Days To Remember G's Blog

Today we colored our Easter eggs.  I had some boys interested in the eggs and their yolk.  We discussed how an egg has an egg white and a yolk and when it is not cooked it is runny.  We learned that when you boil eggs for 20 minutes that they turn hard and that the insides turned into a semi-solid.  The boys were also interested in whether our egg would have turned into a chicken or not so we looked up the stages of development for a fertilized egg.   If you are interested in sharing the development with your kids the website is http://www.photosfan.com/chicken/ .  It was pretty interesting and we learned that it takes 21 days for a little chickie to hatch.  We also learned the temperature at which the chickies need to incubate at. 

Our talk was on this book, that Page has read, and I have just finished. The book is "So You Don't Want to go to Church Anymore?" One thing about me if you know me........is that I am real, I wear my emotions well, I tell you as it is, and what you see is what you get. I like authenticity and I desire to have that authenticity with fellow believers in my spiritual walk. I desire to have others with me on this journey to encourage, and grow in Jesus more and more. I have felt often that what I find in the day to day is that most people are not on the same wavelength as I. Being the same wavelength I am just meaning desiring that getting to know you factor. It is weird. There has been this sense of restlessness for me with "the institutionalized church" for awhile and this book has really helped me to realize why. It makes so much sense. First of all, I have to return to my first love of Christ. Live in Him each day. Trust in Him. Be authentic to those around me and serve Him. There is so much to share from this book, not to ever replace THE BOOK being the Bible, but all I have to say is boy sometimes we certainly do have our ideas backward from what God wants and this book has been so great at pointing those things out. It has been challenging to me and breaks my heart at what I have seen and see to this day in what we call our "institutionalized churches." I am certainly going to press onward to what it is that God would desire from me and to draw closer to Him.

I liked this quote from the authors Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman, " Fellowship happens where people share the journey of knowing Jesus together. It consists of open, honest sharing, genuine concern about one another's spiritual well being and encouragement for people to follow Jesus however he leads them." The thing is that this does not necessarily happen when we go to a building each week. It occurs when we live out the life of Jesus with one another on a day to day basis.This can occur anywhere because if you have Christ in you, you are the church.

I encourage you to read this book. It will make you see "church" with some new spectacles.

I am sure I will be blogging more about this. Night Night.

Eli asked, "Mommy, what are those tall buildings are those Kid Fit?" 

I answered, "No, that is where Mommy and Daddy met."

Hezekiah, "Mommy what is that?" 

I said, "Hezekiah, that is Florida Tech, the school where I met your Daddy."

Hezekiah, "Did you go to class together?" 

I answered, "No, Daddy was in different classes than me, we were studying two different things."

Hezekiah, "Oh, so did you play on the playground together Mommy?Was there a slide?"

I love it. Oh, to be 6. The adorable thoughts he and his brother Eli (4) have. I absolutely want to soak them in.

This is what it looks like to be included, and not having to take turns riding a bike around the neighborhood. 

Maggie Beth would say about this, "Oh, cool!"  (Her new favorite)

Eli went with daddy this evening to get his reward.  A new bike.  For this kid most of the time he receives hand-me-downs.  If you are a second child or anywhere down the line you know hand-me-downs, clothes, toys, etc.  But not today.  Eli has been wanting a bike for a while now.  But we told him he had to earn it.  He has been working hard on not having a whiny attitude and fussy heart.  He also has been dry for a couple weeks waking up in the morning.  His little bladder must be getting bigger (I know something I am sure he would want me to blog about).  But he stayed dry over night in his big boy underwear which he has worn during the day for over a year.  So bye bye overnights. 

Hezekiah posed for us.  He and Eli have been sharing his Spiderman bike for a long time now. 

Maggie Beth had to pose on her new hand-me-down.  She desperately wants a Diego bike.  Crack me up.  She loves Diego.  I asked her if she wanted a Dora, Elmo, or Diego birthday cake and she said "Eggo."  Too funny. 

This is what happens when your neighbor comes out and talks to you.  Someone becomes a bit shy and will not, I repeat will not even look at the neighbor who tries so hard to be friendly.  Oh, she is something else. 

My Rose!  So exciting Huh?

These were my helpers!

I love this photo, boy this Eli is gonna be trouble when he gets older.  I loved that I captured his authentic coolness.  What a cutie pie!

My angel loved the trucks too!

The fire trucks were the best!

How do plants make sugar?
How does a spider make a web?
How does water get down from the water tower?
How do you make a book?
How do band aids give your skin back?
What if a tree only had one leaf?

Eli is a curious fellow. He asks a lot of questions and I kindly answer each one of them with an answer, in lots of detail because I know he really wants to know how.

