Daddys birthday party! egg drop soup, egg rolls, lettuce wraps, pad thai, and the hobbit with some guy friends! Happy 26th sweet tea! I love you!

Dont break the ice family game time during breakfast!

Christmas napping while mommy catches up with old friends.

FWD:

Ive been wanting a back picture of my girls sitting on a beach looking out towards the water. My sister-in-law shalom made me this one on the right for a christmas present! cant wait to hang it!

4 varrieties of chocollate truffles, 2 loaves of rosemary bread, and a tray of Cranberry bliss bars! Daniel, girls and I had a fun day of baking, shopping, and just enjoying each other as a family! Now girls are in bed and time for some sparlking juice in our new made in USA Target $1 bin stemless glasses. Arn't they cute? We couldnt belive something so cheep was made in america! so excited! Oh and I guess our night turned into early Christmas eve morning! Haha!

Came to pick up daniel and surprized with a free little tea with my girls!

Hot choc fire and sewing the rest of our night

Making birdnest necklaces for presents. The colored pearls represent the months the kidswere born in. I dont think the ladies who im giving these to follow my blog so we're safe. ;)

FWD:

Gingerbread house

Girls were laughing so hard in their room last night. Daniel went to check on them first and then called me in to find this except on tashi. Honestly I freaked out! it was clown style creepy! Which the girls thought was funny they tricked me. Goofy children.

Encouragment

Isaiah 35:1-10

The Ransomed Return to Zion 

35 The wilderness and the dry land will be glad;
the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.^[a][b]
2 It will blossom abundantly
and will also rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
³ Strengthen the weak hands,
steady the shaking knees!
⁴ Say to the cowardly:
“Be strong; do not fear!
Here is your God; vengeance is coming.
God’s retribution is coming; He will save you.”
⁵ Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
⁶ Then the lame will leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy,
for water will gush in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
⁷ the parched ground will become a pool of water,
and the thirsty land springs of water.
In the haunt of jackals, in their lairs,
there will be grass, reeds, and papyrus.
⁸ A road will be there and a way;
it will be called the Holy Way.
The unclean will not travel on it,
but it will be for the one who walks the path.
Even the fool will not go astray.
⁹ There will be no lion there,
and no vicious beast will go up on it;
they will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk on it,
¹⁰ and the redeemed of the Lord will return
and come to Zion with singing,
crowned with unending joy.
Joy and gladness will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee.

Time to seek the Lord

Devotional from Biblegateway.com this morning. This one was written by A.W. Tozer

Trials and Pain: The Sharp Blade of the Plow

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.—Hosea 10:12

The fallow field is smug, contented, protected from the shock of the plow and the agitation of the harrow.... But it is paying a terrible price for its tranquility: Never does it see the miracle of growth; never does it feel the motions of mounting life nor see the wonders of bursting seed nor the beauty of ripening grain. Fruit it can never know because it is afraid of the plow and the harrow.

In direct opposite to this, the cultivated field has yielded itself to the adventure of living. The protecting fence has opened to admit the plow, and the plow has come as plows always come, practical, cruel, business-like and in a hurry. Peace has been shattered by the shouting farmer and the rattle of machinery. The field has felt the travail of change; it has been upset, turned over, bruised and broken, but its rewards come hard upon its labors. The seed shoots up into the daylight its miracle of life, curious, exploring the new world above it. All over the field the hand of God is at work in the age-old and ever renewed service of creation. New things are born, to grow, mature, and consummate the grand prophecy latent in the seed when it entered the ground. Nature's wonders follow the plow. Paths to Power, 31-32.

"Lord, make me a cultivated field. I suspect the price will be high, but I long to bear fruit for Your glory. Do the hard work of the farmer in my life today. Amen."

Daniel has been making us homeade sour cream since he learned how to at his tea job. I was kinda afraid to try it but once i saw it looked same and smelled same i tasted it and it was perfect!

Claira and me watching daniel and girls put lights up out the window. Feels like it might snow!

Claira saying "Hi"

Tashi with a pomagranat (sp?) totally her thing. she loves picking at little things like I do. Elle likes them too but prefers I pick them out for her first.

Reorganized the girls stuffies ontop of the little trampoline. space saver and less chance of spiders living in there I hope. C got right to enjoying them!

