Mother of boys...

So, I was HIGHLY amused at what was coming out of my mouth last night as the Cub Scouts were putting up birdhouses.  "Please don't run down the steep hill with a cordless drill"  "Please don't throw the sledge hammer up in the air and then try to catch it"  "Please don't don't your face after picking up that bottle of antifreeze"  'We found the liscence plate and a shirt, think we'll find a body?"  You know, where is this in the parenting books?  I love my kids...

Beautiful day...

Well, beyond it being Resurrection Sunday, Austin and Wyatt were baptized yesterday.  It was AMAZING to hear them share their testimonies in front of the congregration!  Wyatt saying his too fast and Austin saying his too quietly, but both perfect to their Mommy :)  And then to watch Brian being able to baptize them both.  I am truly blessed!!  It must be God's blessing because I have done NOTHING to deserve such a wonderful family!  My heart swelled with love, joy and pride yesterday at the sight of my two boys taking their first real steps toward being gentlemen.  More than any other thing, this was the first sign that they are growing up.  I'm working myself quickly out of a job!!  It was an amazing day.  He's ALIVE and my children BELIEVE!!!!

Austin's testimony-
I felt scared before I knew Jesus as my savior.  I thought I would go to hell instead of heaven.  I did many bad things because I did not have Jesus in my heart to help me.
I accepted Jesus as my savior on August 8, 2008 at W4 vacation Bible school.  I learned that Jesus is the way to heaven.
Now that I have accepted Jesus in my heart I will go to heaven.  He helps me to remember to do good things and to help other people learn about Him.

Wyatt's testimony-
Before I knew Jesus I was very bad.  These are some of the things I did- I'd swing my cat around by it's tail, hurt other people and disobeyed my mom.
I accepted Jesus in a prayer, my prayer was: Lord, I have been a sinner and I am sorry.  I believe that you died on the cross and rose again from the grave.  I want you in my heart.  I accepted Jesus Christ on March 5, 2006 in my bedrrom.
My life is amazing with Jesus in my heart.  It is also very hard because if someone bes mean to you you have to be's nice to them (bad english his, it's cute!)

Over the cold...

OK, so I'M FREEZING!!!  I just turned my heat on!!!  My fingers kinda have that cold numb feeling as I'm typing!!!  :(  I don't think I've been warm now for 6 months!! Now, I know some you (Jen P) say "well, you live in Ohio, if you want warm, just move"  Really?  Why didn't I think of that!!  I'll just pack up and move to Florida!!  Who needs family, or a house or a job????  UGH.  Seriously though, it's APRIL 22!!!!!  It's not supposed to be 40 degrees out :(  OK, I'm done whining.  I wish I knew how to put video on here, while I'm typing this the boys are dancing to Michael Jackson on Wii and Austin's pants are sagging and he's shaking his booty and you can see his star wars underwear :)  It's adorable!!!! 

Stupid Twilight...

Well, just so you know, I'm all about transparency here.  It's kinda the point of the whole thing.  So, here's my honesty of the day.  I have done nothing but read for the last week!!  I think my husband is going to murder me!!  It all started because Austin wanted to read the Harry Potter books.  So, I reread them to make sure which ones he could read (the first 2).  Then, when I was done reading those I realized I hadn't read Twilight in a long time, so I decided to borrow them from my brother and read those again.  I picked them up at 8 Monday night, after Wyatt's soccer game.  I just finished the third one and it's takin ALL my self control not to start the next one til after I clean house!!  Ugh!!!  It's kinda embarrassing...  I mean really, I'm reading books with a 5th grade reading level and ignoring everything else!!  I havn't even done my quiet time this week!!  It's like saying Twilight is more important than Jesus!!  OUCH!!!  There's a big part of me that says "just hurry up and finish the book, then your life will move on!!"  LOL  I mean seriously, the Twilight books are terrible...  At least Harry Potter is believable... 

Why can't we all just get along?

