Fall Decorating

Well we finally decorated for Fall yesterday. Yes, October is practically over, but atleast November will look a bit like Thanksgiving in our home. I love Fall, but I like my house the way it is everyday, without the clutter of extra things laying around. With the construction, I felt like adding one more thing inside our house was going to put me over the edge. But then the kids asked me last week, "when are we going to decorate our house like (then they named all of their friends whose houses were decorated)?" Well I gave in without me naming all of the people that I know have not decorated. So, out came all of the stuffed pumpkins, the scarecrows, the Indian corn, the turkeys and every other orange item that was in the boxes marked "Fall". Now that it is done, I am glad that we did it. It is nice to have a touch of Fall at our house. Considering outside doesn't look like it. (We do not rake our tree that loses its leaves until December!) As the years go by it does get a lot easier decorating, now that Paige can unpack everything and the boys can set the item where it belongs. And I have loosened up over the years about having everything "in its place." I have come to realize that the window clings are not going look like a beautiful Fall scene when the kids put them on. In fact, half of the little Fall critters will be upside down and there will still be 3 of the clings stuck together, but that is alright. It is not about perfection.

Happy Belated Birthday Clay!

I feel that Clay has been a little shafted on his birthday this year. Wedding the day of, sick people all around including him and now having his celebration that was suppose to take place at Chuck E Cheese postponed until further notice. But you know what? He doesn't seem to mind in the least. I guess in his eyes the festivities are just going to last longer this way. Sunday we did do the presents. Here are some pictures of his goodies.

Clay opening his gift from Paige and Drew. Star Wars figures.

The fun thing about Clay is that he gets excited about most anything. More legos!

The gift of all gifts a Transformer. This is what he has been waiting for!
The kids with sick Daddy. What a party!

Hopefully I will be able to post some Chuck E Cheese pictures soon!

H1N1 (aka Swine Flu)

Well, it is here. It has unofficially been confirmed that Jathan has the H1N1 virus. The doctor said that the test takes about 2 weeks to get the results in so he didn't bother doing the test. Based on symptoms, he believes that it is safe to say that is what it is. Now my job is to keep Jathan in bed. Not an easy task, considering this weekend, with a fever of 102 he performed a wedding and still preached on Sunday. Now that he doesn't have much of a voice left nor can stand up straight, I think he is giving in and resting a bit more. The kids have all had fevers this weekend too, so I am hoping they got through their mild cases and we can move on. I am doing everything in the book to prevent contact with the virus and all the preventative measures that I know of to prevent proliferation. (new word I just learned) We will see how it goes.

Please Pray

***Edited: I wrote this post this morning. This evening another family in our church received a call that their youngest son died this weekend. He was in his late 40s or early 50s. It seems that it keeps coming. But we do have a mighty God who is with us. Who loves us. Who comforts us. Who gives us strength. Even in times like this when we say 'What is going on?' 'How much more can we take?' We know that he will not give us more than he will give us the strength to handle. But please pray for us. Specifically the families that are directly touched. ***

This month has been amazing. Not a month I would like to repeat, but still, I have seen God so clearly. A friend from church and I were talking earlier last week. It seems like our little church is a lot like Job. We are a small church and have been hit very hard with pain. But if I look at the story of Job, I know that God is right there. To give you a little background, in the last month we have had one of our three elders diagnosed with brain cancer, a family in our church take their 10 month old son by ambulance to a children's hospital for several days, not knowing whether he would live, once that trial was mostly over and they were able to take him home, they came home to their 6 year old needing to be taken to the ER. On Monday, another family in our church lost their 25 year old son suddenly. That is on top of a few ongoing trials that other families are facing. It has been hard. But I have to say, we have felt God's presence through it all. I would be lying if I said we aren't tired, but God has continued to sustain our church family and the leaders as we face these trials. And through it all I think we are all still rejoicing in God's goodness. I am praying for God's glory to be magnified through all of this. And that we would continue to lean completely on Him as we face each day.

Please pray for the families that I mentioned above. Please pray for God to continue to give them the strength that only he can give and the comfort that passes all understanding. There still is hurting. Also, pray for the Elders as they lead and care for our church family. As you saw in the post below, Jathan is sick, the bug is in our house, but he has gotten run down, so please pray for healing for him so he can minister with full strength.

Please also pray for my sister, Mandy. Right now she is in the hospital, unable to walk and in a lot of pain. She has been sick for over a month, the doctors still do not know what is causing all of this. Please pray for healing and strength.

Lamentations 3 verses 19 through 24 says, 'I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.'" Praise God! He is everything, He is all we need. Those that are called by his name can look to Him with confidence and know that he truly is our All in All.

