Words spoken by the "J" kiddos that I must NOT forget..

I am horrible at journaling, just flat out horrible at making time to sit and journal about life, memories, milestones, and things that God is doing in my life. The few journals that I have written have been such a blessing, because I am able to read them and remember the experiences and prayers that were real at one time and see how God has worked through all of them.

Now that we have a big family, I find myself not being able to remember certain things with each kid. I just do NOT like it! It makes me sad that I cant remember the things that moms should remember. I am talking big things too, not just little milestones, but special memories.

One of the reasons for beginning to blog is to document pictures, memories and unforgettable experiences that will always be available for me to read.

Since we have a 2, 4, and 6 year old in our home, the conversations spoken are sometimes way too much to not share!

A few that I have tried to remember latley:

Jackson-"Daddy, my beddy huwts"....my belly hurts


Jacee- "I cant wait to be an adult so I can eat ice cream and candy whenever I want!"

Jaden- "A pig in the foil"...after watching a skit at our church, and he was trying to repeat "I pity the fool"....

Jackson- "I yuv you more, I yuv you to pieces"

Jacee- "Mommy, I just prayed for a baby girl"...few days later.."If we have a boy I will still help you take care of it, mom"


Jacee- "Where does satan live?"

Jackson-"Mommy, I give bubee and sister kisses"

Jaden- "Mom, can I text dad?"...what ???


Jaden- "Mom!, I know what word we can use for my spelling words....Fix'in".....me: oh my!

Jacee- When telling her daddy about her day at the splash pad she says.."I just loved that boy there. Daddy: "Why?" Jacee: "Because I just loved to play with him"... sweet!

Jackson- "Sister being mean to me" and of course the most pitiful pouty face ever added to that.

Jacee- "Can I organize this?"

Jackson- "Momma, I wanna kiss the baby"

Jacee- "Mom, I want a a piece of my hair pink, not all my hair but just one piece"

I will be adding more!..stay tuned...

Fun week!

WOW! What a super fast week! I remember when I use to think "When I get older, things will slow down!"...and you know, the older I get the faster and busier life gets!!! Many people would probably agree with me, but I am beginning to wonder if it is just a perspective change.

Maybe, life is just as "busy" and "fast" as it use to be, but priorities have changed, experiences have changed, and the things I use to cherish are so different than what I cherish in this season of life.

We have been going full speed in our home for about 3 weeks. We started our home school schedule,
began Classical Conversations, added our "fall weekly events", and of course, we are trying keeping up with daily activites.

I want to post a few pictures that will help describe our week.

Our first day of CC

Jaden -1st grade

Jacee- Pre-K

Jackson-"beginning to learn through focused schooling"

"after Classical Conversations picture"-they were wore out..so precious!




We made homemade mozerella cheese, and it was really fun. The taste was not perfected yet, but creating the texture of the cheese was very interesting. Jaden was really intrigued by the process of milk (a liquid form) forming into a ball of stretchy, laffy taffy, cheese (a sold form).


step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Finished product

Very fun week, filled with great memories!

A small glimpse of this week-HAPPY FRIDAY!

-Happy Friday-

"Fun Friday" which means the focus is to NOT WASTE FUN ALL DAY LONG.  
As we finish up this week, I realized around 9:00am this morning that I had no super-dee-duper activities planned to do with the kiddos.  We have stayed close to home the past week for a few reasons.  1.)  Jackson began his "first week of potty training", by the way has gone well.  Each day he has done better and showed me that he can  "tee-tee on the Potty", whew, ... well, I will update on that as we get deeper into it!  2.)  The weather has been extremely hot this week and as much as I try to go out and "endure" it, I find myself right back inside a few minutes later (and of course, I am a weenie at 33 weeks pregnant).   As I began to plan some "activities" for me and the kiddos to do, I had an idea.  BALLOONS!...Anytime I pull out balloons with my kids, they will be entertained for hours.  We blew up some really big balloons and pulled out the markers to create art on them.  I cannot tell you how excited all 3 kiddos were!.  Jaden was so excited to write "I love daddy", Jacee made a really neat design, and Jackson just said "mommy, wook I coyor" about 20 times and scribbled.  
I love that I can keep things simple and they can make the craziest memories.  As I sat there watching them squeeze as much color on those balloons as they could, I laughed inside at how many times I strive to plan such a perfect day and make things 'just right".  I am thankful.  


While trying to keep cool this week we experimented with a few things, let me share a glimpse of our week.

Homemade ice cream sounded so yummy, and a friend had an idea to make ice cream and butter VERY simple and cheap.  If you know me, she was totally talking my language so we decided to give it a try.  I read over the recipe and was very skeptical of this " icecream" that was suppose to form.....

