Can't Comprehend

When I think about living in a slum.....I can't comprehend it.
When I try to imagine watching everything around me crumble.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about my child being hurt but there is no Dr. to take them to.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about hundreds of orphans sleeping outside in a field.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about the need to wear a mask to try to alleviate the stench of death.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think of a body of my loved one being dumped into a mass grave and never knowing what happened to them.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about how desperate I would need to be to consider leaving two of my children behind to save one.....I can't comprehend it.
When my 9 year old can't comprehend how God would allow tens of thousands of people to die and all the above mentioned occur.....I can't explain it.

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

The people of Haiti have constantly been on our minds and our hearts these past couple of days. Although I really felt a lack of words to answers B's questions a couple of days ago I'm so grateful I have God's Word to find those answers.

Here is a link of an outreach in Haiti that desperately needs funding so they can continue to help the people of Haiti in this time of great need.
heartlineministries.org
You can also purchase Help Haiti Shirts and the proceeds also go towards this outreach along with another one.
http://helphaitishirt.com

Counting Down

The kids and I are counting down the Fridays until Co-op starts again. The kids love co-op and they miss it extremely during our long break between semesters. B especially. He misses his friends and since we live a distance from them having them over takes a little more planning. The snow hasn't helped that. Here are some pictures from the fall program I never posted.

B showing off his signing skills. My kids love learning sign language. Our co-op was blessed with a college level sign language teacher and B really enjoyed it. He was the only boy in the elementary class. Maybe that's why he likes sign language so much?

Here is the full gang reciting their Bible verses. We memorized Psalm 103:1-11. It made my heart happy when I saw how many kids earned their $5 Culver's gift Certificate because they could recite with little help. I helped test the preschool age and I had three of them who earned it. That is 3 and 4 year olds!!! B and L both earned their awards and I was so proud of them.

So on this Friday we are counting down the weeks until we get to learn with our friends again.

Goals for 2010: Reading

So I have many goals for 2010 and will be posting on them throughout the week. My first goal is not only to do more Bible reading but also more recreational/learning reading as well. I did fairly well last year with 6 books. Now to you avid readers this is a rather pathetic number but for this VERY busy and tired mama I think it was a great accomplishment. I have a list of 14 books I would like to read in 2010. I figured one a month was an attainable goal if I really try. So 14 will be pushing me a little. Some of the books J and I will be reading together. Yes, we have been reading Family Driven Faith for about 8 months now but I'm determined to finish it by the end of this week. Finding time to read for me is hard but finding an extra couple of minutes to read with J seems nearly impossible. We'll be working on that. Here is my 2010 book list.



1. Ten P's in the Pod

2. Family Driven Faith(with J)

3. Practicing Hospitality: The Joy of Serving Others

4. The hidden Art of Homemaking

5. When You Rise Up: A covenantal approach to homeschooling

6. Permission Granted to do Church Different in the 21st Century(with J)

7. Mark of the Lion: A voice in the wind

8. Mark of the Lion: an echo in the darkness

9. Mark of the Lion: as sure as the dawn

10. The Mother at Home

11. The Family Integrated Church(with J)

12. Be Fruitful and Multiply(with J)

13. Beloved Bride: The letters of Stonewall Jackson to his wife.

14. Marriage to a Difficult Man: The uncommon union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards



I have the book list in the sidebar of this blog so I can easily reference it and so it's there staring me in the face to remind me of my goal. Sometimes I need that.

Holiday Happenings a.k.a. Longest Post Ever

So like I said in the previous post, this past three weeks has been packed full. In the last three weeks we've had over 35 different guests and many of those have been here multiple time. It's been a fun holiday season. So because I don't want to take the next month to catch up on blogging I'm going to sum up our holiday season in one post.

We started with celebrating Hanukkah.

The kids had their choir concert.

It was fabulous as always.

Nerf wars were continuous.

As soon as there was enough snow on the ground all the O family were out on the sledding hill.

B enjoyed some snowboarding.

Just because you're not even one doesn't mean you stay inside and miss out on sledding.

There was much Christmas crafting going on.

There were many messes to clean up.

There were stockings stuffed.

