If you don't get that, you'll have to read the book referred to in my last post.

Suffice it to say, things have gotten better since last Wednesday.  I have been quite busy since then, too.  And July is jam-packed with things to do: swimming lessons for both girls, a sports day-camp for Ainsley, a trip to Chicago and Bible School.

Yes, a trip to Chicago, I said.  My grandpa called today and wants us to fly out to join my grandparents, my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephews on a little vacation.  He said he'd pay for our flight.  Well, ok then, we'll be there.  How special is that?  I couldn't believe it.  I often feel a bit left out since everyone else lives near each other, even attending the same church.  I am so happy he wants us there and volunteered to pay for it to make sure it will happen.   God is so good.  We had pretty much decided a summer visit wouldn't be possible with gas prices being so high.  I'm so thankful for my wonderful grandparents.

So, that made my day today, as you can imagine.  So, now I'm searching for flights and trying to work out our schedule.  We'll also be trying to fit in a visit with Josh's brother who will be coming up for a few days probably right when we get back from Chicago.  Oh, and Josh's high school reunion is this month...

So, if you don't see me for awhile... that's why...

Have any of you read that children's book?  Well, that's how my life can be described at this moment.  I really don't want to blog about it, but just please pray for me.  I need a special measure of mommy grace today.

I haven't actually been blogging much at all lately because I just feel a little "uninspired."  Plus, the children and I are spending hours and hours out of doors in the sunshine, and we are loving it.  Today is an absolutely gorgeous day.  I just wish I was enjoying it more.

For those of you who read my last post, I have some updates.  The day after I wrote that, I set up a "playdate" of sorts at a local park with a lady I know from a playgroup I used to take Ainsley to.  She has two boys who are nearly the same age as my two girls.  We didn't get to talk too much, but she wants to meet again and grow a friendship, so that was encouraging.  And it was definitely confirmation from the Lord, I think.

And then last night, I had the deacon's wives and our pastor's wife over for a little meeting.  So, I had guests at my home, too.  I am a new member of the deacon's wives club.  So, the fellow new member and I wanted to find out just what we needed to be doing and we discussed the ladies ministry at our church.    Our ladies ministry has been pretty much non-existent over the last several years as our church went through a difficult time, so we were discussing ways to get some things started again.  It was quite a blessing, us all chatting and sharing our burdens and desires for what this ministry would be.  These ladies are so real.  There's nothing fake about them, if you know what I mean.  I appreciated their genuineness.

And I have cooked with my fresh herbs.  I haven't had a lot of time to experiment, but I've made: http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/fantastic-grilled-corn-on-92080.aspx
and
http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/farmers-market-squash-saute-110588.aspx

They both turned out great.  Thanks to all of you who sent me recipes.  I will try them, I promise.  If you have any more, send them my way.

• First of all, thank you so much for all your kind comments on my last post.  I appreciate that all of you know where I am coming from, and understand that this decision was not one we made lightly, but with much prayer and research.
• On that same topic, I've been putting aside the money I've been making writing articles since we first signed Ainsley up for school.  I haven't been getting a huge amount of stories lately, so I was starting to get worried that I wouldn't have the required amount by the time her first payment is due.  (I am going to pay for the whole first semester all in one shot, hopefully.)  But Josh told me yesterday after he deposited some of my checks, that I already have half of what we need!  And I have three stories to be published this next week, and three on the calendar to do next week, so I am thankful for God's provision!  (I do not make a great deal of money writing newspaper articles.)
• We have been having a pretty lazy week.  I think Tuesday was the only day we left the house for any length of time.  That is unusual for me, I'm the anti-stay-at-home mom, you know.  I go a little crazy being home, but just being outside with the kids is enough for me, and we've been having a good week.
• But... Lorelei is having a rough day.  She's getting six, count them, SIX teeth all at the same time.  She's been really great about it until now, and I think it's finally hitting her.  Once she gets all these teeth, she'll have a completely full mouth.  How sad.  Where did my baby go???
• I'm trying to really make better relationships with some of the women I meet around town and at the park, and at things I take my girls to.  I've been really convicted lately about how I never get below the surface of talking about our kids or other basic info.  I would like to make more intimate relationships, so that I can share the gospel with them, and don't feel like I'm ramming it down their throat.  So, pray for boldness for me.
• I'm also trying to be more free about having people over to my home.  I'm not good at inviting people at all.  I keep thinking, oh we need to have that person over for dinner, and then I never do.  It's mostly because I'm a planner and have to have everything perfectly planned out and my house perfectly clean, but I'm trying to be a bit more spontaneous, because, let's face it, with two little kids when is everything perfectly planned and perfectly cleaned? 
• I haven't forgotten about sharing things from that book 12 Extraordinary Women, I have just been too busy I guess.  I'm going to share more.  I promise.
• My in-laws gave me a huge planter full of fresh herbs for Mother's Day.  I have never cooked with fresh herbs before.  Ever.  So, the planter is overflowing with great smelling stuff that I'm not really sure what to do with, things such as basil, parsley, rosemary, sage (hmmm that's starting to sound like a certain song....) are all in there.  Does anyone have any great recipes to use my fresh herbs in?

