The yucks of life...

 This week has been a rough week - no sugar coating it! :) There's things ( yucks as I like to call them) that God has been asking me to deal with, things I don't understand. I wasn't ok with any of it either and I've been fighting it by being in a bad mood and grumpy!
  It really was bad because last night when we were playing the "Thomas Memory Game" with the kids, one of them flipped over the picture of "cranky the crane" and Joel just looked up at me and pointed at me - I got it - he really thought I was "cranky!" :) It's kinda funny now...
 This morning I sat down to have my devotions and simply cry out to God asking for His help. It's amazing what a little God time can do for a person!
 Did all my "rough" things fly away? No, not really but He's able to give me peace in the midst of the storm. And even tho' I'm still having to deal with the very same issues, I know God is with me, He'll give me the strength to deal with it!
 And in the mean time I want to let the pressure shape my life into a diamond that God can use at His dissposal. 

Wishing you guys a great week! :)
 ~Staci

"...Jesus Made You All Good"

This child keeps us laughing! She's in a totally halarious stage right now. I really should be the good mom and write everything down - but I don't.

~ There was that time we borrowed the pull behind camper to go camping. Before Joel had it hooked up to the durango and it was just sittin in the yard, Hailey, looking very serious asked how we are going to drive that thing.She wondered if it has a steering wheel. I know, she's just 3 and she had no clue, but I just laughed, it struck me so funny!

~ Last night she asked me if she could have Joel to eat :) ( sweety, I know he's sweet enough to eat, but not literally!) ;)

 ~ And then we just have to laugh when her "boot hurts" or when she's hungry and needs some "bood" or when she sees a "bishy" swimming around.

~ And she's forever kissing our "baby"

~  She LOVES Bella, our lil' boxer puppy! Random times during the day she asks if she can go out and play with Bella. I have learned she loves animals of any kind! Rabbits,dogs,kittys...you name it! The other night I was asking Joel if he can imagine how nice it would be to have a cow to milk - we'd have all the milk we need and more! Hailey caught wind of what I was saying and the excitement that mounted in her at the thought of having a cow was so incredibly funny! Her face lit up, I think she even kinda put her hands in the air and she looked at me and said in her little excited, high pitched voice "ya, den I cud wun and play wif it!" Me and Joel just looked at each other and laughed. I really can see it - her and that cow would be Best of Friends!

Although our kids keep us laughing daily, sometimes they say things that are totally profound, and make you stop and think!

Braxton and Hailey are both at the stage where they just randomly come kiss me or hug me and say " I love you so much" or "I wyke you".

So the other night when I was fixin' to bathe Hailey it was nothing new to hear her say " I wyke you..." But she didn't stop there, she went on and said "Jesus made you all good."

That phrase surprised me, it was like a little gift from heaven actually. But it got me thinking and my thought was - if she can overlook the million flaws that I have as a mommy, then how should I not be able to overlook the flaws of others.

As humans it's so easy to look at each other and see the flaws of others and harp on those, never stopping to think that we are all made in God's image and that  he "made us all good." ( So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God He created them... Genesis 1:27a) ( God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Genesis 1:31)

I don't know, maybe you're super human and never need reminders like this, but I know I sure did! I want to look for the good in others and not let the flaws in a person determine to me who that person is. I want to see people as God sees them. I want the love of God to fill my life and mind.

And the next time you start feeling down, feeling like you're not really worth anything, just remember - "... Jesus made you all good!"

Hope y'all have a great day! Here before long I'm off to do some corn.Oh yes, I know I've got some jealous people wishing they could take my place, right!? Haha ... for some reason I am pretty sure that the thought of corn day doesn't really rouse jealousy in people - sure wouldn't in me anyway ;) But at least we'll have corn in the freezer for this winter! :)

Staci

Why God Made Little Boys...

God made the world out of His dreams

of magic mountains,oceans and streams,

prairies and plains and wooded lands,

then paused and thought

"I need someone to stand,

on top of mountains,to conquer the seas,

explore the plains and climb the trees.

Someone to start out small and to grow,

sturdy and strong as a tree..."

