Be Strong and Courageous

I continue to be so amazed at the gifts God lays out before me daily. I am daily convicted that my whole attitude has everything to do with the start of my day in His Word and in prayer about the 'first things' in my life. The last few days I have hit the off button and not started my day in the solitude of just the Lord and I meeting for a few minutes and it has not been pretty. I am grateful for the newness of every morning and a new chance to connect with him first. Have a blessed day, thanks for stopping by to glance at my list almost half way to the first 1000 beautiful gifts from God. 429.The Love of My Man 430. rest 431. Watering new seedlings 432. Smores 433. Addysen ~ being such a big girl 434. Growing teenage boy 435. Rainbow squares in the sky 436.Beauty seen in wet rocks - more rainbows of grey and pink and white 437. Days blessing 438. 1 thing said 2 heard 439. blogging 440. an old friend on facebook 441. Life - Breath - Love 442. Desire to clean an...

This assignment  was given to the kids in Addysen Kindergarten class. They were supposed to write and expository paragraph describing the process of making a PB&J sandwich. They were supposed to do this with out help on spelling or punctuation. I can say 'proud mama' style, she knocked it out of the park. Her phonetics take on a lot of Spanish when it comes to spelling, because the English language is such a mess :). It reads as follows: Do you want to no how to make a pbj sandwich? First you get two peeses of bired then you get the peenutbuter and jellee and spred the peenutbuter on one pees of bired and then you put jelly on the other pees of bired. then you pur them together and finally I get too eat it!   I love how she spelled 'bread' b-i-r-e-d, and pieces p-e-e-s-e-s. They have been studying so many fun things this year in their science curriculum and they just wrapped up their insects section with butterflies (mariposas). Each child got to watch their...

I love this country!! We lived in Selah for 6 years and still go back for the community days, 2 years later. Such a great 'small' town happening. My husbands coworker driving one of their rigs. Our friends Liz and Lindsey -& the  Footlites girls, Emma is not dancing this year. Our friend Roy, who promotes Schriners' Children's Hospital Addysen  promises we could have one this size ans it would fit in the yard just fine. Even when it started to rain, we stayed around - grew up in Portland after all, and I love the dancing horses! After 2 hours of parade watching and then some down pouring of rain while we ate our picnic in the car we got to go to the carnival.Emma and her BFF Alyssa took Addysen around for a while.

Psalm 62:11 One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: I have been really enjoying the Psalms over the past few weeks and this verse from PS 62 really resonated with me. I have also been working on memorizing the book of Colossians and it is going so well. My mind is not as dull as I sometimes think it is. 392.Daisies on the roadside cliffs - yellow polka dots! 393. "Momma are cows mammals too?" "Yes, they lay their babies live in the grass, not like chickens in an egg." "Those would be some really big eggs, Momma!" (said with hands stretched wide) 394. Morning coffee w/Katia and Tracey 395.Rain showers that lasted through the night, cleaned the air and soaked the ready soil. 396. BSF leader Helen Solem, military wife and blessing to be sure. 397.Mother's Birthday 67 years old 398.Seeing Emma run a race, and track season closing 399.Andrew's win of his last tennis match 400. Safety to 60+kids at spring JROTC camp 401. My amazing husb...

April was full of friends, fellowship, fun and food.  Sweet baby blessing our home with giggles galore!   Making Nilla wafer / Banana cream 'pie' (I cannot for the life of me remember what this stuff is called). Emma's track season went very well. She tried and succeeded at many events, her favorites were Long jump, high jump, javelin, hurdles, the 800 M and 1600 M races. I tried my hand at some whole wheat biscuits for Mother's day that every one loved, even the next morning with jam. I love strawberry season!! <3 <3 <3  These are in our front rock bed and were the first thing to bloom. Welcome Spring!

A few weeks ago I entered a give away at The Mom Creative  who was giving a way a canvas from Red Letter Words  and I chose this wonderful reminder of all things thankful. It is called Be Thankful and say so to Him . I have been reading A Holy Experience  for nearly a year now, most every day; along with having read Ann's book One Thousand Gifts  and trying to really give thanks and experience Joy more freely. So as this now adorns the kitchen wall where everyone can see, I am encouraged to keep the list going. this puts it so well Be Thankful and say so to Him;   Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.

The moon reflects the sun and so shall we reflect the Son and in so doing bring joy to the Father. I have stood gazing out my back window for nearly 20 minutes tonight taking in the Moon's amazing ability to reflect such great light, with out doing anything but standing in the path of it's light. We are to be like that, in standing in the path that God alone has carved out for us, laying down our life and standing up in the path of HIS light we are the Light. The moon appeared to be on fire tonight as the clouds try to block the suns rays from shining. It was as though it was not willing to go dim, but how often do we bow to our ways, our selfishness and let our light flicker and be dim. As I took this photo I realized my exposure setting was not letting the light into the camera. This is what we must look like to the world when we do not reflect the LOVE and LIGHT of the LORD that we say we WORSHIP.   In this last photo (actually number 30+) I real...