I think the girls like pears. Once Elle ate stem and all!

Driving up the hill. The whole scene snaps like a photagraph in my mind. A sudden shot of adrenaline charges my whole body. My cold breath slices as it fills my lungs holding my body hostage to let it out again. "I'm almost to work! I need to be ready. Full of energy." my heart races with the anticipation of what social encounters I may have to make, some happy. Some scary, embarassing, or even rude. My eyes feel pointy as they squeeze to focus on the image as my brain decifers what is real, what time is, and where am I in all of it. -its amazing to me how one little smell, taste, touch, or view can bring back so many memories and emotions in such a real now time way!

Claira helping me with dishes saying 'gigle gigle lickle lickle'

FWD:

So ive been reading through Luke with the girls for devotions in the morning and trying to explain it as best I can. So today we talked about how Elizabeth was having a baby as a married lady from her husband Zechariah with out going into details of how that works, and Mary's baby was a miracle put in her tummy from God. Well she must have listened because she came up to me and said she had a baby in her tummy and it was from gious (Zechariah). Tashi was pretending to be Elizabeth and Elle pretending to be Mary. Haha so cute. I guess I should clairify to her that all Babies are also gifts from God. I think i have a new favorite Boy name to add to our list if we ever have boys.

FWD:

making snowflakes with daddy mommy and even claira by the christnas tree and warm fire! (claira enjoyed crumpling paper) countdown calender day 1

Felland got a tiny bloody lip

Hum just realized one of the light strands went out. otherwise its pretty and peaceful! just need to light a fire and cuddle on the couch!

Thanksgiving is coming!

Growing up, the Fall time and Thanksgiving were my least favorite times of the year. I've always kinda been very uh. . .German and well. . . opinionated. I hated Piano. Don't know why but it depressed me. It was a lonely instrument. Not allowed in the Orchestra and if it was it ruined the happiness of orchestras to me. I didn't like the cockiness of Piano players either. (Although years later in Collage, Piano players became my best friends! Sorry Juls!) I'd get the same icky feeling around Basketball and Football. Cockiness oozed out of them and I despised any associations with it. Same with the color Red and Walmart, I didn't even want to be seen near these things. . . . so Fall being associated with Football, Red, and School time starting I guess it just made me not like Fall all that much. (Not that my family was into sports at all, so it shouldn't have been that big of a deal to me.) Then to make things worse there was Thanksgiving. The holiday picky eaters are sat down with a feast of odd foods (including a turkey that you could still see it's body shape!) in front of them and asked what they are thankful for. I really was a thankful kid for the most part, ok, ok, maybe not as thankful as I should have been, but I tried hard to recognize all God has done for me and knew even at a young age that I didn't deserve all that I had been blessed with. I loved the parade in the morning, but the big meal came around and it started a game of how little can I get away with eating. We'll I've been growing up thank goodness and my perspectives and and tastes have grown and are still growing, and slowly my negative opinionated-ness is starting to die. Although I still really hate the color red and I deep down think people who love red must be off their rockers just a tad bit.  And my heart still races before I enter a Wal-mart hoping no one will spot me in there! :o\ Slowly I've come to really truly enjoy Fall and Thanksgiving (Turkey and . . .well maybe not all. Not a fan of it's guts cooked into a gravy. But if you keep that away from me!) . And the more years added to my life the more things I recognize as a gift from God and am so grateful for all He has done for me and my family. I just finished going through Beth Moore's Bible study over James and at the beginning of the study she had us all write down a timeline of how God has worked in our hearts and lives. It was encouraging to do and I know I didn't even start to scratch the surface, but I thought I'd post some of the big bullet points as I remember tonight before Thanksgiving what all God has done for me.