And so,

He created boys,full of spirit and fun,

to explore and conquer to romp and run.

With dirty faces and banged up chins,

with courageous hearts and boyish grins.

When he had completed the task He'd begun

He surley said "A job well done!"

I love my son! He has brought me such pleasure and joy since his birth! I never dreamed how awesome it would actually be to be a mommy and my sons birth brought feelings I've never had before because he was my first born!

Joy and wonder at such a miracle! The mother henish feelings, pure awe at how God can create such a special little being.Those first moments of holding him were absolute bliss!

Now he is 4! I have a hard time believing that just 4 short years ago I thought he would never grow up fast enough!! After the first two weeks of his life he started his colic and I tell you , that is something that I sympathize with every mom, especially brand new mommies! The feeling of being watched and having so many suggestions thrown at you, at what you could do or possibly what will make it better - it's overwhelming.

My mom was my huge supporter.She went through two biological colic babies and when third sister came along, she may not have been biological but she gave my mom the grief and stress of fussiness just like us two oldest. My mom understood. She said I could do it. And four short years later, it's proven to me that she was right! ;)

Here we are, with our little colicy all grown up! ;) ok,not all grown up, but gettn there.You know what I mean :) And I thank God he chose us to be Braxton's mommy and daddy!

This stage brings a whole new set of challanges but it's a stage I greatly enjoy!

And this year he asked for a party with "his little friends" and how in the world could this mommy resist! Braxton's little friends mean the world to him.And he is lucky to have a whole set of little boys around his age.

1...2...3...4...5...6...7....yep, there were 7 little boys here that evening and there was one or two missing. Full of energy, full of fun.They were running around here like little indians enjoying every second.Well, my son had a few freak out moments, I think he felt a little overwhelmed but nevertheless,he had the time of his life!

And it was totally adorable how each one was very proud of the gift they brought and each one of them was sure that theirs was the best gift there! ;)

While they were eating supper they started talking about what they brought for Braxton and one of them piped up "I brought a monster truck!" :)

At the end of the day Brax was very sad that his friends had to go home! He wanted them to stay at his house. And he kept telling me that evening after everything was over, "tonight was fun."

At bedtime he came and wrapped his skinny little arms around my neck, laid his head on my shoulder and said "tonight was fun!"

Definitley made it worth it for this mamma!

And just for the record...

...I'm very much in love with my little girl too! She'll get a post all her own sometime ;)

I'm a blessed mommy!









Birthdays and Such

May is always a full month for us. My sister has a birthday on the second, Braxton and Hailey have birthdays on the 17th and 27th, mom an dad have an anniversary on the 20th, and of course there's Mother's Day and my grandma's birthday...ya, it's just a full month! :)
This year I kept all of it simple. I didn't have the git and energy to things done like I normally do! Being I was pregnant? or just because we were extremely busy most of the month? I don't know, could be a little of both but the busy part really made it worse!

I always try to make the children's birthdays special.And this year it was very special for them because Papa and Grammy came to spend the weekend.They waited and waited for that weekend and now it's over already! But we had a great time with them while we had them!

The morning of Braxton's birthday ended up being a dreary,rainy morning and Joel had off of work so we all headed to The Little Bake Shoppe to celebrate with his favorite powdered sugar doughnuts.

 

Yes, they LOVE those messy, yummy, sugary, delicious doughnets!

In the evening took him out to eat at the restaurant of his choice. Which ended up being Pizza Hut when it was all said and done :) We had a fun evening - he was quite dissappointed when he discovered he left his race car card from us at pizza hut. He settled for the puppy card we gave him to replace it :)

Mom and dad were here over Hailey's birthday so that was special for her/all of us!

Saturday night we took mom and dad, my little sister and the kids to Kobe for supper. That is a Japenese Steakhouse we have here.They cook the food in front of you, and just as a warning, if your children are a little on the nervous side you may not want to take them there! ;D Hailey had me flying out of my seat,running to the bathroom with her because she had to puke! or so she said :) She leaned over the pot and never did end up puking but I'm purty sure her stomach was in a turmoil because the fire the chef created had her nerves all afrazzle! : D She barely touched her food!

