And we return...

These have been some busy crazy years since I have last blogged here. People living with us and moving out and then again. Kids growing like a fire burning in a dry prairie. Job changes, close friendships made.


I had not looked at this blog for a year. I reread it tonite. Funny how the words we speak sometimes are used by God years later to speak to us again. Here we are, in the middle of some huge changes. Moving states, new job, church, friends. Makealah living in belleview, almost 18 now. Wow. It can be so easy to feel overwhelmed with changes and life circumstances. I am claiming this quote, "All change is for the best when bathed in prayer."

As long as we keep our eyes on him, not on our situation, he brings us thru it. Once we look at the problems and take our eyes off of him, we quickly sink. A simple solution, yet can be so hard to put into practice. I have the habit of giving him my situations, then frantically grabbing them back. Thinking somehow I can handle them better than he can. That it is too scary to leave them in his hands. Good thing he is so patient with me.

Sitting here tonite hearing exactly what I needed from God, thru words he had me write years earlier. Amazing. Humbling. Indescribable. What an amazing God we have.

Cookies and eggs!

We have a family tradition of making sugar cookies on holidays in fun related shapes. I perfected my gluten free sugar cookie recipe and frosting recipe this year and we cranked 'em out!

Eliora, never one to dilly dally when there is something to get done has cleared the table, and is setting up the goods for the decorating fest!

Here is the birthday boy, 12 years old today! Of course, as my only son, he enjoys making goofy faces every time I try to get his picture taken. He hogged all the yellow frosting.

Even Daddy got in on the frosting! Incidentally, in the background you can get a sneak peak at his current painting he is working on. Love it!

Here is some of their beautifully decorated cookies! What talent these kids have!!!

They are just begging to be devoured!!! They want to become one with my hips.

And then, the eggs!!!! Ramah was so careful in her color choices. Makealah tried the tie dye kit.... it didn't work out so well.

Ramah and Eliora liked the cool stamp dye. They were so serious about their designs!

Makealah set up the strange tie dye contraption. Cool idea, would have been even better if it really worked! Ha!

What happy little girlies!!! Eliora is covered in flour from the cookie making. Ramah is marinating her pink egg in the blue dye. She's got a plan! And who decorated more eggs than anyone else???? Daddy did!

Tomorrow, the hunt!!!

Alone At Last

Here is my extreemely talented husbands latest painting. Titled Alone At Last. This is painting number three. His first time with mountians, clouds, a pine tree and a dead/leafless tree. It is so fun to watch him paint and see what picture emerges from his mind. He never knows how the painting will look when he is done, it changes as he paints and it just comes out and suprises him in the end. It has taken up residence above the bench in the entry way. He is now working on a 4 ft by 2 ft painting for the accent wall in the living room, it has alot of golds and browns in it.
Eliora LOVES to watch him paint. She runs from side to side and giggles with giddy delight. She has been painting with him in the evenings, on the small easel shown above with the paints from Uncle Ken and Auntie Hannah. She is having so much fun.

Comfort

"No! I don't want to put my socks and shoes on!" she plaintively wails. "I don't want to go to the store! I want to stay home!!!"
It is time to go to the store, this conversation has happened 4 times now. I can feel my frustration level rising.
"I only want to go to the store if I can get a treat!"
"We are not buying treats today", I say for the second time, and, "get your socks and shoes on now!"
Sobbing ensues. She is angry with me. I wonder why she cannot accept things are not going to happen the way she wishes they would and just go along with my plans. This is better for her, she cannot stay home alone, and we need some groceries. I am agitated, and tired of trying to make her see my view.
My heart is pricked, and I recall a verse taped to the bathroom wall, put there in hopes of helping the children, and realize it was really for me.
A gentle answer turns away wrath. And, Pleasent words are soothing to the soul and healing to the bones.
I call her to come to me. She drags her feet, her face pink and wet, still petulant. She stops a few feet away. Come closer. Here, I pat my lap, come here. She climbs onto my lap, "I don't want to go the store!"
I hold her close, kiss her salty cheeks and say, "I know. I know you don't want to go to the store"
"I want a treat from the store"
"I know, you want a treat from the store. We have to go to the store, we need groceries. I love you. I know you don't want to go, but we need to." Another squeeze, "Go get your shoes on, ok?"
"Ok," she says.
We go to the store. Holding hands inside. Many times I am prodded by that verse at the store. Yes, Lord, I hear you. Gentleness, patience, pleasent words. His words are living.
Hours later I lay in bed awake. Thinking about the day. I am reminded this is us and Him. Over and over in our lives, day in and day out. Lord, we don't want to! We want to just do what is comfortable and natural to us. We want Him to go along with our plans, not vice versa. We drag our feet to come to Him when He calls us when we are upset. Then He holds us close, and comforts us. He tells us He understands, and still calls us to do what we resist, encouraging us and staying with us every step of the way. We don't see His view. All we see is the underside of the embroidery, all the ugly knots of ourselves. But He sees the beautiful topside.
I layed in bed tonite, so much change in our lives right now. I thought of a quote I had read earlier. 'All change is for the best if it is bathed in prayer.' I realized I was holding tight to it all, afraid to let it go. I had to pray and release it, my jaw relaxed, I had not realized I was clenching it. All change is for the best if bathed in prayer. He will guide us, He is right there, even when we are stubbornly holding onto ourselves. He is gentle with us, patient with us, His words to us are pleasent. We simply have to drag our feet over and plop into His lap and He will reassure us.