Gum to be chewed.

Gifts to give.

And gifts to receive.

There were babies......

.....babies.....

.....and more babies.

There was napping going on and a little climbing too.

New video games to be played.

Oh and since we had a free day we headed to the AirZoo for a field trip.

H even went on a few of the rides.

The kids got to sit in a fighter jet.

B loved looking at all the war memorabilia.

We had a nice and relaxing New Years with appetizers, board games, Wii playing, movie watching, and gingerbread house making.

Now it's on to 2010!!!!!

All Is Quiet.....

So after a whirlwind week of guests, guests, and more guests I barely know what to do in quiet. It was so much fun to have people stay with us and I know the kids can't wait until they stay again! Now we are all resting, watching Full House episodes(my gift from the kids), and I think I'm going to order pizza for Shabbat tonight since you can only eat so many leftovers and until the leftovers are gone I can't make any big meals due to no fridge space. Pictures to come but for now......all is quiet.

Family Night: Fiesta!!!

Finding things to do for winter Family Nights is always harder. L had been asking to do a pinata for a long time so that gave me the idea for a Fiesta Night.

We still have quite a few sombreros from a VBS a while back so the kids had fun getting in costume. We had enchiladas, bean salsa, and chips for dinner.

The new furniture hadn't arrived yet so we had a big, open spot in the family room. The kids took turns from littlest to oldest with the bat.

Of course daddy liked to make the toucan jump much more when B's turn came around. B still had some good hits though. Thankfully the treats inside came out just a few at a time which gave all the kids a chance to be successful.

H was very concerned about her new pet toucan and kept trying to feed it the treats that had fallen out. She is still by far my biggest animal lover!

Big Birthday Surprise

So for two months we had been planning this big birthday surprise for B and it was killing me not to tell him. I kept the secret until the night before which was the day after his birthday.

Here we are in the car all ready to go. You will first notice that B is the only child in the car. That was part of the gift. A day alone with daddy and mommy all to himself. Uncle D and Aunt F also joined us.

And here was the Big Surprise..........

STAR WARS IN CONCERT!!!!!!!!! Now if you would have told me ten years ago that I would be going to a Star Wars event I would have said you were nuts. The things we do for our children.

B all ready for the show. Yes we did let him bring a mask to wear and yes he was the dressed down version of costume. Some people spent a small fortune on costumes for the occasion.

It turned out to be one of the best shows we've ever seen! The symphony was awesome and B was glued to his chair from beginning to end.

The actual guy who plated C3-Po is the one who narrated it.

The big screens and light show were great too.

There were plenty of characters to get your pictures with.

Now I can definitely say that the funniest moment was when B didn't want his picture with Princess Leigha so daddy and Uncle D piled all the coats and programs in his hands so they could get one.

Oh dear. We all had a great time. My favorite part of it all was getting to spend a whole day with just B.

Determination

So when B told me he wanted an Army cake and he really wanted camouflage fondant on it I was ready to take on the challenge. What had I been thinking!!! I think I had to redo the camouflage layer about three times and I still wasn't thrilled with it but considering it was 2am I was exhausted. I had planned on decorating the bottom layer as well but I had to move to plan B. I rummaged around and found some army men to fill in the gaps.

My heart melted when I was awoken by B exclaiming,"My cake looks AWESOME!!! Thank you mom!". That made all the work and frustration worth it.

So I'm done with fondant. Well for a couple of weeks. The kids want to make a cake while on Christmas break.

Friends and Birthdays

So we have finally embarked on the world of friends staying the night. B has been to friends houses before to stay the night but this was his first as the host. Let me be the first to say.....IT WAS A BLAST!!!! Now I don't think this was really fair since Br and N are such great kids and to be honest I think I could have these two live with us all the time! The night was filled with pizza, video games, cake, video games, presents, Lego's, video games, a movie, and a little more video games. Please note that all these boys have limited media time so the idea of no limit was fun in itself! It's so funny to watch 3 boys who are all first born try to decide on a movie to watch. (Note to self: Next time go rent the latest hit that everyone will be ecstatic about.) It was funny to see how they all had their own little coercion methods they have perfected on younger siblings. Here in this arena though it was a tough sale. They finally decided on Wall-E.....or maybe I did but they did all enjoy it....I think.

