God Amazes Me!

The boys and I went driving around a few days ago to get some snow pictures. I was praying and asking God to give me something beautiful that I could take pictures of. He amazes me every time. Here are a few of the shots I got.

The first picture is from my porch. The second picture is snow falling off the branches at our house. The third picture is the John Day River. The fourth & fifth pictures were God's surprise for me. I came upon a field full of about 300 geese. It was like they were posing just for me! The fourth pic is of them in the field and the fifth pic is of them flying away. They flew away in groups so I got several taking off and flying shots. Thank you God for the wonderful day!

My Linda Lou

This blog is totally dedicated to my best friend Linda Lou. I am her Becky Lou. Sounds silly, I know but it works for us! I have known Linda since I was about 13 or 14 years old. She is older than me and helped out with our Youth Group Drama Team. She would have sleepovers for the girls and she was totally awesome! I mean, she was cooooool! She was an adult yet she had fun with us like she was one of us. We have been inseperable every since. Even though 5 years ago I moved away from her, everytime we talk or see eachother it is like I never left. She has been my scrapbooking inspiration sooooo many times! She is the one that got me into it. My husband probably wishes she didn't! We are designing my scrapbook table for the new office right now :):) Without her on my wedding day, it wouldn't have been THE BEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE! She co-cordinated it with another good friend, Sheila, and the did an awesome job! There were a few things that went wrong but I never knew about them until we got back from our honeymoon! Anyways, I could go on and on and on and on.......but I don't have that kind of time! I think the thing that inspires me the most about my Linda Lou is her stregth in the face of adversity. She has had sooooooo many hard things happen in her life in just the past year but somehow she finds the strength to carry on. Actually I know how she does it. I can picture her holding the hand of Jesus as he walks her through the trials. Another thing that I totally love about her is that I can always call her and be genuinly me. I can just be myself and she is ok with it. That is a big thing for me right now. Anyway, I love her very much and don't know what I would do without her! I love you and miss you Linda Lou! :)

Sanity! Sweet Sanity!

You have to look close to see the butterfly

First of all I want to say a big THANK YOU to all the encouragement I have gotten about homeschooling my boys since my last post....Wow, that sounded like the beginning of an Emmy's speach! lol :) No, seriously! It has meant a lot to me these last couple of weeks. We are doing so great! The boys are loooooooooooving it! They get up every morning and ask ME when is school time! I am truley blessed. I stand in awe of the awesome God I serve and wonder at His amazing grace in giving me such wonderful children. Now, don't get me wrong....homeschooling comes with a price. It is a lot harder to keep the house as neat as it should be. So, now comes the rest of my story.......

So I have always been the kind of person that if someone offers to come and help me clean my house, I would feel like I would need to clean before they got here!lol Insane, I know but that is me. So since being here in Monument it has been offered to me a few times and I politely decline saying that I have everything under control. Now if they could see me trying to get the house ready for Ladies Bible Study or having friends over, they would beg to differ I am sure! My husband did explain to me by declining these offers, I am actually robbing these precious women of their blessing for blessing me. But, being the self centered human being that I am I could not get past ME and how I felt about it.

So, at Ladies Bible Study this week I was explaining to everyone how overwhelmed I had become with figuring out my schedule and how I was suppose to be able to keep up with everything. I was just opening my heart to them and letting them see my frustration at the situation. Although I wouldn't send my boys back to public school because of me needing to figure out an appropriate schedule! So a precious lady that had previously offered her housecleaning services to me spoke up and offered them to me agian. You see, I wouldn't dream of turning her down this time!! I quietly said, "that would be WONDERFUL!" So the next morning she came over and helped me with dishes and laundry while I homeschooled the boys! It was wonderful. I was truley blessed!

So I guess in closing I would say.....be careful what offers you are turning down. If people are truley trying to be a blessing to you, you would be stealing their blessing by turning them down. And by laying down pride you can learn a huuuuuuuuuge lesson! Love you guys! Thank you for all your encouragement!

Do I have the strength?

Levi 6 Years Old
Benjamin 4 Years Old

Samuel 1 Year Old

Okay, so my husband and I have decided to do something that is going to totally change our lives. We pulled Levi and Benjamin out of public school and are now homeschooling them. Granted they are only in Kindergarten and Pre-school but I am now starting to feel a little overwhelmed. Right now we are just working out of workbooks because I have virtually no idea where to even start. I was really impressed today, though. Levi did a whole page of addition and he told me that they didn't do math like that in school. Rock on Levi!! I pray that I keep the expectations high so they will strive to achieve them and thus reach higher than ever would have been possible. I am really excited also because they will get to learn school stuff and learn about God at the same time! Okay, this pep talk worked. I think I'm ready to tackle it again tomorrow!

One word for 2008

2008 is going to be a great year!! I can feel it. Thanks to Christie's challenge and inspiration I have chosen one word to focus on this year. This is a great idea! Christie got this idea from Ali Edward's website. So, here is goes. Hmmmm, one word.....that's so hard! I think that I will choose "Grace". Like love, it is so easy to withhold grace from people. I learned recently how much extending grace to someone even though they hurt me badly can change someone's life. It is easy to say you forgive someone but the true test of our heart is to extend grace to them. With Christ as my example, this is going to be my word for the year. My verse will be 2 Corinthians 12:9 & 10
" And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weekness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."
I will strive this year to have Paul's mindset. Through my weaknesses may God's power reside in me!