Want to Know Why You Will be Seeing More of Me?

This was my Mother's Day present this year:

A Dell Netbook! It comes tomorrow and I cannot wait!!! It will be mine, all mine. I can sit in bed and blog. I can go in the backyard while the boys play and do lesson plans. I can take it to one of my favorite girly places and listen to a lecture online or research. I can call a girlfriend for a video chat anywhere and anytime.

I can stop borrowing dh's laptop which is enormous and cumbersome (perfect for him for all his graphics stuff but just too much for me). This is just my size and it does everything I need. I can surf the net, blog, check message boards, do word processing and email. I can take it in the kitchen and pull up the recipe I'm trying for dinner. That's about the 90% of what I do on the computer; for the other 10% I still have my 10 year old desktop. :)

So get ready to see more of me because I will have my very own computer that I don't have to share with anyone!!

And a very, very Happy Mother's Day to all of you! I hope your day was wonderfully special.

Birthday Moments

Friendship is not necessary, like philosophy, like art....
It has no survival value; rather it is one of those
things that give value to survival.
~C.S. Lewis

My birthday was this past Sunday. Dh and I are not huge birthday celebrators in our home. Sure for the kids we do the cakes and the party but for us it's much more low-key - special time with the kids and a dinner out for the two of us if we can secure a sitter.

Well this year my sweet husband surprised me and invited all my closest girlfriends to my favorite wine bar/coffee house. Friends of ours volunteered to keep the kids; they were in on his little secret and knew we were having a hard time finding a sitter. Dh took me to a new restaurant I had been wanting to try, and then we walked around looking at the bay. Very casually he asked if I wanted to go to C... for dessert before we picked up the boys and I said, "Sure!"

I walked in to find many of my closest girlfriends waiting for me! It turns out he had sent out invitations and had been planning this for a few weeks. Dh took a few pictures and then left to go pick up our boys leaving me to spend some wonderful time with these special ladies. We talked for hours and laughed so hard I cried. And then we talked some more. And more. And more. It was so very needed!


I am very lucky to know all of you. Each of you blesses me in a very special way by your grace, your encouragement, your love for Christ and your sweet friendship. Thank you for making my birthday one I will always remember...even if it's not my 53rd! ;)

Background info: That afternoon Haddon was sad because he hadn't made me a card. I told him that the best part of a card was what it said inside so I pulled him into my lap and asked him to tell me what his card would have said. His response:

Dear Mommy,

You are a joy to have around. You are a great Mommy. I love you very much. Happy 53rd birthday!

Love,
Haddon

A Special Treasure

Awhile back my husband was preaching on how the Bible we use today came to be - the formation of the cannon in the first few centuries all the way to the English translations you and I hold today. A gentleman from our church approached him and said he had a very special Bible given to him as a wedding gift from his mother-in-law years before.

It was a Geneva Bible! This Bible was first produced in Switzerland in 1560 by Puritan refugees fleeing persecution from Queen Mary. It was the household Bible of English-speaking Protestants due to being smaller and more affordable. It even contained “study notes” for commentary on biblical text . It was also the first complete English Bible to use chapter breaks and numbered verses. It was the Bible Shakespeare used and the Bible brought to America by the pilgrims on the Mayflower. The copy this gentleman owned was printed in 1602 (see photo on right).

Dh brought it home one evening and we spent time carefully looking though this very special treasure. I was so incredibly nervous because I felt like this book should be in a museum somewhere under glass and not sitting on my counter top. I just kept thinking, "This book is older than our very nation! And just a 100 years (plus a few) after Columbus sailed the ocean blue ." It was such a privilege to spend time with this wonderful book. I am still amazed thinking back.

I thumbed through and found some of my favorite passages. Can you tell what they are? Leave a comment if you know!

We Have a Winner!

Thank you to each of you who entered my first give-a-way! It was so much fun. Twenty comments were left on this post and I used random.org to choose a winner.

