Adoption News!

Over the last few months the Lord has been doing a work in our hearts. You see we would love to add to our family! And over the last year we have been seeking the Lord's will on how we should grow our family. A couple of months ago, Chris and I listened to the book "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore. It was this book, a book that I believe that every Christian should read or listen to, that opened our hearts to adoption.

Chris had the opportunity to share with our church congregation some of what the Lord has been teaching us through this process. You can listen to what Chris shared  HERE. Please take the time to listen! Be prepared though to be challenged on how you think about and view Orphan care and adoption.

We are very excited about what the future holds for our family. The girls are overjoyed at the prospect of adding to our family. We would covet your prayers during this time. We have been looking into many different options and right now we are deciding between overseas adoption or adoption through foster care. We believe that we should add two little boys to our family. It is our pray that the Lord would make His will for our family clear as we enter into adoption.

Come Thou Long-Exspected Jesus

Boy how the days fly by during the Christmas season! It is so easy to get caught up in the busyness of the season. This year I have added a new book to my quite time basket. Come Thou Long-Excepted Jesus has been a wonderful addition to my quiet time reading. It has helped keep me focused on our Lord and Savior during this holiday season.

Come Thou Long-Excepted Jesus is a collection of writings from great theologians and teachers of our day. I am only about halfway through this book, but would highly recommend adding this book to your Christmas reading list.

Fruit Kebabs

Madisen is our little chef. She loves to help out in the kitchen. She was very excited to receive Paula Deen's my first cookbook for Christmas from my parents. My hope is to let her pick something each week to make from her cookbook.

This last week we made Fruit Kebabs. Both Madisen and Miriam had fun putting them together. They are really very simple to make. The recipe has you take skewers and put red grapes, green grapes, strawberries, and pineapple on each skewer. We ended up substituting the green grapes for blueberries because that is what we had on hand and they turned out very well! My girls are good fruit eaters, but Miriam does not always care for pineapple and blueberries, but she ate them all up.

We have really enjoyed this cookbook so far! The illustrations are so very cute. All the ingredients are laid out in picture format, which makes it easy for Madisen to see what we need to make each recipe. We are looking forward to making Frozen Bananas (chocolate covered) next.

Our Family Jesse Tree

Over the last three years we have done a Jesse Tree with our girls. Over these few years this tradition has grown very dear to my heart! It has been such a blessing to watch, with each year that passes, our girls learn more and more about why it is we celebrate Christmas.

We first learned about this tradition while we were living in Southern California when our senior pastor shared it with the congregation. Then a group of women got together to make and exchange the ornaments that go along with this tree. This is our second Christmas here in Indiana (away from California). Everyone at our last church hold a very special place in our hearts, it is fun to remember each lady/family who made each of the ornaments as we put them on our tree.

Each December we go through "The Advent Jesse Tree" by Dean Lambert. Starting on the 1st of December and leading up to the 25th. We do a devotional out of this book and then place the corresponding ornament on our little Jesse Tree. Each devotional has scripture to look up, questions to answer, suggested songs to sing and a prayer.

Each devotional helps trace and explain God's plan of salvation from Creation by detailing the heritage and lineage of Jesus Christ. It is wonderful to see through these devotions how God thought and planned out every small detail of Christ's birth and on up to his death on the cross. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:15 God's gift of His Son is truly an "indescribable gift".

This tradition is a highlight of our days leading up to Christmas. It helps us to pause amidst all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and focus on Christ's birth and why it is we are celebrating His birth. It is a true blessing to see our girls answer the questions given in the book and with each year watch their knowledge and understanding grow.

Shopping for TIME

I just finished reading Shopping for Time by Carolyn Mahaney and her daughters Nicole Whitacre, Kristin Chesemore and Janelle Bradshaw. This book was a great encouragement to me and suggested some new ideas that my husband and I hope to implement in our own lives.

In this book there are 5 tips given to help use time more efficiently and in a way that would most glorify the Lord. Most of the tips offered I am already implementing in my life, but the insight and advice given was very helpful as I "shop" for the best way to use my time.

The tip that I was most intrigued with and excited about was the third tip from chapter 4: Sit and Plan (taking a personal retreat). Personal retreats first started for the Mahaney family, when Carolyn had two small children at home and found herself burnt out and spiritually tired. CJ (her husband) decided to sent her away for 24 hours to rest and renew her spirit. After doing this for many years, Carolyn Mahaney has come up with a plan to best use your time during a personal retreat.

