New Braces!

And so we enter the world of braces! 

DA is the first, so we'll see what happens with the other two children.  We've decided to wait on braces for all of them until each of them have their wisdom teeth extracted.  DA had impacted wisdom teeth, so in December it was time to get those removed and the next step was braces.

Today we discovered that he will "only" spend ONE Christmas not able to eat Christmas candy.  His reply, "It's alright!  I'd rather have straight teeth!"  LOL

Peace and Quiet

After a long, busy, rainy, frustrating day, I'm in my bed next to my sleepy hubby.  I have the radio playing our favorite station   (click the link and listen) and all is quiet.  

The dishes have been done, for the most part--except the hot casserole dish still on the stove.  It can wait until tomorrow.  The stove, counters and table have been wiped and the clean dishes put away.  These are the children's chores each meal time.  It continues in a seemingly never ending round.  One would figure that since it is predictable, there wouldn't be much fuss.  It's expected, so what's the big deal?  Well, amazingly it is a big deal.  I hear things like, "Why am I always the first one everyone looks at when it's time to get the kitchen chores done?"  To which I usually reply, "Because everything hinges on whether or not the clean dishes are put away."  They are finding that their jobs are integral to the greater running of the household.  Everyone is important.  

Most of the time there is peace, some teasing, laughter and play.  Other times there are melt downs where Mom or Dad have to step in and nip attitudes in the bud.  I'm sure, dear readers, things are much the same in your homes.  

More recently, however, our home has taken on a challenging time where one of our children is showing increasingly more depression, anxiety, rigidity, judgement on everyone around them and the world, stoicism, loosing track of time, staring off in to space for a time instead of doing school work, disappearing to the basement to just sit and mull over the ills of the world and the list continues.  

These idiosyncrasies have only surfaced more since my husband was saved in December.  We are dumbfounded and lost at times.  This truly has thrown us and our other two children in to a tailspin wondering where the other child gets these "off the wall" hurtful thoughts in response to the harmless banter between them, or something this child has mulled over from 2+ years ago.  Forgiveness is a foreign concept, mercy and grace as well.

This young person has been counseling with our pastor, but we've become keenly aware that we need to take said child's treatment to another level.  (No judgement please)  We need a diagnosis so we know how to better help this young person.  

If we come to your mind, would you please shoot a couple prayers up on our behalf?  We've had an impression that something like this was there all along, but the incidents now are too frequent to shake them off as coincidence any longer.  

Needless to say, sitting here in my bed listening to praise music is just the kind of peace that this tired Momma needs for the sake of quieting my soul.  Today has been busy and stressful.  Tomorrow looks to be the same, but in a different way.  

With all of this we continually praise the Lord!

He gives us more than "WE" can handle 

just so we can lean in to Him MORE!  

Warmer Weather

I'm loving the warmer weather as of late.  The flowers are starting to come up and my hostas are beginning to make their appearance.  I have plans to thin them out, putting half of them on the opposite side of the back porch.  We took out barn stones and these evergreen bushes a couple years ago and after amending the soil and trying to decide what to do with the area, decided to put the hostas there.

The picture above shows the area, sort of, behind the two chairs to the left.  My bee balm is already there, but it's time to add more plants.  :)

In the front yard, plans are continuing for our new sidewalk.  We need to get a load of gravel to line the bottom, then fill in the sides with the forms, then start mixing concrete.  After the sidewalk is in, we'll add more top soil, then start planting some other perennials.  I'd love to line the sidewalk with Spring flowers and lavender.  I'm quite fond of lots of perennial flowers.

My daughter has asked to plant some flowers this year as well.  She is doing marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, and daisies.   I'm not sure where we'll put those this year, but we'll find a place. :0)

At some point this summer, we plan to replace the fascia and repaint the trim on our house.  It's a slow process, but it will be done nonetheless.

It has also come to my attention that we need to rethink watering the garden and how we do it.  When our well went dry, we needed to feed a hose through the laundry room window to attach it to the spigot for the washing machine.  This year, I'm not sure what my husband will decide to do, but installing a spigot on the outside of the house under the laundry room window would be a very welcome idea.  

I'd love to have all of this stuff done by the end of July.  That way when canning season comes around, we can concentrate our efforts on that instead of home improvement projects.  

This morning, though--I think I'm going to get my work clothes on and go do some raking after I have my yogurt.  The temperature is at 50 Degrees right now and the sun is shining.  What a perfect time to get some raking done!  :0)  I'd venture to say some prayer time while outside is a given.

Beginning Preparations

God has such a sense of humor with His creation!  Since we purchased a "new to us" Suburban, it has a reflective quality around the bottom of it and a robin has found it very bothersome!  How dare that other robin show itself like that!  So, it pecks, poops and flutters all over the reflective area.  It gives Mr. G and I quite a chuckle.  We really don't mind because quite honestly, the robin will eventually "get a clue" and go away to do their own thing, eat worms, build a nest and get on with it's life.  

Our youngest son, however, thinks of things a bit differently.   He was trying to scare it off by shooting his Air Soft gun in the air.  Not hitting the bird, but just trying to scare it off.  After trying to convince him that the robin would find it a futile pursuit--trying to fight the robin in the reflection--he/she would leave and get on with their life, he wasn't convinced.  He was more bothered by the poop on the running boards and the bird pecking at the vehicle than just letting the robin decide for itself that the robin in the reflection wasn't so bothersome after all. 

That was yesterday.

Today, I sent my oldest out to see if he could video tape the robin.  The above video is what the robin has been doing.  However, today has been a bit different.  The robin is taking more time away from the vehicle, turning away from the robin in the reflection and just beginning to settle down and accept the reflection.

