truth

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.“ ~ C. S. Lewis

molar-less

welp...our sweet #3 had his tiny (but stubborn) molar extracted on friday...and not without much shedding of tears-by all of us. it was a very emotional day for the whole family. :( but i am happy to report he no longer looks like a cartoon caricature!

after the 2 hour dental drama, we hit the road for a weekend getaway to the beautiful San Bernadino mountains. God blessed us with the chance to attend the annual fall retreat with our precious LA church community! it was heavenly! every second was like honey to our souls! amazing weather, incredible views, and endless visiting with treasured friends!

it was exactly what our wearied-from-overwhelming-changes family needed...72 hours of being filled up with God's love through His creation, His body and His word!

we send our biggest thank you's (once again!) to our dear donna and terry... a generous-to-the-core couple who always makes this family getaway possible...even this year...even after we have moved three hours north! (the pics are of dan doing push-ups for our "team" during the small group olympics! you got extra points for doing all 35 push-ups with a child on your back!)

toothology

this is how #3 greeted us last friday morning. he woke up with a severely abscessed tooth!

i dealt with the immediate issues:calling the dentist, taking a picture to send to my dentist friend, getting him started on pain meds and abx. (med school is SO paying off around here!) but as soon as the urgent part was over, i had a full body reaction to how terrible he looked! the world started to spin, my ears began ringing, my mouth watered, all the color drained from my face! i literally had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl to bed to keep from vomiting.

please pray the meds work fast! we are visiting the dentist on friday to have the tooth extracted...pray for that too! :)

even looking like this he managed a smile!

rankings

i have decided to put a number system to our favorite activities...for future referral. (don't i sound organized! or OCD!?!) you know, level of difficulty, clean up, amount of time it earned me in "my time minutes"... for instance, the snail garden was a 7 for fun, 8 for the amount of "my time" it earned me and a A+ for clean-up (they did most of it, and then the gardeners came! score!). But the fall out factor (the long term consequence of it all!) was kinda bad...like a 2...the boys decided to run through the girls' sweet little cuddly garden and smashed all the snails! (picture lots of screaming by little girls and lots of laughing by "mean brothers"!)

face painting... it's an 8 in the fun category! clean-up: B+...the kids did most of it! fall out factor: 2...they were super whiny about having to wash it off before bedtime...this negated the free time the activity had earned me!

paper shredding/playing...this was initially a great idea! they did a job i didn't want to have to do (shredding old paperwork) and then turned it into at least an hour of fun(9).

clean up: at least a C-!!(i had to help WAY too much! and it stuck in their hair like you wouldn't believe!)

but there was very little fall out!!! still...i think i will leave this activity to when they are in someone else's "classroom"!!

month one

we just finished our first 30 days of homeschooling! its been a wild ride...filled with more tears and laughter than i ever imagined. i can't yet claim that everything is "easy peasy", or that our days go "swimmingly"...but each moment (literally) has brought us closer to each other and our gracious Lord!

our theme this past month has been to choose joy...even (and especially!) when we don't want to. we are coming to realize (again!) that the lives we lead are not our own. to choose Christ is to willingly give up our "rights"...ALL of them! especially the good ones...the right to quiet, to calm, to a clean house, to order, privacy, space, time alone, sleep, getting to grocery shop by myself! we are daily realizing that we don't "deserve" any of these things! although these are all "good" things and things we genuinely need...we don't have the right to them. when/if we get any of these things, it is always a gift from God, unearned, undeserved. this life we lead is no longer our own...the home i live in is not mine, nor is the money (or time!) i spend. it is all God's. hospitality...it's not a gift that some possess, but a command...a mandate for how to live. a daily pouring out of all that i have for the glory of God, to ALL who need (or demand!) it. Homeschooling has brought this truth right up in my face. i'm realizing how i hold many parts of my life back, as if they are my own, and not His. like getting mad when someone shows up in my day, unannounced, needing me, my resources, or worse, my time. what a hypocrite i can be! preaching one thing to my kids, my friends, all those people out there...while holding myself to a very different standard. as if i can keep a part of myself from Christ...knowing full well He demands all of me!

and so...here are some things we are thankful for from this first month in our Refiner's Fire...He is only and ever good! 1. being on our own schedule 2. no homework 3. new friends 4. slow mornings 5. realizing i am not a very patient person 6. warm lunches 7. doing school in the morning sunshine, in our pj's! 8. being barefoot all day! 9. no lugging heavy backpacks 10. learning at our own pace 11. realizing i don't have the gift of teaching! 12. swimming at recess 13. friday fun days 14. getting to spend a week with sweet tiny cousins in nor cal! 15. God's gentle grace for our every mistake, again and again and again.