Forgiveness

Heard this song today and it was so good for my heart to hear!
So true, humbling, challenging and encouraging.

FORGIVENESS Artist: MATTHEW WEST. Album: Into the Light It’s the hardest thing to give away And the last thing on your mind today It always go to those who don’t deserve It’s the opposite of how you feel When they pain they caused is just too real Takes everything you have to say the word Forgiveness, forgiveness It flies in the face of all your pride It moves away the mad inside It’s always angers own worst enemy Even when the jury and the judge say you gotta right to hold a grudge It’s the whisper in your ear saying set it free Forgiveness, forgiveness Forgiveness, forgiveness Show me how To love the unlovable Show me how To reach the unreachable Help me now To do the impossible Forgiveness, forgiveness Help me now To do the impossible Forgiveness It’ll clear the bitterness away It can even set a prisoner free There is no end to what its power can do So let it go and be amazed by what you see through eyes of grace The prisoner that it really frees is you Forgiveness, forgiveness Oh, forgiveness, forgiveness I want finally set it free Show me how To see what Your mercy sees Help me now To give what You gave to me Forgiveness

Tennis Camp

This week Luke has been participating in a local tennis camp for a couple hours each afternoon.  

Here he is on the first day wearing orange. 

It's his first experience participating in tennis camp. 

His first experience at a camp without good friends, 

without his brother and without Darin as an assistant coach. 

I was a little nervous for my tentative and shy guy. 

It has been an awesome experience! He is LOVING it. 

The coach is great and Luke comes home each day with a HUGE grin. 

If you are a local friend, email me and I'll give you more information 

about the camp. I highly recommend the coach and his approach. 

 I've hung around for a bit each day at drop off just to watch them get started. These two spectator monkeys below have found all sorts of ways to entertain themselves. Here they are climbing the fence. 

To let them climb to the top or not... that is the question??? 

It is irresistible for Ethan, especially since he could plainly see that there are no hornets hiding. 

(He has promised to never climb a tree again because of his experience last Wednesday.)

I'm very proud of my timid guy for embracing this adventure with such a great attitude! 

Darin

Today was a day of celebrating Darin's 37th birthday! 

And yes, he married an older woman. ;) (by four months)

We certainly couldn't compete with the amazing decorations Darin made on my behalf in February, but the boys were eager and excited to make some special signs to show Daddy how much they love him.

While Darin was still sleeping this morning, we got busy hanging streamers, 

hanging up our sign and adding some colored lights (Darin's favorite)! 

Darin was surprised and happy to walk through the streamers 

and find 3 excited boys and a hot breakfast. 

 We wrapped the gifts in brown paper so the boys could add their special touch with markers. One of Darin's packages contained three baggies with three puzzles the boys made. We had some blank puzzles and the boys wrote words, drew pictures and colored them. (This was a very fun project this week. The two older boys were busy creating for over an hour!) Then Darin had to put them together to find the messages or discover the pictures.

I've been thinking a lot today about God's sovereignty and plan. He chose Darin to be my husband and the father to our children. He has made Darin who he is and I think God uses Darin's strengths to sharpen my weaknesses. Here are just a few things I love about this guy and why I'm thankful that I've had the privilege to celebrate the past 15 birthday's with him. 

Darin is...

* a child of God

* cheerful and optimistic

* extremely loyal

* handsome

* very detail oriented

* neat and organized

* great sense of humor

* quick to laugh out loud

* very smiley

* generous gift giver

* hardworking and thorough

* lover of God

* musically gifted

* roller coaster lover

* good Daddy

* kid at heart!

(frozen strawberry and mango sorbet cake with cookie crust)

Happy Birthday Darin! We love you!

Summer Reading

This summer, I am determined to keep the boys excited about reading. Luke reads chapter books silently every night before bed, but it is not typical for him to lay around devouring books like I did as a child. When it comes to reading out loud, he is not particularly thrilled. Ethan is a beginner reader and making great progress, but still needs a nudge to read aloud.

It has worked really well so far to set aside time every day after lunch and before rest time for each of them to read aloud to me. I'm trying to make it a habit so we don't even blink when I ask them to go pick a book.  I'm using these charts below to keep them going. I got them HERE.

They get a sticker every time they read out loud to someone (me, Darin, Aaron, or other adults). For Luke, he gets a sticker for reading a chapter out loud and Ethan gets one for an entire book. After they fill the chart they get a prize from the prize bin. I went to Michaels and Target and found little things for $1 or less. I strongly dislike little junky toys laying all around, so I tried to find things that weren't just junk. So far, so good. I've really enjoyed the time cozied up on the couch together reading. It's so good for me to be forced to slow down and just enjoy my sweet boys! Happy reading!  