Eli is also an artist. He has very good fine motor skills for being four. He draws robots, people, Batman, Bakugans, lots of things and it actually looks like the item he wants to draw. I am impressed with his artistry. Yesterday with stickers that he had he created our family. I am the one with a lot of hair.

He is also learning to read and is almost to lesson 30 in his "homework" book.

I read this Home Life article, March 2010 edition the other day about a young girl who went to Uganda to help in an orphanage once she graduated from High School. She was 18, and became a foster mom to 13 orphans. She decided then that she wanted to be a missionary.

I often wonder what my children will do when they choose a career path down the road. My prayer lately, due to this article that I read, is to pray that God would give me wisdom and insight to the things that my children love and are passionate about. So that I may teach them in a way that glorifies God. I have been asking God to help me see the big picture for them. Most of all, I hope that my children will live and work in a path of life that pleases the Lord like this young lady in Uganda has done. Ephesians 5:10, "Find out what pleases the Lord."

So I was doing Bible study with my friend the other night. You know who you are and we got off on a tangent about the socialistic views of our present government. Not only our present government but our government of probably the last 30 years. (Maybe even longer). If you know me well I go off or can get people to go off on tangents easily and I am conservative morally and fiscally. Not sure if I really align my politics to a particular party. Mostly vote Republican, but seriously a lot of Republicans do not hold my views either. So I thought it would be fun to see what you think. Not to get into any debate or anything because thankfully we still have that freedom, but many of our freedoms are slowly trying to be stripped from us.

So, my view on Florida's VPK & public schooling in general. Like you really wanted to know, but here you go. This is not to offend anyone either, so please do not take it as if I am judging you if you work for VPK, send your children to a public school (I send my child to a public school presently). It is just a view point, not intended to get anyones underwear in a wad. So stop reading now if you really do not care what I think. I cannot imagine anyone really caring what I think anyhow! Ha ha ha!

I think that the government is trying desperately to break up our families and forcing or promoting an agenda to let parents allow the government to take care of our children. I believe that we the parents should be responsible for taking care of our children and teaching them. It is not the government's duty to provide for free babysitting for the whole day - which is not free because our tax money pays for it if you live in Florida and voted for VPK. I voted against VPK, but the majority voted for it, why? Most likely because a lot of parents both work and it seemingly provides an inexpensive daycare. Yes, the children do get taught some things, but for the most part the VPK's that last the whole day it is basically free babysitting. Now, I am for a few hours and a few days a week for preschool age children to attend some type of program, but it is not the responsibility of the government to tax us to pay for it. I feel the same way about school in general especially the lack of moral and ethical teaching. For what was once a Biblical foundation for educating our population, now children are punished for praying or even taking their Bible to school. Where is their freedom of religion?

Government run health care. Not that I am so impressed with our current system or sectors of private insurance. However, it is not the government's responsibility to pay for our health care. No where in the Constitution does it say that this is the governing bodies responsibility. But we have voted this way in the past and we have elected officials promoting a socialized health care bill for our country. Now, by what I am going to say you going to be like, "Why are you not for this?" I will tell you in a minute. Alright, so thankfully my husband has a job, and he works hard every day. He gets up early to provide for our family and one of the benefits of his job is that we have health insurance coverage. But even though I have coverage things are still super expensive for us. To have a baby out of pocket we had to pay at least one thousand dollars. Now, to those on the government plan they get to have their baby pretty much for free because pretty much everything is covered. Why because our tax money goes to pay for it. The problem I see is that there are families who can afford health care insurance, but they choose not to and instead choose Wii, cable television, iPods, Lexus vehicles, etc. What I am trying to say is there are lots of people who can afford privatized health insurance that choose not to because they want other luxuries. So, should you and I be forced to pay for their luxuries? I think not. Now granted there are some people who cannot afford, but I think you would be surprised by the amount that can. But I think it is the responsibility of us and the church to take care of the sick and treat them and provide for the poor. I also want to mention whenever I have been at the doctor's office for myself or my children I have seen the same treatment given to people despite what insurance or lack of insurance that they had.

Government run health care also diminishes your choice to choose the best doctor for you and care given to you. Not that our present system allows that if you even have private insurance or Medicare. But your choices are even going to be less. In time it may also be at a point where our country I fear is heading saying you know it is not really worth it for you to live anymore so since you are so expensive to pay for we are just not going to let you live. I mean come on we already are paying for partial birth abortions, which is sad. I pray that my tax money does not take the life of an individual but since I have to pay unto Caesars what is Caesars it probably already has, since someone deemed that a down syndrome baby is not worth paying for. The thoughts are just horrible.

Alright, so these are just two items. The rest will have to wait. You probably already know my views now on welfare. But maybe by tomorrow I will be off my soap box and you will not have to read anymore. Anyhow, thanks for indulging me.

Just ask yourself.......Peace out!