And the winner is......number 14!

The 14th comment was left by Pam. Congratulations, Pam! Email me your address as well as which book you would like and Amazon will be delivering a package to your door very shortly!

Happy Tuesday everyone! :)

Bye-Bye Long Hair

I cut 10 inches of hair and donated it to Locks of Love. I was ready for a change and it was great to be able to help someone else at the same time. It is still long enough to pull back but just barely. I will miss my long hair but with Houston's lovely heat and humidity it would have been stuck in a pony tail for the next four months anyway. All in all, a good move for a mom about to spend the summer at the pool and beach with her sweet boys! :)

Strawberry Picking

Doubtless God could have made a better berry,
but doubtless God never did.

~William Butler

* This post has been edited to include a link to the blog where I got my recipe to make strawberry jam! Thank you Produce Stories!!! :)

There is a farm about 45 minutes from us where you can pick your own strawberries for only $1.50 a pound. The boys and I have been twice. We had never done anything like this and we had soooo much fun. The first time we came home with five pounds of luscious berries. Two weeks later we returned on a mission and brought home 2o pounds! We gave some to friends, ate a ton, froze lots for smoothies and I made homemade strawberry jam. Wohooo!!! It was the first time in my life I ate something that, to my knowledge, had come out of the ground that very same day. Here are some photos!

We talked about the stages of the strawberry plant and Thatcher wanted to take photos of each stage we found!

And here is the jelly I made. :) Pretty good first attempt by a city girl who has never canned a thing in her life - or never picked fresh food from a farm for that matter! I chose to not use pectin or gelatin to make it more "jellyish" but only used strawberries, grated apple (for natural pectin), lemon juice and agave nectar. It tastes wonderful and now I have eight jars of this yummy goodness to last us hopefully until next year - once I add my blueberry jam to the collection when blueberry season starts in June anyway!

I searched online for a solid hour for a recipe using no sweetners but agave nectar and finally found this gem of a blog: Produce Stories. Her recipe for jam was so easy and it tastes incredible. My first batch needed the full 3/4 cup of agave but the second batch needed only 1/2 cup. Happy jam making!!!

Blizzards and Blessings!

"And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat.’ And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, ‘Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.’ And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.”

- 1 Kings 19:5-8 (ESV)

We just returned last night from Colorado. I mentioned that we were there at the invitation of a couple whose ministry seeks to give physical and spiritual refreshment to pastors and their wives. Their goal is to mirror the spirit of 1 Kings 19:5-8 where the prophet Elijah, too wearied to continue his journey, was strengthened by God in order that he might continue in ministry.

The trip was truly amazing. The host couple said they wanted to provide "The Three P's" - pamper, play and pray; they did all three very well. Each day they prepared a yummy breakfast right before we stepped out of their condo and skied down to the lift. We skied as long as we were able (I am not the young pup I once was who could ski eight hours straight without hardly stopping!) and then walked around the village at Copper until it was time to get ready for dinner. Every evening they treated us to fabulous food at restaurants all around the area. Dinner was followed by a sweet time of dessert, hot coffee, sweet fellowship and best of all, prayer - for our personal needs, our families, our church and anything else God laid on our hearts.

It was a time I won't soon forget. And not just because it was the best skiing the locals said they had seen all season (thanks to a blizzard that arrived the day after us) or because our last day was a "bluebird day" - what Coloradans call days of fresh powder and bright blue skies! But mostly because it was a time to rest and reflect on what God is doing in our lives. I truly realize how blessed I am to have had this opportunity. Thank you A & D! I am more grateful than words can express.

Our Sr. Pastor, his wife, myself and dh heading for dinner at Copper Village.

Dh and I before heading out for our first day of skiing.

Up on the mountain!

Enjoying ribs (Yum!) and some amazing fellowship!

Me, my friend and our precious hostess.

Colorado, here I come!

