new chapter

We have been in our new house for one month, today! When we started the process of buying this house, Brad's brother asked me, "Would you have bought this house if it was the first house you looked at?" I didn't have to think about it at all...."no!" But nearly 3 months after deciding to buy it, I really feel we are where the Lord wants us to be.

So why wouldn't we have picked this house in the very beginning? We wanted so much more; property, 4 bedrooms, lots of trees/woods, big work area for Brad, laundry room not closet. Wanted. Always wanting more. After so many months of looking, we eventually had to settle. That was how we felt back then. After spending 8 months living with other people, tho, I told my dad I would live in a dog house just to have my own place again! Did we really settle when we bought this house? I don't think so anymore. We are doing a lot of adjusting but we are very happy here! Here are some of the things we are learning to love:

School starts later (yay for sleeping in!)
But it also ends an hour later (boo for not getting home until nearly 4 o'clock)
Everyone we talk to states how good the school is
subdivision life is not what we wanted but who has time to cut acres of grass?? Not BRad!
It is a lot quieter than we thought it would be, which we like....
but the kids get bored without tons of neighbor kids to play with.
Being only 8 minutes from the interstate and lots of shopping is a huge plus compared to WV
We think we may have found a church. This is my first time ever getting involved in a church that my parents are not involved with. That's a whole 'nother post in itself!
Ryan and Abby sharing a room is going amazingly well.
Hannah having her own room was the right decision....for now.
We are learning to love "country" as found in NC. I have always said Brad and I will probably end up back in WV when we retire but I'm not so sure now!
And the biggest thing we are learning here is that God probably has different plans than we do!

We are excited for this new chapter in our lives. It's a chapter I never saw coming so I'm excited to live it and share it with the ones I love.

One year, again

Tomorrow is a big day for us. I hope I am not jumping the gun in blogging about it just 12 hours early. But, as you know, things have a way of going the opposite as we want them to so I'm still not convinced the plan won't change before tomorrow.

Anyway, if you had told me it would take us a whole year from the day we put our house on the market to get to the closing of our new house, I would have said, "forget this!" It has been a very trying year but as I sit here and think of the past year, all I can say is I'm so thankful to serve a GOd who has my best interest in mind when making things happen (or not happen) in my life. Things rarely went the way we would have planned them over the past year but somehow I know things went the way they were supposed to. Let's just review the main points from the last year:

Aug 2013-house goes on the market

Dec 2013-house sells to the first person that actually walks thru the house. Yes, it took over 3 months to get anyone inside. And she had cash.

January 2014-move out of house, move in with Grandma next door and leave for a cruise the next day.

June 2014-school is finally over so we can go to NC. FInd a house we like, finally.

Aug 2014-after months of searching, and even longer working on paperwork, we can finally close on the house!

Shew!

And I'm going to end on that note because BRad just walked in and he's been gone all week and we miss him! =)

summer

We have been in NC a week now. That is one step closer to our goal! Things are going well with the house. We've had all inspections and everything is in the works. Closing is scheduled for July 25. I like to think we will be able to get in right away but a water softener has to be added so while we can go to the house, I don't think we will be able to stay there right away. Brad is still staying in the hotel close to work since mom's house would be well over an hour commute for him. We are all pretty much tired of that! Then I think of all the military families I know who spend sometimes a year at a time away from a spouse and wonder what I'm complaining about!
Anyway, while we are stuck waiting, we are enjoying the things of summer. I have been letting the kids stay up until 10 so I have been enjoying sleeping in. There have been a couple mornings I didn't wake IP until 9!! So nice for a change. Usually when we visit grandma it is a vacation for me. She has the meals planned for the weekend, spends every minute with the kids and I relax. Since we live here for the time bring, I'm trying to be more mindful of her time and space. after all, she does have other things to do! So I buy.our own groceries, cook our food, do our laundry and so on. That doesn't mean we aren't allowed to eat anything of theirs but you know what mean!
We have been going to the free kids movies, eating lots of ice cream, catching lightning bugs, swimming and making them read, practice multiplication tables and states/capitals.
So far, so fun!

One year later

It has been one whole, very long, year since Brad first told me he wanted to seriously consider moving to NC. We had talked about it many a time before but this time he was serious. My first thought...this is a bad idea. But, per his request, I spent a lot of time in prayer asking God to show us what He wants us to do. You know, to this day, I still don't know what God wants us to do. We basically just decided to take a leap of faith and see what happens. So it took us a couple months to get the house ready to sell, it took us four months to get an offer and it has taken another 6 months (and counting) to find a house in NC. Every day I ask myself, and God, if we are doing the right thing.

