Cousins!!

Last week we had the privelege of having my sister-in-law, Stephanie, and my niece and nephew, Elise and Ian, here for the day! We don't get to see them as often as I'd like to, and we didn't get to spend much time with them this summer, so we were extra happy to spend the day with them.  They had a lot of fun playing Wii and Apples to Apples. I sure wish they lived next door instead of 4 hours away!

Andrew hasn't figured out how to do silly pictures yet!

Patient

"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."  Ephesians 4:2 NIV

Gee, that's not a tall order or anything! When I think about how I react toward and how I treat my family, one thought that comes up often is how I am not very patient.  I have to wonder, can I be truly loving toward my family without being patient? Unfortunately for me, I'm pretty sure the answer is, "No."

In their book The Love Dare, Stephen and Alex Kendrick propose that love is built on two pillars: patience and kindness. It is not their original idea - we are all familiar with the verse beginning, "Love is patient, love is kind." But knowing something and applying it to everyday life are two very different things.  This has made me think about how to show more patience with my family.  How would that look? How would I have to change? Again, the Kendrick's have much to say that resonates with me.

First, being patient means staying positive in a negative situation. Negative situations are part of life! Any time more than one person lives in a house, spending time together every day, negative situations abound! How will I react? Earlier today, Andrew was being his normal, very talkative self.  I was trying to read something very important (Well, Facebook can be important, right?) and he just kept saying the same thing over and over and over to me.  This isn't something that has to be a negative situation, but I quickly turned it into one with my lack of patience.  I became frustrated that he was interrupting me and annoyed at his repetition.  My lack of patience made it impossible for my son to see my love for him in that moment.  This is also an important thing for me to remember right now while Jerry and my older boys are going through an allergy treatment. No one would dare argue about whether that is a negative situation! Probably because so much prayer has gone into these three-day treatment periods over the last two years, I am able to be very patient with the negative aspects of these treatments.  When my children whine, vomit, and refuse to eat, I am saddened and I do get frustrated because I want them to do what they should to not suffer, but I also am patient knowing that it will end in a few days.  That patience allows me to have an internal calm regardless of what is happening around me.  Without it, I would have a hard time showing my family love in the way they need it on these days.

Second, patience makes us wise.  If I am not quick to rush to judgment, but allow myself to truly listen to the one I love in a difficult conversation or situation, I am able to respond in love. Proverbs had much to say about this, such as, "He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly." The Kendrick's put it well, "Patience is where love meets wisdom."

Finally, patience gives our loved ones permission to be human.  Everyone makes mistakes, falls short, and fails at times. I don't have to look very far to find numerous examples of this human nature - I can just look in the mirror!  When I am consistently patient, my family knows they doesn't have to be afraid to make these inevitable human errors in front of me. They can be confident of my love!

Patience doesn't come naturally to me, but it is a quality worth striving for. This is something in which the Lord has been dealing with me. What has he been showing you lately?

Me & my super handsome guys on Mother's Day!

After quite a long bloggy break, I must admit that I miss blogging.  Not because I am such an excellent blogger and have so much wisdom to share, but I miss having documented the mundane, day-to-day stuff that is my life. I like flipping through blogs that are more like an account of what's happening in a life plus pictures than any other kind of blog.  I like flipping through mine to remember the fun things I've done with my chidren, husband, and friends!  I do think the break I took was necessary because there was just too much going on to take time for blogging, but now that we are done with school for the summer, I think I'll go back and fill in the gaps and add things as they are happening!  I am not sure I am going to be able to reconstruct the books I've read, though...there must be about 20 I've read without updating the side blog, so that might be a hopeless cause!

So, even if my Aunt Robin is the only reader I have left, let the blogging begin!

Miniature Golf

Jerry and I have never been big on celebrating Valentine's Day.  It seems like nothing more than a Hallmark holiday, thought up for nothing other than selling flowers, greeting cards, and candy.  Personally, I'd rather get flowers three or four times throughout the year, when they were really bought from the heart, than once on Valentine's day because "it is the right thing to do" - for the same price, too! I mean, we should show each other love all year long, not just on one day. So we really don't do much on February 14, but our children get so excited about it and want to do something special.  For them, we planned a fun family night out.  Jerry came home from work a bit early and we headed out to play some miniature golf and then went to Taco Bell for dinner.  Not the typical Valentine's Day celebration, but for us it was perfect!

Aaron lines up his first putt, only to realize he really needs a shorter putter!

Ethan has a bit more casual stance when playing miniature golf!

Andrew was the shock of the evening! Not only did he *love* playing, he was incredibly determined! We didn't know just how persistant he was before this night.  He WOULD NOT quit trying until he got his ball in the hole.  In fact, if he hit the ball too close to the hold the first time, he would pick the ball up and move it farther away from the hole so it wasn't "too easy" a shot!

Isn't he just incredibly cute???

We did have one casualty - Ethan fell, ripped his jean hole so large the jeans are no longer wearable, and skinned his whole knee.  Fortunately, the establishment had neosporin and bandaids. Whew! Crisis averted!

Due to Andrew's persistence, we were at the park until after 7:00! At least we got to see a beautiful sunset.

Thursday

1. Everyone should read this article about the Bush tax cuts. Very interesting.

2. What is it about feed sacks that make racing so much fun for kids? And grandpas.

3. Is it Christmas break yet? I am so in the sewing mood. I want to sew and try to make lip gloss/chapstick and paint the ugly green bathroom.

Thursday's...um...stuff.

We finally got a family portrait (of sorts) accomplished on Sunday. We're a Broncos family, in case you can't tell.  Sarah and Anna are incredibly photogenic. They can't take a bad photo.

