VocabularySpellingCity

Some of you may know, that Abby has a horrible time with spelling. HORRIBLE! So when an email in my inbox this morning was offering me a 1 year membership for my review of a spelling and vocabulary online program, I jumped on it. Hopefully we will begin this soon, and I will be able to let you all know how it works for us, and what we all think about it. Below is the disclosure I am required to give you all. =o)

 

Disclosure:

I've been given a Premium Membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for a candid, personal, online review.

VocabularySpellingCity.com helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as Vocabulary Test, Word UnScramble and Word Search.  Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site or use any of the dozens of  free teaching resources such as compound words and math academic vocabulary.  Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience.

There might be more free memberships available for bloggers.  If you're interested, find out how you can review VocabularySpellingCity.com.

Running for Compassion

SO, I have started running again using the C25K program. What I am very excited about this time though - is that I am going to run for charities. So I will get in shape, hopefully help maintain better health, and be doing this work to support a good cause. My first run will be in October in the D'Feet breast cancer run with some friends. A dear friend of mine is a breast cancer survivor, and so we are running in honor of her and to help fund mammograms for women who can't afford it in the Houston/Galveston area.

My run following that will be on Thanksgiving Day for Compassion International. I have a fundraising page that I have set up to help raise money. We sponsor a child through Compassion, and getting letters from him and getting to know him has really touched my heart. To see how a small sacrifice on our part, means so much to him and his family, is truly amazing. I want to do more for other children, so I am running to raise $1,000 to fund medical care for children around the world. You can see this link that will take you to my fundraising page.

 And this is our sponsor child, Iradukunda. We really do love him and pray for him, and I am running in honor of him and his family on Thanksgiving.

Paint!

Well, my parents have visited a couple builders and are going to try to meet up with one next weekend to get more serious it sounds like. Looks like things are heading in a good direction! Me being the crazy person I am, have already picked out my paint colors for the house! Here is my "plan" - I can't get the paint colors to show, but I have listed them so if you happen to be interested, you can go look them up, haha. They are all Valspar colors.

Master Bedroom and Bath: Relaxation Theme, haha!
Walls: Sea Lily
Ceiling/Accent: Naivete

Abby's Room: Pretty In Pink theme
Walls: Pink Mist/Naivete (We are doing 2-3 walls pink, and 1-2 walls pink and white stripe)
Ceiling/Accent: Naivete

Will's Room: SPACE theme!
Walls: Sapphire Glow
Ceiling: Night Shift
Accent: Ultra White

Guest/Kids Bath:
Walls: Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe
Ceiling/Accent: Naivete

Hall:
Whatever my mom has it painted now cause its GORGEOUS

Living Room/Dining/Kitchen:
Walls: Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe
Ceiling/Accent: Naivete
Ceiling Beams: Brown Velvet
Accent Wall: Sangria Red

I may also paint the cabinets in the kitchen the Brown Velvet, because they are old but I don't think are being replaced right now cause that's a lot of money! So hopefully this will just give them a better look.

The Beginning and The End

This week has been so filled. Death, and life, and hope for the future. Within a one week time frame I have felt so many emotions.

A dear friend of my husband's lost his brother last week. It is so hard for me to express in person my sympathy, or to provide any sort of comfort to those who are grieving. I can write it out, I can make cake pops for the reception, but I don't know how to speak anything to those who need it. And maybe, that's ok. Maybe they don't need me to speak anything to them. The Lord will place the right people and the right words in their path.

Shortly after learning of this, we then learned my sister was having her baby. And oh he is precious! I love that little boy so very much, and can not wait to get to meet him.

In addition to that, we then learned that my parents are looking to build a new house, and aren't ready to sell their current home due to the way the market is right now. So as long as everything works out, then when their house is built we will be moving into their current house! Just when we thought we would be staying in this apartment yet another year, God plops a home right into our laps. Here is a picture of the house from a couple years ago when we got snow here in Texas, haha.

We are all exhausted from this past week. Ready to move forward and still lingering in the sadness and emotional ups and downs we have experienced. All of this really puts life into perspective.

Rest in peace Matt. I know we personally didn't know one another, but your brother has been such a good friend to Adam, and from stories I have heard you were a fun filled and wonderful person. I am so glad you knew and loved Jesus, and I can only remain in the hope that you are in His presence now and are at peace. We are praying for your family Matt. I know they love and miss you so much and are hurting, but we have our hope in Christ, and not in this world.

Welcome to the world Easton. I pray that you will get to know and love Jesus with all your heart, and that you will be a servant here on this Earth for Christ. I love you my sweet and beautiful nephew, and I will be here to love you and guide you and pray with you and spoil you with presents. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and I hope you will always know it.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. - Jeremiah 29:11

Being a Christian

Have any of you read the book Radical?