And then I look at the way He has worked things out on Brad's end. Brad's boss up here moved to NC to take over an elevator company down there. Around that same time, mom and dad went to NC. Brad's boss offered Brad a job in NC from day 1. We talked about it more than once but didn't think we should. I'm not sure what suddenly made Brad serious about going but, of course, his boss was happy to hear that he wanted to! Brad's new boss up here....not so much. He asked Brad straight up, "What can I give you to make you stay here?" Nothing. So in March, Brad went down to work for him again. They are paying for his hotel, he was able to take his work truck from here and he has already been told that hopefully within a year or two, he will be supervising a crew instead of working on the crew. That is what Brad has always wanted. So on one hand I feel like God is in this move. I'm just having a hard time trusting Him right now. I feel like time is running out!

So my next decision is go to NC and stay with mom and dad when school ends (June 11) or stay here? I think going is the best choice. The only thing that has me second guessing myself is the dogs. Mom doesn't want them in the house, I can't say I blame her. I have enjoyed not cleaning their hair while we have been in grandma's. But that doesn't mean I want them banned to the dungeon, I mean basement. I'm running out of time to decide!

Thanks for listening. =)

I'll just keep trusting the Lord

I really don't have anything exciting to say. I just don't want you to think I'm dead or anything. Altho, if you have been on fb in the past hour you would know that I'm alive and well, however tired.

Things are going nowhere quick in the world of house hunting. I'm going down to look at yet another house tomorrow. I just hope I get to see it before being told it is under contract this time. The first house we were excited to put an offer on is back on the market. As we suspected, it was bought by a flipper. They probably did a few minor things like replaced the carpet and are asking about $30k more for it. The house that we did manage to put an offer on, that is a short sale, the bank decided to list it on some website for over $200k after telling us it wouldn't even appraise for what we were offering them, 50K less. Even tho they were originally only asking $165k. I just don't understand some things.

In good news, the kids have about 30 school days left. We are all counting down now. We plan to go to NC when they are free, whether we have a house or not. I'm really going to miss grandma when we move, but I won't miss living with her. And I'm sure she feels the same way.

We had a big fiasco with a bunch of meds RYan needs and the insurance company. We left the dr office with 4 prescriptions to have filled and after being told I would have to spend over $300 on them, and several hours of calling back and forth, we only got one. That was his regular inhaler that we really must have. He is having really bad allergies this spring. We can't figure out if it is just something in grandma's house or the spring time pollen and such. We also can't figure out if that is what is causing his reactive airways disease to "react" so much more than normal. Of course, since coming home, I feel like he is improved drastically and it is all in my head. She wants me to keep a log of all the time I have to use his inhaler for the next month and I've only got one so far! I should be glad for that. She also decided to prescribe Nasacort since we didn't get the prescription nasal spray she wanted us to use. He said it is helping. Anyway, we will see how it goes the next month.

Life keeps going...

We are getting ready to start week 2 here at grandma's house without Brad, again.
It really isn't that hard, work-wise. Might be easier, actually. I don't have to put as much thought into what I fix for dinner, how I sleep in the bed, or what I do during the day. But we miss his presence. The kids miss their daddy.

We are still waiting to hear from the bank about the house we want. Our realtor doesn't know if the other offer he was told about was ever actually submitted. There has to have been some rules broken by the listing agent in all this but I digress. Maybe this week we will hear something. I know one thing, I can't take much more of this! I'm gaining so much weight from what seems like endless stress eating and my face looks like one big pimple right now. Not a pretty picture.

Brad is doing well at his new job. It's the same work and same boss he worked for up here for the first 7 or 8 years. Coming into a new job on the top is not easy tho. He is having to earn the respect of these other guys and prove himself. Which doesn't make sense to me since he is way better than them. I'm being serious here. His boss down there has been begging him to come work in NC for years. He is spending a lot of time fixing things that the guys down there either did wrong or couldn't do. Work is paying for him to stay in a hotel just south of Charlotte but he has worked out of town some, going 3 hours east of Charlotte and into South Carolina to work.

And that's about my life right now.