After supper we had a little birthday party for the kids at the park. Their cakes turned out less than perfect this year because it was the last thing I felt like doing Saturday morning! But because I dearly love them I wanted them to have their special cakes! ;) We hauled them up and tried to keep them cool while we were in the restaurant.Unfortunatley the icing started sliding till we got to the park but they were happy anyway! :)

It was their big smiles that really mattered!

Braxton looked at this picture and laughed a little and said " I think we liked our gifts" :) It was a special time for them.

Hailey loves her Papa! When I refused to hold her she ran to Papa...guess she knows he'll give her what she wants :D

My dad developed a liking for golf while he was here. I think with a little more practice he'd do well on the greens :)

Notice Bella chewing on my moms skirt?! ;D Mom and Bella didn't get along so well but Bella seemed to have quite the attraction to mom and her skirt! Was it the beautiful blue or was it the resentment she felt from mom that attracted her back to mom? ;D I don't know but it was kinda funny :)

I will once again say it was a wonderful weekend! I love having my parents come visit!

I  was going to add pictures of our fun camping trip the other weekend, but I came up with this very last minute idea to go spend the day at the zoo, so I'd better run and get ready because Jan will be here after awhile.

I can't wait to go see my great uncle! He's always the best lookin' there at the zoo!!! ;)

Y'all have a fabulous rest of the week! I will be back with more pictures before to long!

~Staci



Something to blog about...

Inspiration to write has been on a very low level the last while! But the newest member of the family inspired me to update our blog ;)

Last night we made a quick, last minute descision to go pick up a cute little,brindle colored, boxer puppy. We've been wanting a dog for quite awhile already and just never found quite the right one. Joel came home from work, was browsing the dog advertisments and came across these beautiful boxer puppies. Ends up they are only 5 1/2 weeks old and soooooooo cute! We called the people, hurried and got ready and off we went. (On the way home Joel looked at me and said, "this is so us. Last minute!" ;) That's how we roll around here.Last minute descisions seem to work well better for us most of the time! :)

This is just a bunch of cuteness!! ;)

This little girl is head over heels!

The pup will get lots of love and attention at this house! We can't seem to agree on a name for the little girl... dolly is my choice, dixie is Joel's choice, Braxton thinks poochy would be cute, and my sister thinks we have such a poor taste in dog names ;) I don't know, maybe that perfect "yay-we-love-it-thats-perfect-name" will surface in the next few days :) Naming a dog seems to be as hard as naming a child : D For now she's "Dolly" :)

Y'all have a great week!



Can I really!?

Today I decided to be brave and once again attempt the huge task of making bread! For some this is an every week occurence and is as easy as making pie, or no, actually more like,as easy as making cookies for them! ;)

Bread has always come hard for me. I don't like bread that breaks when I fold it.I've made bread that was absolutely gorgeous when it came out of the oven, but give it a day and it was the awful break-when-I-fold-it-in-half bread.

Some of my friends make the oatmeal bread and told me it's easy and yummy! The last time I made it I was discouraged. It was so soft I couldn't even shape it into loaves. I just baked it in one big blob!   : D

This morning I mustered up the courage to give it another try - and I MADE BREAD!

Nevermind that my loaves were three different sizes! My "guessing scales" didn't work so well ;) When I let it cool a little I FINALLY got the chance to try the bread! I couldn't wait! Maybe,just maybe there's homemade bread in our future : D We'll give it a day and see if it gets all yucky and hard ;)

Oh, and I was equally as excited about trying my strawberry jam I made last night! I found this awesome recipe that takes only half the sugar! Strawberry Freezer Jam always gave me the blues because I could never help but think about amount of sugar that went into it! Seriously, an equal amount of sugar and crushed strawberries! Anyway, everyone tells me , "well, you use only a little bit", and if you remember telling me that, it's ok...but it still bothered me ;)

Julia's Strawberry Freezer Jam

5 cups mashed strawberries

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar

5 Tablespoons plus 1 Tablespoon Instant Clear Jel

1. Place smashed strawberries in a large bowl

2. In a smaller bowl, mix together sugar and clear jel,whisking until well mixed.Add the sugar mixture to the strawberries,whisking until very well mixed and sugar looks dissolved.If you don't stir it well, the starch will thicken in clumps.This should only take a minute or so.

