Quote of the Day...

Tonight Alexandra and I went on a run. Actually, I did the running, she got to ride a bike! We did 5.4 miles and the route I mapped out had lots of hills! We were at the bottom of this one hill, and she says to me..."lets rock and roll..." and proceded to conquer this steep street! It was so hilarious and encouraging to me! I even made it up...twice!

The Stripped Down Easter

Easter really became only about the Resurrection to me yesterday.

Doesn't that sound weird? Kinda of a "DUH" statement, but the last 48 hours has shown me how much more I personally have added to the Easter "experience" in my head.

My brother and sister (in law) were in this past week and with my birthday being on Good Friday, we were very excited that they extended their stay for a day so we could have fun on Saturday and get ready for Easter. I put all my fun *emotional eggs* in one basket apparently.

Our youngest daughter got really sick, waking up on Friday night throwing up. It went downhill from there! All of a sudden, my weekend was unraveling completely!
My family was leaving early (in case this was contagious), all my *fun* plans for Saturday were gone, I couldn't buy new ties for the boys, I wouldn't end up getting something new for Easter, we weren't eating my birthday cake, I wasn't planning an Easter meal, we were going to be without any family, and here my sweet girl was puking up anything going in...and on and on it went in my mind! I was a wreck! I had a complete meltdown on Saturday evening (that kinda started in the afternoon, my sweet, patient hubby;)

Sunday morning...I was better...sort of! Helped Steve get the kids ready for church. Seth found a tie on the closet floor (new to him :), Alexandra wore a turtle neck under her new Easter dress (because we live in the tundra!), Nik was excited about taking my place in the Nursery and Steve was excited about serving as Acolyte that morning! I tried not to think of all I was missing...its very difficult to go ALL through the Lenten season and then end it with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and NOT get your Easter Sunday!!!

I decided to go to church online...I felt so PATHETIC! But I knew Mark Driscoll was streaming all his services live that day (he did FIVE services with baptisms at every one! the dude is AMAZING!) Anyway, I watched his 8am service and part of his 9:45 service...and it wasn't anything eye opening for me per se. But God starting dealing with my heart...of course...and all of a sudden things started coming to my mind...ties, hams, family, birthdays, shopping, dinners, new shoes, eggs, baskets, all of it...what does it EVEN have to do with MY GOD dying and MY GOD raising from the dead?? And not that you cannot USE all of those things to celebrate, I don't even mean that. But I wasn't going to be able to use ANY of those to help me celebrate...and in that moment it all became VERY VERY clear to me!

OUR Creator, YOUR Creator...appeased the wrath of God and died for us! Who the heck needs Easter grass for that! AND, every Sunday is Easter! So I really didn't miss anything!

If you are a parent...

Here are the links I promised from the Ted Tripp seminar that I listened to online. I am about to do it again, they are that good. He gives SUCH a great biblical perspective on parenting, and laying that foundation of the gospel and instilling Godly character. I have been mulling over these since the beginning of January, and I feel like I STILL don't totally have it yet! Let me know if you listen to them and what you think. I would love to say that I will blog about each session (cause I really would like to), but we all know what kind of blogger I am. Maybe...

The Call to Formative Instruction

Giving Kids a Vision for God's Glory

Helping Kids to Understand Authority

Helping Kids to Understand the Heart

Overview of Corrective Discipline

Wisdom

Have you ever felt that parental compulsion to make the RIGHT decision?!? Probably if you are a parent, you feel it every day and so you know exactly what I am talking about. We are feeling the bumps in the road with our oldest and I refuse to chalk it up to prepubescent-ness or because he is in middle school now, or because *they just act that way* stage. I REFUSE!

Well, as I was trying to process this with my wonderful Henry...God so used him to speak to my heart. "We are called to lay a foundation right now...that is it!"

Can you hear my sigh? And NOT that, by any stretch of the imagination is that EASY, but...possible and RIGHT! He does NOT have to get every BSF lesson, he does NOT need to understand every memory verse, he does NOT need to *get* every sermon on Sunday, etc, etc, etc. BUT, it is adding up, it is building, it is going to give him his foundation.

Tedd Tripp (which I will expand on soon in a post) said at a conference, that we tend to believe that raising children is a sprint, when really it is a MARATHON. Which happens to be speaking my language, I am starting to get the difference.

Our children don't *get* everything we tell them every time. Imagine God expecting that from us! (God forgive me!) But it DOES build that foundation from them. Our children WILL have a place to draw from in the desert and dry times. They will know God when they leave here.

Foundation building...mother guilt cannot be found today in foundation building. Thank you Henry!

Quote of the Day...

"Look Mom! I found the cross of Egypt!"

Our family participates in Bible Study Fellowship and this year we are studying the life of Moses and recently there has been much talk of Arks, Candlesticks, Egyptians, Promised Land etc. Sethie and Allie were doing their timeline figures for their History lesson, which today happened to be the same time period. I gave Shaye some timeline figures you to color, and this was her narration of our lesson! Hopefully one day all her dots will be connected! :)

I have survived lots of firsts!

I survived in the last three months:

• homeschooling our first term, our 4 really inquisitive, motivated, spirited, (sometimes whiney) children
• a half marathon
• an election
• gas at $4.24 a gallon (ok, that was in August, but I still survived!)
• 24 hours of Foster Parenting classes
• lay offs
• bailouts
• paycuts
• no 24 (Jack Bauer) since before the writer's strike
• missing family
• my oldest turning 12
• Just So Stories...again...
• a women's Bible study after MANY years (though I did sweat a little)
• my own mental lists

See, so I have been busy;) And I have lots to share!

Blog the Vote

For some encouraging reads for you to get to the polls check out Chasing Ray-Blog the Vote! Many great posts here! The kids want to go with us, so we will be voting in the afternoon, probably in a humungously long line, but Shaye is hoping to run into Palin;)