Neighbors

When Brad and I left our house 2 months ago, we moved in with the only next door neighbor we have had in the past 10 plus years.

Our new neighbors are young but so far they have been very nice, upstanding citizens. They go to work every day, come home in the evenings and wave to us when we are out in the yard and keep there dog on a chain when it is outside (that is rare around here).

When BRad and I came home from the Buck Dynasty event last weekend, it was very late for us. Our neighbors had at least 9 vehicles crammed into the 4 space parking in front of my dear old house. PARTY!! I was so sad. I still don't really even know why it bothers me so much. I just kept thinking, "my house!"

Well, tonight, Thursday-mind you, Brad's gma brought it to my attention that they must be having a party next door again because lots of vehicles were going down the driveway. (only our 2 houses are on this street so it is noticeable) "On a Thursday?" I asked. A while later the guy came over and told us they had a "band" practicing and would try to keep the music down.

If they had the music down, I would hate for them to have it UP all night!! It was quite loud. It has been an hour now and I don't hear the music anymore so I hope they quit early and went straight to drinking. Just kidding! About the drinking part, anyway.

I must say it was very nice of him, maybe 19 years old, to come over and let us know what was going on. I would have most likely called the cops had he not. And I'm guessing he knew that. I just hate having neighbors who aren't family. Just another reason we don't want neighbors when we move!

house hunting

Well, house hunting is still going (or not going) the same. It is so hard! Our list of 'don't wants' is not long but complicated for the Charlotte area, apparently.

We are getting quite discouraging and beginning to wonder if we will ever find anything.

Our criteria:
at least 1 acre lot...
...wooded (we don't want an acre of grass to cut)
schools with at least 80% white students
no HOA's
within half an hour or so commute to CHarlotte
3br with a bonus room we can convert to a 4th br or just 4 bedrooms
A kitchen bigger than the one our other house had

That doesn't seem to complicated right?
We are also considering just buying property and putting a modular on it but that isn't working either!

SO the search continues...

living situations

I haven't updated about our current living situation or house hunting for awhile. Altho, if I am friends with you on fb, you probably know everything I am about to say. =)

Let me start by saying just how much we appreciate Brad's gma for making room for 5 people in her house. I'm sure it is just as big of an adjustment for her as it has been for us. You already know she lives about 20 steps from the house we just sold. Our two houses were built by her brother back in 1998. They are almost identical on the inside. We both built on in 2007 and added a room so they are kinda different but not much. So she has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms like we did. As soon as we knew our house was sold, she started cleaning out closets and dressers and the master bathroom to make room for us.

Now we have 5 people and all our necessities crammed in 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. So imagine a master bedroom that is 12x12 (I give you the dimensions so you realize it isn't a huge room even tho it is the master), in it is our queen size bed, 2 tall dressers and 1 long dresser. That basically leaves only a walk way. The other bedroom, I'm not sure the size but it is smaller than the master, has a full size bed (Hannah and RYan share it) and a twin mattress on the floor beside it for Abby. There are also 2 tall dressers and a long dresser in their room. The twin mattress takes up the walk way unless we stand it up. The closets couldn't hold one more piece of hanging clothes if my life depended on it!

So let's back up to Jan 8, the day we closed on the house. We still had about 5 boxes to get out of the house and the washer and dryer. We didn't hand over the keys (we forgot them at home) at closing but told the new owners that the doors were always open (don't forget we live in Buffalo), they could start moving in whenever they wanted. SO we were getting out the last of our belongings while they were bringing in the beginnings of theirs. I like to think we have a pretty good neighborly relationship with them.

Once we got everything out, we spent the rest of the day packing for the cruise and left the next morning. So we never really had time to mourn the loss of our first home. I still haven't thought about it much. I guess it will really hit us when we make it to NC.

And when is that, you ask? Your guess is as good as mine! We are going to let the kids finish school up here, which has been moved back to June 11 with all the crazy weather and water crisis. We have been searching the realtor sites and craigslist about every day for either a house or a piece of property on which to put a modular. There is something about every single property we find that doesn't fit our criteria so we are still looking. I'm hoping as soon as it gets warm down there, the market will pick up and we will have a lot more to chose from. Until then, we continue to pray for God to show us the right house or land and just help up be mindful that our wants are not that important. I try to stay focused on the fact that serving God in our new neighborhood is most important.