If you haven't, you need to. I have it linked over in my side bar under currently reading and recommended reading. Its definitely worth a read - more than that - its a must read. There will be times you want to put it down. There will be times you don't like what the author has to say. There will be times you feel very uncomfortable in your very sinful skin. But you know what? We need to hear it. We need to know how we are failing. We need to know what is at stake by our laziness and apathy. We need to realize the radical nature of Christ - and of being a Christian.

On another note, this past couple weeks has been rough. So much going on. Illness, worry, death, life, loss, gain, hope, fear. Its all there. This week for me has contained so many things to cause me to look at my life and at those people around me, and just feel a longing to do more and love more and give more. Even just at home - to be a loving wife and mother. To make use of my time in a way that benefits my family, shows my love, teaches and shows Christ, and lets them know how dearly I hold them all. If I know you, in any way, or even if I don't, please know that you are loved. Our amazing God loves you, just as he loves all of humanity and longs for us to be in Him and to respond to him and come back to Him. And not only that, but I love you, and so do a lot of other people. Just know that. I am going to close with a song that I hold very close to my heart. It reminds me of how much I need Christ, how much we all do, and how he longs for us to be restored to Him.

My World is Spinning

Goodness. Where do I even begin?! I will start with the easy part.

Homeschool has begun! And yes, I say this is the easy part, you will see why later! Haha. The week is actually going really well. We are still getting into the groove and it will take us time to adjust for sure, but I am really happy with our curriculum choices and I think we are off to a great start! I am really excited about this year. We have a lot of neat subjects going on with Abby, and its also really fun to have started some little preschool stuff with Will. Its so cute how he gets so excited to do his "Skoo". I really am SO blessed to get to stay home and teach my kids and get to know them and grow close to them in this way. Staying home has really kept me and Abby closer than I think we would be if she was gone all day. I hope as she continues to grow that we will be able to keep this same relationship and be able to talk about things. I know God has really blessed us with the opportunity to homeschool the kiddos, and to have such a huge selection of curriculums to be able to choose from. Plus we live in one of the absolute best states to homeschool. There is so little oversight and regulation, and its really nice to not be fearful in the regular day to day about if we are keeping up with everything correctly or if we will get in some kind of trouble or legal hassle. It is all truly a blessing.

Now, onto the more difficult stuff. I don't even know where to begin, but God is WORKING all up in our lives right now. So many things have been going on. I have some maybe serious medical issues that have come up - it could be absolute nothing or it could be something really scary. And I won't know for a good almost 2 weeks which it is. But, right now when I should be fearful or concerned or something, I'm really not. I feel at peace. And if you know me IRL, you know I am not a peaceful person! I worry and get frantic. I obsess and make myself crazy over everything. Truly it is GOD who is involved in all of this and keeping me together. I really do feel wrapped up in Him and just comforted knowing that no matter what HE is involved in this, and wherever I am and whatever is happening HE is there and HIS will is going to conquer everything else. Why should I be afraid of anything then? Other than the medical saga I have going, we are now sponsoring a child through Compassion International! I am so thrilled you have no idea. We wiggled some stuff around to make this happen, and I am thrilled to get this experience. We have written our first email letter just introducing ourselves, but we are putting together a real letter to mail with pictures of us and a postcard of what Texas looks like - bluebonnets and a longhorn, haha! Our child, Iradukunda, is from Rwanda. I wanted to specifically sponsor a child from Africa, because my niece is biracial, her father being African American. As she gets older I thought it would be good for her to be able to see the correspondence we have with our sponsor child, and it would be a good connection for us to have. Iradukunda really is adorable, and I so look forward to getting to read his letters! I am wanting someday to get to travel there and meet him - which Compassion arranges every couple years at least to every country they can. I think it would be a wonderful experience for us to get to travel and see other parts of the world, and I hope it would be a blessing to our sponsor child as well to get to meet us in person. AND I have been doing a lot of reading and am just really feel God pulling me closer to Him. I am seeing that our faith must be active and living and doing and being and everything! Jesus didn't say follow me and you will feel better and go to heaven - no! Of course heaven is an awesome thing, to get to be with God always and to be forgiven by His grace of all our sin of rejecting him and being so in ourselves! But Jesus called us to do SO much more! He challenged people. The world was ROCKED for these people. You were to take up your cross, you were to leave your family, you were to be willing to give up your life! Where is Jesus in our country? Who is Jesus here? What have we done to the gospel and to the message of Christ? Have we watered it down to make ourselves comfortable? Oh I fear that we may have. I feel so challenged. I feel this renewed sense of urgency and passion. I am not to accept Christ - I am to CLING to Him and be CHANGED by Him and be MOVED by Him and to do things THRU Him for others. I am a vessel, I am to give myself to Christ and do the will of God. Have I been doing that? Or have I been comfortable in my little bubble saying what I do is "enough"?