Ice cream:

1/2 c. milk
3 tbs. sugar
3c.     ice
1/3c.  rock salt
1 zip lock sandwich baggie
1 zip lock gallon baggie

Add the milk and sugar to the Small baggie.  Pour salt into the big bag and cover the salt with ice.  Place the milk mixture baggie inside the big bag.  Shake the bag 10-20 minutes, until the liquid is thick and creamy.  Serve now or put in freezer to eat later.  The shaking was so fun for the kids!

Butter
3/4 c. heavy whipping cream
pinch of salt
1 sandwich zip lock baggie

Pour cream and salt into bag and shake 10-20 minutes.  Ready to serve.  Store in air tight container in refrigerator.

Of course, there are a bazillion recipes for both, but these were really good! 

I could not get a picture of our "creation" but I will tell you that it did NOT last long!..mmmmmmm

"mommy, I love you"...."mommmmy, I yuv eww!"...and "Jen, I eternally love you-your heavenly father"

Whew!!!... Today has been a long, hot, busy day.
As I sit here, in my favorite big comfy chair,
I am thinking about today and though it was filled with 
Many "to dos", and ended with a super fun birthday party of one our 
dearest friends, I keep thinking of something that has been on my
heart for the past several days.  
At this very moment I am surrounded by sickness, disease, people
Hurting, families in situations that are demanding huge decisions, and it stinks. Really, it stinks, so much of me and my human heart wants to reach out and take that pain, hurt and sadness away.  However, I am
quickly reminded of the Ultimate healer, God himself. A friend asked me this week, "how do you pray for God to perform a miracle, but at the same time prepare yourself to be able to handle the outcome of the situation?"....








Then, it hit me!  I have been battling with this question for quite some time. I find my prayers being may your will be done, with the mindset of "whatever happens is your will and I'm
O.K with that, to even I am praying "your will be done,God" meaning that it terrifies me to think of putting complete trust and faith in you because you may have a different plan. Then, there's a chance I would be broken and wonder why did the healer, almighty, God that I know not answer my prayer the way I asked him to??....


I know that my faith has been challenged the past 2 years, but the truth, Gods word has been constant. 
A prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray
That out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power 
Through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
                                    Ephesians 3:14-19
I have read this verse many times through the years, and I love it!  As I read it at this moment,  with all the hurting loved ones around
me, I am in awe of how little I understand His love for me and you.
I can't even grasp our fathers love for us. 


One of our favorite Veggie Tales videos quotes "trying to understand Gods love for us would be like trying to count every grain of sand in the entire world"
What a great picture... Imagine yourself trying to figure out How many grains of sand that covers the earth... 


One of the greatest moments I have experienced is when one of my children come to me, completely on their own and say "mommy" and I respond, "yes?", "I love you" or as Jackson would say "mommmmy!, I yuv eww!"....


At that moment my heart is just full. I think to
myself how much more our heavenly father loves us, and it's hard to fathom that he loves us more than that!!. WOW!


I share all this because in the midst of everything we are surrounded by good or bad, God is SO here walking and even carrying us through it! I know that God hears and answers my prayers. I want my prayers to be faithful and when I talk to God I want to fully trust and 
NOT hold back and let the fear of what "might happen" consume me.


God is love.  His love is greater, bigger, longer, wider, and higher than anything we will ever experience on earth. Gods love is eternal.

Go USA!!..and a bit more

With the 2012 Olympics going on right now, our family is in serious competitive mode!..our living room is currently a gymnastics arena, track, and of course a dance studio (Jacee is our dancing queen).  We just completed our Sports-n-More week at our church and the theme was "Play to Lose", which is PERFECT timing.  We have been focusing on what it means to LOSE-Lay it down, Offer it up, Swap it out, Experience Jesus.  Matthew 16;24-25


To be honest, the daily need to lay down my life and whatever "it" is that I am letting take away from living in the fullness of Christ, is tough.  So, the past several days have been a great reminder of staying focused!  Teaching little ones to "Play to lose" is not simple, especially when everyone around you is saying "WIN, WIN, WIN!".  It truly is a foreign concept and to dig deep and understand what it means to lose your life for Christ is such a blessing. Remember how I said we are in serious competitive mode?  Well, we are a very competitive family and love to play games, sports, and be the best we can be...but it is easy to get focused on ourselves.  Do you see why this verse is a great for our family this week! 

We spent some time with our precious friends this week and had a wonderful time celebrating friendship, good food,  the Olympics and the birth of a new baby!! 

                                                          Splashing around and being silly!!!

                               Sweet  Friends!!..and yes I think they put on every piece they could find!!!