Cruise news

Last time I wrote we were headed to SC for our first cruise. We had a great time. So, here are some highlights and maybe lowlights for anyone interested.

Going without was kids for the first time was a good idea. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. That being said, we definitely want to take them the next time. Altho, we are hoping to go on a more kid-friendly ship next time.

There was plenty of drinking (not from us), but we never saw anyone out of control. Of course, we didn't spend any time in the bars or casino or areas that would be likely to attract drunk people. We had waiters asking us if we wanted a drink as early as 9am! But a simple shake of the head sent them on their way.

The first 24 hours after we left the port, I was dizzy and had a hard time walking on the ship. I guess that was my form of motion sickness. I never felt like I needed to throw up, so that's good. It didn't take long to hardly feel the movement.

Our room was on the first floor (which was deck 3), it didn't have a window. That was bad and good. We wished we could see out sometimes but when we were sleeping, which was often-even during the day, it was very dark and made for good naps. =)

The rooms aren't made for spending a lot of time in. Unless you pay top dollar for one. But that is ok as most people don't spend much time in their rooms.

There were family friendly shows every night. Those were the ones we went to. The comedy club had adult only shows late in the evening as well. All the shows we went to were very good.

We got a newsletter every evening that had all the next day's activities listed so we could plan ahead.

You have access to free food (sandwiches, pizza and ice cream) and drinks (water, lemonade and tea) all night. All the food is free but you have to pay for pop or alcohol. I am sad that we only made it to the formal dining room on the last night. It was a lot of fun to meet the other people at our table and the waiter.

Getting off at the Bahamas was a great experience too. The water was cold but the weather was nice for January. We want to go during the summer next time so the pool on the ship won't be so cold. The native people had all their shops set up right off the port so you had to be very persistent unless you really wanted to buy something.

Overall it was great and I would recc anyone go at least once. It was not any more expensive than a week at the beach.

Time

Well, I haven't had much time for blogging but if you are my fb friend you know plenty about my life!
Right now I'm riding shotgun next to my honey so I have a few minutes before my battery dies.
We closed on our house yesterday.  Met our new neighbors. Moved into grandma's house. And now we are almost to Charleston SC where we will board the cruise ship tomorrow.
When we get home it is time to get down to business with house/proper hunting. We have decided to stay in WV until the kids are out of school for the summer. They have misses 4 of the last 6 days so there will be make up days added to the end of the year, which puts us into June.
But at least that gives us plenty of time to find property and have a modular put on it.
That's all I've got for now. See ya in a week when I'm returning from 80+* weather.=)

I think I see a light!

THings continue to move, ever so slowly, along with the house saga. I might actually see a light at the end of the tunnel!

The buyers were not very happy when we requested more time in the house to finish a couple projects. But they agreed we could stay until Jan 10. That is the day we board the cruise ship in SC so we will actually have to hand over the keys the day before. Closing is going to be around Jan 7.

So now I have to pack things for 3 separate locations: things that can go to storage that we won't need until we move for good, things that we will only need for our cruise (summer clothes), and things that we will need in the next few months while we are next door.

You read that right...next door. We still do not have a home or anything picked out in NC. We are going to be staying with Brad's gma for awhile...awkward!! But we don't have much of a choice.

Right now she is rather excited, or appears to be, anyway. SHe has already empties drawers in our rooms, made the beds and is cleaning out the garage where the dogs will have to stay. We will see how excited she is after the 5 of us have been in her house for a few months!!

I might have said this in my lsat post but I can't remember. We have pretty much decided we want to buy a piece of property and put a modular on it. That is the only way to get what we want (a house that doesn't need a lot of work and woods). We found a piece of property with almost 4 acres that allows for modulars that we like from the internet but being so far away means we can't just go look at it after dinner one night. So pray if it is God's will, the property will still be available next weekend when we are in NC and we can fit in time to see it.

Right now I'm not feeling as emotional about this house as I will be when it is empty and we are leaving it for the last time. Eleven years is along time to spend in one house. All 3 of the kids had all their milestones in this house. It has been an amazing place for us. I will miss it. Reading a friends' blog just a few minutes ago reminded me of the things yet to come. We are getting ready to start a new, wonderful chapter and instead of focusing on the memories I feel like I am leaving behind, I can focus on the ones yet to be made! And even more importantly, the God is gracious enough to provide for us and let us live each day so we can make those memories together.

If it isn't one thing....

it's another!