You know, there's a few subjects that just seem to get people fired up!  And as voting day gets closer and there's a school levy on the ballot people are getting VERY fired up.  The problem is that all this does is divide people, because we can't agree to disagree.  Oh no.  I'm right and your wrong is the attitude.  And since this particular issue involves the school there's instantly anger that if you vote no it's because you don't love kids and you don't care about teachers.  I was like that a year ago when it was on the ballot then!!  I made nasty comments and yelled at people!!  Ugh.  Sorry.  The fact of the matter is I love all kids and think that teachers have a very important job and deserve many things.  Our kids don't deserve to have music and gym and art taken away from them and taking library away is just plain stupid.  BUT, the system is broken.  And giving them more money won't fix anything.  They can't even tell us if those cuts will be given back if the levy passes!  The administration will still make double what the teachers make, the kids will still be driven by these stupid tests and teachers (and most gov't employees) will still get benefits that no one in the public sector would ever be able to afford because it would bankrupt their businesses.  So, there you go.  I'm undecided, can you tell?

heehee

So, the little boys this morning (who are really not so little anymore) got up on the WRONG side of the bed!!  They woke up grouching at each other!!  "Wyatt, stop looking at me!!"  "Why, I'm only trying to set you on fire" "Mom, Wyatt's going to set me on fire by looking at me!!" "Really?  How old are you?  Arn't you aware that's not possible!!  Get dressed" "But I don't want to get dressed, why do I have to?" "Fine, go to school naked" "(crying) why are you so mean?" "ugh"
But, by the time they walked out the door to play in the rain they were laughing and seeing how loud they could scream together- just to annoy me!!  Sometimes I wonder if they're main goal in life will always be to annoy me?  Some days I wonder...

Gray day...

I have finally figured out that winter depresses me, or at least the end.  I hate the gray!!  Like today, it just hangs everywhere and seems to come inside me and zap any joy out of me.  And then I'm filled with sad thoughts, thoughts I know I've turned over to God but I bring up to the surface every now and again to hurt myself with.  I have no desire to do anything and even less desire to seek God's company!!  And so, as the gray days continue I end up in 'the pit'.  This year, I've caught myself doing it, or God brought it to my attention, and instead of falling all the way to the bottom I feel like I've caught a branch on the side and am holding on to that.  Instead of hitting rock bottom and becoming bitter and angry and sullen and depressed, I am reaching out to friends to pray for me.  I'm forcing myself to do a Bible study even though I don't want to.  Everytime a terrible thought or an inappropriate daydream comes into my mind I grab it captive and give it back to God.  I feel like I'm fighting an unseen war!!  And the gray is fighting against me. 
But then I see sunshine and I turn my face towards it and soak it in.  I feel warth and picture Jesus wrapping His arms around me.  I see His promises in His word that I'm begrudingly reading and each promise is a foot hold out of the pit!!  "He has a plan for me" "He loves me so much He sent His son" "He is everlasting" "He keeps His promises" "He is in all and above all".  Maybe now that I'm aware of satan's schemes when the gray days come next year I'll be on the defense when it comes and I'll be able to fight it off instead of having to fight my way out...
Dennis said that on Monday of Holy week, Jesus went into the temple and cleared out the things that were unholy, that were taking advantage of the people trying to bring true worship to Him.  Will you join me in asking Jesus into the temple of OUR hearts and ask HIm to clear the things block us from bringing HIm true worship?  For me it's my desire for more and my negative thoughts towards myself.  I pray now that Christ will strip that from me!!

Today...

So, let me explain where we've been in recent times...  Brian got offered to go work up in the Cleveland area.  It was a pretty big promotion so we said yes.  However, we had a small piece of info that his work didn't have.  We knew that the guy here in Mansfield doing the same job was quitting.  So, we waited and waited and when he quit Bri got offerd the promotion HERE.  Very exciting!!  However, it leaves us with many decisions now...  We want to get into mini farming, but only live on 1 acre on a state route- so do we move?  Do we just try to buy an acre behind us (there's a huge corn field behind us)?  Or do we stay here and just get some chickens and nothing else?  And now Brian has to buy a vehicle...  do we just buy a cheap car that will run like crap and bleed us?  Do we buy a decent car with good gas mileage?  Or a truck?  Or a small SUV?  Or?  Or?  Or?  What to do, what to do...  So, we're praying that God will help us with these mundane things we're considering...
But then we went and worked at an inner-city church in Columbus today.  I helped in the nursery with kids 4 and under.  This one very sweet little boy smelled and was obviously dirty.  He had on tennis shoes that were too small and had holes in them and you could see his toes without socks.  It seems terrible to keep wanting more when so many have none.  My kids will never have to wear shoes that have holes on the sides.  They will always be loved and well cared for, does it matter if they don't live on a mini farm?  We are so blessed, and I need to spend more time being thankful for the blessings I have and how I can use them to further the kingdom...
Jesus rode into Jeruselem on a donkey 2000 some years ago, entering the last week of His life, preparing to die for my sins, so that I would be able to go Heaven and be able to say "I am forgiven, I am Christ's!!  He bought me from hell and I belong here now!!"  What's more important than any of those "life changing decisions" is how can I live my life to better portray that? 