This morning dh and I are heading to Colorado to ski for three days at Copper Mountain! My sweet in-laws are here to stay with our boys and they will have a great time. I love skiing and went almost every year with my church youth group as a kid from 7th grade through high school and then a few times after college. But I haven't been on skis in a decade and I am wondering how I am going to do after so long! Here's the story about how and why we are going again...

This week is when I would have had baby #4 and I knew it was going to be hard for me. I mentioned to dh not long after we lost that baby that I wanted to use some of our frequent flyer miles to go somewhere for a few days this week, just the two of us. Well our Sr. Pastor knows a retired couple in Colorado who blesses ministry couples by flying them up there and hosting them for a week at their condo on the mountain. He and his wife has been guests of this family a few times now and called the couple to ask if we could come along this year. They were kind enough to extend the invitation to us as well. We will ski all day and eat in restaurants we could never afford on our own each night, not to mention we will get lots of time with our Sr. Pastor and his wife who are some of our favorite people on earth!!! :) I cannot wait!!!

I'll post pictures when we get home. I hope you all have a great week whatever you are up to, too!

What's on my MP3

I just changed the songs on my MP3 player because I've been listening to the same music on my runs for almost three months now. It was time! I like to run long and slow and often I use the time to think, pray and reflect. But sometimes there's nothing better than listening to music that makes me smile. Here's what I loaded up tonight:

• Thank God I'm a Country Boy - John Denver
• Days Go By - Keith Urban
• Where the Blacktop Ends - Keith Urban
• Summertime - Kenny Chesney
• Do You Believe in Love? - Huey Lewis and the News
• I Walk the Line - Johnny Cash (sung by Joaquin Phoenix)
  
• Levon - Elton John
• Copperline - James Taylor
• Centerfield - John Fogerty
• Jackson - Johnny and June Cash (sung by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon)
• Better Life - Keith Urban

What's on your MP3, or for most of you it would be what's on your iPod?

Look what flew over my house yesterday!

One of the perks of living less than five miles NASA's Johnson Space Center is that sometimes you get the chance to experience some really neat things! I got a call from dh yesterday around 12:30 in the afternoon; he told us to hurry into the backyard. Not three minutes later look what we saw.....

NASA was transporting Endeavour from its last landing spot in the California desert back to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It stopped here at JSC and before finishing the flight to KSC they flew the shuttle throughout the area to give everyone a good look. On one of its circles it flew directly over my backyard! It was extra-special considering that the shuttle program ends in 2010. There won't be many opportunities to see anything like this again!

Chicken in the Sticks???

This morning as we started our Thanksgiving break the boys were building with Lincoln Logs and Mega Blocks while listening to Hallelujah Handel followed by Tchaikovsky Discovers Amercia.

A song came on that Haddon recognized and he asked, "Mom, what's the name of this song? Isn't it Chicken in the Sticks?" To which I answered, "No sweetie, it's actually called Turkey in the Straw."

Lol! I had to leave the room so he couldn't see me giggling! :)

Heart of the Matter

Take a look over at Heart of the Matter and learn more about our family! If you have never seen HOTM, take some time and look all around their site. I think you'll be blessed; I know I am each time I stop by and visit.

I have lots of posts all swirling in my brain that I hope to post soon - mostly reflections on this year and plans for next!!!

Hope to see you soon.

Tchaikovsky anyone?

Sometimes things happen that you just never want to forget. Every time I think of this I giggle.

Last month the boys and I ventured to the mall. It was the first day all the local kids were back in ps but we were still on our Christmas Break. I knew the place would be empty and we needed to get out. I had a few shirts I had bought back in October (Does that tell you how often I make it to the mall?!) that I needed to return as well.

The first store we went into was one of those trendy, dimly lit, play the music waaay too loud stores and it wasn't long until my boys were boppin' their heads to the beat. We went up to the register to make my returns and Thatch got all excited. They were selling CD's at the front counter!