Today was the day of our scheduled house inspection. This is the moment of truth for us. If something is found, it could make or break the deal.

To add to an already very stressful day, school was canceled! We all had to be out of the house by 10am. Then stay gone for 4 hours. The kids ended up staying with grandma next door.

I come home 4 hours later to find that NO ONE HAS EVEN BEEN AT OUR HOUSE!!!!

Last night I texted my realtor and asked what were the chances the guy might cancel if we get more snow. "very slim" was her answer.

Today no one has any idea where the miscommunication was. He canceled because of weather but my realtor was never contacted, therefore I wasn't. But she had confirmed with the other realtor this morning. So who knows if the other realtor even knew!

Anyway, it has been rescheduled for tomorrow. Another day I have to be gone all day.

Brad is very anxious to get this whole thing over with. He has a lot of responsibilities and this just makes things worse. Especially if she wants us out by Dec 27. I keep telling him to relax and let God be in charge. Nothing we do or don't do will change the decisions he has for us.

So maybe I'll have good news in a couple days...or maybe I won't.

Patience is not a virture of mine

The house saga continues.....and continues......and continues!

I'll start from the beginning while trying to keep this as short as possible.

We were going nowhere with selling the house. Then suddenly, after 4months of NOTHING, someone wanted to see it. The rule is that the homeowner not be present for this showing. Well, the call came in the morning and I had to have the house ready by that evening. After all day of cleaning, removing the dogs and their crib mattress bed, sweeping and mopping their room, we headed next door to Brad's gma's house.

I walked in, shut the door behind me and my phone rings...My realtor says the other realtor needs to reschedule. My heart dropped to the floor. I really wanted to cry right then. Apparently the realtor couldn't get into the first house they were going to see right down the road so she didn't even try our house. Makes no sense to me. Anyway. We rescheduled for 2 days later.

A few minutes go by. I'm putting my shoes on to start taking everyone back home when a car pulls in the driveway, followed by another. Without even thinking I said to myself, "I'm not letting these people get away." I went out and asked if they were the ones who were supposed to look at the house, told them I was the owner and I would gladly show the house to them without the realtor if they were ok with it.

Half an hour later the girl is saying, "I love it!" I looked up and whispered, "thanks, God!"

Two days later they came back with their realtor. I found out later that the realtor didn't even know they had looked at it the first night without her.

A week went by and we got an offer. It was nearly $20k less than what we were asking and CASH. That was the big game changer for us. We didn't know how much she had. All we knew is that she liked the house. But how much can you push someone who has an undisclosed amount of cash?

We went back and forth with several different counter offers and finally came to an agreement.

The next step is to have the inspection and appraisal done. We aren't in the clean until those things happen. I finally got the call tonight that inspection won't be until Dec 10. I'm not sure I can make it that long!! The real kicker is that she wants closing to be Dec 27. That leaves us less than a month to pack all our stuff and be out. Where we are going, we don't know!

Brad and I are going to NC this weekend to look at a few places but we haven't seen anything that screams "buy me!!"

The kids being in school really plays a huge factor. We don't have a specific city picked out to live in. Just anything near Charlotte. We don't want to rent somewhere, put the kids in one school for the rest of this school year and then find a house and have to move them again. We have a lot to continue praying about.

All while keeping in mind that she can still back out!

Whose kingdom are you building?

I have been thinking about this post for awhile now. Since I am not a great writer, I hope I can do it justice!

I can remember the day Brad brought me to this house to get my approval on him buying it. We were 19, engaged, and ready to start our lives together. I remember how much I disliked the house. It was too white, from floor to ceiling. It was not big enough or fancy enough. The yard was too small and close to the railroad tracks. Neighbors were too close. Nothing about it was good. But it was a property his great uncle had built just a few years prior and had been renting. He was willing to sell it to us basically out-right (not making a profit) just to get rid of it and not rent anymore. That was perfect for afore mentioned 19 year olds!

Before long we were celebrating our first Christmas in this house. And in about 7 weeks, we will be celebrating our 12th Christmas in the same livingroom.

I spent many years disliking this house. Focusing on all the things I wish we had. We were always talking about moving.

Then, probably 5 years into our time here, a former pastor of our church (not my dad) preached on building God's Kingdom. I went away feeling very convicted that I had been spending way too much time focusing on building my kingdom and not God's Kingdom. Why are we on this earth, anyway? Is it to see who can accumulate the most "stuff?" Is it to always want or need the next best things? Is it constantly wanting more? I think we all know the answer is NO! Do I even need to add: not that having things is wrong.

