truly amazing. I do not have to agree with what he stands for, nor do I have to agree with why people made this decision, but the fact that our country has come far enough to look past the color of skin really is something we can find to be happy about.

As I watched Obama give his speech tonight, I realized that perhaps my children will grow up in a time that the majority of people do not judge on color of skin. We do have to agree with his politics, or be happy this has happened, but I do think we can hope this is a sign that racial tensions in our country are subsiding. I would have been proud to vote for the first African American President. I did not because I do not agree with what he stands for, but I would have loved to have been able to.

The reality is, God has chosen Obama to be President. It does not make sense to me at this moment, but all I know is that it is for our good. I will pray for him. I will pray God uses him to help our country. I will pray that he is not as far left as he says he is! I will pray that God uses this to bring many people of all different colors and cultures together.

I may not be happy he was elected, but I can be grateful that we do not live in a world where he was not allowed to be elected. There was a time a man like him could not even vote, yet alone be elected to the highest office in this country.

As I listened to my neighbors celebrate Obama's victory, my initial reaction was to be upset, but I realized that I should be happy for those African Americans who are most excited for this President. I may not agree with them, but I can with all sincerity, say that I am happy for what this means to them.

I sometimes forget that my own sister is a minority. I just think of her as my sister. Could we all one day be that color blind?

I am so grateful that Julia will grow up in a country where she has the same rights and opportunities as me. This has been a wonderful reminder of that!

There is a bright spot in this time of change and I will attempt to stay focused on that.

Do Your Part!

If you have not already, don't forget to get out and VOTE tomorrow!