Rolling Into

• Besides a normal week, I was tired and congested so I didn't join in several activities out with the fam. We all went to a reception showcasing the art from the art program the kids participate in. We all went to church and had small group here. Ricky took the kids to a high school football game again. Ricky's dad and brother visited over the weekend. They ran errands, went to a local brewery, joined pizza/movie night, and took the kids bowling. This week has been completely normal, which includes people and activity all day :)
• Tomorrow is our last day of school before we take our 6-week winter break to honor Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Years. We also take two big trips to visit family. The kids are way excited!
• We leave this weekend to visit my family for Thanksgiving week, so this blog will get a break!

Ignore her face; she loved making twig turkeys 

Aolani drew my head in art class, and I love her perspective!

watching Daddy

 one day while Aolani and I were doing school

We made thankful trees (cut out our handprints for the trees, used sponges for the leaves, and write one gift on a leaf with a marker each night) for this month and hang them on the fridge :)

• School verse: Matthew 6:24 ~ N -- No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
• Verse to memorize this week: Psalm  95:6-7 ~ Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.

A Thousand Regrets

To be a believer in God early in life is to be saved from a thousand regrets.  ~ Charles Spurgeon

This quote is just so true. While I did not begin to know, love, and follow Jesus until I was in high school at age 15, Ricky accepted Christ at age 5. I have often told Ricky that I have much regret and many bad memories as a result from which he gets to be spared. However, I think of how many sorrows I may have been spared from as 15 is still rather young.

Creating with Mind, Hands, Words

• Apart from our normal weekly activities, we had dinner for different sets of neighbors two different nights, Ricky took the kids to a high school football game, and our church had their annual fall festival gathering :)
• Micaiah's mishaps: is really into issuing threats to us all the time, "If you do that, I'm gonna..."; and, told us, "I closed my eyes and bowed my head when we prayed. I was 'specful!" ;)  
• Aolani's antics: wrote her first non-rhyming poem about the color pink; lost her second tooth; had been calling Friday, Friesday (started to correct herself); loves to read; and...
• Aolani pointed to a splotch mark on a bookmark and said that she thinks it was made by Mommy's drool because when Mommy laughs or talks she drools. 
• Aolani said that when she reads it makes her mind more great. 
• Aolani put her teddy, Sarah, in her doctor's bag purse. I told her that she might suffocate Sarah, and  Aolani comforted me by affirming that there were holes for her to breathe. "I have to do this because she is too small for a stroller, my church doesn't allow babies, and my husband doesn't take really good care of my baby. So, I have to carry her in my purse and not tell anyone."|

Building an underwater sea world with Bristle Blocks

Reading two books written by friends that go/went to Asbury University (our alma mater)

• School verse: John 3: 7 ~ M -- Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.
• Verse to memorize this week: Psalm  95:4-5 ~ In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Path to Being Complete

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  ~ James 1:2-4

Every time I read this, I sort of chuckle at the sheer craziness of this idea and how impossibly hard it is!

Consider it pure joy... whenever you face trials of many kinds...

Pure joy -- I think deliriously happy, elated, ecstatic, on cloud nine...

Trials of many kinds -- This is clearly speaking of all situations that do not make us happy, the big and the small ones. Problems, arguments, weaknesses, insults, persecution, hardships, difficulties, calamities, tragedies, inconveniences... A disagreement with a spouse, tsunami, traffic causing tardiness for a job, house burns, rainy weather for a picnic, foreclosure, the store is out of what you need, losing child in car wreck, burning dinner, rape, root canal, spouse loses limb, kids miss naps, car gets broken into, nausea, repeating requests, robbery, dropping things, cancer, stains not coming out of clothes, tornado, accidentally cutting finger, foreclosure, mosquito bite, losing job, milk spoils, can't pay water bill, shirt rips, watching parents murdered, tracking in mud, white blouse comes out of wash pink, ISIS attacks... basically, anything that does not go according to your plans or causes stress! {I know some things we control and are caused by our own mistakes. We can learn from them but do so joyfully instead of grumbling under our breaths with a frown and frustration.}

So, when trials (frustrating or traumatic) come my way, I am to be ecstatic??!!?!?! Yeah, c-r-a-z-y!

Not ecstatic over what happened, but incredibly delighted to get the opportunity to grow -- in grace, faith, perseverance, maturity, character... to be like Christ!

Confession: I have less trouble handling big problems than I do the little, daily frustrations. It's strange. But, with each failed reaction, I know that other opportunities are coming and I trust that His Spirit is helping me to desire change and to do it (Phil. 2:13).

I've probably written similar posts before, but I really needed to be "preached" to about this again.

Wanting to consider trials of many kinds a pure joy,

My Lady and Knight

•  Besides our normal weekly activities, we had a friend from college come visit who is now a missionary in Japan and had a great, simple visit, I got to watch a short webinar, and we got to go to the Renaissance Festival (Ricky's mom treated our family)! We were there all day and had a blast -- watching shows (acrobats, juggling, sword-swallower, glassblower, blacksmith, magic, harpsichord), kids' catapult, archery, picnic lunch, waffle and crepes snack, petting farm, joust, playground...

Micaiah's first time doing this; he did great, but we knew he was scared because he kept his legs bent the whole time and wouldn't move ;)

Blacksmith demonstration  

 Petting farm; alpacas :)

They each got a toy -- an axe and a flower crown

She loved being the magician's assistant

with the Queen

• School verse: Isaiah 45:22 ~ L -- Look to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.
• Verse to memorize this week: Psalm  95:3 ~ For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.