Thatcher innocently looks at the 19 year old behind the counter and asks, "Excuse me, sir, do you have any Tchaikovsky CD's?" The kid just looked at me and said, "Who?" Thatcher replied, "You know...Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Tchaikovsky. The composers!" I almost lost it right there in the store as that teenager looked at my six year old and calmly said, "Ummmm, no. We don't sell any of those," and then looked at me and asked, "How the heck does he know that?"

Oh the joys of homeschooling!

P.S. The styled-out Tchaikovsky is dh's brain-child. Enjoy! :)

Eight

Jessica from Trivium Academy tagged me so here goes!

8 Things I am passionate about:

1. living an authentic faith my kids (and others) will see and by it know Jesus is real
   
2. loving my husband
   
3. raising my kids to love God and love others - in that order
   
4. food
5. being healthy and keeping in shape (this is greatly complicated by #4!)
   
6. cooking and baking
   
7. running
   
8. organizing
   

8 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:

1. grow into a person who can truly say she lives her life for an audience of One
   
2. travel, travel and more travel - Greek islands, a Civil War tour down the East Coast, Yellowstone, Redwood forests, Italy, revisit Cayman Islands where we honeymooned...
3. see my children cross the line of faith and live out godly lives - get married and have children of their own, too!
   
4. decorate my home... I often tease that God gave me an extra dose of the organizing gene but forgot to give me the decorating gene! I can't pick paint colors, coordinate furniture or accessorize to save my life. Lol.
   
5. take culinary classes
   
6. run a marathon in less than four hours
   
7. complete a half-ironman race
8. read all the great classics I never read in school
   

8 Things I Say Often:
(mostly to my kids!)

1. Focus, Thatch.
   
2. I love you.
   
3. Use "Honey Words!" (I will blog about this soon.)
   
4. People are more important than things (usually said when my guys are arguing over a toy).
5. Make the wise choice!
6. You bring me joy.
   
7. It's not fun unless everyone is having fun.
   
8. Time to clean up!
   

8 Books I've read recently:
(For me this category should be "The 8 most recent books I've read" since most have not been recently read and it would be most accurate if was an altogether different category: "The 8 books waiting on my bedside table to be read!")

1. Taste and See by John Piper
   
2. The Birth Order Book by Kevin Lehman
   
3. The Well-Trained Mind (the Logic section) by Susan Wise-Bauer
   
4. Wisdom and Eloquence by Robert Littlejohn and Charles Evans
   
5. The Well Educated Mind by Susan Wise-Bauer
   
6. Creative Correction by Lisa Welchel (I read this a few years ago but refer to it regularly)
   
7. Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
8. Chronicles of Narnia (our bedtime read-a-louds the past several months)
   

8 Songs I could listen to over and over:

1. most anything by Kenny Chesney - right now my favorite is Never Wanted Nothing More
   
2. Something in the Way She Moves by James Taylor - actually the entire Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (except Steamroller)
   
3. Piano Man by Billy Joel (okay I realize I am cheating by naming entire CD's - but the entire Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 and 2!)
   
4. the entire Soundtrack from Les Miserables
   
5. Sitting by the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding
   
6. Drift Away by Dobie Gray ( I loved this way before Uncle Cracker redid it and the original version is so much better than the remake!)
   
7. Levon, Philadelphia Freedom and Rocket Man by Elton John
8. Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art
   

8 Things I've learned this year:

1. I have constantly been reminded that I am a sinner in need of a Savior and I still have a lot of growing to do.
   
2. Homeschooling is as much (and somedays more) a tool God is using to disciple me as it a tool I am using to teach and disciple my children.
   
3. I love coffee and dark chocolate
   
4. I am becoming more of an introvert as I get older. Solitude re-energizes me more than time around lots of people. I still am not sure if this is because I am a mom of 3 young kids (and get so little solitude) or that my personality is shifting.
   