Ok, I think I've bored you enough with my odds and ends for the day.  Have a lovely rest of your Thursday.

I don't think Josh had the best of Father's Days.

 It was all right, I think.  I made him breakfast and lasagna, his favorite, for "Sunday dinner."  (Am I the only one who still does that???)  I gave him a book and the girls made him cards. 

But Ainsley, she was a challenge yesterday.

Yes, this one. 

She looks so sweet and innocent, doesn't she?  But let me assure you, she is more than a handful.  I think I have cried and prayed more over this child than I have over anything in my nearly 30 years of life.

Many of you know of our ongoing struggles with her behavior issues.  She is not the easiest child.  But she is also so full of joy with life.  She's the most outgoing person I have ever met, I think.  She makes a friend everywhere she goes.  And despite everything, she is a lot of fun. 

But with all the behavior issues we deal with, I have found that I am missing the joy of being her mom.  I am not enjoying her as I should.  A few months ago, my husband came home after a particularly bad day and I sobbed, telling him that I didn't think I even liked her anymore.  (I'm tearing up just thinking about the fact that I thought that, but anyone who has dealt with a truly difficult child can relate, I think.)

At that time, we started thinking, praying and talking about putting her in school next year.  Ainsley is only four.  She does not require formal schooling just yet.  We had been, in one of our attempts to help with her behavior, doing some pre-school work at home, but we have found that homeschooling was not going to work for us.  At least not right now.  It was, at this point, absolutely destroying our parent/child relationship. 

After much research and several visits to a local church school, s he will be attending K-4 next year.  She feels so comfortable there.  She visited the classroom for over an hour one day without me, and had not one problem.  The teachers said it was like she had been there all year.  

So, Ainsley will be going to school in the fall.  It will only be three days a week, half days.  I couldn't stomach putting her in for all five days.  She is so excited she can hardly contain herself.  She's been begging for months to go to school.  This child literally thrives on being around other children... and her sister doesn't count.

The school uses A Beka curriculum mostly, which I think is great for those young grades.  They do use some Bob Jones stuff as well, which, of course, I'm very comfortable with. 

I am looking forward to spending some alone time with Lorelei.  Ainsley requires so much constant attention that Lorelei often gets lost in the shuffle.  She plays so well alone and can occupy herself easily that she gets ignored some and I want so much to spend more quality time with her.

I've been thinking about blogging this for quite some time.  Ainsley's been signed up for school for more than a month.  Some of this was very hard to write.  I only ended up writing it because I was feeling so guilty for awhile because I was struggling so much with her and felt like I was a horrible mother.  I felt like I was failing and passing her off to someone else because I didn't want to deal with it anymore.

That is the furthest thing from the truth.  Her spiritual direction will still mostly come from us.  She will still learn most of her life lessons in our home.  But her formal education, at least at this point, will not come from me.

I just wanted some other mothers out there who may be struggling with the same things and feel guilt over their seemingly lack of ability to homeschool to know they are not alone and there is no right or wrong way to teach your children.  You must find what God wants for you and your family.

On Father's Day, I'm thankful for my father, my girls' father and The Father; my Heavenly Father who sent His only Son to die for me.

"How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross
My guilt upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no powr's, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom"

by Stuart Townend

God is good.  He protects and He sends help in times we need it.  Yesterday I was to meet some friends and their children at a park that had a sprinkler pad for the kids.  We live on the East Coast, you know, and have had quite the heat wave lately.  As I was pulling on to the highway entrance ramp, one of my back tires blew.  Right behind me was a state highway worker, who heard the sound and pulled  up behind me as I got out of the car to check the tire.  He put on his flashing arrow so people would know to go around me.  He told me he could call the state service patrol to come put on my spare tire for free.   He said the guy would be there in about 10 minutes.  Sure enough, 10 minutes later there was a man there who knew just what to do, had all the right tools and knew just how to get out my spare (which is not easy apparently in my type of van.)  I was so thankful.  I did not have to wait for AAA, or pull my husband out of work, or pull my father in law away from work either.  And my friend Karen volunteered to come pick us up and take us to the park so we wouldn't have to miss anything.  Thank God for good friends and good state workers.  Those are my tax dollars at work, I guess.  I will definitely be writing two thank you notes.