Stung

Ethan made the acquaintance of multiple hornets (or so we think) today and it was no fun!

While enjoying some tree climbing at a park, he began screaming loudly. I looked up to see him racing across the grass swatting and screaming and running. The image in my mind is from a Winnie the Pooh cartoon as Winnie is being chased by angry bees. I could literally see them trailing behind Ethan. I raced after him and joined him in the screaming fest while I madly tried to get all the buzzing creatures from his face, arms, shirt, legs, etc. All the while completely freaked out by touching the creatures and them touching me. There must have been 40 or more hornets all over him. Poor little guy ended up with 20+ stings. The sting on his eye lid caused significant swelling, but is thankfully looking a bit better tonight.  A completely terrifying experience and yet, I'm so thankful for God's protection. So thankful that Ethan did not have an allergic reaction and thankful for benadryl.

After lots of conversations with our pediatrician and poison control, I'm confident that Ethan is safe and healing. A little sad that due to the mass numbers of stings he is now in danger should he ever get stung again, but I am trusting God to again keep him safe.

As he went to bed tonight he said, "Mommy can you pray that I don't have any bad dreams about the hornets chasing and stinging me?"  Poor sweet little guy!

Ironic

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Romans 7:15-25

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, becuase through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:1-2



Okay, so I said that I want to live and breathe God's word and I have found a passage that clearly captures a couple hours of my morning. While this is an ongoing struggle for me as a christian, it was particularly vivid this morning. I experienced such a tangible struggle to listen to the spirit or listen to the flesh as I interacted with the people I love the most. And what did I do??? Exactly what I didn't want to do! I listened to my flesh. yuck! You know that expression, "What's down in the well, comes up in the bucket" ?  Well, it is really obvious (to me and my family) that my well needs a thorough cleaning.

As I stepped back from the situation the scripture above popped into my head. Oh how I'm thankful for the reminder in Romans 8:1-2. I am free!!! He has set me free. I am forgiven. I am no longer a slave to my sin. Lord, help me to live this.  His mercies are new every morning and I am certain it is morning somewhere right now. Amen!

Summer Schedule

Technically, it's still spring... but we're on to our summer schedule! Last week was our first full week and so far, it seems like it will be a good schedule that we can stick with. Thought I'd share it with you in case you need ideas.

Last Monday at breakfast, I went through the schedule with the boys. Luke loves to know the plan for the day, so he quickly embraced the schedule. I put times, but these are flexible. We didn't stick to the exact times last week and no one crumbled... not even me. :)

Summer Schedule 2012
Morning Jobs: get dressed, jammies away and fix bed before breakfast.
7:45          breakfast and Bible time
8:30          breakfast clean up and teeth brushed
8:45          summer fun school
10:00        FREE time (sometimes sooner!)
12:00        lunch
1:00          read aloud time
1:30-2:45  room time / rest time
2:45          clean up rest time mess
3:00          snack time
3:15          FREE time
5:30          clean up and bath time
6:15          dinner and evening jobs

I've been planning outings with friends to different parks during our free time and we hope to hit the pool too. Making sure they get exercise is critical, even if that means I have to chase them around the yard. The boys and I made a list of science topics they want to explore and they are eager to keep doing some art once a week. (I have a stack of books from the library and I'm formalizing my plan. eek!! Definitely not my strength, but they love it.)

For our summer fun school time, I came up with a generic plan for each boy so that I don't have to do a lot of planning each night. I definitely need a break from that and also want to allow myself time to get a jump start on my planning for next year.

Here is what the boys will be doing each day during our summer fun school. We begin each day with about 15-20 minutes of games practicing math facts. (addition/subtraction and multiplication) They have loved this and it has been a great way to start our day. They are eager to come in the school room to play games with Mommy. I'll post soon some of the games I found/created.

Following the games, here is what Luke and Ethan do in summer fun school:
Monday: math, handwriting
Tuesday: L-grammar/ E-phonics, spanish *
Wednesday: math, grammar/phonics
Thursday: grammar/phonics, spanish
Friday: math, writing

* We started the spanish dvd curriculum "La Classe Divertida" last fall. Around January, I decided to take a break from it and focus on other necessary lessons. It has been fun to pick this back up with very little pressure.

For Aaron this summer, we've been working on letters and letter sounds. This is not a strength for him yet (even though we worked on it all last year!) and he doesn't really have much interest, but we're making progress. Trying to keep it low pressure, relaxed and fun!

So that's what we've been doing and so far it's been delightful. It's definitely not set in stone, so we might even toss out the schedule once a week and go crazy! ha! It does my heart good though to have some structure and still allow plenty of time to play and have fun. Keeping up the discipline of school work will definitely benefit us in the fall and for now, the boys are energized by the short little school day.