All day on B's birthday I was feeling a little sad that he was already 9. I love seeing him grow up and experience life but I really can't believe how fast it's going. It also didn't help when I realized he's at the half way mark to 18. Half way!!! Once his friends came over though I saw the fun in having an older kid. I can remember when B was little and we would have play dates and I would be counting down the hours until it was time for friends to go home. They were always fun but when you add in more toddlers you are also adding in work. This time I found myself wishing we would have had everyone come earlier and leave later. The time flew by!

I want to be the house where we always have friends over and I think this is the beginning of that season. It won't be long until we have teenagers in the house. 4 years???? I think I'm going to have an anxiety attack when I see that written down. I'm sure THAT will be a hard birthday but then I will come to see the fun in that as well!

Who Would've Thunk It

So I have so many posts in the works but I just wanted to share what I've done today.

• I got more Christmas shopping done. Not quite done but I see that light at the end of the tunnel!
• I found out how to check a dog for fleas. Josh had gotten a bite and we weren't sure if it was from our house or at work. So far I haven't found any on Mosheh. Hopefully that will be the report tomorrow when I repeat the check.
• Sent a letter to the great women I'm doing a Bible study with.
• Watched some videos on doggie obedience.
• We changed our evening plans at the last minute so I ordered some pizzas.
• Josh and I finally decided on bunk beds for the girls and I bought them.
• Shopped around for where I want to get the mattresses for said bunk beds.

Wait, did I mention I didn't leave my house today? What did we do before we had computers and the Internet?!?

When.....

Photo taken by jennyhoke photography.

When did B get so big and mature? This weekend we celebrated his 9th birthday and I still can't believe it. We had a jam packed, fun filled past couple of days. First sleepover and a big birthday surprise were just some of the activities in the last 72 hours. Yes, I said some. I can't wait to tell all about the fun but right now I'm going to do a little Bible reading and relaxing.

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy. Please don't grow up too fast. Although, I think that's already happening.

Laughter

So today I'm working on B's birthday cake. After I made the army helmet and the gun out of rice krispie treats there was some left over so L really wanted to make her own creation. Then she made me laugh so hard. Here is our conversation......

L: Mom LOOK!

M: What?

L:I made a boy riding a bicycle!......He's riding a "rice"ycle!!!

This was just after the kids noticed that snowflakes had started falling and L screamed,"Lets go find our sledding clothes!".

Oh my life would be so boring without these kids to make me laugh!

Family Night: Farm Fun

I can't believe this family night happened over a month ago!!! It seems like it was just yesterday we were rushing around the house trying to make it to the farm before it closed. This was a very spontaneous trip. We usually always go to this farm instead of trick or treating. We don't celebrate Halloween but we wanted to find some kind of alternative that 1.)Really was an alternative, and 2.) Would be a ton of fun! This is definitely it! Unfortunately the forecast for the day of Halloween was rainy, cold, and rainy. The Tuesday before was absolutely gorgeous though. So after gymnastics we ran home and rushed around to get ready.

This was the new favorite! The big jumping pillow was a great addition to the farm and was most definitely a load of fun! While I was taking a pic of B above I can not stop laughing at L in the background. Unfortunately I didn't get her expression but I can imagine that big smile on her face as she was bounced up in the air by big brother.

Can you tell that L was having a great time?!?!

Then it was off to the hay and corn playground. B loves this part.

H on the other hand thought they were all crazy.

Here was H's favorite part. The barn!!! She loved petting the horsey and looking at the chickens and bunnies.

Here L is testing out her driving skills.

B enjoyed the pedal cars again this year. L tried so hard to ride one of these but her legs were just a tad to short. On her one lap around I think J had to run out and give her a push about five times. L was very frustrated that she couldn't ride again. Then it was back to the.........

JUMPING PILLOW!!! H couldn't climb up the side of it but she loved sitting on the edge while the other kids bounced her up and down. Well I think she would've if she had wanted to but it made her a little nervous.

Oh and if for any reason they stopped jumping she would let them know that it was unacceptable.