Last Day of School

homeschooling, Summer May 29, 2011 1 Comment

Well, we did it! Another successful year of homeschooling has officially come to an end.  We checked off our last day on Friday and went out for breakfast and some soggy playground time.  Then we spent most of the day doing what we will do all summer. Playing outside! Popsicles, water play, creating their own worlds, dreaming and imagining…I feel so blessed that I can allow my children endless hours of this life.

Foster will now move on to 2nd grade, Katie to 1st grade and Theodore to Pre-K.  We’ll probably start our new school year around the end of July.  That way we can have a few good breaks, especially because baby #5 is due the end of September. 

One last picture of something beautiful, Nana’s rosebush.  I was afraid it wasn’t going to make it this year, it had holes eaten in all it’s leaves and no blooms at all, then I pruned it and waited and look…

the first rose of the season! I know it’s a small triumph for some, I have friends who grow gardens, with real fruits and vegetables and everything. Oh and they keep chickens and ducks alive.  I, would love to get to that point, but it has taken me until now to keep 6 indoor plants and 1 outdoor rosebush alive. Hey, slow and steady wins the race, right? 

Desensitized

parenting May 16, 2011 1 Comment

About a year ago, maybe longer, we discovered that America’s Funniest Home videos comes on at 7pm on Sunday nights.  We usually would get home from church about 7:30 and the kids would have a snack while they watched the last few videos.  Now, let me just say here that, typically, we don’t turn the TV on in our house after 4pm, until the kids go to bed and then Chris and I can turn it back on and watch “grown-up” shows.  We do have family movie night from time to time. 

ANYWAY, it seems like it has been a few months, since we have watched AFV at all.  Well, last night it was cooler outside, we cleaned up early and came inside.  Chris left yesterday on a military trip and it was easy for me to say “OK” when they asked to watch.  But as I sat down and listened to the commentary and the video clips, I became more and more convicted of what they were watching and listening. A few examples are the host making fun of a lady’s size, intoxicated people falling down while dancing, cursing (with the words put on the screen so you could read them), young girls dressed inappropriately dancing and singing, etc. etc.

Then there were the commercials.  And that’s what set my alarm bells ringing big time.  Since we watch either PBS kids or movies all the time, they just don’t usually see many commercials.  But after a Mary Kay make-up commercial with a close-up of a young woman changing her “look” several times – it repeated at least 3 times during the show.  Foster (age 7) said to me, “I guess that’s how girls attract boys, huh?”

I was speechless.  I am usually quick on my feet with the things to say, but all I could manage was “Why do you say that? What if a girl is just really sweet?” His response was “well, yeah that too.” 

Our conversation fizzled quickly but my heart hurt!  I am sure many people would say I am over reacting but I feel like we have to work so hard to protect our children from becoming drown in the standards of the world.  I don’t want my kids to live in a bubble, but I want them to have the chance to see that God’s standards are the way to go, His ways are the ones to follow.  At such young ages, we can’t let them listen to whatever, watch whatever and read whatever and think that it isn’t going to effect their value system.

The thing is I was desensitized my whole life and then had to work really hard to undo what the first 25 years of my life taught me was “OK.”  God’s way is THE way, but I pray I will be able to set my kids on that path in the very beginning, so that they don’t have such a long way to travel back when they come to that U-turn in their spiritual lives. Better yet, if they don’t ever have to come to the U-turn because they stay headed in the right direction!

What about in your family?  How do/have you protected your children?

Moving on…

daddy May 14, 2011 Comments: 5

May has been beautiful in East Tennessee! I love the warmer weather and we’ve celebrated the end of the school year with lots of activities.  Foster had his final Cub Scout pack meeting and received more beads and his Tiger Cub badge.  He is disappointed that they will take a break for the summer. He’s fallen in love with Scouts already.  He knows one boy who may not participate next year and he said “how can he quit? Is that allowed? I am going to go all the way and be an Eagle Scout!” This year was hard on his daddy because he wasn’t able to participate in the meetings and activities with Foster.  The pack meetings were on Chris’s school nights and the den meetings while he was working.  Chris will be more available for Scouts from now on! And everything else, too, because he has officially graduated!

