Scrapbooking- Beach Date- 2012

We were sooooo very thankful to Ben's Aunt Nora when she volunteered to watch the kiddos for us and shooed us out of the house for a date night. We were in Dover, DE while traveling on deputation last September, and hadn't had much "together" time for a while (or privacy for that matter), so we didn't argue at all! To the beach we went!

Journaling:

1. Have Aunt Nora watch the kids

2. Escape to the beach

3. play in the sand and surf- (ie. get tosssed by the waves)

4. miniature golf- I won!

5. eat fresh fish and shrimp “on the barbie”

6. Head back refreshed

7. Thank Aunt Nora profusely 

Natalie's lists

Sometimes I like sharing little tid-bits that I love about my family members. I didn't realize how uniquely individual people were until I had my own kids, and I love their uniqueness! Natalie is our oldest child. She is almost 9 now and I'm loving all the conversations we can have now that she's getting "older".

One thing that is unique about Natalie is that she LOVES to make lists. Some of her lists have been:
 "favorite toys"
"favorite books"
"favorite movies"
"best friends"
"books read"
"things to do"
"birthday list"

But she cracked us all up when, from the back of the van, she piped up, "Want to hear my 'rules to follow'?"
When we replied, "sure" she gave us the following list of rules that made us literally LOL.

Natalie's "rules to follow"
1. Don't hit or kick
2. Pray to God everyday
3. Don't walk around naked
4. Love everybody

I love the mixture of serious, extremely well-thought-out rules and the one random silly one. Funny part is, she was probably just as serious about rule number 3 since we've been talking to her about modesty recently. I love her heart and her desire to do what's right, even when it sounds funny to us as parents.

Scrapbooking- First stop on deputation!

This was, I think, my 3rd or 4th digital scrapbooking page. I look back on the first ones and groan, wishing I could go back and redo them all, but this one I actually like. It is VERY simple, but not as goofy as the next one... Niagara falls. yikes!  

We had a lot of fun traveling up to Vermont for our first church appointment. We stopped in Ohio to visit some dear friends of my family (and of mine too!), the Workmans, and then stayed in a missions apartment in Erie, PA. Lake Erie was beautiful! 

Journaling: 

top: "We were very excited to spend a night with the 

Workmans on our first deputation trip up to Vermont 

Unfortunately Grandpa Workman wasn’t there, but we 

had dinner with Beth, Doug and Diana, and the kids 

loved Libby the dog. It was neat to have our kids meet 

this family that has meant so much to me over the years!"

bottom: "Our next stop was Erie, PA. We stayed at a missions apartment and had to 

explore the Lake Erie observation tower. It was very peaceful and beautiful. 

We all enjoyed taking pictures & chasing seagulls. Ben and the kids enjoyed

 scaring me by getting close to the observation deck’s railing. But we truly 

enjoyed seeing this beautiful lake before calling it a night on our second day."

Scrapbooking- Easter 2008

I love Easter for so many reasons. Mainly, the death, burial and resurrection of my Lord Jesus Christ! 

A secondary reason is the colors! I love all the pastel and bright colors combined to form a cheery palette. Let's face it: after long, dreary winters we look forward to the colors of Spring! This layout probably has the least amount of color that I've ever put into an Easter layout. The photos all together had too much color, so in order to focus on them I made them black and white! I hope you like it! 

Journaling:

"City Easter egg hunt and Bounce house!"

"Cute outfits. Posing for pictures. Nat in a bad mood."

"Pictures with friends. Hugs and kisses. Uhmmm, Lucas and Addison!"

Scrapbooking- disclaimer

So, I partially started this blog to post my scrapbook pages and hopefully display them in order, but that's not going to happen because of the blog layout so I hopefully will get the posted randomly and they will be grouped by subject dealing with family life or deputation life (yes, I know our family life and deputation life are now one and the same, but the "family life" pages will mainly be of things that happened BEFORE deputation, but that I'm just now getting to because- yes- I AM that far behind.)
I hope you enjoy them- I love to go over our photos and relive the memories... it's so much fun!

Walking with God

Last night we visited a church in Littleton, CO. The pastor was doing a series on Hebrews 11, going through heroes of faith. Enoch was the person he talked about and I learned a few new things that had never jumped out at me before....

Enoch walked with God. I've always been drawn to the fact that those simple words were spoken about Enoch: "he walked with God." It sometimes has made me envious, and other times I am in awe of that fact. Oh to have that be my epitaph!

But what really jumped out at me last night were two things:

1. Enoch didn't always walk with God.
Genesis 1: 21,22 say "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters."
It is never too late to start walking with God! Enoch didn't walk with God until AFTER his wife gave birth to his firstborn son when he was 65! We aren't told what happened to change his life. It may have been the simple change that happens when many people become parents and all of a sudden they don't feel so wise, mature, or capable of raising up a man being in this crazy world. This change causes them to look beyond themselves and search for meaning, answers, and the true reason for living- God. Whatever happened to change Enoch seems to be pretty drastic since from then on, for the next 300 years he walked with God and even walked so closely to God that he didn't even taste death, but God simply took him to heaven with Him. Can you say, wow?!? I can't even imagine. This close walk leads me to second thing that I noticed...

2. Adam DID begin walking with God.
Adam walked personally with God daily, but because of his sin in the garden of Eden, and his lack of walking with God after that he wasn't even mentioned in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11! If you read and calculate the years Adam and his descendants, including Enoch, lived you will find that Adam lived up until just a few years before Enoch was "translated" to heaven. This means that Adam had centuries to get back into fellowship with God, but for some reason he never did, or at least not to a closeness like before. He even was able to see Enoch walking with God for over 200 years but still never changed! I think that's tragic. He died just as any other man when he started out his life in such a unique way- the first man who walked and talked with God in the garden of Eden!

I guess I never thought about these two men together before and how different their lives were even though they lived at the same time. It encourages me to finish strong and not depend on my rich Christian heritage, or whatever I've done for and with God in the past. If I'm not walking with God NOW it won't matter. Secondly, it gives me hope for loved ones who aren't yet walking with God. I still have hope they can turn to God and walk with Him and please him just as Enoch did. What do the lives of these two men tell you?

Easter- 2013- Cookies!

Baking! I love to bake, and my kids love to do it along with me! We usually make sugar cookies in shapes for each holiday. Thank God we were "home" (aka. the In-laws' house while on deputation) for Easter this year so we were able to do some baking. Better yet- my Mother-in-law made up the dough with the kids the night before so all we had to do was get it out of the fridge!

First some rolling (and eating)

then some cutting (and playing with flour)

Then some baking (and more eating)

Frosting and sprinkles

...and more sprinkles

A happy smile

or two

and we have some DELICIOUS cookies. 

Easter- 2013- Resurrection Eggs

Ever heard of Resurrection Eggs? They are intended to use Easter eggs to remind us of the true reason for Easter- Jesus' resurrection. I have a plastic set, but also saw some printable ones here: http://www.lapbooklessons.com/ResurrectionLapbook.html and so I printed, cut, glued, and cut them again to make these:

One Easter Sunday I hid the eggs inside the house (there are 36 total) and the kids had fun finding them, finding the Bible passages in the Bible and matching the passages to the verses and the pictures. I liked how it got my kids into God's Word to see what it says about the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord!