Here are some pics of my god kid's in thier outfits

Here is a pic of my godson in his outfit I made him for OUR b-day this was our b-day party this day.
This outfit the top is called 'Summer Breeze Halter' by a lady on Crochetville by the name of crochetbycharlene. The skirt is basically the same pattern as the top but it also has shorts underneath which I got from a blog called 'Momma Wear'. I just loved the way Sierra is posed in this pic so I had to post it.
Here is my 4 yr.old god daughter Lucy striking a silly pose in this pic in her outfit.
This pic is too cute of Bernie and Lucy together so I had to post it. He looks handsome in his sunglasses don't he.
I just love his smile in this pic, he saw me standing at the bottom of the steps and he gave a big smile so I took the pic. I had so much fun and I have so many more pics but I can only post five lol.

Church

I love church! That is why on a day like today when I have to stay home because of sickness, I feel rather bummed. I would much rather be with the assembly of the saints, worshiping God together, learning and encouraging one another.

God designed one church as it tells us in Ephesians 4:4-6 "There is one body and one spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." Christ is in charge of the church and the one who started it. "He is also the head of the body,the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything." Col. 1:18 You can check out how it was started in the 2nd chapter of Acts. The last verse (47) says "And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved." The church is made up of people all over the world who worship God and obey what He tells them in the Holy Bible. Jesus prayed that His church would have unity in John 17:21 "That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me."

Here are some of the things that I love about church:

  • We are family! I have a loving physical family but I am so thankful that in addition to that I have a much larger christian family. They each care about me and I care about them. We are there to help and serve each other. "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with he saints, and are of God's household." Ephesians 2:19
  • We praise God together! I love being able to go to church and sing and pray together and be able to tell God how much we love Him. Although we can sing and pray on our own, there is something very encouraging and inspiring about doing it as a group. (And you can't have 4 part harmony by yourself!) "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord." Eph. 5:19
  • We learn together! I love to study the bible by myself but it is also very helpful to study with others. Everybody has different perspectives that lead to different insights, when we share them together we can all learn more. A neat thing about the congregation I am a part of is the fact that many different men preach and teach. There is a group of Elders as well as other well grounded christian men that take turns leading. This leads to many different insights and styles which I appreciate very much. "And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to breaking of bread and to prayer." Acts 2:42
  • We remember Christ together! Jesus died for us, he deserves to be remembered and thanked for the sacrifice He made. Every week we take communion that reminds us of the suffering He went through for us so that we could have salvation and be His Body. " And when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood: do this, as often as yo drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." 1 Corinthians 11:24-26
  • We encourage each other! That is one thing we most certainly cannot do by ourselves and something that we desperately need. There are times when everybody gets tired and maybe a little down and we need encouragement. We need to go to church so that we can encourage others and be encouraged too! "And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near." Hebrews 10:24-25
  • We are a body! Christ is our head and he has one body and we are that body. We need each other and we need to spend time together and get to know one another so that we can truly work together. Last month I cut my left thumb (my dominate hand) and cut part of the tendon so I had to wear a splint for 3 weeks that greatly restricted my mobility. Wow, did I ever miss my thumb. I could hardly write, wash dishes, button clothes, etc! It is the same way when someone that is a part of the Body of Christ is missing. We miss them terribly, we simply cannot work as well without them. "For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ , and individually members one of another." Romans 12:4-5

I love Christ's church and I hope you do too, or if you are not a part of the church I hope this will motivate you to find out about what you are missing!

Calm and Compassionate children

I recently finished reading the book "Calm and compassionate children, a handbook" by Susan Usha Dermond. It is a book that I would recommend parents reading. It had a lot of neat stuff in it that really makes you think. There are some things that I dd not agree with and would watch out for. There was some new age feeling undertones in part of it and she seemed to think as long as you prayed or had faith in something that it was all right even if it wasn't God.
Here are some of the things that she said are important for having calm and compassionate children:
  • Have routines and special traditions. Kid's thrive on routine, it helps them to stay well balance and not have to worry about what is coming next in life. Special traditions or celebrations are something that they really look forward to and remember for a long time. Special traditions do not have to be at all expensive it is just something that you put meaning too. Something that I have started since reading the book is singing to wake my kids up, I have been singing songs like "Oh what a beautiful morning", "Good morning, good morning, good morning" and "It's a happy day". It has helped us all to start the day in a better mood.
  • Spend time in Nature. Everything in nature is given to us by God and He has made it beautiful. It helps our children if they can really appreciate that gift. Something we enjoy doing is finding special, beautiful things that God has made and telling the rest of the family about it and all going to see it. She encourages you to really take the time to see and hear and smell the things in nature. Something else that has been fun for us this summer is identifying wildflowers using a handbook.
  • Reading. Reading can evoke emotions and imagination and creativity in a way that movies are unable to. Be sure to have good books that will lead your children right. Reading aloud is important for kids to gain a real love of reading.
  • Pets or special toys. This is something we are lacking in as we own no animals. She says that pets help to really teach children compassion for others. She thinks stuffies or dolls can do that in some ways too. My kids do get to be around pets at their grandparents but maybe I should get them a cat like they would like.
  • Good thinking. She labels this "High mindedness". She is talking about prayer, praise (to God and others) and just thinking the best about others and situations. You can help your children by always noticing aloud the good and beautiful things around you. She does recommend shielding young children from violent news, movies and things like that. Remember to spend time with your children "counting your many blessings" and be sure not to be an example of a complainer!
  • Good Music. She recommends using calming music if your children are ever uptight about a situation. I have yet to consciously try this but it sounds like it would work. She recommends bluegrass or band music to get your kids going and active, and she doesn't recommend rock music.
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  • Outlets for Physical Energy. Kids are not made to be still all the time. They need to get out and play and really use up some energy so that they can be calm and quiet at other times. My kids love just riding bikes around the lane, building forts out in the woods and many other things that wear them out. This doesn't need to be structured in fact it is good if it is not, they just need to be able to play.
  • Concentrating on Calmness. She talks about the need to think about being calm and to work towards that goal. To have self-control something which is a fruit of the spirit and is very necessary for our day to day life but which is also lacking in many people.
  • Silence. This is one thing that I really enjoyed reading about because this has been something I have always felt was important. I have never enjoyed being in a place that has background noise going. Some people like to have the TV or radio going all the time and just visit while it is going. She really recommends limiting your time with media going. Also have a time set aside that is for being quiet. At our house we have a hour and a half rest time each day where everybody is supposed to be silent whether they are sleeping or not. It has been very helpful for our family to be able to be ready for the afternoon and evening.
  • Faith. If children don't have a faith in a God who cares for them, is watching over them and will help them to have the strength they need for each day, imagine how much harder it would be for them to be calm and compassionate when they face adversity. God is the answer to all our problems.
  • Environment. Children are precious, tender, very mold able people. We need to be sure that they are not exposed to things that will mold them in the wrong direction. That is why I chose to homeschool, strictly limit TV watching, feed them healthy and low sugar foods and keep a very close eye on who they associate with.