Foster and Katie went with us and sat through a VERY long ceremony at UT.  We felt like it was important for them to see this milestone in their daddy’s life.  He will have another graduation banquet for the 5 year electrician program he has just finished! It feels like it took forever and just a few minutes all at the same time.  I remember the time we were discussing and praying, when Foster was 2 yrs. old and Katie just a newborn, whether he should change jobs and make this 5 year commitment.  In 5 years, we have moved 3 times and added 2 more children, Chris deployed to Iraq in 2007, lost his mom in 2009 and had a 28 day stay in the hospital in 2010.  God has provided every need we have had and has been so faithful to keep Chris safe in a very dangerous trade. One regret I have is that Chris’s mom didn’t get to see him graduate.  His dad and sister were there and were very proud of him as well.

This past week Katie had her end-of-the-year ceremony with American Heritage Girls.  She moved to the next level and we are so excited to get busy working on her badges!

These were part of the girls that advanced to the next level.  I am thankful for AHG and it’s focus on God, family and service.

And last night we celebrated Chris’s birthday with a cookout here at home.  The kids enjoyed his sparkly trick candles that he had trouble blowing out! Someone made the comment that this time last year he would have had a hard time getting the candles blown out at all.  And I was reminded of just a short year ago when I didn’t know if this wonderful man would make it through pneomonia and an emergency chest tube.  I am so thankful that God healed him completely!

So we are moving on, looking forward to the adventures of summer and the next season of life that God is bringing us into, knowing that whether it is successful or devastating, boring or exciting He has every second planned for us!

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11

Spring 2011

adventures, holiday, memories May 7, 2011 1 Comment
A birthday celebration for mommy. My beautiful cake…
…made by my some of my favorite people.
We went with 5 candles instead of the 35 that should have been on there!
It seems to have rained or stormed a lot.  So we spent time inside creating,
working on finishing up school for the year or when it wasn’t raining…
…just enjoying the mud.  I hope you can see the big glop of mud that
Theodore decided to dump on Parker’s head.
We had a great day at Dollywood, hardly any lines, not too hot,
one of the best days we have had there as a family!
Easter celebrations at church…
…with Easter egg hunts…
…and with family gatherings.
I hope your family is having a blessed Spring!

Happy Birthday Nana!

memories April 12, 2011 1 Comment

We miss you Darlene! Today would have been Nana’s birthday, our birthday’s were just 6 days apart so we would sometimes share a celebration with dinner out or cake and ice cream at Nana and Papaw’s house. It’s hard to believe it’s been 2 years already. My mother-in-law’s passing changed my life. As a wife and mother, I have had to realize that all I can do is serve God and do the best I can while I am here because in all reality, when I am gone everyone will move on. My children were so young, Parker not even born when she passed away, so only Foster and Katie have memories that are hard and fast right now. At first, this realization that a person could be a daughter, sister, wife, mother and grandmother and be such a central part in all of our lives and then just be gone one day was very unsettling to me. I started to have thoughts that perhaps all this loving and giving and sacrificing that you do in those roles is futile. Of course, nothing that God blesses us with, blessing or trial, is futile. The big picture is He is molding us and growing us to be like Him. And the touch and presence of Nana will always be here, in my husband and children, who wouldn’t be here without her. In the memories of funny stories and personal struggles, and her witness in how she reached out to others with her card ministry.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”      James 4:13-15

 

Torn

choices, marriage, motherhood March 31, 2011 Comments: 3

I was really excited the first week of March.  The sun was out and there was so much to look forward to during the month.
However, just as my husband and I were leaving to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary…my kids got sick.  Foster was first, with a nasty stomach virus.  It was really hard to leave him but my mom was here and I knew she would take good care of him.  Thank God for cell phones, I think I talked to her about 50 times between Friday and Sunday.  We went to Gatlinburg and stayed in a free condo, thanks to a good friend.  We ate out and shopped and had many uninterrupted conversations.  It would have been really perfect if it hadn’t been for the fact that I felt like my heart was torn in two.