5. Even though #4 is true I still need good friends in my life who will love me no matter what and speak truth into my life.
6. I need to not take things so seriously and I need to laugh a lot more!
7. I was always under the illusion that because I made excellent grades all through school and college that I am an educated person. Just one year of formal homeschooling (third year counting pre-k and Kindergarten) has exposed that myth! I have a lot of learning to do still and most of it has to do with teaching myself how to read and engage texts in a thoughtful way.
   
8. I really do like Star Wars!
   

Eight People to Tag:

Heidi
Kerri
Jenny
Tami
Tammy
Sheryl
That's only six but anyone else who wants to jump in, please do. Leave a comment and I'll read yours, too!

Tag You're It!

Lisa at Koinonia Academy tagged anyone who read her blog to answer the following questions. You can read her responses here!

If you are reading this, you too have been tagged. Leave a comment when you post the answers at your blog so everyone will know where to go and see!

Two names you go by:
1. Jen
2. Jenne

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. my favorite Lucky Jeans
2. t-shirt from Fossil

Two of your favorite things to do:
1. read (by myself or to my children)
2. scrapbook

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. a remodeled kitchen complete with granite counter tops, double ovens and hardwood floors
2. more patience

Two favorite pets you have had/have:
1. Cheetoh (the 20 lb orange cat) - he was the first and only pet dh and I have had
2. Layla - my Doberman pincher growing up

Two things you ate (or drank) today:
1. caramel latte and peanut butter crunch pie from Seattle's Best
2. honey crisp apple (my new favorite apple)

Two people you last talked to:
1. Dh
2. my small group (sorry that's a bunch of people!)

Two things you're doing tomorrow:
1. watching Thatcher's soccer game
2. grocery shopping

Two longest car rides:
1. Houston to Panama City Beach Florida in 1992
2. Dallas to Colorado on a bus every year in high school with church's youth group to snow ski

Two favorite holidays:
1. Christmas
2. Easter

Two favorite beverages:
1. caffeine free diet coke
2. coffee, hot tea, hot cocoa on a cold winter morning

Can't wait to read your responses!

My First Award

How Fun! Jessica at Trivium Academy gave me the "Nice Matters Award"! I just "met" Jessica a few months ago when I started stalking her blog and emailing her ten questions a day. :) She has been such an incredible inspiration to me and I am blessed to now call her a friend!

"This award is for those bloggers who are nice people, good blog friends and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world. Once you've been awarded please pass it on to others who you feel are deserving of this award."

I would like to pass this award on to Heidi from Mount Hope Chronicles. Her tender spirit, love for family and introspective/intelligent approach to life come through in every post. Her blog is like a breath of fresh air.

I would also like to pass it along to Kerri from Way Out in the Dessert. She inspires me with all the amazing things she does with her boys! Her blog is so fun to read and I always get a million ideas from her.

Like the new photos?

I love learning about people and their stories. In case you are like me, I thought I would tell a little (I could, like most mamas, go on and on about my babies!) about each of the new photos on my header. If this is not your thing, feel free to skip this post.

The first photo is of Thatcher and me at a Houston Astros game. Some sweet person gave us their season tickets on a night they weren't going to be used so we took our two oldest just a few weeks ago. Dh and I are huge Astros fans (even though they stink this year!) so we had a ball sharing this experience with them.

I am so glad that Dh included this shot of Beckett. The only other photo of him anywhere on my blog is the one of him crying on the first day of school so I am glad to show his precious face when he is not sad! Baths are just about his favorite thing, too.

The third picture is an oldie but goodie. I believe it's over 6 months old and it's currently the photo on my desktop with the verse:

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Psalm 127:3 (ESV)

The fourth photo is of my Haddon whose nickname is "Chocolate Eyes." Need I say more?

