Wandering thoughts........

Good afternoon!! It is a beautiful afternoon, I'm sure it's hot, but I have yet to venture outside!! Hannah and Jonah are quietly sleeping, and Noah is laying quietly in his bed. He says he can't sleep, but if he lays there long enough I just bet he might fall asleep!! I am sitting here in my new favorite spot, beside the back window! We got a bird feeder a couple of weeks ago, and while it might not be a big deal to most, it has been fun for us!! We all love to watch the birds come and eat, some fight over the good, but most just take their turns! I told Jarrod we are the new happening place in our neighborhood.....at least for the birds!! Birds are pretty amazing creations!! They haven't a care in the world!! Just fly here and there and their needs are provided!! I think we, as Christians, can learn a lesson from them!! They always have food, although they don't know where it will come from......God provides!! The beauty that they are, some with such bright colors! They don't do anything to "fix" up, they are just beautiful the way God created them!! Us women could learn quite a bit from that!! And to hear them chirp and sing......so beautiful!! It just relaxes me!! I have my heart set on our next home which will include property for multiple reasons!! I'm looking forward to being able to be close in nature, I feel so close to God when I'm in nature, and for right now having these birds somewhat close to me brings that feeling to me!! I just feel a sense of peace!!

Speaking of peace, that was our devotional for this morning! I'll be quite honest, I have NO IDEA of how to homeschool or how this whole experience is going to go, but we are going to do it, and I'm quite excited!! I've decided that it will be best for us to "ease" into this, not do it all at once!! So we started off this morning with a couple of songs.....Trust in the Lord and Rejoice in the Lord!! I love to hear the children sing, especially songs to God!! Then we read about peace and talked about it....how we should have that in our house!! There have been so many times that we have done devotionals, with seemingly no "listening ears" on, only to have them remind me of that particular thing a few days later!! So they are listening even when they are fidgiting!! God is reminding me of this!! I sat down with Hannah first and we worked on her letter writing!! Still have a bit to go, but one day at a time! Jonah and I worked on letter recognition....again a ways to go, but we're going to do this!! Noah and I did a spelling test and read some of his chapter book from the library!! He didn't really know what he was getting into when he checked it out, so it's a bit overwhelming with all the words for him!! So we are taking turns reading the pages!! I'm so proud of him and his yearning to learn!! It is hard hearing the others in the background playing, but we will find our balance!! God wouldn't have called me to this if He wasn't going to walk through it with me!! Thank you Lord!!

Had a great visit with my friend Kelley and her little blessing, Laney!! Kelley was so awesome to bring her Rainbow vacuum cleaner over (I'm out of bags, lol!!), and even vacuumed for me(that wasn't my plan for her to do it!). My floors haven't been vacuumed in 3 weeks.....I know, I know, gross!! But now they are all nice and clean and it smells so good!! I baked while they were here, so we had some chocolate, chocolate chip muffins, and I just finished our surprise muffins filled with apples!! I have been in such a baking mood lately, and it's all healthy, yeah! God had such a great surprise for me today!! I needed to run to the store to pick up some laundry detergent, yes 5 of us in a house = a lot of laundry (especially when you have little ones that feel the need to change a few times a day)!! Kelley had some detergent that she couldn't use and brought it to me!! To some this may seem like nothing, but was a huge blessing to me!! It was just a small reminder that God supplies our needs always!! We may never know how this need may be met, but I've learned to quit trying to figure it out and just trust that God will take care of things!! Oh, the childlike faith that my children have!! They will never hear mommy say that we have nothing to eat, they may not like it, but we will always have food to eat.....and they know it!! Us adults could learn so much from that faith!!

I started to go back through some of my notes from past teachings, some of them from 2007!! I've always loved to take notes, mostly because if I write it down, I will remember better! I almost never go back over them, but just wanted to today!! So I wanted to share a few random points that I came about!! These are scriptures, so some things to go along with scriptures!! Like I said they are random, but some completely jumped off the page at me....so here goes:

-We need to know God and not the situation. We must understand His heart instead of understanding the situation.

-We need to see ourselves as Caleb and Joshua. They didn't see themselves, they saw God. The reason they saw things differently is b/c of the time they spent with God.

- We are to speak the word of God over our family, community and world. Alot of times we just speak what we think.

- We may not see the fruits right away, but we need to plant the seeds. (so true of our children and sowing into them)

- We are not here to feel good, but to conquer.

- We have been working on the "doing", rather than the "being".

These are just a few things that jumped out at me!! I felt the need to share some scriptures that God put on my heart to pray over my children and our family! I like to pray them outloud as I feel it stirs something in the atmosphere in our home!! The angels can hear when I speak outloud, therefore, going to work on our behalf. So here they are: Eph 5:1-2, Eph 5:10-11, Eph 5:15-16, Eph 6:1-3, Eph 6:10, Phil 1:9, Phil 1:20-21, Phil 2:3-4, Phil 2:14-15, Prov 28:14.......These are just the few that I have right now! There are so many WONDERFUL scriptures to pray over your family, in fact, a whole book full!! God has me writing these in a journal and I love to pray them over the children while they are sleeping!!

Thanks for letting me be long winded and getting all this out!! My goal in this blog is to be real in my life and walk with Christ and my family!! I in no way have all the answers and don't do the right things all the time. Someone once told me that they enjoy me being real and it's encouraging to them, so that's my desire that I can somehow inspire other moms and to encourage!! After all, we are called to love one another and edify and that's one thing that is so strong on my heart!! One more thing, lol!! I have been asking God for a long time to help me with my patience with my children. I know, me not be patient, hahaha!! Today has been a great day, even amongst the chaos of my house, after I spent a long time organizing toys on saturday, lol!! I have not yelled at my children at all today, woohoo!! This isn't always they case, I'm just learning, that there is no reason to get all angry at them and yell. I sure never liked being yelled at as a child, I don't know as an adult!! So I feel this is a big accomplishment!! Does it mean I'll never yell or get angry at them again.....probably not, but we are getting closer to being the person that God created me to be!! Thank you Lord!! Blessings to you all today!!