Dropping Like Flies

So we are dropping like flies around here. Last Sunday, Clay woke up with a fever and began vomiting that day. The next few days were fever free, but you could tell he still didn't feel well. Then on Thursday, the fever came back with a cough. Friday the fever was gone, but still had the cough. Yesterday, Paige and Clay had a soccer game, I kept Clay home because I wanted to make sure that he was recovered. Then right before leaving to do a wedding yesterday, Jathan began coughing and started a fever. As I was about to take the kids over to the neighbors to watch during the wedding, Paige began a fever. Our neighbors still wanted to watch the kids so I could go with my sick husband to the wedding, they said that they would quarantine Paige. So we go to the wedding, Jathan's voice lasts just long enough to get the couple married. He goes home, I stay. He gets the kids, our very kind neighbors had thrown a little birthday party for Clay, oh yeah, it was his birthday! Don't I feel like the mother of the year, my neighbors take care of my sick kid and throw a party for one of my other kid's birthday. Jathan gets them home puts them to bed. I come home to a now sicker husband, then go to kiss the kids goodnight and now Drew has a fever. So this morning, there are still three with fevers. Jathan is at church preaching (he is coming home as soon as he is done), I am praying he makes it through. I stayed home with the sick kids and Clay. I am the last one standing, praying that it moves on out of our home very, very soon! But as a friend told me this morning when he called "the writing is on the wall" It isn't looking too good for me.

So what have we been up to…

August started with construction and school. The construction is because we are adding on to our home. Off of our family, there will now be a bedroom, bathroom and loft. The bedroom is so my mom can stay for as long as she would like and have her own space, the bathroom is for obvious reasons and the loft is for Jathan, whatever he would like to use it for. The builders are great, the kids actually miss then when they aren’t here for a day, but it is definitely a change in our life. For the most part we truck through school, able to ignore some of the extra noises and people around, other times when the drilling is a few feet from you or the hammering is above you, it can be a bit distracting. All and all despite the mess we are surviving. However, we will definitely be happy when it is all behind us and we can have our yard and house back to normal.


School started in August, my third year of homeschooling. I can’t say that I am any closer to being a veteran than I was at the beginning of Paige’s Kindergarten, but I am learning as we go and I do think that every semester is getting better. Paige is now in 2nd grade, Clay in 1st grade and Drew in preschool. I am grateful for the this opportunity.

One of the beauties of homeschooling is the flexibility in the schedule. Labor Day weekend we were able to turn the 3 day weekend into a trip to visit friends from college. Instead of the usual Sat-Sun-Mon holiday we left Thursday afternoon and had a Fri-Sat-Sun holiday. We had a great time playing on the beach, playing games and visiting. Jathan left Saturday, taking the Greyhound back home, while the kids and I stayed an extra day.


On that Sunday, the kids and I picked up my mom from the airport and headed to Palm Springs for the week. We stayed in a condo, had school like normal, but got to enjoy the pool on our breaks. In school we were studying the desert, so we took a few fieldtrips while we were there. We had a great time!

Currently, in October, we have been busy with school, Jathan working and I have tried to get our home as organized as possible. With the construction going on and things a bit out of place, I am fighting for organization in the areas of the home that have not been affected. At least have someplace seem neat and tidy. Jathan is coaching Paige and Clay in soccer. This year they are on the same team, which is so much more convenient than last year. Clay is taking a month of art lessons. We are trying them out to see if this is something we want to continue. Art seems to be his love, to the extent of him telling me that he doesn’t need school, since he is just going to paint. We will see about that! Last week we took a dairy field trip, which was great fun. The kids (actually the moms too) took a hayride through the dairy and got out to see the cows milked. Following the tour we had a nice picnic lunch drinking milk of course with ice cream as dessert. A great time!

Good things come to those who wait

Three years ago we began the job search. Jathan was ordained and the resumes went out. We started off excited to see where God would lead us. Then after several months, our excitement died and we began to question. Are we looking in the right places? Is this really what God wants us to do? With the encouragement of our church family, we pressed on. After 8 months of looking, a church in CA called us to come out for an interview. In August of '07 we loaded a Penske truck with all of our earthly belongings and drove the 2300 miles from Indiana to California. As the green fields of the Midwest turned into dry desert land of the West, I soon realized, just how far we were going away from home.

Fast forward to last Saturday. Drew and I dropped off Jathan and the other two kids at soccer practice and headed to the farmers market and the grocery store. Trying to hurry to do both stops before the game. Thankfully, I didn't need anything that needed to be kept cold, so we were able to do both errands before the game instead of dragging everyone to the grocery store after. As I was going down an aisle I passed a family with two Asian kids. She looked hard at Drew and myself and said quietly "Is he adopted?" I said "yes" and she said "what country?" I told her Korea. Found out that her two were also adopted form Korea. As we talked she said that she had only been in this town for two years, I told her that we too, moved here two years ago in August. She told me that they moved in August too. Then came to find out that both of our husbands were pastors. Kinda weird the similarities. As we were talking she asked me if I too thought it was hard moving here. I had to honestly say no it wasn't.

I have thought a lot about the conversation. We waited and waited, sometimes we were patient other times we were not, but God knew what was best. We came to a church that was a perfect match. They are our family. I can't think of one time that I have regretted the move. From the moment we came we have been showered with love and support. We have grown spiritually more than ever before. I had a conversation with someone at a fellowship meal at our church a couple of weeks ago. She is new to the church and had just found out that we had only been there for 2 years. She began to ask if it was hard moving here. A dear friend interjected "When they weren't here it was like a part of our family was missing, when they came we knew they were the family that was missing"

Good things do come to those who wait.
We are blessed to have our church family.
I thank God for them!

Welcome to my new blog

If you followed my old blog, you know that I was terrible at updating it. I am going to try very, very hard to keep this one up to date as best as possible. It may not be every day, but hopefully every week.

Anyway, I am glad that you stopped by. Hopefully as you read you will learn a bit about me and what is going on in my life and the life of my family.