If we are Christians, we are here to build God's Kingdom. Our job here is heavenly. Being the hands and feet of Jesus, bringing lost souls to God, serving in His church, taking the time to raise Godly children who will follow in the building of God's kingdom.

Once I re-focused my life, different things became important to me. The negative things about our house and life became less of a problem. Moving was no longer at the top of our list. It became 'What can I do for God while he has me here?' Instead of 'how can we get away from here?'

In the past few years, our house has become a gathering place for all the neighbor kids. They have become my burden. I am convinced that they are the reason I am here.

When Brad told me he wanted to try to sell the house for a job opportunity in NC, I was very hesitant. I started thinking who will take these kids to church if I'm not here? Who will tell them that even tho their parents are in jail or just not in their lives that someone loves them and will never leave them? Who will tell them that there is hope and they can be happy. I know that God will replace us if he wants us in NC. After 3 months of not a single showing, I'm starting to think more than ever that we are where God wants us. That is very hard to hear when you want to hear something else.

We don't have to be contemplating major life changing decisions to need a re-boot. I think as moms, wives and working women we also can get into the rut of what is my real purpose here? Is this all my life is about; making meals and doing laundry, running errands and being a servant to the family? No! Our life should be all about building the kingdom of God! Yes, that includes taking care of our families and being Godly wives, mothers and workers.

So I want to ask you, whose kingdom are you building? What have you done for God lately? I hope you are focusing on God's Kingdom. It is something I have to work on every day.

From one extreme to the next

If you will remember, several years ago, Hannah went thru a very rough patch at school. She was diagnosed with ADD and ultimately we decided to make her repeat 2nd grade, even tho her teacher said she could go on. One of her main problems was her teacher. I stand by that opinion. She never came to me with any problems. I really had to pray about forgiving her and maybe myself for not seeing the issue. It was very hard. I learned 2 things from my mistakes with Hannah (mistakes have to made with one of them, right?!): Don't be afraid to speak your mind and don't wait for the teacher to make the first move.

Well, now 18 months later, we going thru a similar situation with Ryan, yet totally different! At the very first parent/teacher conference, a month into the school year, Ryan's teacher had several complaints about him not listening or following instructions (boy), making lots of noises at his desk(boy, and way to release his energy), getting off track(boy and friends)-just to name a few. She had mentioned wanting to have him tested for focusing issues a few days prior to our meeting so when I went to the P/T conf, I was ready for battle! Maybe not battle, but I prepared to state my case. Long story short, she set up a meeting with the team that works on those cases at the school.

I talked to RYan's speech teacher a few days before the meeting (about speech but we are aquaintances so I asked her opinion) and she advised I go the meeting just to see what it was about, whether we start the process or not. So that meeting was this morning.

I basically told them I had been thru the process less than 2 years ago and I totally believe Hannah has some form of ADD (she is not on medication and doing pretty well this year) but Ryan is totally not like her. He is your typical 6 yr old boy who spends a lot of time sitting in a seat in a classroom with lots of distractions. SO the case is closed unless his grades start to drop or he becomes a real problem in the classroom.

2 years ago, I couldn't get Hannah's teacher to help and Ryan's teacher is going too far, I think! I guess I am glad that his teacher has been in constant communication with me and wants to be safe rather than let it go but I'm letting it go for now!

standing

I try to pray
But I have no words to say.
My heart is aching,
Feels like it's breaking.
The things I know for sure
Are the only things that matter anymore:
My love is deep,
Yours is deeper.
The mountain is steep,
The river is deep.
But No matter where I go,
Your glory I want to show.
You promise never to leave,
To your truth I cleave.


I have never been a poet or writer of any kind. While laying in bed, searching for the right words to say to God after an emotional day, the words above just came to me in a matter of 5 minutes. I grabbed my phone and just had to record them. Right now all I am doing is standing on the promises of God.

Be who you are?