Painting

Erik asked for a painting easel for christmas. He had this desire to paint suddenly. Having only painted a watercolor and ink dragon as a teenager, we were curious to see what he would do. My parents bought him an easel acrylic painting set. He was thrilled. The next day he got it all out, played with his paints and in three hours created the masterpiece above! We couldn't believe it! The kids were in shock, "Dad did that!!??" "Wow!" "Hey, come look! Come see what Dad did!!" And my favorite, "Look! Look! DAD did THAT!!!!"

A few days later he painted this one. Simply beautiful. Just like the man I married. He is working on another one. A sunrise painting. Sometimes he doesn't like what he has painted, and he paints over it. This picture didn't originally have a row of trees in pink flowers by a lake. That area was painted over, added in. Acryllic painting can always be painted over. His new picture is like that, some parts have been painted over several times. It is, after all, only his third painting, and he is learning.

Life is like that. We have the story of our lives, like a painting. But every day we can make choices, choices that will affect how our painting will look at the end of the day. God is always working on us. The process of painting is not beautiful. It is messy. Paint gets everywhere and sometimes the picture looks nothing like what it will look like in the end. I am so glad I am not a finished product. Our paintings are not complete. But we can know, no matter what we look like now, He isn't finished. When we get discouraged by how ugly we think we are, He is still painting. He has the vision. And He has promised He will not stop until He has completed it. I am so glad we can trust His brush.

I'm dreaming of a white christmas.....

It has been a delightfully storm filled last few days! The clouds dropped 8 inches of snow on us last night and we are in the middle of yet another lovely snowstorm they say will give us 4-8 inches more on top of what we already have!! Oh how happy we are over here! Erik and I stayed up until 1:00 in the morning watching the snow fall last night. It is a precious commodity here in the pacific northwest after all!



We made a lovely fire that looked altogether swallowed up in our oversized fire box. Where is a yule log when you need one??? Boomer is on guard for anything or anyone that is brave enough to venture forth in the snowy beyond.

As you can see, only Erik ventured forth. But Boomer has patience, he will wait there forever if he has to. He's noble like that.

This morning the kids woke up with snowflakes in their eyes, and were up and dressed and frolicking in the snow by 8:00am. After slipping and sliding, snow angles and snowforts, wild rompus snowball fights and other altogether silly nonsense in the snow, they created this masterpiece....

Frosty the snowman, chilling in a "cold tub" having himself a grand old time! After all the excitement, everyone came inside to warm up by the fire and drink coffee/hot chocolate and eat hot spiced apple muffins. Yum! Snow days are simple enjoyments. And we get to do it all over again tomorrow!

A Quote...

"To plow, one must concentrate all his attention on the line being plowed. Being distracted, just a little, to say nothing of looking back, may lead the plower off the straight line. To follow the Savior, we must forget everything else and press straight ahead for the kingdom of God."

I do not know who wrote this. I copied it onto a scrap piece of printer paper once, many years ago, and it has sat in the top drawer of my buffet all this time. Every so often, when I would clean it out I would find it there, read it and put it back. This morning, as I was picking up my living room I grabbed a crumpled piece of paper off the top of the buffet, ready to trash it, as anyone who knows my cleaning mantra will attest. It was this quote. One of my rugrats had rummaged thru the drawer looking for something, smashed the paper in their hurry and left it out on the top of the buffet. The boogers. Someday they will all clean up without having to be
told.

Anyways, I sat here, trying to figure out why I like this quote so much. I thought, we are God's focus. His thoughts are on us continually. We screw up constantly, yet He is just there, waiting for us to remember Him. Waiting for us to stop trying to do everything ourselves. Waiting for us to love Him. He wants our focus to be Him. For us to love Him so much that everything else gets forgotten. We can't change ourselves. Only God can change us. We can't even really love Him. Remember, we love Him with the love with which He loved us? I can't remember what verse that was. But we can do something. We can make a choice. We can get distracted by all our problems or what have you, and all we have to do is make a choice to turn back to the line. Once we do that, all the problems don't matter, then He is what matters. That's what He is waiting for.