 Anna was scared of a moth.

Look at Isaac smiling! He is really living up to his name, smiling and laughing all the time. He's the most laid back baby we've had yet! Anyone for #7?

I'm just kidding, calm down everyone.

Thursday's...Thoughts?

Howdy. It's another Thursday. Can you believe I've done this four Thursdays in a row. Amazing!

This is a picture of a sunset I took on Saturday. Lovely, eh?

 SQUIRREL!!! They are a nusiance in the garden, but I have to admit, they are cute.

My poor Rachel. Amblyopia, broken foot, horrible sore on ankle AND she is a fire ant's favorite snack. This girl can find a fire ant mound in the middle of the ocean. All the girls and my mom were on my grandma's lawn petting the neighbors' dogs when suddenly Rachel started screaming. Turns out she found the fire ants. When she gets bit by fire ants, it's not just one or two at a time, it's many, many, many at a time and this has happened to her so often that she is now developing an allergy to the bites. Her foot swelled up even bigger than you see here and the bites (or stings, really) puffed up with water like blisters. Poor girl.

 Look at my little man. Check out his double chin. Is it not the cutest double chin you've ever seen?!

 Florida wildlife: gators. Oh so friendly. I like all the signs in the ponds/lakes: DANGER: ALLIGATORS. NO SWIMMING OR FISHING. And yet people still get killed/maimed swimming in bodies of water here.

 My OB group gives these shirts out after the babies are born. The little one was for Lily, the other pink for Anna and obviously the blue for Isaac. Very cool keepsake!

 On Saturday we took the kids orienteering at Moss Park in Orlando. It didn't turn out so hot. Rachel hurt her broken foot a bit, Lily and Anna couldn't hack the walking and Isaac thinks if I'm holding him he should be eating (I was using a mei tai I made). So Del kept the older two and finished the course while Mom and I took the kids to a park. I sat in the car with sleeping Isaac while my mom braved the park and then got some water from this fountain.

It was fun to get out in the woods again. I'll be happy when all the kids are old enough to go for a hike in the woods without crying and whining and complaining the whole time. Being in the woods sure does make me miss the mountains in Colorado.

That's all I have for now. Wasn't it riveting?

Pictures of the Day

Rachel got a bead stuck on her tooth.  I thought we were going to have to take her to the dentist for a little while but we finally got it off.

In keeping with our homeschooling weirdness, my children have turned a little bear named Eggs into a mummy.  History, you know.

Please Knock Me Out Now

I've been on a long trip with the family. All nine of us packed into two vans. We drove to St. Louis and back. Forgive me in advance for the picture order. I don't know what blogger did to inhibit the moving around of pictures but they did and I don't have the patience to deal with it. I'm lucky to have actually gotten all these uploaded.
One thing that I really miss about "the north" is the fall colors.

We visited the arch in St. Louis, of course. That was fun. The girls had a good time with that.

We rode the Incline railway in Chattanooga, TN. That was interesting.

We walked about 2/3 of the way across the Walnut St. Bridge over the Tennessee river in Chattanooga. You can't see it but behind us was a wall of rain heading our way and we had to turn around and get back to the vans to escape the rain before we could get all the way across.

We visited the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY. I was disappointed that I couldn't take any pictures inside the museum itself. I was also disappointed that I was not able to purchase so much as a fat quarter while in the home of quilting in America. What's with that? I tried to go into Eleanor Burns' Quilt In a Day shop. There was a sign on the door that said "will be back at 1:30." It was after 2. Darn. Oh well. I bet it's more fun during the annual quilt show anyway. The quilts inside were simply beautiful though. Del and Dad were joking about how boring it was going to be but both were impressed with the museum. And that's sayin' something.

Lily enjoying the view from the arch in St. Louis. That's the Mississippi river below. Just in case you didn't know that.

I took a picture similar to this one when we were in St. Louis when Ella was 8 months old. It was just Del and Ella with the arch behind them.

We went to the St. Louis Science Center. That's fun!! Here I am holding a South American hissing cockroach. I almost died!

In Chattanooga we visited the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park. It's a Civil War site. Very interesting! I really enjoy visiting history like that. Ella picked me a flower.

Here's the view from the mountain that the Union army had. That is the Tennessee river and Chattanooga below.

At the St. Louis zoo there was this cool drinking fountain. I was thoroughly impressed with the zoo. It's free to get in and you get up close to the animals. And they had a lot of really interesting animals and all were active. The worst part was that parking was $11 but you can park on the street for free. The zoo is located in Forest Park and there are tons of things to do there but we didn't have time to do anything other than the zoo.

Here's Ella snagging a red leaf at the zoo.

The whole reason we went to St. Louis was to visit Del's family. In the picture from left to right are: Aunt Brenda and Lily, Aunt Sandy, Uncle Reed, Granny, my mom and Great Aunt Vera. On the floor of course are me and Del, Anna, Rachel, Sarah, Ella and my dad. We saw a couple of cousins also but forgot to get a picture.

We also saw Del's nephew. Here is his daughter with Anna. Dariana was such a sweet girl. Her mom is expecting and she will be a great big sister!

Sorry I haven't been here in a while...

...I've been busy. Wanna see what I've been doing? You do! Okay. I'll give you a glimpse. I've been...

feeding goats and sheep with my children...

taking pictures of my family with beautiful Mt. Hood in the background...

taking pictures of myself with beautiful Mt. Hood in the background...

discovering steamy, lost lakes...

hiking to waterfalls...

climbing to new heights...

having a little cheesy fun...

watching my children see the Pacific for the first time...

picking raspberries and marionberries....

and posing for family pictures at Multnomah Falls.

It's a rough life, but somebody has to do it.