The next picture of Thatcher was taken this spring at my husband's family's land in the beautiful Texas Hill Country - Kerrville to be exact. As the boys grow older we desire for them to have precious memories of going out to the ranch and we plan to go frequently. No tv, computers or cellphone service but lots of dirt, bugs and snakes, places to explore and places to swim. This is one of the swimming spots called "Little Blue Hole."

The next shot is from that same trip to Kerrville. Beckett crashed after hiking all morning. Not sure why he was the one sleeping...I was the one carrying his extra 20 pounds around. Lol!

Finally one more photo of the ranch. This picture is from the bluff, about a seven minute hike from the house. Here Thatcher is overlooking the Guadalupe River. Isn't is gorgeous?! The second Dh snapped this photo I grabbed Thatcher and pulled him way back from the edge. It is a terrifying drop!

Thanks to my sweet husband who choose all these photos and surprised me while I was away on my trip! I love you.

God-View Glasses

I loved this idea a friend of mine did with her children on their first day of school: they made "God-view Glasses!" She explained that she and their daddy's desire was to train them to see life from a biblical world view - to examine all things through the lenses of Scripture.

How fun! One of the things I always talk with Thatcher about is that I desire for him to see people as God sees them, creatures designed in His image to reflect His glory, and to treat them accordingly. I think we'll be making our own "God-view Glasses" soon!

Fun Idea for a Hot (Rainy, Snowy...) Day!

Today was the sixth day of Daddy being out of town. We couldn't go outside because Thatcher's asthma has flared up - not to mention the horrible heat, humidity and man-eating mosquitoes that could carry Beckett away if they had a mind to!

Then Thatcher remembered something I did for him two years ago when dh was out of town. (Thatcher is blessed with his Daddy's intelligence and memory! I can hardly remember what happened yesterday, much less two years ago!) "Mommy will you make me a tape road?"

So we happily set about making a tape road in the middle of our kitchen floor.

It's nothing fancy (as if you couldn't tell by looking at it. Lol!)...just some painters tape, fifteen minutes and a tiny bit of imagination; my boys played here for hours this afternoon! I don't remember what sparked this idea, only that I was researching fun ideas for our preschool year. This worked for the letter "R" for "Road." If you can't tell, there's a gas station and a parking lot, too! How fun would it be to make a railway line or an airport? I'll have to keep that in mind for another rainy day.

No Problem!

Well, it was delivered last Thursday. From the time we decided to homeschool I knew wanted it...a magnetic dry erase board. But the story of how I finally got one turned out to be great!

We had been saving pennies for awhile, and last Monday it was time to go to the office supply store to make the big purchase. I knew exactly where it was and how much it was going to cost - two hundred and sixty-nine dollars plus tax. It was our one big purchase for this school year (other than curriculum, of course). This day when I walked to the back of the store it was priced at $209. Wooo-hoooo! I was going to save $60. How many more books could I buy with that money?! When I went to grab one of the "Take One" slips to carry to the register the pocket was empty. An employee said he would check the stockroom, but after not finding any he said he would place the order at the back computer - and waive the delivery fee for my trouble. Now I was really excited!

When it came time to pay, he couldn't find the correct board in the system. He asked me the dimensions and found another the same size. This one was $345 though. I quickly let him know that was not an an option, and he replied it would be, "No problem." He would simply do a price-match. Right in front of my eyes he lowered the price to $209 but he couldn't get the computer to waive the delivery fee. "No problem," he again stated. He would put the price of the board at $189 and leave the delivery fee; I would pay the same in the end. After asking 900 times if he really could do this without losing his job he assured me repeatedly it was, "No problem."

When he went to finalize the order the total came to only $202. We realized that after lowering the price the final time the computer had finally removed the delivery fee. I told him he needed to add $20 back to the price of the board but he said again...you guessed it, "No problem!"

That's how I got a $345 ($393 when you add tax and delivery) dry erase board delivered to my front door for only $202! In another post I'll tell you all the things I plan on doing with my new toy!