Feasting with Family

My little helpers! Here is the prep-work for having a bed for Grandma and Grandpa. Both Mya and Emily wanted to help make the bed "blow up". The girls were SO excited to have nana and papa sleep in their room with them.
Emily didn't want to give up her car to sissy. So, she thought she would do the pump while sitting on it. Silly girl!
Some play time after several days of getting prepared for family. This was the last chance to play in the fire (we don't always allow this :) ) before having wood in it for the winter.
The girls thought it was pretty neat that Katelynne's phone took pictures. Kate was kind enough to let them take their own pictures of eachother. You're the best Kate! They adore you!
This is the cooking crew. Mya has pie weights on her head. She was so excited to get them, thinking they were marshmallows!
Little hands are really fast! Uh oh. We're not done with that Emily!
Okay. Now we're done. You can have the bowl. She was pleased to feed auntie Kate. Please note she didn't keep it in the mouth. There was such a laugh about it, she thought she would be funny too.......

..so she did this to herself!
After auntie cleaned off all the stickies, they went to the pampering treatment. Emily loves to have her fingers painted. She does tend to forget her age and think she's big enough to do it herself. Our table has proof to show that. Man!
Matt and Ashlie were kind enough to let the kiddos pile in while they got the room set up. Mya is plugging her ears because of the loud blower. They couldn't wait until it was big since Ashlie and Matt said the kids could have fun jumping on it when it was done.
Night before dessert preparations.
While the girls were cooking, the boys had fun playing video games.
Relaxing and visiting. Kate is under-cover. Zeke was having fun hiding her.
Grandma has just arrived! She's greeted with snuggles from two sleepy kids.
A quick tea and cookie before heading to bed.
Apparently, the desserts looked too good to not be real. She had to try it out.
Nana reads bedtime stories.
Early morning snuggles.
Love this picture.
We're just about ready.... if only I had taken a picture of all our desserts too. We had 2 pumpkin pies, 2 Chocolate Merengues, Oreo Cheescake, Cherry Cheescake, Lemon Merengue, fruit salad and YUMMY cranberry jello. I'm telling you.... that many people and we're still drowning in food. While the adults enjoyed playing games.....
Nana and Papa snuggled with the kids. So nice to have that time!

We had the best Thanksgiving we've had in years! We were able to spend the time with a house full of family. Joe, Sarah and Zeke drove 7 hours and arrived Wednesday night. Cody and Katelynne flew in Wednesday night as well. On Thursday, Matt and Ashlie arrived from a long 12 hour drive. They are troopers! Mom and Dad flew in Thursday night. We had a busling house full of laughter and thankfulness to all be together. What a treat! We had our Thanksgiving meal on Friday, and it was WONDERFUL! What a menu! We had two Settler's games going, and had to play in tournament style with that many people. Joe and Matt (Ashlie's Matt) turned out to be the all-time champions, although Kate and Cody held the second title. After kids were tucked in for the night, we all gathered around to play more games. What a special time we had. Today, everyone had to head back home. We are now in a empty house, and it is so quiet. Goodbyes are always so hard.

Thanksgiving

But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hears, to which also you were called in one body, and BE THANKFUL. Let the word of Christ DWELL IN YOU RICHLY in all wisdom... singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, DO ALL in the name of the Lord Jesus, GIVING THANKS to God the Father through Him. Colossians 3:14-17

As we approach Thanksgiving, I am asking for work to be done in my heart and mind. I want to see every blessing; every gift that I am given. If I can slow down to think of what I have, I will be reminded that it is ALL because of Him.

Our pastor said something yesterday that really jumped out. He said that it is interesting that we give one day out of the year to be "thankful" for what we have, and we spend the entire next month looking for and wanting what we don't have. Isn't that the truth? How sad!

There is a song I know. I want it to be the song my heart sings forever.

All of You is more than enough for all of me. For every thirst and every need. You satisfy me with Your love. All I have in You is more than enough.

He gives me breath.... it is enough.

The Life You've Always Wanted...

... a book by John Ortberg that I am reading through in my Bible Study. This weeks topic was on the "Disciple and Prayer". There were so many encouraging things that I learned and I wanted to share. We have a few resources that we use in our study. We use the book mentioned before, our Bibles (of course), and materials from the course on "Soul Purpose". Every week we dive in to various scriptures in the Bible. I was really amazed at just HOW MUCH Jesus spent time in prayer while He was here on earth. "Prayer wasn't a part of His life, it WAS His life." You would think, being the very Son of God, that He wouldn't have to pray...He knows all things. Yet, He was the example to us of how to live our lives...fully walking in the Presence of God and uniting our hearts and minds continually... no matter where we find ourselves or what we are doing.

As I have done before, I am going to pull out the highlighted portions from the book. I hope it flows together enough to make sense. I hope you are blessed and encouraged to move forward, implementing new habits if necessary.

Prayer is something we generally associate with desperation. Desperate people pray. When we reach the limit of our resources, we pray instinctively, reflexively. It is not bad to pray in a time of crisis. One of God's most amazing attributes is that he is humble enough to accept people when they turn to him in sheer desperation, even when they have been ignoring him for years. By themselves, such prayers are not sufficient to sustain spiritual life. Many of us fall into a pattern where the only times we pray are the times when we are prompted by crisis or pain; the test of the time we rely on our own strength and cleverness. In most ordinary moments we are not convinced that prayer REALLY changes things. Many people believe that their prayers won't change God's actions, so they ask themselves what the point is of praying.

....these acts (from the book of Revelation) come in RESPONSE TO THE PRAYER...