God Working Through My Life
-Even before I was born, God set up a Godly Heritage for me to be born into.
-Born June 11th to a loving Father and Mother who loved God, each other, and my siblings and I.
-3 yrs. Salvation Realized early on my need for Christ in my life. (It was the day the Gulf War started actually, although I don't remember knowing that at the time.)
-Growing up in Grandpa's church services and learning more and more about God and the Bible. (I'm glad I wasn't thrown into a children's service. I feel like I learned a lot even at a young age just listening to Grandpa.)
-Awana Clubs gave me an early passion to win the lost for Christ and started my prayer life and Bible Memory.
-Baptism at 7. Outwardly acknowledging my salvation to others. Had a few times around this age of questioning my faith and God used that to grow me closer to Him. Started Daily Devotions around this time.
-Wilds Camp Mid school-High school. Learning to spend real quality personal time with God. Owning my personal convictions. Learning to ask forgiveness even when it was embarrassing. Seeing College age counselors I looked up to and wanting to serve God as they were. Desiring to live for God and not for flesh.
-12-14 yrs during major "awkward stage" with my glasses. Learning to pray each morning for hours. I had the wrong view of why I prayed for hours a little bit, but I was learning the self-discipline that would latter help me keep it up but with a better perspective on God's character.
-College at BJ. Dependence on God alone to get through life. Trusting Him for a husband if it was His will. Made wonderful friendships that would grow even after I left. Started to get excited for Heaven seeing how my friends and I who all had different convictions on certain things could all get along because we all loved God and agreed on the important things. I hated that people made so much fun of BJ for their strict rules. I felt like because they had such strict rules I could really break away from the worlds standards and decide what I thought on each of the issues. I'm really very grateful for my parents sending me to College even though it ended up I only stayed a year. It was a very valuable and life changing year.
-Meeting and Marrying Daniel. (I've decided I need to write our love story out someday!)
     -Going through Financial Peace together and learning I don't need everything the world says I do. Learning to be patient and wait to buy.
     -Going through Experiencing God together and learning "Don't just do something, sit there, wait, pray, and listen to God's calling first. Learning to listen to God. If I truly believe God knows everything, then why don't I go to Him more for help/advice.
     -Destroying legalism in my life. I tend to like legalism and feel safe with it. God has used Daniel to help me balance it all out.
   -Having Children. Destroying Selfishness in my life. Learning patience. Healing depression through filling my day with God. God is the best teacher on parenting. If we have a parenting question pray about it instead of just doing what everyone else does. God knows our children best and what they need.
-Growing in prayer. Learning God used my legalistic way of praying when I was younger to train me to pray today with perseverance. Learning to pray as God directs my heart. Learning I don't pray because I'm scared to not, but because I love God so much I want to experience and see Him working.
-Learning more that the Church is the body of believers. Not the Building. Owning my relationship and growth. We don't "go to chruch" We are the Church and bringing people to a building isn't what's important. It's making disciples, and keeping each other accountable and sharpening each other as we share how God is growing us. Sitting through a service shouldn't be what brings me contentment with my relationship with God.

So there is a rough outline of some of the "Spiritual Markers" in my life. I'm thankful for each of them and wish I had time to go into detail, but maybe through the years I can write more out on each, but now it's time to go make some Apple Pie!

