Introducing the newest member of our family....

ELLIOT!!
Elliot is our new foster child. He was found under someone's CAR, in their garage. We think he's around 2 1/2 weeks old. He weighs a whole 4lbs and 4 oz.

We got a call that a friend of a friend had a fawn that needed someone to care for it. Well, of course, the nuts at the Corbin Farm and Petting Zoo were the first people our friend thought of! Imagine that....

And, as you would expect, my children are all but beside themselves about having Elliot with us. Everybody wanted to hold him. Everybody wanted to know when they could give him a bottle. Who was going to get to fix his bed... And, "Mama, can he sleep in MY room tonight??" They've been going around telling each other "Shhhh! You're being too loud for Elliot!" They're being very sensitive about frightening him with loud noises and too much boisterous activity. They were having some of the Chunn kiddos over tonight and I heard them giving them the low down on how to behave with the "baby" in the house! What a hoot!

They are having a hard time with the concept that he's only fostering with us until he can care for himself. They don't understand why we can't just keep him.

Hmmm... let's think about this, shall we? 120lb buck, sharp hooves, deadly rack of horns, and RUT... NOOOT!

But we're gonna enjoy him while we have him. He's already checking things out, being nosy, following us around and trying to figure out why his feet won't stay together on the tile!

You know, it's times like these, that seem to happen so often with us, that make me thankful all over again that we homeschool our children. It's just one more thing that my kids will have the joy of experiencing. One more thing to enrich their lives. One more thing that they probably would not have had the chance to experience outside of a homeschool environment. It really makes me wonder what the Lord has in store for me and my children. What is He going to teach us thru the raising of this little deer?
Sunday we read in the Psalms 42 "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." Do my children understand that the hart is a deer? That as a deer in the wild travels far and seeks diligently for the refreshment of the cool creek or stream in the woods, our heart should be seeking God's will, His "water" of refreshment? Will I be able to share with them the importance of the deer finding the good water? How it will die if it doesn't have the water? And how when it has gone too long without water it pants for that water? Will I be able to show and explain to them how like that deer we are? That we will die inside without our Savior? That when we spend too long away from Him we become parched, withered, and wilted in our soul? Will I be able to help them understand that when we don't spend time with our Savior EVERY day our soul pants for His presence?

Or is this all for me? To remind me that I need Him EVERY day, EVERY hour, and in EVERY situation? Whether it's for my kids, for me, or both I thank Him for the lessons I know we are going to learn.

Praising His Name,
L

"I need thee, o I need thee... Every hour I need thee. O bless me now, My Savior, I come to thee." -from the song I Need Thee Every Hour

The Mighty Hunters...

Remember I told you about the Labor Day dove hunt? The one where I killed the flying diet coke bottle? Well, here are my photos of the "mighty hunters". (just now getting them off my camera!)They're too cute!

Noah, Jonah, & Jesse are rip-roarin' and ready to go!

Now, where are those birds?!

"Hey Mom! You can't shoot birds

with a camera!"

"Sure I can! If I shoot them with THIS, then I KNOW I'll be getting them!" (so there smarty!)

And we're lookin'

for birds.....

And we're

STILL lookin' for birds...

And we're about

10 seconds from being ready

to shoot at the gnats

and mosquitos...

"Mama, are we ready to go yet?"

"Yeah, Mama... I want to go to the Hamilton's and play for a little bit..."

"There are, like, NO birds flying..."

Daddy, are you ready to go?

"Yeah, I reckon..."

THE END

Run, boys! Run!

I am so proud of what my boys accomplished today at the Sherman 5K.

Jonah is finding real success in running. He improved his time by nearly 5 minutes and he is so proud of himself. I'm sure most of you know that Jonah is dyslexic. And I have found, with him, that it really takes having some success in one area to encourage him to do better in another. He is really proud of himself and of what he's achieving thru hard work and pressing on. I'm very proud of him too! I see that he could really take this sport and do something with it if he continues to do as well as he has in the last 4 months.

As for Noah, I'm more proud than I can say. Noah, bless his heart, is inherently lazy - just like his Mama. I'm the poster child for the law of physics that states "An object at rest wants to remain at rest." I would be a REAL bum if I didn't push myself. And Noah, unfortunately, has that in him as well. But I watched him today in that race. I was behind him, OF COURSE, and I was (thru my own pain!) able to watch his determination to press on. I would watch him run for a while and then walk. It was easy to see he was hurting. But in just a minute, he'd pick up and start running again. In my mind I was thinking, "Way to go buddy! Push thru!" And seeing that crooked leg just makes me want to cry every time. But watching him hop on that thing but keep on running did something to me that I can't explain.

You know, there are so many people in this world that rarely succeed in life. Most of those people have in common the inablilty to control their own bodies. I speak from personal experience when I say that conquering your own body is one of the HARDEST things to do! For ANYone. Take getting up early if you're not a morning person. Or going to bed at a decent hour when you're a night owl and would rather stay up. What about putting that fork down and pushing the plate away when you know you don't need any more? (I'm preaching to myself, there!) Or exercising when you HATE to exercise? And even shutting our mouths when we REEEALLLLLY want to rip somebody to shreds... but that's a different conversation all together! Conquering our own bodies leads to a certain amount of intestinal fortitude in dealing with other areas. In a determination to "accomplish" that maybe wasn't there before. I guess that's why I'm so excited to see Noah pushing himself to run - to improve his time- to beat a crooked leg in order to succeed. I know, if he continues to run, this is going to be something that will shape his character for years to come.

Who would have ever thought that the person who said "Running just to be running is dumb!" (me!) would become such a proponent of the sport in such record time. And to see this kind of strength being born in my children - and in myself - well that just leads me to say:

RUN, BOYS! RUN!

"Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain." 1 Corinthians 9:24

What a Messy Week...

Am I the only one that's had a totally messed up week? I seems like absolutely NOTHING has gotten done as it should. The "day off" on Monday wasn't worth the rest of the mess we've had this week!

Well, I don't know... I shouldn't say that.

Monday was a good day for being with the family. Monday morning Tommy took the kids dove hunting with some friends. They brought home 2 birds. Not much to celebrate over, but it was hunting, nonetheless. But in the afternoon, it was time for all of us to go. We spent nearly 4 hours in the dove field and brought home 5 birds... that our friends shot!! We were awful! My aim is about as good as my first try at challa bread!! LOL! My only claim to fame is that I shot that flying Diet Coke bottle that passed over! LOL! And boy, do I have the bruises to show for it! My poor shoulder... But the children loved it. We were all together, doing something we liked, and with the addition of good friends, well... I guess the day might be worth a messy week after all.

So I can say, "Thank you Lord for messy weeks!"

"Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;" Ephesians 5:20

Grateful in Grace,
Lori

Shabbat Shalom...

We had the best Sabbath celebration Friday night. After 3 weeks of trying to celebrate the Sabbath, it finally came together. I had tried soooo hard to make good challa bread for the Sabbath feast.... It was........ well, you saw my earlier posts. I couldn't even feed the stuff to my chickens for fear of choking them to death! But, turns out, I had a bad recipe. Realizing this, I turned to my handy-dandy search engine (aka, Google) and found a recipe that turned out to be so yummy, my kids are begging me for more. Jonah and Rebekah helped roll out the strips of dough for the parts of the braid, and Rebekah braided a whole loaf herself. She was so proud of it. (Hers is the one without the poppy seeds) I wish I'd thought to take a photo of them working the dough.... Anyway, at dinner, the family simply devoured that bread. (It doesn't hurt that I have a bread-lovin' family, but the bread really was good. We may make some more this week!)
So after the bread was in the oven, the children set out to make the table beautiful. It was so sweet. They used a table cloth, set out the first candlesticks they could find (a bit large, but we left them!), the red dinner plates (which Jonah and Rebekah decided stood for the blood of Jesus atoning for our sins! I was very proud of them for making that connection, but didn't want to actually think of that as we ate...), and Noah pulled down the stemware. Jonah even thought to wrap our silverware in napkins to finsh off the table. They were so proud of their work.


The ceremony itself was wonderful. I used two different books to learn the parts of the ceremony and I typed out what we would do. Here's what I came up with...