I really did enjoy this book and recommend reading it as there is way more in there than I touched on. She has practical ideas for implementing each of the things mentioned.





Breakfasts at our house



Breakfast is an important meal at our house. It is something that we don't skip and one that helps us to get the energy we need to have a productive morning. Growing up we would always eat breakfasts together as a family (It was a time when we would often eat leftovers such as spaghetti or cold pizza). Though in my family now we don't eat supper leftovers, it still is a family meal. At this point in our life my husband doesn't open his office until 9 am (though he likes to get there earlier) and he has a short commute, even when he had to be there at 8 and drove for 20 minutes we would still eat as a family.
For breakfast Ken prefers to have some protein (meat, eggs, cheese or peanut butter) and I have always tried to have healthy and economical things to eat so that pretty much ruled out cold cereal and other pre-made breakfast items. So I make breakfasts from scratch, but as I don't like to get up at dawn and also want to do my devotions time first the things that I make need to be pretty time efficient.
Here is a list of some of the things we have for breakfast:
  • Fried or scrambled eggs and toast with peanut butter and jam. (The toast is usually from homemade bread or sometimes from bread we buy at the day old bread store.)
  • French toast (made with homemade bread)
  • Eggs and Biscuits with jam.
  • Homemade yogurt and homemade granola
  • Biscuits and gravy (usually made from hamburger leftover from tacos or something like that.)
  • Breakfast burritos ( I will often use up leftover baked potatoes, cut up, in the eggs)
  • Pancakes (my easy recipe is below) with peanut butter and syrup
  • Eggs and Homemade hash browns or fried potatoes. (The Pampered Chef chopper works great to cut up potatoes for hash browns.)
  • Muffins, cinnamon rolls and cinnamon raisin bread we will also make the day before and then warm up and eat with eggs.
  • Waffles and Danish Puff are other things we like but they take a while so we mostly have them on Saturdays or holidays.
  • Yogurt and fruit smoothies and fresh fruit or applesauce are other things that we will add to our breakfasts.

Here is the recipe for pancakes which I made this morning.

  • 1 cup flour ( I grind my wheat and use all whole wheat flour, white flour tastes fine though as well but is not as good for you or as filling.)
  • 1 teaspoon soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 cup milk (I usually use dry milk-1/3 c. dry milk and 1 c. water)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon oil

Mix the dry ingredients first and then add the wet ingredients and stir just until mixed. Fry as normal (I use a cast iron skillet and I put a little oil in at first put then I don't add any more. Fry on medium/low.
This is an easy recipe to memorize as it just takes pretty much one of everything. You can double or triple it easily too. I usually make a triple batch which is almost double what our family needs and so we have leftovers on another day.

I am always on the lookout for more neat breakfast ideas so if you have one that is not listed but is pretty easy, economical and good for you, please comment and tell me about it.

SERVE



"You my brothers were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve one another in love." Gal. 5:13
This has been my kids memory verse for Wednesday night class this month. So it got me thinking about it as well. Tonight I had the opportunity to teach the teenage girl's class and so I decided to teach on the subject of serving as well. (We were asked to make a bulletin board decoration so we used our study to do that) The bible has a lot of verses that express the importance of serving, Matt 20:26-28 tells us "It is not to be this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." If we want the best than we need to be servants of others. Jesus is the great example of that.
Thinking on this subject has been very convicting for me. I know I serve some, I serve my family- my kids and my husband but yet they also serve me. I serve some at church but something I struggle with is really seeing the needs of others and serving them. So often I am just wrapped up in my own world or make excuses that I have so much to do already that I miss opportunities to serve. My goal is to truly work at being a servant of all.
"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 15:58