Politics...

Oh the most heated subject ever!!!!
I typed it all out and then felt guilty and erased it...  Ugh, I have no balls...

Homeschooling

Well, Brian and I have decided to homeschool next year. One of the first questions is why. Well, it really has little to do with our unhappiness with the school, though that is what lead us to choose this. Our main priority as parents, we feel, is to make them responsible and high functioning adults with a strong relationship with Christ. Our boys get on the school bus at 8am and get back home at 4pm. Austin, who is usually behind, usually has about 45 minutes of homework (that sometimes takes up to an hour and a half). Wyatt usually gets his done in about 25 minutes. Then we have soccer, scouts or church. Add dinner and baths and it's bedtime!! We have NO time as a family and not nearly enough time to influence our kids the way we want to. So, we started looking into it. Homeschooling is not what it used to be. It's not just for the religous freaks. The kids are not poor shy unsolcialized kids. The parents arn't parents who just can't bare to be away from their kids. Their are still some obnoxious people out there who homeschool. I know of one child who is especially obnoxious who tells kids who are in public how their parents don't love them!! LOL We are not such a family, we do not think that this is the BEST or ONLY way to educate your kids. It just seems to work out for us. The second question is always what do the boys think about it, which amuses me. If your kid didn't want to go to school, wouldn't you still send them? So what does it matter if my kids don't want to do it? We are the parents, and WE make the decisions for the family!! That being said, Austin has been thrilled from the get go and Wyatt is pretty excited now too :) Both are excited to learn from Christian curriculum, have shorter days and go on field trips. We also found a great co op program (more on that later) to go to once once a week and they have some friends in it already, so they're excited for that too :) Third question? What are you going to use? Well, my close friends are sick of hearing about this since I'm so excited so I'm kinda excited to type it all out!! LOL I had planned on using all one curriculum so it would be easier but after going to the homeschool conference and looking around I realized there was no program I liked ALL of, so it's all miss matched :) For math (the only subject they'll be seperated for) they'll be using HORIZON'S 3rd and 4th grade. I liked it because it had color on the pages :) Also, this and everything else very plainly splits the lessons and days up. For Language arts and reading I'm using Christian Light Publications. I like the seperate workbooks and the that the stories have character lessons in them. They'll both be doing 4th grade since Wyatt is so advanced in reading. For spelling though we are using the Charlotte Mason method, which is they learn verses and quotes and must learn to spell all the words and use correct puncuation in them. I think it'll be much more interesting than a list of words. Austin may struggle with it at first, but I'm hoping the one on one will have a huge impact on him. History I am very excited about!! We are using Mystery of History which puts Bible stories in chronological order with "secular" history. I can't wait to read this!! Science we will be doing Apologia's Astronomy. We will also be throwing in some health lessons. We'll be doing Daily Geography from Timberdoodle for geography. A couple good friends from church attend a program at Gilead Christian for homeschoolers that we have decided to join. We'll go on Weds and the boys will get to have art, music, gym, library and lunch and recess with kids their age! I think this is perfect!! They'll also have testing there at the end f the year. I'll meet with director once a month for her to look over the boys work to make sure they are progressing correctly and help me with any areas we are struggling with. So, there you go, our plans for next year!! We can't wait!! Only 7 more weeks of school!!!!!!

Hmmm

OK, I like this one better... I'll use this one, it's prettier :)