Thursday Again, But Lots Of Fun!

*****This is the Most recent Fabric Flower That I've Made-Love the Design of the Fabric on It-Favorite Design so Far******

******Here is the book I found for Caleb for 50 cents!!! Wonderful price and a Really Great Book!!!*****

****Here is His Village-He Puts These Up By Himself Of Course:Notice The Power lines.....These are Bungee Straps:)He Is Very Creative!!!****

*******After the Park and Feeding the Squirrels We Went and Found Us Some Train Tracks To Take Some Pictures. Our Super Energetic One Couldn't Stand Still But They Are Cute Pictures Anyways:)******

*******A Train Was Down the Way From Us So He Kept Watching It. They Were Unloading It At the Refinery*****

***We Had Fun Shopping and Reading Books, Feeding Squireels, Seeing Trains,Playing, Talking and All That Great Stuff-Praising the Lord for His Gift!!!!***

Our Thursday Last Week

This was at the Riverfront Park


If you know Caleb you know that in order to get a serious picture you have to do a silly one....to him being silly deals with his tongue or his hands in a weird position...he is just so unique!!!So without further adeu...silly pictures:

Then here are our serious ones...he is just so cute and has such a cute smile--as you see he got one dimple from me and one from Greg--a perfect pair;)

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*****I love you, my dear precious little man!!!********

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

This is my little blessing that God has given to me. My little boy.....I am so thankful for you-I do not deserve to have such a wonderful gift!! I love you forever and for true!!!!
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Thank you for all the things that you have taught me that I didn't know....like: "Mommy, boys can clean up throw up because they are tough-they're like men and BIG and STRONG!" and "Mommy, why don't you like ants? I like ants-but I guess girls don't, but boys do." and you always tell me "Mommy, did you know that I love you more than that!"
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Thank you for helping to teach me patience like when you take your time to slowly fold the towels, and how you slowly come when I call you, and when I have to repeat myself because you are too busy talking to hear what I say.
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Thank you for reminding me that I am human and make mistakes just like anyone else-and thank you that when I fail you love me anyways just like Jesus does.
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Thank you for playing Knight, Dragon, and Princess with me. And thank you for always seeing me as someone special.
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Thank you for your goodnight hugs and kisses and holding me down and telling me that I can't leave that I have to stay. It is always fun to get the tickle monster out...just so you'll let me go.
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I love your giggles and your laughs--I wish that you would never grow up-but I know that it must be that you will grow and have your own family. I pray that God will protect you and help you in the future-whatever it may be. I pray that you will always stay close to God in all that you do. Keep Him first because He is the most important-and be sure to love Him more than you love me and Daddy! You are what makes this day special...you have taught us so many things about God through your little life. We love you and always will.

Happy Mother's Day to All and I hope and pray that it was extra special this year-as it is for me every year...

A Wise Mother Guards Her Home-Featured Article

This is an article written by A Wise Woman Builds Her Home

Very very good article-I know of a few people who live day to day in the rush of the world...enjoy the good reading material here!

She was busy running the women's ministry at church. She would rush home and get ready for her MOPS meeting and then later in the day she knew she would somehow try to fit in the desperately needed shopping trip to host the monthly bible study in her home. She also had to run Johnny to soccer practice and little Suzy to her ballet class. She had forgotten to make dinner again and hubby would be home soon not to mention she hadn't touched the growing pile of laundry for days. She was tired, overwhelmed, and burnt out.

With all these seemingly good activites, she felt a gnawing at her soul. She had not read to her children for months, and yesterday she had yelled at her husband because she felt burdened by all the housework that she had to do when she finally did make it home from being out. She sunk despairingly down into her chair and saw an unfinished sewing project laying in a basket nearby and wondered when she would ever have time to even think about when she could complete such a project. She knew something in her life was amiss---but didn't she have the life she had always dreamed of? Didn't she take on these commitments with good intentions to serving her Lord?

Women were designed to be helpmeets, it is within our intrinsic nature to want to be available whenever there is a need. But we often do not pray before we take on new commitments as we blindly nod and say yes to fill someone elses needs. We forget to seek wise counsel and ask our husband what he thinks. Before we know it we have schedules that are swamped with well-meaning duties and obligations that were never intended for us, distracting us from our first responsibilities---time with God, our husbands and our children.