We have Netflix as our only source of tv besides the 5 main channels you can get for free. Recently they added the show "19 Kids and Counting," which follows the lives of a Christian couple who currently have 19 kids...and counting. I really admire a lot of things about the whole family. I don't think this mom, or dad for that matter, have ever raised their voices or spanked a child. I feel like I raise my voice and spank a child (not with a paddle or force every time) every 10 minutes! And I have 6 times less kids than they have! I look at them and think, how do they do that? The kids are always so helpful and encouraging to their siblings and I think how did they get them to do that? From watching the show, this is what I have gathered that helps them all do such things that seem so foreign to even myself:
Start the day and end the day in the Bible often (the whole family, not just parents)
Using the Bible as "back up" in every situation, good and bad
Frequent service projects that remind them to put others first
Very little tv, unless it is a Christian program
Lots of family time
More praise for good than shame for bad behavior

Now, I realize that even tho this is a reality show, not every minute of their lives is aired so the kids do fight, disobey and so on. They are humans and sinners.

Also, I think they have a lot of money. I could never fly to El Salvador with my oldest 10 kids to hand out tons of Christmas presents that I purchased. So I realize that their situation is different than mine, and yours, I'm sure.

I'm just saying I feel inspired by them to be better in every area of my life. We always do well with family devotions for awhile and then it fizzles out for awhile and then we start back up and fizzle out again. Life just takes over, which is no excuse.
There is just no reason their shouldn't be more families like theirs in the world, starting with mine.

Simple pleasures

These days I spend a lot of time with the neighbor kids. They come to church with us and they are always at our house. It took me a long time to realize that instead of trying to keep them away, which is impossible, I needed to love them the way Christ does. Not only is that what we are supposed to do but it really saved me from a lot of anger and frustration that comes with having anywhere from 6 to 10 kids in your yard on any given day. Now I am seeing just how truly blessed my kids and I really are. Here are just a few of the things we enjoy that one or more of the kids around us have never experienced until doing it with us.

Roasting hot dogs over a fire
Smores
banana bread
Going to the mall

Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head. Can you imagine a life without roasting hot dogs over an open fire, eating smores and going to the mall?

I love knowing that my kids are blessed more then they realize and that we can bless those around us. But what I love most is presenting the gospel to them every single week at church. Most of them havent grown up going to church constantly so they are totally amazed about everything in the Bible. They don't have to go to church, they don't have anyone to make them, they come because they want to.

I guess even going to church and hearing this someone out there loves you no matter what it is the greatest simple pleasure!

That's what's up

I haven't been on here for awhile so I thought I would post something.

The kids have been back in school for a few weeks now. I was not ready for summer to end. We spent all our time getting the house for sale so it doesn't feel like we got to do anything fun. But I was most reluctant to have to give up sleeping in. If I was still in bed at 7:30, I consider that sleeping in. I am thankful it didn't take any of us long to get back into the school routine. But having the older 2 kids sharing a room can be a problem sometimes! For example, I heard them talking at 9pm (bedtime is 7:30) last night so I went in to tell them to be quiet and Ryan was in bed with Hannah! Occasionally he will get down and sleep on the floor, which I don't mind if they are still going to sleep, but I'm not sure why he thought he could sleep with her.

Abby is her same rotten self. I saw this picture on a friend's blog about birth order and it is so fascinating to me!

I really think Nathanael (the last born) and I (the middle child) partially switched roles!

Brad is definitely the first born! And his brother is dead on the baby.

Hannah fits the role of first born in some areas but I also think her and Ryan (the middle born) switched some roles. She isn't motivated to succeed, Ryan is. He doesn't feel left out, she does (sometimes).

All that to say, Abby is definitely the baby but I'm hoping not to spoil her to the point of helplessness!

Moving on...

The house selling is going the same....or not going! The realtor wants to have an open house this weekend so I'm hoping they can get some people in here.

We have been trying to look for places in NC but that is very hard to do being 4 1/2 hrs away. A lot of realtors don't want to mess with people like us. Moving but not yet. It is frustrating on all levels!

And lastly, Brad surprised me with a cruise to the Bahamas coming up in January. It will kind of be a celebration of all the events that happen thru the year for us, ending with our 11 yr anniversary in Dec. We never get each other anything for any even so I was very surprised! I even asked him if it was a joke! Also, I am the Nervous Nellie type. I don't like to do things that pose a risk to me. I have kids that I need to be here for! You don't have to tell me I am risking my life every time I get in a car or get out of bed. I know. But this is different! And there have been a lot of problems on cruise ships lately! On top of that, I didn't know getting a passport was so complicated and expensive!! But overall I am excited.

Happy Thursday!