Wouldn't Trade It

things i wouldnt trade for the world:


hand picked wild flowers (aka weeds) presented by tiny grubby hands

a fridge covered in drawings, pictures, & calendars

hugs whenever i ask for one, and even when i dont

picnic lunches in the yard

looks of pure love from big brown eyes

playing hookey from homeschool

freckles popping up on a tiny upturned nose after hours playing outside

1,000 "I wonder's" a day

jumping on the trampoline

and hearing "Mommy" from MY daughter. (even for the 100th time that day!)



April in Photos

I havent been writing much lately... and neither has Madi.  WHy??  Well, we have been busy this last month!!   Here... let me show you... these are photos from my cell phone, so excuse the quality!

Fresh cut from my garden.... yup... my actual garden produced these beauties!!  So tending said garden has taken up a lot of our time!

Game time.... in our bed... the only way to go (specially when daddy is sick!)

Ahhhh...a kid after my own heart... chalk drawings of my tropical dream. 

EASTER... :o)

Lots of eggs... she had to find each one of them so that none were missing.  Like the good Shepherd does for all His missing sheep!!  :o)

Piano lessons!!

The start of a new peice of art based on Romans 5

Lots of trampoline time...

Gardening.

Homemade bread making...

Walks in the park.

wHoly Chicken w/ the bffs

Bonfires in the backyard... w/ marshmellows of course!

Story time!

A visit to bass pro shops.

And so many more fun things.  We have been busy.  Add in school, plus a week with the bff and her kiddos, Easter, church, ballet, worship team practices, and we are out of time!!!  But its a great life.  We are so enjoying this spring.  Living out here in the country is amazing... we see pheasants, wild turkeys, all kinds of birds, and we even had our first butterfly sighting of the season yesterday!  I think we have spent all our awake time outside this past week.  Its been wonderful!!  I am feeling super blessed and just super thankful to God for giving us this life!!

Hmmmm... this post could have also been titles... "Why I Love My Life!"

I am a Lazy Mom

Yup.  Ill admit it. Im a lazy mom.

I make my kid clean up after herself.
My Child has chores and responsibilities.
She doesnt "rule the roost".

I want her to be responsible for herself.
I discipline her.
I take care of myself.  (Ok, working on that one)
I teach her by example.

Yup... I'm a lazy mom.  :o)

Read this: http://www.imalazymom.com/2010/09/parenting-lazy-mom-way-what-is-lazy-mom.html


Um... yup.. new favorite blog. 
Basically... if your a momma who doesnt cater to your childs ever whim wish and flighty little want, you might be a lazy mom.
So many parents just do what their kids want.  They want them to be happy ALL the time.  They dont discipline, they dont punish.  They dont give direction or guidance other than "whatever you do is fine as long as your happy".  The kids dont do chores or help around the house or even clean up after themselves.
Then these same parents wonder why their kids are unmotivated, dropping out of college or even high school, pregnant with a criminal record.  Really???
Now, I know thats extreme... but as parents we need to teach our children the value of work.  The value of taking pride in something, like a clean room.  We also need to show our love by using discipline... guidance... and giving direction.  And by doing those things, our children will feel loved, supported, rooted and grounded.  They will grow to be productive happy people.  And they will still be happy children. 

And thats what that blog is about.  If we do EVERYTHING for our kids, what are they learning? Nuffin.

So yea.  Im a lazy mom.  Are you??

Don't Forsake It!!!

One of my favorite quotes about the church is:  Sitting in church doesnt make you a Christian anymore than sitting in a garage would make you a car.

I struggle with the concept that you cant truly be walking with the Lord if you dont go to church.... but is that true??

Yes, I know.. DONT FORSAKE THE GATHERING. I get it... its in the bible. 

But I am not the judge.  Who I am to say that the person who is at church everytime its open is more holy than the one who hasnt set foot in it for years.

Yet.... DONT FORSAKE THE GATHERING glares at me.

I really dont know the end goal of this post... just that I felt like God was saying to me... Dont' Forsake It.  Maybe thats a word for you... maybe its for me (though we go to church... a lot haha...).  But for whatever reason... Don't Forsake It.

Who She Is

First... Thanks Natalie for coming out of stalker-ville... lol!  :o)  Natalie commented on my last blog post and she made me think.

For us adoptive mommas.... most of our babies were born out of wed-lock.  Some even out of rape, incest, or something equally nefarious (ive always wanted an excuse to use that word... found it!).  How do we speak deep into the souls of these babies that they are wanted, worth it, worthy, loved, needed... etc?
That because they were conceieved out of sin that they are not sin?

Madison... my brave sweet girl was a product of an un-wed mother.  She possibly was even the product of incest... we arent sure and never will know... which is ok with us.  As we teach her about absitnence... waiting, purity, modesty... and all of that, we have to be careful how we word things.  As we find out friends... single Christian women with no husbands, or sometimes even boyfriends end up pregnant, we have to guard our words.  And then explain to our curious and full of questions 9 year old why its wrong, but the baby isnt.

Makes me dizzy thinking about it! 

So..heres a basic run down of some of our conversations:

Me: You have to get married before you have a baby.
Madi: T & B (birth parents) weren't married...
Me: Some people arent, but Jesus doesnt want it to be that way.  He says in the bible we should get married then make babies only with our husbands.  Your BPs didnt know Jesus so they dont follow His ways.


Madi:  Is it a sin to have babies before you get married?
Me:  There is something a mommy and daddy have to do to have babies and if you do that before you get married it is a sin.  But if you wait till your married it isnt.
Madi:  Is the baby bad then?  Is that why I'm bad?
Me:  NO!  The baby is still beautiful, wonderful, loved, and important.  You get in trouble and do bad things becuase you make bad choices.  You hvae the ability to be good and make good choices, but you choose the wrong way sometimes.  And just becuase a mommy and daddy made a bad choice, doesnt mean you werent wanted and loved.  Its like you were a suprise gift!
Madi: Huh? (she gives the best Huh? face ever... and does it frequently... lol!)
Me: T & B were walking a long living life and stuff and then they had you.  It was like Christmas morning the day you were born... a big present they didnt expect, but were so happy to have!!
(Then she went and played dressup and made herself into a present and came down and made me open her.  lol... love her!!)

Now these 2 convos were just a snippet of the truth we have tried to pour into her.  In some ways, Madi was fortunate because her BPS didnt give her up... she was taken by C&Y.  If your child was given up by her parents, I think a spirit of rejection can attach itself to the kid.  Even if they cant verbalize it... many kids feel like they werent good enough for their parents to keep.  They feel that if they were better, prettier, smarter, etc then their parents would have kept them.  Madi's BPs tried to keep her... they fought for her.  So I dont think that she feels rejected. 

But... we still are always telling her what she is!

She is:

Loved

Wanted

Adored

Cared For

Safe

Blessed

Chosen

Redeemed

Beautiful

Creative

Talented

Righteous

&

Saved

Our belief is that if we, as her parents... the ones God has chosen to raise her, continually tell her those things. Show her that she is all of that and more...she will believe it and nothing will be able to snatch that self confidence away from her.   And pray those things over her daily.

Thats all we can do.  The rest is up to her and Jesus!!

Really??? Another onE???

Man.... another one.  Another single christian woman pregnant.  When I saw this latest girls announcement... I admit, my first reaction was jealousy. 
Yea... jealousy.  Hey... I want my baby. (Just bein' real).

Then anger.  (Ok, really real.)  I was mad at her, made at God, and mad at myself.

Then some more jealousy.  (Thank you Jesus for your grace and mercy!!!)

And then I started to vascillate between the anger, the jealousy, and some sadness and grief.

But somewhere in the midst of my downward spiral to Pitymetowne, I started to feel for the woman.  For the baby.  For the girls family.  For the dreams that girl had.

I know that this woman, who is in her 30s has a missionary calling.  She had spent a year or so in another country doing missions work.... she very frequently goes on short term trips, and loved doing those things.  She even sold her house to rent one with some people so she could be free to go on trips whenever she wanted.