We have forsaken what is good with what is BEST. The days can be filled with many temptations, all enticing our souls, minds and our hearts away what is God's best for us. I believe many of us unknowingly choose such busyness for our lives falsely assuming it is the norm, but what we really need is to just live more simply. Simplicity helps to restore peace and order.

Sometimes we need to pare away the unnecessary things in our lives. This might be saying no to outside activities or events. This might be stepping down from some ministry positions we have found ourselves in. This could be putting some of your favorite craft projects on hold to be able to do some real work around the home. This might also mean taking a long break from the internet if we find it always tugging at our hearts pulling us away from our first duties.

If we find ourselves unsure if this is taking place we should ask ourselves a few questions: Are our homes in order? Are we getting meals to our husbands on time? Is the training and education of our children being neglected? Are the clothes in good repair and washed? All of these things take time and they are important. The mandate in Titus 2 is to love our husbands, love our children, to be self controlled, pure, kind, keepers at home and submissive to our own husbands, so that the word of God may not blasphemed. When we are doing these things, we are doing the Lord's work that He commanded us to do. These things to do not have to perfect, no home with people living in it will ever be, but we need to try to do our best in doing what we can in our circumstances.

Mother, turn your heart towards home!!! If you have a straying heart that always wants to be out shopping and driving all over town, surfing the net, emotionally distracted and absent with the non-important, pray that the Lord will give you a heart to stay home, to be present, to love it and to faithfully learn how to manage it well. It is well known that the woman is the heart of the home------but if she is gone all the time, now the home is lonely and empty. The mother is the one who helps fulfill the vision of her husband and puts into action cultivating the culture, warmth, order and atmosphere of the home, something that is impossible to fulfill being physically or mentally absent. It is hard to look well to the ways of our home and those in it if we are distracted by other so called "good" commitments or pursuits that are not required of us. We must use our best energies toward giving our all to our loved ones, not just our leftovers. May the Lord give us all wisdom on what might need to be eliminated from our lives, or our childrens lives, to preserve the sanctity of our precious family time and to manage our homes well.

Something to Keep in Mind As We Guide Our Children Through the Day

FATHER(I change it to Mother) FORGETS
W. Livingston Larned
condensed as in "Readers Digest"
Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek
and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room
alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of
remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.
There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you
were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took
you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your
things on the floor.
At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put
your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started
off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye,
Daddy(Mommy)!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!"
Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you,
down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated
you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were
expensive-and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from
a father!
Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with
a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the
interruption, you hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.
You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms
around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God
had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you
were gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible
sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding
fault, of reprimanding-this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not
love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick
of my own years.
And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart
of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your
spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight,
son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!
It is feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you
during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy(mommy)! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient
words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing but a boy-a little boy!"
I am afraid I have visualised you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and
weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's
arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much, yet given too little of
myself. Promise me, as I teach you to have the manners of a man, that you will remind
me how to have the loving spirit of a child.

I think that this is not just for the fathers, but also for the Mothers. I also think sometimes we as Mother's forget too the important things in life. Lord help us to be more like You and be patient Help us to see this little one as someone that we are building to one day be a gentleman or lady after Your heart. Lord help us please-to be a mother after Your heart too.

Mothers Made Best

Have you ever thought of how well made a mother is? I thought about this about two years ago before I had Caleb.
The Lord made all mothers just right in order to "fit" a child's embrace. Our neck is chiseled perfectly in order to fit our children's heads as you embrace them. Our check is so perfect to receive their loving kisses, it also contours to the form of their head.
A mothers lap is far enough from her upper body that she can hold her child just right, and comfortably. A mothers body is soft enough to lull a little one off to sleep. Her voice no matter how she thinks it may sound is so perfect for lullaby's, that her precious little child falls asleep every time mother sings. The arms are just within enough reach to hug or to keep from harm.
Our eyes see the needs that our children have. Our lips are there to praise their actions and tell them that we love them every day. Our noses can usually stand some interesting smells. Our ears are always open to hear our child's cry, their needs, their wants, and sometimes just what they are learning day to day.
What a wonderful gift that it is to be a mother-it is a full time job-but the eternal rewards are beyond compare!!! God knew exactly what he was doing when he made us-not that you need me to tell you that the Bible tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made;

Psalm 139:14 "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. "