My Part
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, ‘The Lord’s appointed times are these.” Following this text of Leviticus 23, God’s first appointment with us is for Sabbath. It’s number one on His list of holy days, both in its listing and frequency.

Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which means “rest”. It was born in the very beginning: “thus the heavens and the earth were finished… and He rested… God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it He had rested from all his work which God created and made.” (Gen. 2:1-3)

Shabbat is for restoration. There is always more to do. Yet, without proper rest and refreshment, human strength and creativity fail.

Preparation Prayer

Blessed art thou, O Lord Our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by thy commandments and commanded us to be a light unto the nations and has given us Yeshua, Jesus, the light of the world.

The Candles (Light & Say)

Creation:
This candle represents creation. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth light out of darkness.

Redemption:
This candle represents redemption. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” Our Lord said, “You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”



Prayer (cover your eyes and pray this prayer - Shabbat officially begins when the woman opens her eyes to view the candles that have been lit)
As we light these candles and set them to give light to all who are in this house, light our lives with the great love of Your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray… Amen.

Tommy's Part
Kiddush (blessing over the cup)
Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Blessings over the challa (bread)
Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.

Blessings over the Children
Boys:
May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. May He make you, Noah, _______________________. (Tommy filled in here, ad lib. I forget exactly what words he used for Noah, but I think it was Honest, Trustworthy, and Hardworking.)

May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. May He make you, Jonah, _______________________. (Same here but he used Trustworthy, Hardworking, and Obedient for Jonah. I thought that was neat that he used obedient for Jonah since the Biblical Jonah had a problem with obedience as well. Hmmm.... maybe we should have considered that before naming him "Jonah"!!)

Rebekah:
May you be like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah. May God make you, Rebekah, _______________________. (For Rebekah he added Pure, Tenderhearted, and Noble. I teared up a little! That really blessed me to hear him blessing our children. Even though that is not a normal practice for our family, it shows me part of his heart and what he wishes for and prays for regarding our children.)

Blessing for Your Wife (Okay, here's the funny part... When I gave him these cards to read over so he'd be prepared for his part, he read this and asked "Did you come up with this?" Of course I had to laugh and say "Nooo! It's straight from the Bible and that book, thank you!" And when it came time for this part he asked me "Do I have to put my hands on your head?" I, of course, declined. So with a few chuckles, he read the blessing for the wife...)

(Proverbs 31:10, 27-30)
An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
“Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.”
A woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

All in all, this was a wonderful evening for our family. My kids are all asking for it again. And they've been going around saying "Shabbat Shalom!" to each other and giggling as they all try to pronounce "challa" with the proper gutteral "ch" at the beginning. I'm glad nobody has been a fly on our wall. They'd have thought we'd all been trying to get something really nasty cleared out of our throats!! LOL! I'm so thankful that I have had a chance to teach these things to my children! What a wonderful experience for them AND for Tommy & me.

Thank you, Dearest Lord Jesus, for an opportunity to teach my children about You. About the feasts that You would have participated in for 33 1/2 years. Thank you for allowing us to be able to homeschool our kids so that my heart is turned to teaching them the "ordinances and laws, and... showing them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do." (Ex. 18:20) I know if they were in public or even private school my heart would have never been turned toward them in such a way. Thank you for your providence, your plan, and Your Presence... I love you my King.

Living by Grace,
Lori

Flowers & "Fotos"

Today I was downloading my camera onto my computer and I got a little surprise. Rebekah had asked me if she could take some pictures of my flowers with my camera. Of course, I told her to be really careful with my camera and she could take some pictures. I asked her did she get any good pictures and her answer was the non-committal "mmm hmmm..." I thought no more about it. I was busy with supper and all, you know. But I never thought she would have taken a picture like this. Actually there were two. The first with no zoom and the second close up.

I was astonished at how beautiful these photos are. I think I'm going to enter these in the 4-H contest. They look like something out of a magazine. I may even blow this up and have it framed for her room.

Okay, I know I'm the Mom here and I'm supposed to think my kid is great and that her accomplishments are the greatest that ever were. But unless I'm sadly mistaken, this is the bomb. I may not know much, but I know a good picture when I see one.

Hmmm.... Maybe I should give her the camera more often.

Dreaming of a wealthy child that can care for me in my old age....

Lori