Here’s the deal.  I love my husband with all my heart.  But my little boy was really sick.  And I couldn’t be here to hold him, to wipe his face with a cold cloth, to read his favorite book, to take his temperature and whisper prayers over him.  The reality is that my mom was taking wonderful care of him, and I was praying to a God who doesn’t care where I pray.  But to me, I was abandoning my child in his time of need. I was selfishly choosing time away over my duty and obligation as a mother.

So why didn’t we just stay home? Or come home early? Did I want to do that? Definitely.  But I had to stop and realize that what I was doing over the weekend was even more important than what I could have been doing for my child.  If you are a believer, if you try and do things God’s way, then you know His idea of priorities are lined up like this. Your relationship with Him, then your spouse, then your kids and then everyone else.  I could not get a peace about abandoning that priority.  I wanted my husband to feel that his rightful place is 2nd to God. Not just saying it, but actually showing him.  Because so many times as a  mother to young children, I am not able to do that.  I am either dealing with pressing, immediate issues – like puke on the carpet or toddlers sinking their teeth into siblings.  Or I am so tired and selfish that I put him off, again.

So I stayed, he did offer to bring me home several times.  I would cry and pray and God would say “I can take care of Foster.”  Oh…really? Sorry God, here I thought that if I wasn’t constantly in control of the things around my children that they would meet a terrible demise.

Turns out, we did have a great time, we connected and we shared and we showed one another that we are thankful that God brought us together.  I agree with my husband, he always tells me, “We’re a team right?”

We are a team. Thankfully, we have the greatest coach and leader, the glue that sticks us together is our Savior. Without Him, we would not have made it to 9 years.

March!

homeschooling, imagination, memories March 2, 2011 1 Comment

I love Spring!!! I don’t care what the calendar says, it feels like Spring so to me – it’s Spring!

Lots of good things happen in March.  Like today is Theodor Geisel’s birthday! You may know him as Dr. Suess, he was an amazing man.  I read his biography about a year ago and it was very interesting.  I couldn’t believe he never had children of his own.  It just goes to show that even if someone has no children of their own, they can make a huge difference in the lives of other people’s children.
In honor of his birthday, we are reading all the books of his that we have on our shelf.  Oh and we were inspired by this passage from One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish…

From near to far
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.
These yellow pets
are called the Zeds.
They have one hair
up on their heads.
Their hair grows fast…
so fast, they say,
they need a hair cut
every day.

Choices

abortion February 2, 2011 Comments: 2

Just a couple of weeks ago, our nation recognized a “Sanctity of Human Life” day. I have had many thoughts and emotions running through my head about this issue recently. 

I really don’t know how to put what I am feeling into words, other than every child is a blessing. I do not believe in any situation that abortion is the right choice. I don’t believe it should be a choice at all.

I did not always feel that way though. My beliefs were much different.  In fact, I was probably considered quite the little feminist when I was younger.  I have always taken up for the underdog.  I have always wanted to lift up and protect the section of humanity who can’t defend themselves. But somehow, in my growing up years, I was exposed to a side of abortion and “a woman’s right to choose” in a way that made the “choice” more important than the child.

My mother did take me to a Baptist church as a young girl and through my teen years. It was so small I wasn’t involved in any part of the church outside of showing up for the services.  I certainly never read my Bible, attended youth, or youth retreats. 

