Poor Third Child

I haven't blogged in...forever. I happened to hop on tonite and scrolled through my blog and realized my poor third child has not made an appearance yet. I will blog about her birth...eventually. I will blog about Christmas...and Hailey's birthday...and our snow day this year...eventually. But for right now, all I have in me is to introduce my sweet, spunky little third child, Jaidyn Grace.

Day 4: Beauty For Ashes

  A little over a year ago we welcomed these two sweet boys into our family. Today is Orphan Sunday and I am thankful to have Christian Abiti Somers and Joash Negalegn Somers as my nephews. These sweet boys and their story have touched my heart and so many others around them.
  I am so thankful to have been able to witness God miraculously changing lives and turning ashes to beauty and sorrow to joy. Their parents, Shane and Summer (my husband's sister and her husband) struggled through infertility for years and wanted so badly to be parents and to have little ones to love on and God brought these two precious little boys into their lives and then as a bonus blessing he gave them a sweet baby girl, Avalyn Makeda Somers, that Summer delivered in April. God is still working miracles. God does care for the orphans.
  The Bible tells us that true religion is caring for the widows and orphans and I am so thankful that Shane and Summer answered that call and that we are able to be a part of these little guys' lives..

BTW...I will not be posting for the next couple of days. Randy and I are going out of town for a few days and I don't know that I will have internet access.

My little boy...

  This morning I walked into the back room where Caleb was playing with his blocks. He looked up from what he was doing and said, "Mommy, you wook wonderful!"
  Today, I am thankful for this little guy. I love all of my children equally but, being my only little boy, he has a special place in my heart. I love his little personality. He is wild and daring and mischevious, yet can be so gentle and compassionate. He is very much a people person and will talk to just about anyone.
  He has made homeschooling with him and Hailey fairly easy so far. He loves sitting and doing puzzles and building things with his blocks so he is pretty easy to keep occupied. He is like Randy in that he will keep working and keep working until he gets the job done, whereas I sometimes get bored with the task and move on. He is so much like his daddy, and maybe that is part of why I just love him so.
  I am thankful for his tender little heart. He loves to snuggle and he always wants to know, "What you doin' Mommy?" He loves both of his sisters dearly. He and Hailey do fight like brother and sister but if they are ever apart he is constantly asking about her and telling me he misses her. And he is always telling me, "Mommy, Jaidyn gorgeous." They are lucky to have a brother who loves them both so. And I am so thankful to have such a special little boy.

I made it to Day 2!

Well I made it to Day 2 of Thirty Days of Thankfulness! Today I am thankful for good friends. Sometimes as a stay-at-home mom of three small kids, I don't really get a chance to see many adults but this week I was able to spend good quality time with a couple of my really close friends. Today, in particular, I was able to spend time with a close friend of mine that I have not hung out with in months. Aside from the occasional diaper change or refereeing of the kids, she and I literally talked the entire time. It felt so good to just sit down with another mom and just talk...and talk...and talk. And for that breath of fresh air in a cloud of diapers and spit-up I am thankful :)

Thirty Days of Thankfulness

  It starts out with this blueberry who is weeping and whining. Madame Blueberry is her name. She is upset because she does not have enough STUFF. She has pictures all over her house of things that her neighbors and friends have that she wants. She scrolls through her pictures everyday mourning and lamenting over the things she does not have. Pinterest, anyone? Nothing she has is as good as what her neighbor has.
  Down the street, a new STUFFmart opens and is filled to the brim with all of the things in the pictures in her house. She fills her carts with all of the shiny new frills that are going to make her happy. A window scraper and a gross of toilet paper. A rachet set and pliers
and surround sound amplifiers. A solar turkey chopper and a padded gopher bopper. Flannel shirts for looking grungy and some rope for goin' bunji. 
  In the next aisle, a little boy, Junior, is begging his dad for this awesome shiny new train set, but his father tells him they do not have the money and that if he wanted, he could get a ball. Junior really wants the train set but agrees to the ball if his dad promises to play ball in the park with him later and then they break out in song:

I thank God for this day,
For our trip to the mall,
For my mom and my dad,
For my big, red bouncy ball!

For our home on the ground,
For His love that's all around,
That's why I say thanks every day!

Because a thankful heart is a happy heart!
I'm glad for what I have,
That's an easy way to start!

For the love that He shares,
'Cause He listens to my prayers,
That's why I say thanks every day! 

  By the end of the movie Madame Blueberry realizes that none of her fancy new items in her cart are going to make her happy, but that happiness comes from having a truly thankful heart.  

