Ideas

Crosswalk.com is a Christian website that I visit regularly to read articles on marriage, parenting, homeschooling, etc. Today I found a link to farrelcommunications.com where I found a couple of great ideas that I really want to try to implement either someday soon or sometime in the future. The article was about how to energize your quiet time...but I think they are just really neat ideas for anyone to do anytime.

*Read through a Bible and mark it up with notes and underlined passages, then give it as a gift to your child. The author here says to mark things that might help your child in a specific time in life, but I think it would also be special to them if you mark things that the Lord speaks to you about. What a great keepsake for them to have, and a wonderful way for them to get some insight into your spiritual life and relationship with God.

*Keep a miracle journal or scrapbook. I have had a similar idea before, but haven't done very well carrying it out. This is where you would write about, keep mementos, and take pictures of ways that God has answered prayer in your life or just blessed you in a special way. It's so easy to forget all the great (and miraculous) things God does because He does them so regularly and we begin to take it for granted. Keeping this scrapbook/journal would be a beautiful way to look back and remember how faithful God has been! Your kids would also learn about God's faithfulness in times when they were too young to remember or realize how He was working in their lives.

*Memorize at least one verse from every book in the Bible. I think I could do this in a year. That would be a great goal. Then at the end of the year, I hope I can say them all (even in order)!

I think I can already see my Christmas list forming...
-New Bible (used for ideas 1 and 3).
-Scrapbook

Uh oh, baby is crying...

Update!

Four years since my last post. A {brief} recap is in order.

At the time of my last post, I was a couple months into my first year as a 5th grade teacher at Heritage Christian School. Just a little over a month later (Dec. 2006), Josh asked me to marry him and I happily accepted the proposal. He found a job in Indy (had been working in Kokomo) and we got married on July 21 of 2007 on the most beautiful summer day you could imagine. We rented an apartment in Noblesville for about a year, and I finished my 2nd year of teaching while Josh finished out a year at Key-Art Publishing. We coached the Varsity softball team at HCS in the spring of 2008, too. It was a lot of work to be totally in charge of a classroom of 10 year olds and a team of 14-18 year olds, but it was a really fun time for us as a newly married couple. :)

Sometime during that year, we started (well it probably started with me) getting the itch to get out of the city and back to a slower paced lifestyle...more trees and fields, fewer traffic jams and shopping centers. We prayed about this desire, knowing that we hoped to have kids in the near future and wanted to raise them closer to family, but still unsure of how it was going to work out since neither of us had a job lined up in Crawfordsville. Without a doubt, the chain of events that followed over the next year and a half were orchestrated entirely by God. Josh got a job at The Paper (not great pay but enough for the time), my uncle Rhett allowed us to live in his house for 2 years (rent free practically), and by August of 2008 we were expecting our first baby. Our desire for our family has always been that I would be a stay-at-home mom while our kids were growing up, but Josh's income at The Paper wasn't exactly what we needed for that to happen. No worries...after applying at several other places, he got a call for an interview (that led to his current job) at RR Donnelley the very day our daughter, Halle, was born. :)

We went back and forth for several months about whether now would be a good time to buy a house, or if we should keep saving money living w/ my uncle...eventually our desire to have our own home where we could raise our family the way we really wanted to won out, and I believe God is blessing that decision. He gave us the {perfect} house-- not perfect in the sense that it was move-in ready and wonderfully suited to our taste. No, not at all. In fact, we spent 5 months fixing it up...renovating from top to bottom...every wall and ceiling was primed and painted, every floor replaced, bathroom fixtures, lights, electrical work, lots of miscellaneous repair and TONS of cleaning. The previous owners had smoked in the house for over 20 years (GROSS!). However, because of that fact we were able to buy the house for a very reasonable price and do most of the labor ourselves (with the help of family and friends). It was a LONG, HARD process...and at times seemed like it would never get finished, but we have now been HAPPILY living here for 3 1/2 months. :) And although there are no decorations on the walls and still many small (and big) projects to complete, we are HOME.

And, of course I must mention that 18 days ago we welcomed our second daughter, Reilly, into our family! And I am a stay-at-home mommy with an incredible husband and two precious daughters. It's hard to believe this is really my life, and that only 4 years ago I was just beginning my journey into 'adulthood,' fresh out of college and totally clueless about where the Lord would bring me in the coming years. I am happy that it's here.