Remember “latch-key” kids?  Well, I was one of those.  I came home from 2nd grade on and spent each afternoon from about 3-5:30pm by myself until my parents returned home from work.  I was an only child until I was 15.  That’s a lot of hours of coming home and looking for guidance on things.  Unfortunately, I did find a mentor/mother.  Her name was Oprah.  You got it, I would come home and call my mom, tell her I was in and was going to work on my homework (big fat lie).  Then I would get a snack and settle in with my wisdom teacher.  The best thing about her was she was always willing to teach me about things that other adults wouldn’t talk to me about. She showed me so much respect and offered me all sorts of resources so that I could keep being informed about her beliefs by reading books she recommended.  It was a long, fruitful relationship.  Many, many times I would write her quotes and defend her stance on issues with my peers.  Abortion, was one of those issues.  She really didn’t like to actually say “abortion” but she would rather talk about women. How they had been oppressed for so many years, how a man should never get to decide what a woman does with her body.

It took many, many years before my eyes were open.  The lies that had been buried in my heart had very deep roots.  By the time I had gotten married and started having my own children, I was involved actively in my church, in women’s Bible studies, in the Word.  The Bible shed so much light on the vast amount of lies by which I had been molded. 

Specifically, a “woman’s right to choose” is a twisted manipulation in the worst sense.  We as humans, man or woman are not the Author in which we have the right to “edit” life.  God has a plan.

                        For My thoughts are not your thoughts, 
                        Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord
                        For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
                        So are My ways higher than your ways,
                        And My thoughts than your thoughts.
                                                                              Isaiah 55:8-9

I spent many, many years on the wrong side of this issue.  I defended a “woman’s right to choose” so well that my heart grieves now.  What if I unwittingly planted a seed that when faced with a crisis pregnancy a young woman decided to kill her own child because of something I said?  I have had to ask God’s forgiveness for all I said or did.  He is so gracious that I feel He has not only forgiven me but given my husband and I so many blessings of our own.  I also have had the opportunity to support our local Pregnancy Resource Center.  I pray that for the rest of my life I will continue to stand firm and strong against this crime against humanity. 

Some who read this may still have the wool pulled over their eyes.  You may be saying to yourself, some of the classic arguments.  What if the woman is raped?  And to that I would say, just recently, within  our own church family, this situation arose.  A couple in our church were the “grandparents to be” of a baby who was conceived when the biological mother was raped.  The potential adoptive parents of this baby were so excited to be getting this baby.  They didn’t care the baby was another race.  They didn’t care if a violent act had conceived the child.  That was going to be there baby, and our friend’s grandbaby.  They had a baby shower, fixed up their nursery, traveled several states to be there at the birth.  They held their precious baby in their arms!  But, the birth mother changed her mind.  She decided to keep the child.  A little girl.  Who will now be raised in completely different circumstances than she would have known.  A child who will laugh and grow, who could become someone famous.  Or she could live in poverty.  Either way, she has a life.  A proponent of abortion would have you believe that no one would want that little girl when she was first conceived.  That would be their argument.  But they are wrong, she is wanted.  She is loved.  And she is worth just as much as anyone. 
      
                                  Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
                                  Before you were born I sanctified you;
                                  I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
                                                                           Jeremiah 1:5

Color-blind

Grandad, memories January 17, 2011 Comments: 3

The ways in which I was introduced to race and racism in my life have been interesting.  It’s actually one of those things that I can remember in detail, well, more detail than I do other things.  The only reason I can give is from a very early age I remember feeling those “injustice” feelings.  I have talked in other posts about this, as it related to child abuse.

My dad was born in Morocco, Africa.  He is considered “white” although I got my olive skin, dark hair and eyes from him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know many details of his adoption.  Basically, he was adopted by my Grandfather Drew and his wife when he was a toddler.  He has mentioned that possibly his birth parents were French because he was speaking a little French.  But he was being taken care of by nuns there and that is a common language there.  My Grandfather was an ambassador for the US and so my dad and his younger sister Eileen spent several of their formative years living in Africa.

When my dad would tell me about his childhood experiences in Ghana, and Africa in general, I was fascinated.  I had been born in South Carolina, lived in Alabama and TN. I had traveled to Oregon to visit my Grandfather and possibly been to Florida, but other than that the deep South is all I knew (know).