   Here are some things the Bible has to say about thankfulness.

Psalm 50:14: "Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most    High."  

Colossians 2:7 "Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Colossians 3:15 "And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful."

Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart."

I Thessalonians 5:18 "Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

  My main goal this month is to begin to cultivate a truly thankful heart. Where thankfulness is absent, envy, complaining and bitterness abound.  I have found those things sneaking around in my heart lately and they are not welcome.

  My secondary goal this month is to post each day about something I am thankful for. Aside from brushing my teeth, reading my Bible and feeding the kids, I have a hard time doing anything consistently on a daily basis so this is a big one for me, but it is also very important to me so I really want to stick to it. I also really want to get into writing more so this will kill two birds with one stone, kind of. 

  So, today I am thankful that God has given me a teachable heart. So much so that a preschool-aged vegetable and a not-so-blue-anymore blueberry can make me realize how selfish I can be sometimes :) My youth pastor, Barry Darnell, told us to always be teachable and that is something that has always stuck with me. I have a tendency to be pretty stubborn so I know it is by God's grace that I learn anything. I am thankful that God does not leave us the way we are but is constantly molding us to be more like Him. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" Colossians 3:10 says, "Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him." I am thankful that He is making all things new.

Well, that's all for today. Check back tomorrow for another installment of Thirty Days of Thankfulness.

On Prayer...

   Saturday I ran my first 5K! Well, I ran about 85% of it and walked the other 15%, but I felt pretty good about it. I came into the last leg of the race and exhaustion started setting in. I started telling myself, "You can do it." "You've got this." And as I was thinking that, God placed it upon my heart to ask for His help and I was immediately convicted. He whispered to me, "What if instead of always saying 'You've got this...You can do it,' you asked Me for help?".
   How often do I dive head-first into something thinking that I am fully capable of handling it on my own, only to find out that I can't.  I find myself so often trying to fix things and do things on my own without seeking God first. Instead, I need to start with, "Father, I need Your wisdom, Your guidance, and Your strength to carry me through this." And, the reason we need to do this is not to clutch the victory or to enure our success. It is for a deeper purpose.
   I'm going through Beth Moore's book James: Mercy Triumphs right now and I think she sums it up very well when she says: "Prayer can prime the well of our souls to a bath of His beautiful presence. It is often the most determining factor in whether, in our anguish, we sink or swim." I love how she poetically describes how prayer primes, or prepares, our soul. Prayer allows us to begin to see things from a heavenly perspective. It revitalizes our spirit. It empowers us. Paul prays for spiritual empowerment for the Ephesians when he says,

"When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep God's love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God."  

   So as I pushed myself towards the finish line, God struck up conversation with me and the last little bit of the race was actually quite pleasant. God did not physically pick me up and carry me across the finish line. My lungs still burned and my calf muscles still ached. But as I talked with Him, I became less consumed with the pain and began to notice the beauty of His creation around me. I began to think upon and intercede on behalf of the girls who would be impacted by this Freedom 424 race. I began to delight in His presence.
 

Hailey's First Day of Preschool

Hailey started her first day of Preschool last Monday. We are homeschooling this year and we are all just so excited about it. For her first day we got up and had a special breakfast of eggs and bacon, one of Hailey's favorites, and then she and I went outside and took some "first-day-of-school" pictures. 

Then we came back in and started her schoolwork. We went with Sonlight for our curriculum. I came across it a few years ago and have just fallen in love with it. It is very easy to use and I love the fact that they focus on reading good books and enjoying time as a family. I really feel like this curriculum is going to work really well for us.

We packed a lunch in Hailey and Caleb's new lunch boxes that their Aunt Kristin got them and took them out to the church playground to have a picnic...

...and we got in some "recess" while we were at it :) Caleb got in on the "first-day-of-school" action too!

I think she enjoyed herself!

We threw some "science" in too!

I am so excited about Preschool this year. I know I am looking forward to watching my kids grow and learn. I can already tell even just from the first week that this is going to be a good thing for mine and Hailey's relationship. I'm not naive enough to think it is all going to run super easily all the time...because even this week didn't...but I am looking forward to growing and learning and finding things out about my kids and helping them to "unpack" the world around them. This sweet little girl is so excited too! I was so proud of her this morning in Children's Church when she was able to recite her word for the week and the definition for it in front of all the other kids. (Attentiveness: I listen with my eyes, ears, and heart.) She gets up every morning and asks me if we get to do school today. Randy and I truly feel like this is what God has called us to do (homeschooling) at this point in all of our lives and we look forward to seeing what God is going to do in our family this year!