Making the Most of Every Opportunity

A few people have asked how much time I take to blog weekly. Since my heart in blogging is to pour Christ into my home and out to others, I feel really strongly that I need to guard my time here. I hate how poorly I manage my time on facebook (I'm once again committed to moderation there). So here, I purposefully guard my time by blogging ahead. The answer is, I don't spend time blogging weekly at all. I make a list of a few months worth of ideas (which are added to pages worth of ideas I came up with before I ever began this blog) and save links to posts I've read that I want to pass on during naptime when I see one or think of it. Then, on the first week of the month, I blog during naptime for the entire next month . I blog enough to publish two posts per week that I schedule to release automatically on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have flexibility  built in for anything that I may want to add in as the month goes on during weekends. That's it. I don't blog any

Next week we will celebrate our firstborn's 6th birthday. I have so many fun memories of my own birthdays growing up and some traditions I still follow (like my yellow cake with chocolate frosting), so I knew I wanted our family to really enjoy celebrating God's good gift of each other on our birthdays. Here are our main traditions: 1) Cake- each of us pick out what cake we want and get it on our birthday. Andy likes ice cream cake, Jimmy wants fun cupcake designs, and Caleb is still young enough that I make whatever sounds fun to me! 2) Notes with specific things we love in that person. Andy and I write them on small index cards for each boy (and each other on our birthdays) and we have them tell us what they love about each other and write out one from each of them. We try to do this in cards we send to family far away on their birthdays as well. 3) Party Favor/Present hunt- Since birthday parties go by quickly and sometimes we can miss the favors and presents for our

I love reading to our kids and we are regulars at our library. We are always excited to find a new author (to us) that captures our imaginations and stirs our hearts. My favorite kid authors are the ones who provide opportunities to show Christ and talk about hard things with my kids, but do it in an adventurous and exciting way. Here is a short list of some of the most often read books in our home. 1)  Sammy and His Shepherd , Susan Hunt- I've written an entire post about this book in the past. It's a sweet series of stories of Psalm 23 through the eyes of a sheep named Sammy and his friend from another pasture. 2) RC Sproul is a favorite author of Jimmy's (age 5) All of his books are fantastic. I listed the ones we read regularly in the order I like them. - The Prince and the Poison Cup - The Priest With Dirty Clothes - The Lightlings - The King Without a Shadow 3) The Squire and the Scroll , Jennie Bishop - great book about a boy, knights, a dragon, and gaining wis

I've almost been blogging for a year now! Wow. That is so exciting! I'll post a few blogs sharing how I am learning to manage time well as a blogger soon. But today, I'm filling out a 7 question blog survey: Your most beautiful post .- The post that I have a super soft spot for is Remembering . Teaching my  boys how good it is to remember those we have loved that are gone has been so good and meaningful to our family. Your most popular post. Hands down this is my post on A Fallen Idol- How One Man's Sin Exposed My Own . Within a day I had hundreds of people who read it and those thoughts are still read daily by people. My close second though is my anniversary post of 9 years In Pictures . Funny how different those posts are! Your most controversial post.  I've had a few. The series I seem to get the most feedback on is how we discpiline our children . Some people love it and others think we're crazy. And they write to let me know. Your most helpful post .

Let me share today, the rest of nancy Guthrie's quote from my previous post. Her take away from the call in Scripture to submit under God in all circumstances is SO encouraging: For me, submission has meant a quiet, though sorrowful, acceptance of God's plan and God's timing. It has meant giving up the plans I had for my daughter, for my family, for my life, and bringing them all under submission to him. Now what I wish is that it had been a one-time decision, a one-time sacrifice. But throughout Hope's life, as her condition deteriorated her, the call to submission hasn't stopped, and it hasn't gotten easier. Every day, as I let go of my dreams and my desires, as I see little girls the age Hope would be bringing a smile to the face of their moms and dads, as I plan for another child who will only be with us a short time, I'm once again called upon to submit. Some days I do better than others...   Shouldn't we cry out to God with boldness and passion

I was encouraged through Nancy Guthrie as I read through her pain and loss (of 2 children) and yet see her desire to submit under God and grow in Him in strength. I want to share a few excerpts from her book, Holding Out Hope that have impacted me. Here's the first: "God seemed to speak to me clearly — though not in an audible voice. I've never heard that. He spoke to me the way he always does: through Scripture.   In my Bible study a couple of weeks after Hope was born, we looked at the story of Hagar who had run away from Abram and Sarah due to Sarah's harsh treatment. She wanted to escape her difficult situation, but God spoke to her in the desert, telling her to "return and submit." The lecturer asked, "What is God calling you to submit to?" And I knew God was calling me to submit to the journey we were facing with Hope, not to fight it or cry out to him to change it, but to submit to his plan and his purposes.   At the same time, we were tal

Since I posted some ways to engage hearts and not just entertain our kids on rainy days, I thought I'd go ahead and share the Bibles and family devotional we use.  1) Young Kids Bible Storybook-  Jesus Storybook Bible - such a great bible storybook for even the smallest child and you can watch videos of it online too! Here's part of the Christmas story video: 2) School age full text Bible-  ESV Seek and Find Bible - great full text bible with LOTS of pictures for young readers! 3) Awesome Devotional-  Long Story Short : Ten Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God, Marty Machowski- Great family devotional that dives into the Word!

Playing together is so fun! But rainy, yucky days that go on day after day are hard. I'm praying we will begin to see that they are also opportunities to share Christ in our time at home with our young kid s. So I pray our hearts will stay on Him, our kids will burn some energy in fun activities, and we'll engage their hearts in our time spent with them. I shared lots of ideas how in my last 2 posts (read them here and here ), but here are a few more: 1) Read your kids favorite Bible stories and then help them make a picture book to tell the stories to others! 2) Listen to audio books that engage and pour Christ in through allegory! We love The Chronicles of Narnia, The Mighty Acts of God (narrated bible stories with family discussion questions/application) and when a bit older, Adventures In Odyssey.  3) Clean the house together . It is so good to instill hard work and serving others into our children. Find the fun things (like racing each other while sorting clothe