When I was around 8 or 9 years old my dad had a friend from Africa stay for a visit at our home.  I wish I could spell his last name, but I know his first name was Sunday.  He was very memorable to me because, first of all, he had the darkest skin I had ever seen in my whole life. He was almost shiny. And he had this weird accent. You know, nothing like we have here in East Tennessee.

Here is what I remember the most about Sunday, his kindness.  He was like 7 ft tall (maybe not) but he would crouch down and look in my eyes and he brought me a gift.  It was a rock.  Did you get that? Yeah, a rock with little eyes and mouth decorated on it.  I loved it.  I named the rock Friday. For years I would tell people “I named him Friday, because a man named Sunday gave him to me on a Saturday.”

That was one of my great experiences with people who didn’t look like me.  But unfortunately, my mom’s dad (Papaw) whom I spent a lot of time with, would use derogatory names for people of other races and would categorize people by how they looked and not who they were as people.  It made me livid as a teenager. I even wrote an article in my school paper about Civil Rights and MLK Jr. (I’ll post it if I ever find it in my garage.)

Now that I am older, my Papaw passed away almost 9 years ago, I can understand that he was really just saying what had been said in front of him.  He had been formed by those negative thoughts and words he had heard his whole young life.

I don’t think people really get what Martin Luther King Jr. did.  Yes, he was a Reverend.  But the power that was his, the opportunities, trials and achievements that came to him were from the same God that we have access to today.  Dr. King was able to change so much for our country.  He had the right ideas, he had the passion, he had the determination.  But he would not have had the success that he had without God being in it.

I challenge you to read I Have a Dream to your children. Read it to yourself.  And take time to thank God for using Dr. King to get His message across.  God is love.  We don’t have to be color-blind. We only need to recognize the color of the Blood.  Without it, we are all the same.

Because you say. ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ — and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked…
                                                                                         Revelation 3:17

Wife vs. Mother

marriage, priorities January 11, 2011 Comments: 2

There we are. Aren’t we cute? And young? And thin? Well, time passes, and with it comes all those ups and downs of life that you can expect.  Job changes, home changes, addition of children, loss of parents or grandparents. I am proud that we have been married for 8 years (9 this March). I love my husband.  This past New Year’s Eve was the anniversary of when we met 10 years ago. It’s a good story, I’ll have to share it with you soon, probably around anniversary time. 

What’s on my mind today, though, is this – being a wife vs. being a mother.  I have struggled with this for almost 7 years.  I know what kind of wife I should be, how biblically I am to put my husband first, second only to God.  We did some great pre-marital counseling where we talked all about our love languages and how hard it would be once we added children to our little family of 2.  So I really can’t say that I don’t know.  However, it’s kind of like losing weight. It seems to be a simple equation right? Eat less + exercise more = nice body. Well, plug in marriage variables. Affection + respect = happy hubby.

So why is this so hard? Of course, just like with weight loss, there can be many different roadblocks.  Here are a few things that I think get in the way of the equation factoring out well. 

1) Kids…their needs are immediate and never-ending, their responses instantly rewarding, they are extremely forgiving.
2) Time…again, it’s filled with kids or housework or bill paying or blogging
3) Resources…for dates, for vacations, for lingerie, for gifts. When resources are limited you have to make an extra effort to connect.
4) Energy…ummm I’m tired. A lot.
5) Desire…I desire my husband, but at the end of the day what I desire more is just sleep and food and QUIET.

So there it is, all my excuses.  I am reading a book now called Intimate Issues.  I am hoping to get some inspiration on how I can keep my husband higher on my priority list.

I want him to know how much I love him.  How much I appreciate how hard he works for our family and what a great daddy he is, how he makes me laugh and helps me come back to earth from my living in the clouds ideas. 

Mostly, I want us to look like this in a few years…