Sweet Moments

Every night when I lay my sweet littles to bed I sit where they can all see me and regale them with stories from God's Word. This is Titus' favorite part of the day. By far.

He asks me as he gets comfy in his bed, " Are you going to tell me about GOD?"

A few nights ago as I was finishing our story of the night, Titus said " wait, can I say something to God?"

"Of course, I said, What do you want to say to Him?"

Titus - " God Thank you for my mommy"

Ahhhhhhh, be still my heart!!

Then he asked me if God could walk in space, how big was God, and many more questions.
After a sigh of adoration.
" Mommy, I have one more thing to say to God - God, I love you"

But we are still not to my favorite part . . . . .

A minute later he asked me, " Mommy, can we push our house?"

With a smile, " Why do you want to push our house honey?"

" Can we push it next to God? I want to be near him."

I am getting emotional writing this.

Oh my honey, you don't have to push the house to be near God. All you have to do is ask. He wants to be near you.

 

Camping 2013 - part 2

We have crammed too much fun into this week.  Sometimes that happens.
We ran from one thing to the next having a blast the whole way.
Now we just need to recover - the house has piles of laundry (both clean and dirty), sleep has been a little scarce, the cars definitely need to be cleaned out - but it was worth it.
I would do it again.

We camped on Wednesday and when we came home on Thursday we showered everyone (who all needed it desperately)  and ran around cleaning up our camping stuff as friends came over to discuss business opportunities.  Then we and our friends went to a Fourth of July party with most of our church family till the sun set.

Friday involved a lot of decision making for our business and trying to catch up on sleep.

Saturday we had another party, this time a birthday party (pictures to come).

Then today we got to fellowship with so many dear friends.

Now I sit here and think - what happened when we were camping again? :D

Gabric loved camping, though he came away from it with many "battle scars".
He had a hard time not tripping on all of the sticks and rocks, but he giggled the whole time.
He was not a big fan of night time.
He slept in my sleeping bag which is the norm when we go camping.
In fact I have the sleeping bag to beat all sleeping bags.
It is a KING size sleeping bag - as in it would cover the whole top of a king size bed.
I slept with three kiddos and had room to spare and we were the warmest, coziest of the bunch.

I asked everyone their favorite part of our camping trip and here they are:

Caleb - "All of it!"

Kadin - " exploring"

Bailey - When Kadin and I  walked to the main road while mom and dad packed up all of the camping supplies.

Hadassah - "The bears did not get us yet"

Titus - "when he found a giant rock that someone had painted a squid on it"
Now I wish I had a picture of it.  He found graffiti and really thought it was a giant squid.

Isabella - loved being rescued by her brothers (see below)

 

Isabella fell into a bog :( She was waist deep in black muck and said it felt like it was sucking her down.
Her brothers pulled her out and this is after a good scrubbing.

Smores are a necessity when camping but I have to admit I am not a fan of the clean up afterwards.

 

This is our "scrubbing" rock  - When it is time to get in our tent for the night each little one stands on the rock for getting cleaned up and is carried to their sleeping bags.

Stephen's favorite part was when we were all clean and tucked into our sleeping bags.
We read aloud for 2 hours while a thunder, lightning, and lots of rain storm went on around us.
We are still reading Brotherband Chronicles #2 - almost to the end.

 

Good Morning!

 

Love those blue eyes!

 

So Stephen and I were being super goofy.  The above picture was right before my honey broke out laughing :D
I love being with him so much.
Thank you Stephen for teaching me how to camp!

 

Camping 2013 - part 1

We had our first camping trip of the year!
We love camping!
I think for me it feels like freedom.  I tend to be a clean nut and want things just so.  When we go camping I feel like I can more easily let it go.  I know we are going to get dirty and I don't expect us to get a lot of sleep.  Once we get out to the site whatever we forgot doesn't matter - we just make do.
We don't have property (just a green belt behind our home) and it is wonderful to see the boys run off and be boys.

Stephen grew up camping and is an Eagle Scout.  While he would like us to backpack in that is just not feasible with the amount of stuff for 9 people and the number of people who can carry it.
He does draw the line at no camping grounds though ;)

 

 

Where we go camping is in the middle of nowhere but has this fun trail that goes through the woods right from our site.

This is the dirt road we take to get into our spot.

 

 

 

Bailey rescuing Hadassah when she had taken a tumble.

Can you see the sheer joy in his face?  This is one of the reasons I love camping  - because my honey loves it and it makes him happy.

 

 

 

 

Building a bridge.

 

 

 

I have so many stories and more pictures to come.

Gabric's first camping trip.

Just another form of school

Caleb loves to pull things apart and see how they work.
Anytime we are throwing something electronic away he is bouncing in anticipation waiting to get his hands on it.

Over the years he has pulled apart many things . . and fixed a few too.
He pulled a DVD player apart and actually fixed it.
It worked for another 6 months.

Here he is explaining to me what the different function are of some of the parts.

Falling in Love

So on Monday I wanted to start a blog post with the title -
Wahhhhhhh!
You see my husband in his great wisdom has started our whole family on the Couch to 5K program (click link).

I am not a runner.

At all.

In fact our first run I was on the side of the trail, bent over, dry heaving and getting tunnel vision.
At first I felt sorry for myself that I had to push a double stroller while starting a running routine
and then
I was so thankful I had it to keep me upright :D

Well the first day didn't go so well.

Then Wednesday came along and I went on a run with just Bailey and  . . . it didn't feel awful, I ran each of the running sessions, and when I came home I felt light hearted.
I had burning lungs but not as bad.

Then Friday came along and  . . . .
I liked it
I really did.  I felt so much better during the run.  I had a hard time halfway through but then I got a second wind and the last section I ran faster than the first.

And I came home hyper!

Maybe just maybe I won't hate this thing called running and one day I will be able to run a mile without stopping ;)

I will keep you updated.

Birthday Boy

Our sweet , sweet Kadin turned 11 yesterday!
He wanted a superman birthday.
Kadin is loving and compassionate.
He is the first to notice if someone needs something or has hurt feelings. 

Meals are such a big deal to our littles on their birthday.
Kadin's menu picks:
French Toast with Strawberries and whipping cream
Little Smokies with Barbecue sauce
and
Homemade mac and cheese

He couldn't decide between birthday cake and cheesecake - so we got both ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a long party day . . . .Z Z Z Z

We were blessed to have family visiting with us and when we have company the boys give up their "mother-in-law suite" to company.
They did not need to be sleeping in the doorway but this way they could watch the big people while they fell asleep. 
I came around the corner and found them like this and couldn't help taking a picture :D