I have noticed my joy being smaller, all because I have stopped or slowed my notice of things that I am blessed by. So here I start anew this day the counting of 1000 gifts. I am passing 400 in awe of how Great our Lord is. In yesterdays sermon Pastor Dennis, asked the question - How do we see God? I see God as all knowing - for His ways are higher than mine (thank you Lord), I see Him as a grace giving, ever forgiving, ever loving Lord - and I am blessed to be a sinner saved by His Grace and total sacrifice! Our sermon was out of Matthew 26, about the time that Mary broke the Alabaster box and poured out the precious oil onto our Lord. Giving sacrificially and in full to Him, in preparation for His leaving to the cross. So here are my gifts that He laid our before me this last few weeks (only a few of them, as I was not taking them all in). 363. Eye sight - Andrew's is changing and glasses are in order. 364.Ponies in the field "they aer sooo fluffy" Addysen sai...

Started this morning with some time in prayer and reading some past notes from Sunday sermons. I am looking forward to rising early daily to take the time to be in God's Word with a purpose and taking the time to listen to Him and pray for my family and friends and those who God brings to my heart. There is a facebook check in and twitter (I do not not tweet, yet). It is a group of 800+ women who are meeting with God and then encouraging one another to do so daily.

 Today there has been a flood of great reads, since the shut down of blogger 2 days ago. Here Inspired Mama  is a beautiful read about Iron sharpening Iron, and she links to a handful of very wonderful writers, some whom I follow as well and few new ones (to Me). Of course over at Inspired to Action  we are encouraged to keep first things first - God first - In all things. this weekend is the start of Hello Mornings  and I am very excited to say that more than not, I have been able to get up at the beautiful time of 5:45 and spend some time in the Word, and turn my day over to the Lord. I am sure tomorrow will be a full day; with Andrew returning from camp, the girls along with mom and I attending M.A.D.E  (Mother's appreciation dessert event) along with a friend and her little sweet blessing, at our church. Of course the yard could use some more love and care. I am also 'speaking' ( say that because I am hoping to keep the actual speaking to a min...

I will have to take some time this weekend to post the happenings of this week. Blogger had been down for a few days and I decided to take a break and did not even write my thoughts down. I hope everyone has a great weekend where ever that may take you!  

So today was off to a normal start, 5:45 wake up, get my water, sit to read --- reread Ann Voskamp's chapter ( cannot remember which one now) about her morning of the 'toast war' as I like to call it, and mothering at it's finest. I also was able to get through Psalm 59 - 61. Addysen had been awake before the kids alarms went off at 5:45 as well and down the stairs they all came around 6:01. Andrew was leaving this morning for JROTC spring leadership camp, up in the Cascades somewhere (well I know where :)), and so I was doing the motherly thing of talking him through his packing list and making sure he had planty of extras for the rain that may come their way. They were are doing some leadership classwork as well as lots of fun field stuff like repelling and archery, obstacle courses and team builidng things. I pray for nicer weather to be able to accomplish more with less chance of injury do to muddy conditions or such things. Emma's day was taking he...

At yesterdays baby dedication the pastor had the family choose a family verse, one that they were choosing to use to set as an example of what they wanted their family's walk in the Lord to look like. They had chosen Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with COMPASSION, KINDNESS, HUMILITY, GENTLENESS, AND PATIENCE Bear with each other and FORGIVE what ever grievances you may have against one another. FORGIVE as the LORD forgave you. And over all these virtues put on LOVE, which binds them all together in perfect unity.  I have really enjoyed taking in all that this means to us as we walk the path of not just me as a Christian but together along with our children and with those that we fellowship with in the body, I see it as a list of how to get through every day and end it well. Pleasing  to the Lord, and a pleasure to be around.

The morning started with the alarm at 5:45 and a not so quick jump to my feet. I am blessed by the sun's light at this hour again after it being taken back by day light savings a while ago. Feet to the floor and out to the kitchen, a glass of water and my Bible to start the morning. I have been really enjoying the Psalms and the shorter epistles lately. Today as I read through the passages these stuck out to me. Psalm 48 : 1 Great is the LORD, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. 2 Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, I was struck with the glow of the hills out the window where vineyards grow and sage is green this time of year, at just how beautiful it is and how blessed I am to have it out my window. And as I continued to  read I was blessed to see this passage about growing in the Lord, trusting in Him, and the faithfulness of His Love. Psalm 52:8 But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s...