Hot dogs

The other night Miriam and Josh wanted hot dogs for dinner so I told Miriam she could make them herself if she'd like. I talked her through heating them in a pan on the stove, then she put them in the buns and put the ketchup on for her and Josh. I snapped this picture of her serving her Daddy his dinner, since she was so proud, and I thought I'd share it with you all...

'And here is your dinner, sir.'

My baby!

A couple of weeks ago, on a Friday night, we were letting the kids stay up as late as they wanted. Around midnight Miriam came and leaned up against my back while I was reading on the couch, so I invited her to come sit in my lap. In short order she was fast asleep.

Ahh! Such sweetness for this sappy mom!

I love seeing my kids growing more and more into the amazing people that God has made them, it is exciting and wonderful! But there is a little sadness, too, as they leave behind babyhood, then toddlerhood, early childhood...and so on.

Miriam is on the brink of 'tween'agedom...not really a 'little kid' anymore, she is moving up to being quite the big kid. You can see it in her desire to do her own hair, her talk with her little friends, her ability to do so much on her own now...she is growing up and there's no getting around that fact.

So I will enjoy these precious moments to the fullest and treasure them in my heart as the sweet gifts from God that they are! And I will thank Him for the grace to let go as my children move into the teen years and on into adulthood...remembering that they are not truly mine, but His.

For that I am truly thankful!

Yikes! Only four posts the whole month of February! And we are already two weeks into March...I am being a very 'bad' blogger, I know. Honestly, there was even a two week gap in my picture taking(!)...I have been lazy with a lot of those type of things lately. We have been crazy busy running 'hither and yon' it seems and I just haven't felt like I've had a lot to write about. I think the main deterent to posting has been the fact that we still don't have orders. Anyhow, I am finally getting some posts up today and I will try to do better the rest of this month. We hope to get our orders sometime next week...we shall see.

One week (and one day) ago we had to say goodbye to our friends Lana, John, Brianna and John Jr. They are moving to Texas and going from active duty to reserves. I am excited for them as they enter a new chapter in their lives but we miss them! Of course we would be missing them in a few months regardless, so we try to remember that when we feel sad. Here are some pictures of the kids playing at our house on their last day together.

Isaiah, Brianna, Korah and Miriam


John Jr. and Brennen trying to 'perform surgery' on Miriam, even though she didn't need it - Miriam's narrative on this picture.


Brianna gets a ride



This was fun for everyone, as you can see below...

Ah, the simple joys of childhood! (-:

We are thankful for the time we had with our friends and wish them well on their new adventures! Perhaps we will see them again someday...

Thankful

In the recent weeks I have been reflecting on how truly blessed I am. Not that this is a new revelation. And not that I have never reflected on this before. Something that I have been newly reflecting on is the fact that not only are we truly blessed, generally, but right now, particularly, we are experiencing a season of peace like we haven't experienced in a long time...perhaps ever - in our time together, at least, and childhood doesn't really count - lol!

It is not that everything is perfect in our lives right now. We are currently still awaiting orders to find out where we will be living in 2-3 months, which is not fun (though, obviously, this is a very temporary 'discomfort'). We are dealing with attitude issues in our kids that are very frustrating, at times. I, personally, am still not doing as well as I'd like to be with keeping up on housework and scheduling my time well. (will I ever be doing as well as I'd like to be? Hmm, my guess is no.) So that is not why I am saying we are so specially blessed right now.

Things are not perfect, but there are many things that are going very well for us right now. We are doing very well financially. We are not rich, we still have to stick to a budget - which we are doing well at, and which makes such a difference - but we have enough to make ends meet just fine, we have finally paid off all credit card debt - which is a huge burden lifted and we are able pay extra on our cars each month...what more could we ask? I realize that in the scheme of things money is not the most important, by far. But after years of struggling and feeling the burden of debt that was getting paid off at a painfully slow rate, I know that being in a good place financially is one of the reasons that we are experiencing such peace right now.

Josh and I are in a very good place in our marriage. We have both matured a lot, both individually and as a couple, and we have reached a point where we can (usually (-; ) deal with conflict in a pretty healthy way. Of course things are not 'perfect' here either, but I would definitely say we are having a season of peace in our marriage, as well, and I am thankful. (And just to clarify, I am not saying that we have ever had a 'bad' marriage - in fact, I think we have really been so very blessed in our relationship, especially when you consider some of the truly difficult times that we have faced together.)

Last, but not least (lol), I am personally experiencing a time of peace and rest such as I have not experienced in a very long time. If you are reading my blog you probably know that I had several years of struggling with severe depression. Then, as I started to see that getting - somewhat - under control, I realized that there was something wrong with me, health wise. It took over a year (once I got a doctor who took me seriously and started looking for answers in earnest) to 'rule out' several possible causes for my symptoms.

In time we found out I had anemia, excessive stomach acid and acid reflux, low potassium (which we've corrected) and a vitamin D deficiency. Ultimately I was given a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - which can only be diagnosed by ruling out everything else that might cause similar symptoms. After finally getting these answers it took me a while to come to grips with the fact that I had certain limitations that were not going away and that I was just going to have to accept, and adjust to.

Over time, I have made that adjustment - I don't like it and at times it does get me down, but for the most part I have accepted that this is the way it is. I am thankful that I am not worse off than I am and I know that God has brought this trial into my life for a purpose.

(As a funny aside, back when we were trying to figure all this stuff out my doctor sent me to a psychologist because my case was 'complicated' - well, that's fun to hear from your doctor - and what did the psychologist have to say? 'Your case is complicated' - what else?! After some despairing moments I took this as a reminder that God is in control, while my case may have been 'complicated' to those guys it was not 'complicated' to God and I could rest in that.)