She advises you first to begin by evaluating the priorities in your life, 7 priorities are given for your consideration. After evaluating these areas and bringing them before the Lord you should pick 1 or 2 of these areas/priorities that have the greatest need for change. Through prayer and planing you are encouraged to write up a plan of action of how to best bring about change in these areas of your life.

At first the thought of evaluating all these areas was a bit overwhelming to me, but the more I thought about this idea the more excited I got about it. I plan almost every detail and aspect of my daily life, so that I can be efficient in the use my time. It only makes sense that I would do the same with my spiritual life. Here is just a little excerpt from Shopping For Time "taking the time to comprehensively evaluate our life causes the truly vital issues to rise to the top. In other words, we discover which area is most in need of attention and which steps for change will advance us the furthest. Each season offers only a few best deals, so in order to be successful shoppers of time, we must identify those best deals and buy them up."

I am very excited as Chris and I plan to take personal retreats. Whether the retreat is 24 hours of time, our just a few hours, I think this concept will be a great help to us in being better shoppers of our time. When the time comes for me to take a personal retreat I look forward to sharing my experience with all of you.

If you have not read "Shopping For Time" I would greatly recommend that you do! It was a great blessing to me as I strive to grow in the Lord and use my time wisely. If personal retreats are something that you are already implementing in your life I would love to hear how it has helped you and what this time of planning looked like for you. 

I Will Rejoice

I Will Rejoice, by Karma Wilson has fast become one of my girls favorites. A couple months ago I read about this book on this blog and knew that I wanted to get it for my girls. You will see that I have it listed on our side bar under the books we are reading, not because it is long and has taken us so much time to finish, but because the girls want to read it everyday.

This book is based on Psalm 118:24 "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it". The little girl in the story goes through her day finding ways to rejoice in her good morning kiss, in her dad coming home and in her bed time prayers.

The illustrations are sweet and beautifully capture the everyday happenings of a little girl's day. This book has served as such a great reminder to my girls (well, mostly Madisen even though Miriam does enjoy reading it) as to what her attitude should be as she goes throughout her day; even when she does things she would prefer not to do like going to bed. What a great reminder even for me.

I hope that if you are able to read this book with your little ones it will be a blessing to you and that it will also help turn your little one's eyes to the Lord.

Don't Make Me Count to Three!

Today I added to our blog side bar the books that we are currently reading. I thought that I would also start sharing with you the books that we have in our family library that we like and have been most helpful to us.

Today's book "Don't Make Me Count to Three" by Ginger Plowman looks at heart-oriented discipline. This book has been such a great help and encouragement to me as I discipline and instruct our girls.

So many times when disciplining it is easy to just focus on the behavior and not the heart problem causing the bad behavior. Ephesians 6:4 says to "Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord". The "instruction" part of that verse is too often left out and yet it is the most important part of parenting. When we do not focus on "instruction" we are just dealing with behavior and not with what is going on in their little hearts and minds that prompted their behavior.

Ginger Plowman gives helpful advice on how to practically apply scripture to discipline situations. She provides helpful questions to ask your children to reveal what is going on in their hearts and minds. She shows the importance of role playing and gives tips for verbally correcting children. Ginger Plowman's gentle and loving heart shows through in all her many tips and suggestions. She brings you to the Bible continually through this book in order to show you how to apply the word of the Lord to their little lives.

One of the phrases from the book that we now use in our home is "Obey all the way, right away, with a happy heart". This has helped greatly to address and remind our girls of how they are to obey. It is so easy for them to stomp off as they obey and this little phrase serves as a good reminder.

Ginger Plowman has also put together this chart called "Wise Words for Moms" that has been so helpful to me. The chart lists many behaviors, questions to ask your children when those behaviors occur, verses to use in your instruction that will help them see the sin they need to "put off" and she includes verses to use to encourage them and help them too see what behavior they need to "put on". I have read through this numerous times as I want to make sure that I am familiar with and know the verses in there. I often reference this chart when I do not know what to say or am at a loss for words.

If you end up reading this book, I hope and pray that you will find it as encouraging and helpful as I did.

"She speaks with wisdom,

and faithful instruction

is on her tongue."

Proverbs 31:26