David's thankfulness

2 Samuel 22 describes David's song of praise to God after all his battles won, including with his son Absolom. He truly was a man of God, giving glory to God in everything.

This particular scripture passage resonated with me this morning. When is the last time I sang out in deep adoration and praise to God? Now most of you know, I'm not a huge fan of the worship time at church....there are usually 4 songs sung and for me that's 3 too many. But I love hymns! I sing them around the house and to my kids....they lift my spirits so much it's only God who can be rewarded for that desire in my heart. After reading David's song of praise, it made me realize how thankful I am for God's protection, provision, and joy that he has given me. We don't live in a mansion, but it's not a hut with a dirt floor either. We don't buy new clothes every week or every season. Instead we are so so so so blessed to have donations given to us. We have two beautiful children who despite their sinful nature bring me joy everyday!

My prayer this morning was to be like David and not recount over and over the battles (financial ups and down, kids behavior cycles,etc) in my life, but rather be thankful for God's hand that was ever present in those battles which carried me through. Its as though I look forward to the next battle because I have my security in God.

Verse 30 says, "with your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall."

How much more secure can one get? So, here's to scaling a wall today!

In the kitchen!

So my desire to bake has returned...all to the glory of God! Tonight I made cheese crackers, ritz crackers and frozen yogurt (peanut butter, strawberry, and plain).

You can find the recipe on Pinterest for the crackers. The frozen yogurt was made with homemade yogurt, fresh cream and milk (straight from the cow!) and sweetened with only stevia. Maybe my taste buds have acclimated to what REAL food taste like and I enjoy food not saturated in fake "not found in nature" Sweetener. It's nice to taste the flavors of the food and not just sugar:-/

I've attached pictures of the recipes if you want to replicate the crackers. I used 1/2 buckwheat and 1/2 brown rice flour for the the ritz crackers though.

For the frozen yogurt I just followed the recipe that came with my ice cream maker. Simple!

Enjoy!

BSF

Have I posted how much I love BSF (Bible Study Fellowship)? Here's a glimpse into what our Thursday mornings have been for the past 9 months barring any illnesses:-)

Imagine a morning where you are rushing around to get your 4 and 2 yr old out the door. This would include giving them 2 more minutes of play time while you get snacks packed (because you were too tired the night before to pack everything!). Then when the 2 minutes are up and the bags are packed, you realize you managed to get everyone dressed except yourself who is still in pajama bottoms! So you add another 2 minutes (we have a sand timer) and rush upstairs hoping that in your brief absence the kids won't undress themselves and be stark naked when you return downstairs (cuz that has happened before!). Thankfully this time they are still dressed when you re-emerge wearing "going out" clothes. For me, this is usually jeans and a t-shirt. :-). Then you grab the kids' breakfast (smoothie or homemade gluten free granola bar) and say, "shoes on children. It's time to go to BSF!" and your children yell with excitement, "horray!" They get their shoes on while you load up the car and if there is any slacking in speed, you tell them,"no smoothie in the car if your shoes aren't on!". This usually gets them moving faster cuz they love their smoothies. Depending on the day there is probably some whining about socks not being straight or the seatbelt not able to buckle, but you keep your eyes focussed on the prize of going to worship God! Now, some mornings, you are short tempered and have to later apologize to the kiddos for your unnecessary snappiness. But this morning you took your B vitamins, had your veggie drink, and even had coffee so you are ok:-). (not great cuz you didn't get any quiet time with God that morning)

You are late...as always. But this time you aren't as late as usual which means your children won't miss free playtime in the beginning. So you are happy. Every minute the kids aren't there makes you sad because they do more than just keep them safe. They have a very organized schedule for the kids even or the kids in the "18mo/walking" room. They sing hymns, the teachers read a story (which is the same as you read for your study), they open up the Bible and each child gets to take turns pointing to the words and reciting the Bible Verse of the week, they have large muscle play where the teachers actually play with the kids instead of just stand back and supervise, and they do quiet time where everyone lays down and teaches their body to rest for 10mins.

Overall, they learn that the bible is true, that it's not just for sitting on the shelves, and that God loves them soo much. The teachers encourage good listening and are just plain amazing! The babies get loved on and sung to or rocked to sleep by a beautiful hymn. It's just great!

While the children are in their class, you go to the sanctuary where there are about 400 ladies! You sing hymns as well to get your heart prepared for the individual group Then you are dismissed to your smaller group of 10-12 ladies in all stages of life. This is where you share prayer requests and go over the lesson question by question. Here is where you make friendships with other women who can hold you accountable and encourage you in your struggles as a Christian woman. Then you return to the sanctuary for more hymn singing, prayer, and then about 35 minutes of lecture reviewing what you just talked about in your group. You be sure to grab the home lesson paper as well as the children's training sheet. These sheets are stock full of tips and helpful Godly insight for raising your children in the Word!

So after Thursday mornings you are refreshed, your kids are refreshed and then you are equipped with tools to continue this Biblical devotion all week long.

I pray you find a BSF near you to help encourage you as well!

I snapped a picture of Brooklyn reading books with a teacher when I arrived to pick her up (a bit early just to see how amazing they are!).

In a funk

Despite having these two cute kiddos around me all day long, I've been in a funk. I haven't had the urge to bake, cook, clean, or anything homemaker related for a couple weeks. It came to a head when I had a full on crying meltdown the other day.

I have really been missing my good friend who moved away to pursue their dream of opening a scuba shop overseas. I've been trying to handle it on my own an not using help from my God, my comforter.