Playing Pretend and Cuddling with Mommy

I love it when God whispers parenting advice into our ears. I realized today that when I read to all the girls as a bunch, although good and fun, one girl ends up feeling less cuddled by me or one girl distracts the other. So today I tried picking out one book special for each girl and reading to them each individually wrapped up on my lap or in my arms. It was comforting to me as well to feel their little bodies calm and rest a bit with me while the other girls played on the floor next to us. I still will be doing group cuddle and reading times, but I think individual one on one read with mommy time is going to be added to the schedule a little more often. I used to actually schedule in what I called "Eye Contact Time" with each girl whether it was reading or playing or just sitting and talking. No multi-tasking/folding laundry/cooking/editing while I talk to you time, but actually stopping everything and just listening, looking, talking, and playing with you time. I've kinda dropped the bomb on that with them recently, but I'm excited to bring it back and really schedule in time with each daughter individually everyday. I haven't blogged about it yet, but we've been experimenting with keeping the girls TV free. I think we've been doing it for maybe 3 months now?  Now we don't have a TV in the first place, but we do have a laptop with YouTube and the free version of Hulu (and up till a few months ago we had Netflix as well). The girls enjoyed watching shows when I let them and before and during Claira's birth I believe I kinda let them get a little addicted as I will admit I used it as a babysitter quite a bit when I was too tired. At first it wasn't really set in my mind (nor did I even mention it to Daniel at first) to keep the girls from watching anything, but rather was just interested in seeing if I could keep them from asking for any shows by entertaining them with pretend, toys, games, and school. It really didn't take long at all till I wasn't even hearing about TV shows anymore. Playing pretend Dora and Boots or pretend Blues Clues became playing pretend Poky Little Puppies (one of the golden books), Mommy and Daddy, Midwife and Patient, Abby and Dion's, Deanne and Eanon or Misha :o) and so on. I can't even remember the last time they've asked for a show, when their little bodies wake up, instead of coming to me to ask for Dora, they just run out to the playroom and start playing. I have felt healthier too in the process. Now I will admit Daniel and I still do enjoy watching our "Parenthood" and my corny "Emily Owens" on Hulu when they come out or an encouraging Duggars or goofy Cake Boss on You Tube when people post them, and I love that HGTV has most of their shows available online, so we aren't totally against TV or anything, I just am realizing our girls' brains are sponges right now at this age and would we rather them soak up silly songs from Dora that don't really have any purpose in their life (now I do admit they were learning Spanish, but I think I can teach them the amount they were learning) or teach them songs with moral lessons and Bible verses as they interact with us their parents to learn life lessons. I feel more comfortable with the second option. Plus, I have noticed how quickly it seems little girls are trying to grow up these days and trying to be sluts (to be blunt) and be just like the girls on TV they see thinking that's how it's to be. I don't know if girls are more prone to try and grow up quick and be flirty like other girls or if boys struggle with that too, but it would be awesome to not have so much pressure on our girls if at all possible. Not saying they won't come across it, but why not try and help. Now when we do plan a special movie night or showing of their old friend Dora it is a special new treat and they still love it. I'm not sure where our TV free will lead us or even if it will stay forever, but so far it's been an exciting experiment for sure!

made fluffy homemade lofthouse style cookies with the girls and their friend R today.

Claira was so cute the other night! she nursed with me and then sleepily crawled over to daniels pillow saying dada and layed her head on his pillow and one arm over his back with her aww noise she does when she hugs and fell asleep that way just a bit later. such a daddys girl. : )

Tashi drew a person!

Figured out a good use for water logged, wrinkled cards! the girls each have a stack and are counting the shapes to figure out what number they have. i wrote out the word too so it can all go in their brains. i also had to black out the extra shapes right bellow the number so they wouldnt over count. Easy to keep in purse too for on the go learning!

She wanted me to take a picture of his wife now. :o)

Was fun watching elle draw this boy. from drawing the careful circle with a stencil to lengthening one of the legs that came out shorter to adding fingers and toes belly button and nose. then wanting him to be clothed all the way to a ring on his finger.

For some reason her hands looked so cute holding this toy. but hardto see in this picture

Elle used this triangle stamp and stamped it twice to make a star with out us coaching her. how did she figure that out?!

I cut Tashi's hair. elle gave her a mrs brady mullet a few weeks ago. Took me a while to get the guts to try and fix it while she ate breakfst the other day. not perfect but we like it. Maybe with more practice ill get better!

Thanking God for a creative hubby. i made the freezer meal base. supposed to be crock pot meal. but cooked it in oven and added left over spagetti. i think it will be good

Sweet peace filled dreams!

Memorizing husbands face more as he writes down a recipe to make us bread for the week.

Watching balloon glow from afar. excited for fireworks!

Can you tell who's is who's?

My friend has always been very creative. I love going to her house when we were little because she had such fun ideas. Today she brought stuff to make treat bags for halloween. The Girlies loved making theirs with puffy glittery halloween stickers.

FWD:

Its so cute seeing them play together and crawl on each other now! Claira and her friend

Contemplating getting up to work more. I want to memorize this feeling of holding my littlest miracle. Her body melted on my chest in peaceful sleep. What a gift mommy-hood is.

Tea time, bible time with my Girlies on our sick day.

Made my mom's chicken enchiladas and wrapped them individually this time. Now i just grab how many needed lay them in a baking dish with foil opened, smother them with some cheese and chille if wanted and pop them in the oven to heat up. Sometimes i pull them out of foil and microwave to dethaw a little first. Lunch will be ready in no time! I know its early 10.30! but we are sick and off schedule and hungry.

One of my favorite pictures my sister took today of my six month old! I'll have upload the real copies soon!

Elle is turning into my beautiful little girl instead of my cute little baby.

Big pot of grapes! Making grape jelly and fruit leather.