The endless songs and praises of heavenly hosts suddenly stop. Why? Because someone is praying. All of heaven stops so the prayers of the saints- your prayers and mine, every one of them- can rise before God. The are heard. They matter. Prayers of real human beings- like you and me- interrupt heaven. "History belongs to the intercessors- those who believe and pray the future into being." It is Christ Jesus who indeed intercedes for us. The Bible's teaching in prayer... Prayer changes things. What is striking is the care with which Abraham marshals his argument and states his case- clearly he feels he is talking to a person whose course of action really can be affected by what he says: "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?... Far be that from you!" .... it pays to haggle with God. Prayer changes things. "Men devoted to prayer are winning for it the grace and the protection and the friendship of God." You don't know how many people have been strengthened because you asked God to encourage them; how many people have been healed because you prayed for their bodies; how many spiritual runaways have come home because you prayed for their souls.

"Lord, teach us to pray." Jesus looked forward to prayer and actually hungered for it. They (His disciples) saw that somehow prayer fed Jesus' soul the way food fed their stomachs. They observed a richly interactive life between Jesus and his Father. They noticed that at crisis points- his consistent response was to pray.

Prayer is a learned behavior. Th learn how to pray we need two things: a time and a place. Set aside the same small block of time day after day. Choose one time each day. If you allow the time to vary, it has a way of evaporating altogether. Keep it to five minutes every day. Pay attention to the setting where you're going to pray. The Gospels tell us that Jesus did this: "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed." "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." Jesus took care to find places that would be free of distractions. Being inaccessible was precisely Jesus' goal when praying. Jesus mostly prayed outdoors in places of beauty-mountainsides.....

Over time, a space that is used again and again for prayer becomes sacred. Having one place where you have met God in prayer over the years becomes a gift to your soul. The best idea is to pray when you are at your best. Give Him YOUR best time. Prayer requires preparation. When we go to pray, thoughts jump around in our minds like monkeys jumping around on banana trees. So at the beginning of prayer it is important to take a few moments to allow the monkeys to settle down. Take a few deep breaths and allow your mind to slow down.

"Bring ourselves before God just as we are, warts and all. Like children before a loving father, we open our hearts and make our requests. We do not try to sort out the good from the bad.. We tel God, for example, how frustrated we are with the co-worker at the office or the neighbor down the street. We ask for food, favorable weather, and good health." The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for what we are truly interested in. A truly remarkable example, when Elijah prays to complain about a group of youths calling him "baldy" (look at 2 Kings 2:24) Prayer, like any other relationship, must begin in honesty if it is to grow. In prayer, we must "lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."

I have learned that if my mind keeps returning to a particular topic during prayer, it is probably an indication that this is the topic that is of most concern to me and I need to talk to God about. I need to talk to God about me need to feel important and inappropriate ways I feed that need. I may need to pause during prayer to be reminded by God that I am loved simply because he made me and has redeemed me. It may well be that when your mind wanders, it is wandering to what your heart most needs to speak with God about.

While simple prayer may be the type most commonly practiced in Scripture, intercession is perhaps the kind of prayer most commonly COMMANDED in Scripture. When I intercede for others, the circle of my concern becomes expanded a little beyond myself. More than that, when I intercede for others, God is at work in ways I do not understand. Jesus often taught about intercessory prayer. Persistence. He told parables about people who would not stop requesting. Persistence pays off on the human level, how much more should we continue to persist when we approach a heavenly Father whose love and wisdom exceed our wildest imaginings. Prayer is "talking with God about what we are doing together." ...perhaps the greatest work of all is the knitting of the human heart together with the heart of God. ... heard them express regrets about many activities- years wasted in obsessions over work, time thrown away in pursuit of more money. I have never yet heard a person at the end of their life regret time they had spent in prayer. For where there is much prayer there is much love. With simplicity of heart we allow ourselves to be gathered up into the arms of the Father and let him sing his love song over us.



Our weekly verse was this, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, submit your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:6-7

You made it through! I know it's long. I hope you find it worth your time. I know I did.

Sick Sick

So... the delay for blogging was mainly due to the girls and I being sick for the past two weeks. The girls had VERY high fevers coming and going. I was hit with a major head cold or sinus infection which I am still trying to get through. Just wanted to let you know that for the next few days I do plan on updating. I am very behind and have a lot to post.

Beautiful Fall

I told Matt that if I could, I would be buried here. So gorgeous!

This weekend we did a bit of driving. The first day I did not have my camera, and I was really bummed. The second day I did not make the same mistake. As always, pictures don't capture the full majesty of it. It truly takes my breath away. Both Matt and I agree that this year has been amazing with the brilliance of colors. The last two years have not been this vibrant, and even people that have been here for 50 years say that this is a great year. Enjoy a piece of our fall.

Pumpkin Painting

We decided this year that painting pumpkins would be better than carving..... at the time. You see, the girls don't really enjoy the mess of carving. They don't last a full month if we open them up. So, we will paint some, and carve some. Now that Halloween is this week, Matt will probably get our large pumpkin and turn it into something great. Until then.... the paint is great!

Our "baby" is two!

For several months Emily had been noticing that Mya and Mommy had "pretties", but she did not. She would pull on her ear and say, "ee-wie". We wanted to wait until her Birthday to have her ears pierced. S0, that is just what we did. It was a bit after the piercing before she started crying. It was that long gasp before she let the cry out. It only lasted until dad came to the rescue, and THEN she got a sucker. Everything is made better with a sucker! Mya tells us every day how much she likes "Enimly's new earings".