(seems that each of us could do that, huh?)

...not waxing philosophic--just glean what you will...

Anyway, all of this hilarity has occurred throughout our daily preparations for our first 

camping trip in 8 years.  

There's more, believe me!  

...this was just one instance of hilariousness...

Blessings--New Pictures Added

Crocuses popping up through the leaves.

We've been going through some very roller coaster like times lately, so it helps to focus on the blessings.

For those of you who do not know, we had a house fire that started in our basement in March of 2005. 

This is what our basement looked like. 

God took this mess and not only blessed us through it, but also the lady who bought our house.  Everything was fixed up nicely for her with a new furnace, hot water heater, electrical, duct work and everything was painted fresh for her.

Our prayers were answered!  

During that time, we'd lived in a campground in a camper so that our children would have room to ride their bikes and play.

We started out in an 18 foot camper with 3 kids and 2 dogs.  Yes, things were cramped!  We traded up to a 35 foot 5th wheel and spent 4 more months in it.  Needless to say, we were ready to move in to our house, which seemed so roomy and spacious when we first moved in.  

During the past 8 years my husband has had no desire whatsoever to do any more camping.  He didn't even want to consider a camper unless it was a drive-able Winnebago type RV.  He was so very disgusted with the thought of camping that we just stayed in motels whenever we went somewhere and didn't have friends to stay with.

Last year when we went to the end of the school year field trip to Columbus Zoo and the Creation Museum, we stayed in motels.  Plus we left our dogs behind with some good friends.  He wasn't too thrilled with doing that, but they were left in good hands. (He's attached to our doggies. )  Couple that with the cost of the motels and he was newly convinced that we probably should consider a camper.

We started looking, but not too seriously.  We just wanted to check prices and see what we needed to start saving for.  We realize that both of our parents are getting up in years and we needed to go see them, even if they did live thousands of miles away.  The best way for us to do that was to drive and camp.  

The Lord had His hand in this so much so that we just could not believe it!

About a month or two ago, a friend from church approached my husband about a camper.

"Huh?!" said my husband.  "Have you been talking to my wife?"  Our friend said, "No, should I?"  And the Lord worked out the details through my husband who didn't want to go camping for 8 long years.

I will say that the Lord works in mysterious ways.  His ways are not our ways, so when this camper was literally dropped in our laps, we decided to accept it without question, even though we didn't have a good vehicle to tow it with, yet.  We figured if the Lord wanted to give us a camper that He would provide the good quality vehicle to tow it with where ever we needed to go.

What an undeserved blessing this is for us!  The kids are smiling at the thought of making more memories, going camping, and enjoying our family.

When our friends delivered it, I was gasping because I didn't realize it was so HUGE!

The front of the camper complete with working stove, oven, microwave and full size camper refrigerator.

To the right is the shower and just below, the potty.  (I know...something you always wanted to know.)  LOL

Turning around looking toward the back of the camper--behind me is the table.  The first closet to the right is a pantry or linen closet, then there are clothes closets.  To the right is the bathroom and, of course, the bedroom in the back.

The bedroom, of course.  We bought ourselves a new mattress, so our old mattress went out to the camper.  

God bought us a camper.  It was only done through Him.  Just about everything we'd been looking for in a camper was given to us.  Isn't that just like God?  :0)

God is so good!

What an awesome blessing!

Good Days

1 Peter 3:10-11  

"For Whoever desires to love life and see good days, 

let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;  

(11)  let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it."

Amen!

Home School Group Performance Night

They're doing a fabulous job learning how to play the piano!  They've had lessons for about two-and-a-half years.  

Lifestyle of Learning

Today was a day of dissecting a cow's heart, piano and cleaning up outside.  Full days...wonderful days!

They decided to use a kitchen knife to cut the cow's heart.

 It's definitely not for dinner!

Adding up his driving hours and Biscuit decided to jump up on his lap for a snuggle.  He's got just a few more hours to drive until he can take the behind the wheel test for his license.

A full life of learning, it's good.

Easter and Sundry Daily Things...

Serging more napkins.

What one child does when he has a light sensitive migraine.

Easter 2013

My apologies for not having many cohesive pictures, but this past week has ranged from sewing, to getting ready to plant seeds, cleaning, migraines and most spectacular of all--getting ready spiritually and musically for Easter.  

We enjoyed serving God musically so very much this Easter.  What a blessing singing in the bell choir and choir, filling the church with voices and bells in praise to God.  It was so difficult to not break down in to tears in thankfulness for all that the Lord has done for me.  What a breathtakingly wonderful treat for the ears!  Our church has such wonderful acoustics that everything reverberated right back at us when we sang on the stage, complete with the empty tomb right behind us.  

Praise God!

Thank you Jesus! 

1 John 4:10  

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, 

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Working...

The past 3 weeks have been spent decluttering, gathering files, scanning 80+ documents and filling them out, then sending them off for review for refinancing our house.  While my time has not been spent knitting, crocheting or sewing, my hands have still been productive getting our taxes filed and gathering papers for the mortgage company.

I don't have any pictures to share with you today due to being so busy with the paperwork, but know that I probably will not have many pictures in the few weeks to come.  I will be planting seeds, organizing, pitching and tidying things between our bedroom and my sewing room.  My husband has blessed me with a nice big wooden filing cabinet and I need to make good use of my time to get all of our files in to it and organized.  I do have quite a bit done already, but there are always things to file and put away.

I hope to get to my sewing soon now that I have a place for the files.  :0)

Until then...

Blessings,
Regina