Yesterday was Dad's retirement party at work. It was really nice.

My Mom called me this morning to let me know that Dad has to have angioplasty surgery on Monday. I got a little ticked that they've decided to keep this under wraps until now since they've known about it for a while. It's not like he's just anybody or anything like that. But I do understand how my Dad is about people fussing over him and how much he hates that. I just don't want anything to be wrong with my Dad. He has a 70% blockage on an artery that they'll take care of. He should be back to normal by Thursday next week, so it's pretty easy to get over.

Oh, have I ever mentioned I have the cutest baby in the world? He pretty-much is.

He also has his own language...

Things have been busy!

I haven't really had time to even sit down, much less blog - and this one's on the fly! Josh is sleeping, I just had a shower and still need to get dressed and the boys will be home in about an hour.

This weekend was Cody's 13th birthday! Wow, 13. That's crazy. He had just turned 9 when I met him. He's grown so much - and not just in height.

Cody's Mom and Grandma came up for the weekend to hang out with him, bring him birthday presents and see his game on Saturday. I met them for him on Friday night and came home with Emily. It was nice to have her!

Emily, Joshua, Jacob and I got up on Saturday morning and went to Jacob's baseball game. Jacob played absolutely awesome! I love watching him. Ceth came and got him at the game and Emily, Joshua and I came home. Lisa came over (after watching the game too) and ate lunch with us. Josh didn't get much of a nap, but that's ok. Jake had a meeting from 4-7 at the church, which I had to be at the first hour of for Timothy Team (more on that some other time). Ceth met us there and then picked him up when it was over.

The three of us went over to Monika's and hung out with her and Jenna. Monika made dinner (gasp!) and the girls played the wii. It was lots of fun!

Sunday morning, we slept in and then Cody's mom and grandma brought him back and picked up Emily. Cody, Joshua and I went to Euless to pick up Jake after Joshua's nap, then headed over to Granny Franny's house for a little bit. It's always nice to go over there.

On the way home, we stopped by Walmart and picked up some stuff for the week. I let Cody pick out some stuff for dinner and we came home.

It was really nice to have the house quiet for me and Josh this morning. He's getting so big and I'm so thankful to get to be home with him.

Here's a clip of Jenna and Emily. They are too funny!

Wow

I read this today in http://thelukesponbergfoundation.blogspot.com/'s blog. Again I'll just say wow. I'm going to read some later on and see what questions I can find that I should be asking myself as my husband's wife. I've read the passage in Ephesians that this comes from, just can't do it all right now.

--7 great questions for every husband to ask himself...

(1) Am I submitting to my wife out of reverence for Christ? (Eph. 5:21)

(2) Am I laying down my life for my bride as Christ did for His? (Eph. 5:25)

(3) Am I consistently sharing the Word with my wife? (Eph. 5:26)

(4) Am I looking out for my wife's needs and concerns like I tend to look out for my own? (Eph. 5:28)

(5) Am I united with my wife? (Eph. 5:31)

(6) Am I considerate and understanding with my wife? (1 Peter 3:7)

(7) Do I treat my wife with the respect she deserves as my partner and heir of the gift of life? (1 Peter 3:7)

A tall order. I wish I could say I have these things down. I wish I could say it all comes easy. But I can't.Asking myself is one thing. Asking a friend for their observations would be another. Asking my wife would be to take this extremely seriously.

Jenna's 13!

My sweet friend Monika's daughter, Jenna had her 13th birthday party today. She is so precious!

I went over there last night to make ice cream cake and sopapilla cheesecake. I guess they were a success as we had to leave because Joshua was melting down.

Oh, and yes, this is me putting off studying, but I'm gonna have to get after it...

ugh....

I hope this mess gets easier as I get more acclimated to thinking "school" again.

This is really funny to me...

Endosymbiosis Theory explains how eukaryotes could evolve from prokaryotes. Cells engulfed other cells that became mitochondria and chloroplasts.

In English, science is saying that multi-celled organisms (plants and animals) evolved from single-celled organisms (bacteria, etc.) by sucking in other single-celled organisms and then they magically became small parts that magically started functioning just how they needed to, evolving into the parts inside the cell.

haha.

Biology

How can anybody study anything to do with Biology and not believe in God? We are studying the cell right now, which should be no surprise since it's beginning Biology. It fascinates me. I love to understand how it all works. I guess I'm a nerd at heart, but it's truly amazing to think about how God put everything together. He is so very creative. Amazing.

This might get long....

I've been doing alot of thinking lately. That's scary, huh?



Anyway, it's time to really get real about rising up in my faith. It's more than that, really. I have been challenged. It's time to start spending regular time in my Bible and with God. I've got a schedule now where there's no real excuse, as if there ever really was an excuse. It's time to stop making excuses for unholy living. God doesn't make excuses.



It's scary to me how if you asked the average "Christian" who God is, they're happy to tell you how much God loves you and wants to "be there for you". I apologize if this offends somebody, but He is so much more than a God who catches us when we fall. That's not what it is all about. He calls us to holy lifestyles. He does not make excuses when we sin. He forgives, yes, but that is not a license to do whatever we want.



This post will probably be all over the place.



I'm sick of the pat you on the back Christianity that people live in. God forgives, yes. He loves, yes, but He's not just fire insurance.



I'm sick of an accepting lifestyle. God hates sin, it's that simple. He does not accept it. He does not allow us to just sit in it or keep on sinning because "everybody's human". (This is not meant to be judgmental.) I'm sick of Christians being embarrassed or quiet about their holy lifestyles. I'm not saying we need to be hard-nosed and ugly, but we can take a stand against sin in our lives.