3. Let strawberry mixture sit for 10 minutes to thicken completely.Scoop into clean jars,seal with a lid and place in freezer.

                                              He didn't seem to mind less sugar in his jam :)

Just when you thought...

...I totally forgot my blog and may never post again ... here I am :) I didn't forget about our little corner on the internet, it's just, well, life happened and I was not feeling inspired ;) So when I don't feel inspired to sit down and blog it doesn't happen! :)
 Alot of things happened since I last blogged. March was really kinda busy and April didn't start out much better. When you think it should slow down, it only gets busier.So I guess I should stop wishin' for a slow down!
 Then end of March we thought we were headed to Ohio to go see Joel's family and celebrate his dad's 60th, but two nights before we left we decided to head to Florida to visit them instead.They were originally planning to be home by that weekend but Joel's dad had severe kidney stone issues, was hospitalized for a few days and then it was recommended for him not to travel for a little while. So instead of pushing our trip out a week we decided to just run to Florida.
 It was a nice visit. Florida is beautiful but I think Pinecraft would probably eventually get on my nerves if I was there to long. Their little beach towns were gorgeous tho'! As we were driving to the beach one evening Joel told me that he thought it looked like so much fun to walk the little shops down there in the beach towns :) I love it that my hubby gets in the mood for that kind of stuff :)

This spring weather has me so excited! I love feeling spring in the air. I really wanted to have a garden this year but we didn't work any place up here for one.I actually wanted raised beds but I think that's something that needs to wait till we have our own place before we put the time and money in for something like that. Liz did have a little raised bed thingy behind the house here where she had flowers in, so I took that and planted some lettuce and radishes and tomatos and peppers. My first batch of lettuce and radishes came up beautifully.I planted lettuce twice, since that and none of that really came up very nice.Not sure why.

I told Joel that this has been my hobby this spring. And I sit out there willing the stuff to grow so we can eat it! :) I'm just waiting for my tomatoes to come up.I think I'm probably most excited about those! I don't know what you think of when you think of summer but I think BLT sandwiches!

I also started growing fresh herbs. I just thought it sounded like fun and was wishing I had fresh stuff on hand to cook with.Some I started with seeds and others I got plants. I have parsley, cilantra,basil,thyme,dill and chives.It's been a fun experiment for me.

Yep, around here we love spring. It makes us feel alive!

The other day as I was driving down the road, the song "There could never be a more beautiful you" came across the radio.I'm thinking maybe Jonny Diaz sings it?  Go on youtube,I'm sure you can pull it up - since I have no clue how to download it and have no time to figure it out ;)

Anyway, as I was listening to it, the thought hit me that we are made exactly how God wants us made!I know this song is probably talking about outward appearance some but my mind also went to our different personalities and make up. Maybe you don't like your  quiet personality, or maybe you wish to be more quiet or more outgoing - who knows, seems us as humans always find something wrong with ourselves or each other.

But as I was thinking about it I guess it was made clear to me that we are where we are because God has us here on earth to fulfill a purpose - to glorify him. And we all glorify God in a different way. Maybe you glorify God by your friendliness, making friends easily and reaching out to people, or maybe you preach or maybe your just a natural teacher.Others glorify Him with behind the scenes stuff because they have a personality more suited for that.

So it's easy to look at ourselves and be discontent, wishing we could be more like somebody else...

Or me and Joel were talking about it the other day that sometimes it's easy to look at somebody else and be very critical - well, why can't they get up and give their testimony or teach or etc. etc. because I can! and get caught up in that rut not remembering that God made us all with different gifts,different personalities.

I think we all need to remember that God made us and others the way He wants us.And we have no right to be discontent or to judge another because "there could never be a more beautiful you."

This song spoke to me this week. I also read thoughts about this in my devotional this week and then yesterday the subject was touched on in our Sunday School. God must be trying to speak to me in someway I guess :)

I hope all of you have a wonderful week!

~staci