Twins Teeth are Neck in Neck!!

Well - Stephen lost his second tooth yesterday (see - I am improving). Daddy pulled it out in time for a dentist appointment today..... So - that makes the score 2 to 2. Chris is slightly in the lead as he has 2 more teeth wiggly - and Stephen has been recently traumatized and therefore reticent to wiggle anything right now......

We started school this week! All 6 of us! It has been WONDERFUL!! Really, really busy, but wonderful. Mike has class every day in the morning, and Monday nights. We are done before he gets home so we can have lunch together before he moves on to working in the afternoons (at least for now - he has several rooms of a friend of ours he is painting). I am also painting plates again, so that helps too. All in all we are just kind of plugging along. GOD IS SO GOOD! We are almost 1 week down out of 16. But who is counting :) ? I can't believe how fast the time is going.

The twins turn 6 this weekend. Talk about time moving fast - where did those years go?

They will be doing Push the Rock this fall with their big brother and sister - which translates into 2 hours of mommy time a week. That's going to be weird..... Hopefully a friend of mine will be going as well, so we might have some time to fellowship. That would be great! I am so grateful for this time we are experiencing. There has been much joy this week! Two more days and we will have completed week one out of 36 - but who's counting :)!!

A podcast by David Powlison

I would love to recommend a podcast I was able to listen to yesterday by David Powlison - a Christian counselor. It is an excellent podacast on grace and prayer. Here is the link. It is about an hour - but is well worth the time!!

http://www.ccef.org/authors/david-powlison

An Update?

I realize I haven't posted in 2 months. We have had a crazy summer. Mike is finishing up his finals this week, and we have both been counting down the days this semester. It has been an unusually tough time for us time wise.

Last week we had the opportunity to go to Worship God '09 (the SGM Worship conference). Mike had been able to attend last year ('08), and really wanted me to come along with him. I can't express how grateful I am that he pushed me to go. It was an amazing time, and God used so many things over the course of the 4 days we were there to re-center my focus on Him. It was time well spent, and we are tremendously grateful to have been able to go (and grateful to my parents for watching the kids!!).

Mike is really looking forward to finishing his semester. One more semester, and he is done. I have no idea what the next few months will hold as we move forward, and that can be a bit unnerving. I think we are both feeling that. These past few months have been a mixture of fear, hope, confusion, peace, and a wonderful exercise in faith. I am feeling as if the next few months will bring about a whole new level of exercise. I know that He will be faithful to complete the work He has started in us - I am really praying for peace in the transition.

The kids have been great. I truly do not deserve to be blessed with the gift of my kids! They continue to grow and encourage me in so many ways!! We are getting ready to shift back into school mode. They are eager (especially the younger 2), and are looking forward to starting back up again. I need to bathe that in prayer - I am not there yet. I keep putting our start date off. It is time to get organized and going....

My heart has been heavy as of late. God is faithful. I know He is. It just feels like a free fall right now. I feel like we have been given such a great gift in this time. I am not sure if we have used it effectively. God has been bountiful in His provision to us. He has been gracious to our family. As I look back on all He has done over the last 8 months (WOW!!) that Mike has been home, I am nothing but grateful. I am starting to wonder what comes next now. I am not sure if that is helpful. And yet, as this season winds down in the next few months, I find myself asking my husband more and more often "What's going to happen to us? Are we going to be OK? We're going to be OK right?"

Even as I ask I know that I should know better. Mike is not my saviour. He loves me, and God uses him to provide for our family (in ways we could never have imagined). But he doesn't know, nor does he control the future. And I know who does. And I know He is faithful. And He has walked us through in ways I could never have anticipated. Please pray for a more profound focus. Please pray that I would not be "like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." (James 1:23-24). But that I would be about doing the word - and that my trust would be planted firmly in God who NEVER changes.

Unfair treatment

OK - a mom confession. Stephen lost his first tooth this past week. And you know what? I don't even remember which day it was - isn't this just the way it is when you're the baby? And the poor little guy is only 2 minutes younger than his brother. I am feeling major guilt......

Family Tooth Saga

Well - it finally happened. One of the twins lost a tooth. Before I declare a winner, there is some back story (as usual)....

Last visit to the dentist we were told that the twins adult teeth were "on the move". This was a surprise to us - not because we didn't know that teeth fell out eventually, but because at a previous dental visit we had been told that Chris had no adult teeth. He had them on the bottom, but not on the top. We had also been told they don't "grow in later". He simply wouldn't have them (dental implants would be used - which we already knew would be necessary for some of them). It was a bit of a surprise (Praise GOD!!) that he even had adult teeth to be "on the move". Some friends of ours had prayed through this time with us, so this was huge news for us. That was last December.

So, we wiggled those teeth. In the meantime, Michael has been losing some of his "bigger" baby teeth (and won't have fillings anymore once he looses them all....), and that has been a bit traumatic. Katie has had teeth growing in over teeth, so we have been working on those as well. All in all, there has been a whole lot of wiggling, fear, competition, and fatherly extractions going on. Mike is our "OK - let's do this!" tooth puller extraordinaire (and the kids have learned early to stay away from him unless they are desperate....).

The twins, since birth, have always had this competitive nature about who does what first. So far....

Stephen walked first, crawled first, and read first.

Christopher wrote first, is a better speller, and did math first.

Stephen wins for having the first adult tooth come in (behind his baby tooth), but the winner (with a little help from dad) of the first tooth out twin contest is....................

Christopher!!!

Congratulations buddy!

Family Update

Well - we have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that Mike will not be able to drop down to part time come July. It turns out that he is enrolled on the 10 week program (to start on June 8th), not Summer 1. He will still graduate in December, but will have to continue full time until then. This is good news because we will be able to be a little more realistic with our schedule - and that is going to be so much better for our family!!

Michael B. is doing well. He is building LEGO cities now. School is over, and we are starting to get bored more and more easily. It is tough because it is his allergy season, so we have to be careful with his outdoor time. He has had no issues so far this year praise God!!

Kate is growing taller and taller. She is reading everything she can get her hands on and is currently working on the Narnia Series. We have them in one bound book, so she says she is on book three chapter 6. She is a fast reader!!

Chris and Stephen are crazy! They are really starting to come into their own as far as personality. They are so different from each other! And.... THEY BOTH HAVE LOOSE TEETH. They are so excited!

I am starting to collect my thoughts toward next year's schooling. I would like to start up again in July. We also need to get our portfolios submitted for this year. I would have liked for it to be a bit different than it turned out, but we try again next year for the "perfect" year. :) They all love to learn, and for that I am grateful. If that is all we accomplish, that would be a good foundation!

All in all, normal stuff..... :)

Of First Importance

This is a post from the blog "Of First Importance". http://firstimportance.org/

They send out a daily email, and it has touched our hearts more than once! Definitely worth checking out!


Together at the Cross
Posted: 24 May 2009 07:22 AM PDT
“We stand as sinners together at the cross needing to be cleansed. When true love shines, we find it easy to share with and trust one another as we repent together and find grace in the sinner’s place. We grow to understand and feel safe with one another. There is nothing so sweet on earth as this simple fellowship of Christians who repent. Jesus stands among us shedding His holy light until it seems that nothing evil or unreal can linger there. It becomes easy to repent but hard to hurt one another. Our hearts are melted together and we lay down our lives for the brethren.”
- Stanley Voke, Personal Revival (Waynesboro, Ga.: OM Literature, nd), 77.

Still working on my other post.... :)