Now I have to wonder... how frequent will those trips be now?  (Not that you cant do missions with kids... not saying it AT ALL). Im sure she has to feel a bit like she is giving up parts of those dreams.  And if she shows up in certain hispanic countries with a baby on her hip and no ring... some of those people will not listen to her. 

I have so much more on my mind about this... so much more to say, but it all keeps sounding judgemental to me.  And thats not the intention behind this.  My intention behind this post is actually about a bigger problem.

I started this blog with the though, ANOTHER ONE becuase this is becoming a big problem in America today.  And before I go further.. yes, these babies are loved and perfectly beautiful and wonderful.  They, themselves are not a mistake or an "oopsie".  They are not sinful.  The babies are not the issue.  They are not a punishment the mother must carry for the rest of her life because of her sin.  They are God's creation.  Beautiful wanted wonderful little peices of humanity.  But the bottom line is that s*xual immorality is a sin.  Premartial s*x is wrong.  And its happeneing in every youth group, every young adult group, every singles group. 
Blame it on too much S*x in the City, or Twilight, 16 and Pregnant or any other show.  Blame it on movies like Juno or Knocked Up, or so many other movies that promote sex for the unwed person.  Blame it on culture or stereotypes.  Blame it hormones, or peer pressure.  Blame it on whatever you want. 

But think for a minute.  When is the last time you heard a messgae from the pulpit about abstinence?  About purity?  About WAITING?  And Im not talking about youth group.  Im talking about adults.  Women whose hormones are settled.  Women who are not in the back seat of their boyfriends parents car of prom night feeling pressure because her bff's have all done it and her boyfriends buddies are egging him on.  These are women with careers, women who now its wrong and probably have told teenage neices and nephews its wrong.  (Sidenote.. these are also women who should be familiar with birth control by now).   I cant even remember the last time purity was brought up in a church we were in. 

So I had to wonder why?

Maybe its taboo and pastors arent wanting to touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Maybe because they are afraid attendence will drop that week.

Maybe because they feel the have "bigger sins" to preach about.

Maybe because s*x has become so embedded in out culture that even pastors have begun to think of it as a right for anyone, not a privilege of the married?


I guess really i dont have tyhe answers.  And thats ok.

But I would really like to see the church encouraging teens, 20 somethings, 30 somethings.... and older to stay pure.  To really be a light and a witness to the world. 

To be SET APART?  To be in the world, but not of it.

To be JESUS.

So Im praying today for those women... for all my single friends. 


(SO im sure there will be some negative fedback.. thats ok.  Just use kind words {as we say to the kids all the time})!!!!!

The Message

I have been trying to get more in the Word lately, but have been feeling a block when it came to me really understanding deep within what I was reading.  I hate to even say it, but it was feeling stale and.... gulp.... boring.  Yes.  I said it.  Ugh... I felt really guilty for feeling that way.  I felt like I was a horrible Christian.  Like God was going to smite me for feeling like that (hmmm... throw back to the AG days?).  So instead of pretending I didnt feel that way, I took it to my Daddy God.  I asked for forgiveness for not loving His word... and then asked Him to show me how to love it.  To teach me how to enjoy my time reading the Bible.  I realized that its not me being a bad christian, its the way I learn and absorb.  Im a story-kinda gal. 
I took a scripture and looked it up on biblegateway.com in different versions.  And the Message version just seemed to come to life to me!!

So I talked to my awesome hubby (who totally gets me and my tangents and rabbit trails and supports them as long as Im on the right trail) and he said lets get a Message Bible and use that as a help to the 20 other versions we have (slight exaggeration, lol).  I got a super cool HOT PINK (yea, I know, Im almost 30, but I have a child-like spirit.... or something) one and have been studying it a lot lately.  I love to compare it to the NIV, because it really makes sense to me.

I was reading about Ruth and all that and I FINIALLY realized why that book was truly important in the bible.  A woman in those times to the Jews wasnt that super important, but she was.  She wasnt even a Jew... and she is a direct part of the lineage of Jesus.  An outsider.  A Gentile.  Because Jesus came for us ALL. 

I could go on and on... but Im just so thankful that our God makes us all so different and then gives us a way to truly understand Him.  To aid us in drawing closer to Him.  

What version of the Bible do you all read and why??