Word Filled Wednesday-Colossians 3:2

This week for our character trait lesson I'm teaching my girls about attentiveness. Being attentive means "listening with your whole being; your hands still, mouth quiet, ears listening, eyes watching, and heart calm."

This week I am trying to work on being more attentive to my Lord.
Listening for Him with my whole being, loving Him with my whole heart.

The more I seek you, the more I find you.
The more I find you, the more I love you.
I want to sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breathe, feel your heart beat.
This love is so deep, it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming.







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Spaghetti sauce-if I can do it, anyone can!

A few weeks ago we had a bunch of tomatoes my husband picked from the garden that I didn’t want to go to waste, so I decided to try my hand at homemade sauce.  I quartered the tomatoes and pureed them in the blender. (Some people peel and seed the tomatoes, I don’t mind the seeds so I just threw them in whole) Then I boiled them down on the stove for a couple of hours.  At that point I had the tomato sauce base.  (I decided to leave it plain so that I could use it for pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce-whatever I happen to be in the mood for)I poured it into containers to cool, and then stuck it in the freezer.

Today I wanted to make spaghetti, so I threw a container of frozen sauce in the Crockpot with freshly picked zucchini, carrots, green peppers, sugar, garlic and onion powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. I had some leftover frozen hamburger, so I threw that in, too. I let it all simmer for the afternoon, and voila! My very first batch of homemade spaghetti sauce!!

I needed this reminder

Laura, over at Heavenly Homemakers, had a post today that I thought needed to be shared. It's called "What matters is my kids" As wives and mothers (and teachers and housekeepers and cooks...) it is very easy for us to get caught up in all the "stuff" that needs to be done on a daily basis. I know I do all the time. Laura reminded me to focus on what's important, and it's certainly not the laundry waiting to be done or the dirty dishes piling up ;) Head on over and be inspired. You can find her at Heavenly Homemakers.

Word Filled Wednesday-John 15:12

It seems like all I ever say is "Be kind to each other" or "Speak kindly to your sisters". I know that when a family spends as much time together as mine does the days can't be all sunshine and happiness. Sometimes the bickering between my fourteen year old and the younger ones is worse than it is between the six and four year old. Sometimes they tease each other so mercilessly I wonder what on earth I'm doing wrong. Sometimes I want to give in to the urge to ship them all off to the orphanage.

But then there are days when Katie is so sick she can't keep even keep a sip of ginger ale down and Sam sits with her all day long, loving on her and comforting her. There are days when Frankie goes visiting somewhere for the day and Katie is bored and lonely without her, wandering around aimlessly with nothing to do. And they are so fiercely protective of each other-as awful as they can be to each other at times-they've got such an amazing bond sometimes it astounds me.

 So, I think they hear me. They hear me when I tell them to be kind, and they hear me when I tell them that God hand-picked each of us to be together as a family so He expects us to love each other the way He loves us. Even though they make me crazy on a regular basis, underneath it they love each other. Fiercely and unconditionally.  Just the way it should be.

To see more visit Internet Cafe Devotions.

Mmmm. Banana bread.

That is all :)

Summer recap, take II

 

This summer we enjoyed a variety of activities, starting with a trip to the Children’s Museum of Science for Francesca’s birthday.

Frankie’s favorite part was playing in the water tables. After about an hour we had to drag her out to visit the rest of the exhibits!

Katie climbing the rock wall.

Does this doorway look familiar?

Even though the museum is geared toward younger kids, Sam found ways to entertain herself.

Looks like someone else did, too!

During the summer we got the chance to visit with some of our favorite little people….

Katie and her cousin Autumn

Painting with Jazzy

Jeremy Jr., our favorite little love bug

Over the summer we played…

…the girls fished with their daddy,

…and we camped.

This summer I was a teacher at Vacation Bible School for the first time. Words cannot describe what an unbelievably amazing experience it was! The girls had such a blast, and they’ve been singing the VBS songs for weeks now.

Frankie took Sam’s MP3 player off the table and was dancing and singing “Jesus is my superhero”. It was off, by the way.

This summer we also got to celebrate our favorite little love bug’s first birthday.

But I’d have to say that the best thing about this summer was all the time we got to spend just loving each other!

(This is my person. I love her. That’s her “I love you, too” face)

There were also trips to the beach, peach picking at the orchard, trips to the movies when it was just too hot to be outside, and more. Even though it passed in the blink of an eye, we had our fun and are ready for fall. Winter, not so much. But we’re taking it one season at a time :)

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