God is not tolerant. No-matter what anybody says. He is forgiving, through Christ, but not tolerant. That is one of the hugest mistakes the Church is making (except for maybe the pre-trib rapture idea, but that's a different post). There are very clear directions in the Bible about removing sin from the Church. There are so many eschelons that this pertains to. Our bodies are the Temple, also the actual body of believers that is the Church. He gives us specific instructions about removing sin from both areas.

Another huge mistake is painting Christ as someone who just gives us warm fuzzies. He is love, but love is not a feeling or emotion. Affection is an emotion. Lust is an emotion. Love is not. Read 1 Cor 13. There is not anything about what Love is that feels. It's all action. The Bible paints a completely different picture of Christ. He is compassionate, yes, but he will be a warrior when he returns to Earth.

Enough for now.

I got the sweetest birthday present

from my niece. She got a shoebox, wrote all over the top and filled it with things that she thought I would like. She put a bottle of water, some beads, a drawing, a couple of packages of fruit loops (grab and go snacks), some fruit snacks and a playdough creation (that still has to dry) in the box. She is so stinking cute. I think it's one of my best birthday presents ever. I love that kid.

I don't like 6:00 am!

I actually stronger than don't like it. But I won't say some of the things I think of it. It comes waaaay too early. I know, I'm spoiled. I don't mind waking up ever so often, but I do not like it every day. If left to my own schedule, I'd go to bed around 1-2 am and sleep til 10ish. Not this stupidity. This is too early. And to top that off, Cody thinks it's stupid too, so since I wake him up, I'm the stupid one to go along with the 6:00. To interpret that, he doesn't like me in the mornings, and I don't blame him. I don't like me either. Jacob just doesn't speak at all, which is fine. I think I'll be going back to bed for about an hour when they leave. Then I'll have to get Josh and Karleigh up to take Karleigh to school. She doesn't have to be there until a more sensible 9:00. Sensible means I could sleep til 8:00.

first day of school

for me!

I had an English class and Biology. My English teacher is hilarious. My Biology teacher is rather no so hilarious, but not boring either. I'm thinking it's not as scary as it seemed when I left for the school today.

Football!

I was like a tabloid photographer

Yesterday was the first day of school for my boys in the 7th grade. We've homeschooled the last two years, so this was a big change for all of us. They (being the tough grown-up 7th graders that they are) did not want their pictures taken. Well, Mom prevailed and I took them anyway - just had to sneak the camera through the bushes to do it. hehe. The bus picks them up right at our door, which is awesome.

Why did you put ice in the flowers, Cody?

"Because Sandy said they last longer."

"Who's Sandy?"

"You know, from Spongebob?"

again

It seems like every few weeks now, I have to sit here and listen to Joshua cry for a while. I don't know what makes him wake up on some nights and why it has to happen, but it does. If he keeps it up, I'll have to get him because I know he'll cry all night long if I don't. I don't know. I know he's done so much better and I really can't complain, but every time this happens, it takes me right back to my frustrations with him for not sleeping. I know if I get him, we'll be up until 4 or so and then he'll sleep til 10, take a really bad nap and be up and down tomorrow night. He won't get back on track until Thursday's nap or even bedtime. Why won't he just sleep? Why can't he just go back to bed with me? But no. Why does he only cry when I've just gone to sleep good. He's been crying now for about 45 minutes and started it about 20 minutes after I went to bed.

grrr...

I don't know what is going on with me. It's almost like my body still cycles through pms just like before the hysterectomy. I have days where I'd just like to slap everybody I live with rather than look at them. And nobody's safe! I can want to whop anybody from David down to Josh. It's silly.

I'm ready for school to start.

I will say this afternoon is much better than this morning was. I was a "one-word-answer woman" this morning.

School starts next week, right?

There's a first time for everything

Perspectives

I've posted before on the different perspectives David and I had about the cups in the cabinet. It seems like lately that there have been so many times that a different "perspective" has been pointed out to me and the phrase, "It's all about your perspective" has been used. Could we be trying to learn something?

A blog friend posted today about her step-family and in the course of her blog brought up how Joseph was Jesus's step-father. I was amazed by that because I've never looked at it from that perspective. My kids thought it was really neat that Jesus had a step-dad. It was so cool to see them find another way to relate to their savior. So very cool.

I'm all about seeing things from different perspectives. I'd never given actually, consciously looking for the different perspective much of a thought.

So, Jacob came home and left again. :-(

He's at his Granny's school shopping and visiting cousins until Wednesday. It's so nice to know he's not so far away, though.

I'm so amazed by my kids. All of them. They are all growing up so very fast into such wonderful people.

yesterday

I had a date with my sweet husband last night. His birthday is tomorrow, so my parents came over to hang out with the kids.

We were going to go see Hancock at the Studio Movie Grill, but when we got there, the speakers were blown in that theater and the showing was cancelled. That was ok, so we went to Outback Steakhouse and had a really nice, relaxing, don't have to feed a baby dinner. It was so nice to just get to be just us.

After dinner, we went to Half Priced Books and just wandered around. We ended up at Walmart to get the stuff for ice cream cake and then came home. Joshua was so happy to see us, but still got whiney when Granny and Grandpa left.

The kids had fun with them and Mom even gave the girls and Josh a bath. It was really nice to have just everything taken care of.