I've been out of the routine of my personal quiet time with God. Sure I've been in the Word everyday with the kids and learning and growing in that sense, but my personal, one-on-one time with my Creator has been replaced by sleeping in due to exhaustion.

I came to the conclusion that two things need to happen...first, I need to do my personal quiet time EVERY DAY again, and second, I need to have a girls night with friends who are REAL.

What is REAL?

Real is inviting someone over EVEN when your house is mess. Because in all honesty, all of our houses look the same: laundry is piled up, dishes are in the sink, floors have breakfast and even lunch crumbs on them, and toys are all over (in my case, books!) If I waited until my house was spotless to have someone over for a playdate or a visit, I would rarely see other adults (besides my hubby). An more importantly I wouldnt have the amazing opportunity to delevop great meaningful friendships with other moms. Isn't that what it's about? Encouraging one another in Christ and not judging each other's houses or parenting styles?!!

Real is also being able to live and get along with someone who may not parent the EXACT way you do. when you let go of that lie that says you need to surround yourself with people who only do things the way you do things, you are free to LOVE them without judging them! (now I'm not saying its ok to be around someone who yells and screams foul language at their kids all the time...exposing kids to this extreme, might my be the best thing. But I'm talking about maybe hanging out with someone who cloth diapers or someone who works part time, if you are one who uses disposables and stays at home).

Real is sharing that you get frustrated with your kids. Everyone handles frustration differently and sharing the good AND bad ways we handle it make us have a deeper relationship with each other. It helps is see how we are all in need of God's mercy and not to feel guilty for making a mistake or goofing up in your parenting as we learn how to deal with new stages (I.e whining, tantrums, hitting, biting, not hating)

Being real is sing able to drop everything and change your plans just to hang out with a friend who might just really need a friend at that moment. This might even mean telling the kids they can watch their movie another time, instead we're going to the park for a last minute playdate cuz otherwise another mommy is going to loose her mind!


Here's to getting out of my funk and relying more on God. And here's to making my quiet time a PRIORITY!!! And please moms, be REAL WITH ME!!
I don't care if your house is a mess..you should see my house and it will make you feel better about yourself!

Mmmmm lemonade

I'm not a huge fan of lemonade because it actually makes me more thirsty when I drink it. Plus it has a TON of sugar in it. However I discovered how delicious I can be when I made it with freshly juiced lemons and sweetened it with stevia. yummy!!

Brooklyn, it's time for bed

So let me state that Brooklyn is not a hard baby to put to bed. When she crawls into her crib she knows it's night night time and she sleeps. She might groan or make a few protesting whines, but then it's off to sleepytown, USA for her.

The other night I nursed her and when I was finished I asked her to fun her night night (pacifier). She likes to have more than one so after finding one on the bed she asked where her other one was. I bent down and spotted it under the bed waaaaaaay in the back. After my amazing elastic reaching arms grabbed the pacifier I realized how in characteristically quiet Brooklyn was. So I looked around for her. After a quick resultless search, I said,"Brooklyn, where are you? It time for night night.". This picture is exactly how I found her. Luckily I had my phone handy to capture her silliness. She was so quiet and then I heard her giggle! Silly girl! Guess this is her first official attempt at evading bed time! s

What a fun day!

A late posts from a couple weeks ago:

Today was so fun! I kept thinking, "thank you, God" all day!

Thank you, God for:

Roman waking up sans "leak" since he was in undies all night!

Homemade yogurt spilled all over Brooklyn just before heading out the door! (store bought would have been so expensive!)

Roman's 20 million questions about cheetahs and other animals on the way to the zoo. His mind is AMAZING!

Free zoo day passes from a playgroup mommy!

My children's enthusiasm about animals and plants and airplanes (the zoo is near an international airport)

My children's obedience to stay by my side in the street ( we didn't bring a stroller!)

Roman running ahead of me on the path just so he could walk next to Brooklyn and "keep her safe"

No meltdowns, although we came close to one with Brooklyn, but it was thwarted by the enticement of sitting in a tractor and milking a pretend cow. Little things...

Brooklyn and Roman not getting annoyed with the 4 potty breaks we took in the 5 hours we were there! And Brooklyn not crying at the deafening sound of the hand driers in the last bathroom!

Brooklyn telling me she had to go potty. Even though she's potty trained, accidents still happen when she is in serious play mode.

Scrounging up enough $ to buy a kettle corn which served as reward for staying by me and not running off without permission.

An older child, Roman, who set a good example for his sister that when mama says "one more turn on the slide" it means only one more turn on the slide despite a cute pouty lip from sister!

Children that understand not to ask for things in the gift shop because 1. we don't need it and 2. We don't have the $ to buy it! (The exit is conveniently located inside the gift shop!!)

Coming home to a neighbor's ginormous tree still in our driveway from yesterday's wind storm. It cracked and fell not 5 mins before chad got home! (earlier that day I cleaned out the garage so that I could park in it.).

Some random person, whom we never saw, that cut down the tree and moved it off our driveway after we got back from the zoo. (our neighbor thought we did it and we thought the neighbor did it)

Homemade Mac and cheese that took 20 mins to make...so yummy!

My Tummy not feeling well so it meant more snuggle time with Roman in our bed reading books about leopards, cheetahs, bald eagles, silly hippos and a little boy who plays soccer. (we all fell asleep together too!).

Here's to praying tomorrow I can thank God for more blessings!