After the blowout, we still had fun.

Ainsley and Abigail... best friends since being born a month apart four years ago...

And for those of you with little girls... 

Check out all these ribbons!!!

My husband says I have a little bit of an obsession.  But all of these were bought in the Target Dollar Bin.  Over the last few weeks, they've been carrying these ribbons in packages of six for $1.  Now, I think my girls have ribbons in every shade imaginable.  So, if you love putting ribbons in your girls' hair like I do, or maybe you like putting ribbons in your own hair, check out the Target Dollar Bin.

And so ends today's commercial.

I do have a quick, but somewhat silly prayer request.  As I was uploading pictures from my camera to my laptop, my new camera just died.  I thought it was just the batteries, but after putting new ones in, it still won't work.  I only got some of my pictures uploaded, and none from a story I went to yesterday afternoon.  I have a deadline soon and need to get those pictures off.  Please pray that I can get the camera working... for many reasons.

So, I've been saying for weeks that I would put up pictures of our living room after the floors were refinished and it was put back together...

Well, I'm finally getting around to it.
I'm pretty proud of the flower arrangement.  I did it myself.  And if you know me at all, you know that's quite an accomplishment for me.  That is not my thing... at all.


Faith, Joy and Hope...


Another view...


And yet another...


A view from the other way...


The Dining Room...


And yes, I'm pretty fanatical about keeping the living room picked up, so yes, it looks like this most of the time...
But... this is what the playroom looks like... so don't think I have it all together...

Do you notice anything different about my pictures? We finally got a new camera.  Our old one was failing and would not zoom anymore... pretty hard to use when I needed it for stories.  (I get paid for the pictures I take, too, so I try to take lots.)  Now we own a Sony Cyber-shot.  I'm still getting used to it as it has several more functions than our old one, but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Have a great weekend everyone.  It's supposed to be in the 90's here, so we'll be having fun in the sun.

I've been going through the book 12 Extraordinary Women by John MacArthur and thought I would share some of what I'm learning.

The first chapter focuses on Eve.

"Eve the only being ever directly created by God from living tissue of another creature, was indeed a singular marvel."

"Her beauty - splendid as it must have been - is never mentioned or even alluded to.  The focus of the biblical account is on Eve's duty to her Creator and her role alongside her husband."

"Specially created by God for Adam from his own flesh and bone, Eve suited Adam perfectly in every way.  She is a wonderful illustration of the goodness of God's grace and the perfect wisdom of His will."

"She was in no way an inferior character made merely to serve him, but she was his spiritual counterpart, his intellectual co-equal, and in every sense his perfect mate and companion."

"Eve was in no way inferior to her husband, but she was nonetheless given a role that was subordinate to his leadership.  Subordinate, yet equal?  Yes.  The relationship within the Trinity illustrate perfectly how headship and submission can function within a relationship of absolute equals.  Christ is in no sense inferior to the Father.  Yet the Son is subordinate to the Father and does His will."

"Satan came to Eve in disguise.  That epitomizes the subtle way he intended to deceive her."

"The serpent casts the command in negative language ('You shall not eat of every tree'), making God's expression of lavish generosity sound like stinginess.  He was deliberately misrepresenting the character and command of God."

"Notice the natural desires that contributed to Eve's confusion: her bodily appetites (it was good for food); her aesthetic sensibilities (it was pleasant to the eyes); and her intellectual curiosity (it was desirable for wisdom).  Those are all good, legitimate, healthy urges - unless the object of desire is sinful, and then natural passion becomes evil lust."

"No matter what means Satan may use to beguile us into sin - no matter how subtle or cunning - the responsibility for the deed itself still lies with the sinner and no one else.  Eve could not escape accountability for what she had done by transferring the blame."

"Before Adam sinned, his leadership was always perfectly wise and loving and tender.  Before Eve sinned, her submission was the perfect model of meekness and modesty.  But sin changed all of that.  She would now chafe under his headship and desire to gain dominance over him."

"Here was an explicit promise that her Seed would bruise the evil one's head.  She could not possibly have grasped the full scope of the divine pledge concealed in those words, but she could hardly have failed to take heart from what she heard."

"It is also clear that her hope was personified in her own children.  She saw them as tokens of God's goodness and reminders of the promise that her seed would be the instrument by which the tempter's ultimate destruction was accomplished."

"Seth founded a line of godly people..."  "Where would their knowledge of God have come from?  Obviously, it came from Adam and Eve, who had more direct and firsthand knowledge of God than anyone else since the fall."

"Heaven will be filled with her redeemed offspring and they will be eternally occupied with a celebration of the work of her Seed."

I hope that wasn't too much.  I was just so blessed by much of what was in there.  Was there something about these quotes that struck you?