So, while I have to live with the limitations that come with CFS, I have been off of anti-depressants for over two years now and I am doing very well, thanks be to God! I know that we will almost certainly face more trials in the future, that we will have difficult seasons again. But right now I am enjoying this time of rest and I am thanking the Lord for it!

As I said, I have have been reflecting on this a lot lately and I just wanted to share my rejoicing with you. I hope that you, too, are experiencing a season of peace in your life. If you are not, currently, then I pray that God will allow you to see His purpose in whatever you are going through and that He will accomplish that purpose in your life in His time. In the meantime may you continue to find your strength in Him!

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. - Philippians 1:6

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in any affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. - 2 Corinthians 1:24

And because a post here just doesn't feel right to me unless pictures are included here are some fun photos of my silly munchkins on a rainy day a couple of weeks ago. I thought they were so cute out there in their coats I wanted to just get a cute picture of the three of them together, I asked them to just stand together for one minute so I could get a 'nice' picture of them...this is what I got. (-;

It is a good thing they are cute! Lol!

Pool Time

Over the next few days I will be posting pictures of activities from the last few weeks. Here are some of the kids at the pool from February, 9 (not that the date is significant...). Pool pictures are always fun in the middle of winter, I think. (-:

Cannonball!!!!

Kraemer's 'I was there' picture.

Frogman Joshua!

Ummm...don't have a catchy title for this one, they were battling back and forth with this float and I thought it was pretty funny. At one point one of the boys just jumped on it and dunked the other underwater instead of just slapping it back. The dunkee recovered quickly and the battle moved on to another location...

Miriam loves diving for rings!

(I know this picture is out of focus but I still like it, so I decided to share it anyway.)

Back to the present...our poor Miriam is still sick today, with a good fever going on. She has been pretty miserable but has been somewhat comforted by watching a lot of TV and having many Popsicles. (-:

Josh and I have recovered from our colds and the boys seem to be healthy. My hope is that Miriam will recover quickly and no one else will get sick for a while. Still, even though we have had a few illnesses in our family this last month we are doing much better than we did last year and for that I am so very thankful!

February 4, Beach Trip

Hello everyone! I can't believe it has been so long since I have posted here, the days have just been flying by...which is a good thing for us right now since we are all eagerly awaiting Josh's orders to find out where we will be moving to in 3-4 months - we mostly likely have at least 3 weeks left to wait!

So, here is a quick rundown of what we have been up to these last 3 weeks. We finished Miriam's two weeks of swim lessons. She really learned alot and has become quite the little fish in the pool! (-: The next week we started a new school shedule, which has been a success. Our schedule was a blessing last week when I was sick for most of the week. From the couch I was able to tell the kids, 'Ok, just look at the schedule and do what comes next.' and we were able to stay on track with school for the most part. Along the way we have had friends over for lunch a few times, attended a birthday party, gone to the beach twice, had lunch at a friends house, attended a concert at church (Miriam, Isaiah and I with Isaiah's friend, also named Isaiah (-:), gone to the pool 5 times (aside from swim lessons), had friends sleepover 3-4 times, and Joshua and I earned our yellow belts in Karate!

In this post I am including pictures from one of our beach trips. We went to Bastendorff Beach with two of our neighbors.

Checking out a dead jellyfish. This was a first for us.

Miriam checks out the itty-bitty fish Korah, Payton and Joshua caught with a net, for closer observation, then released.



Kraemer and I, he enjoyed the beach, too!



Henessy and the boys playing in the waves.

Joshua catching fish.

Isaiah climbed pretty high up there and then got stuck! But he figured out how to get down before I had to go up there after him. (-:


We have continued to be blessed with many sunny days, so unusual for a winter here. I have been so thankful for them! We have had a few stormy days as well but then the sun has come back again...just when I was bracing myself for weeks of rainy, gray days!

God is so good!

I pray that you are seeing His great blessings in your life rght now, too!

A week in pictures

We have had a very full week.

Here are some pictures of our everyday adventures.

Miriam and I sleeping in together on Saturday (the 24th). Josh snuck this picture of us and I figured I'd include it since I always get everyone else in the family. (-:

Josh and Miriam during Bible reading. Our family Bible reading continues to go well. We all end up laughing at some point either because of funny names, repetitive content or some such thing but it is all good. This picture makes me laugh because Miriam was driving Josh nuts by absently caressing the back of his neck, he would tell her to stop and she would but then a minute later she would start doing it again without really thinking about it. A little Daddy torture is needed from time to time...lol!

Last Saturday Miriam, Isaiah and I had dinner at our neighbor's house with four other ladies, and many kids. We all stayed up until 1am visiting! In this picture some of the kids are kicking back watching a movie together.

Isaiah playing with my friends baby that same evening.

Baby says, "Are you sure this is safe?"

Isaiah wiped out after being chased all around the house by a bunch of little kids.

Miriam heading in to her first day of swimming lessons on Monday. This looks like a lovely, summery picture but it is probably less than 5o degrees out!

Miriam showing off her back float.

I just had to include this picture because it is so adorable! (and I am not prejudiced or anything...)

On Tuesday we had some friends over for lunch. After my friends baby kept trying to get a hold of my laptop we gave him Miriam's Barbie laptop to play with and he thought it was the greatest toy!

Pet torture. That is our cat...in our dog's food bag. Don't ask me why...

Really, our cat is quite tolerant.

The dog gets her share of torture as well.

Isaiah helps his sister put on make-up, at her request. What a sweet big brother!

So there you have a few snapshots of our week. We have continued to be blessed with a lot of sunshine, so unusual for this time of year and greatly enjoyed by all! We have also been blessed with many visits with friends this week which is always wonderful!

I hope that your days have been blessed as well!

Until next time...