For me, it was thinking of my subordinate relationship with my husband as the same as Christ's relationship with the father... subordinate yet equal.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this.  I think will be posting some quotes from the book about once a week.

Happy June 1, everyone!  I can not believe we are so far into the year already.  So much has happened for us already this year.  I am looking forward to what God will accomplish in our lives the rest of 2008.

I haven't been blogging much this past month.  There just hasn't been time for it.  I'm sure you all understand.  I have so many things I want to write about though, so I expect to have many more blogs in the near future. 

This last week I was busy with my parents visiting, I tried to stay caught up with everyone, but I really did not have a lot of time for commenting.  So, if I stopped by and didn't comment, don't be offended.

We had a great time with my parents.  I love it when they visit.  They love to spend time with our kids, play with them, read to them, even change diapers and bathe them if needed. 

I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked.  I never do when they're here.  I just enjoy the time.  They got here late Sunday night.  We hadn't told the girls they were coming.  Ainsley would have asked non-stop if her grandparents were here yet if she had known, and she likely wouldn't have gone to sleep that night.  So, their arrival was a big surprise Monday morning.   Ainsley was very excited to see them, of course, Lorelei was a bit shy at first, but it didn't take long for her to warm up to Grandma and Grandpa again.

We spent a relaxing Monday going to a Memorial Day parade, playing in the backyard, going to the park and having a barbecue.

On Tuesday we made a trip to a place called Dinosaur Crossing where we took a walk in the woods and found to-scale dinosaur statues and information (we skipped over the 60 million years ago stuff, but the rest of the information was interesting) about them.  If you don't remember, Ainsley loves dinosaurs.

This place had a great playground, too.  The girls (we all) had a great time.

On Wednesday we went to the Yankee Candle Flagship store up in Massachusetts.  I had never taken my mom there.  I wasn't sure if my dad would like it, but he tolerated it ok, I think.

On Thursday we drove down to Newport, RI to do the cliff walk, look at the mansions and walk on the beach.

This picture was taken right as we began the cliff walk, and right before I ran back to the car to get my coat.  It was WINDY!
 
The Vanderbilt's Mansion.  Could you imagine living in a house like this?  And this was just their summer home.  You can tour many of the mansions, but we skipped that this time.  I didn't think the 4 year old and 19 month old would enjoy it very much.

This is my favorite picture from the day.  I was feeling quite artistic.  How did I do, Shanda?

My mom and Lorelei taking a little rest during our walk.  She spent most of the time in the backpack on daddy's back, but we let her out once and awhile.

Yes, I let her put her feet in the water.  And yes, the water was very cold.  (I put my feet in the water, too.)

Lorelei digging in the sand, and Josh trying to stop her from getting into the water.

 
And I know all of you were waiting for this picture.  Yes, she fell face-first right into the water.  As you can see, she wasn't too upset about it.

... just busy... like everyone else.

I'm in charge tomorrow's church picnic, so I've been organizing that and getting everything together.  There will be at least 100 people there.  I bought all the hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, condiments, drinks and everyone else is supposed to be bringing side dishes and desserts.  We have the car pretty well packed up and ready to go for tomorrow.  We just have to buy ice in the morning and pack all the drinks in the coolers.  It should be a lot of fun and hopefully not too stressful for me. 

And then my parents will be flying in Sunday night!  I'm excited for them to visit again.  They will be here until Friday.  I'm so thankful I get to see them as often as I do.  Hopefully I'll get my house reasonably picked up by then.  Oh well, they'll love me even if it does look like a bomb went off in here.  They're just coming to see the kids anyway.

My living room is all back to normal now, pictures are back on the walls and everything.  I will have to take a picture soon.  I love how it all looks.  I just need to get a new bookcase to replace the one that we threw away because it was falling apart.

I've been meaning to share these pictures all week.  They're from last Saturday.  We went to an annual festival in our town with our family, Josh's brother, his two sons and my father-in-law.

Ainsley going down one of those big inflatable slides.

Ainsley's cousin Logan and Ainsley hanging out after getting their faces painted.

Connor, Logan and Ainsley enjoying an ice cream cone while watching the parade.

Lorelei getting a taste of Ainsley's ice cream cone.

While at the festival, Ainsley won a goldfish.  So now we are proud owners of a goldfish.  It's name... Cinderella Ariel.  Sometimes just Cinderella, sometimes just Ariel, sometimes Cinderella Ariel.  And our little girls are totally in love with this fish.  It has been the best entertainment all week.  They stand and watch it for long periods of time.  Ainsley has been reading it stories.  She wants to feed it all the time.  And yes, I'm already dreading the day we find that fish belly up.  I will have two devastated little girls on my hands.