last days

It's hard to be thankful today. It's Kathrin's last day with us. She has been such a gift to us I don't know what we will do without her around here. She has completely woven her way into our hearts, becoming one of our family. On the practical side, now that I've had the help I need around here I'm not sure how I'll stay a nice mommy and still keep up with all the demands of our house and yard. We'll keep praying that God will provide again, He certainly did a good job this time. Anyways it is time to start making her favorite supper, perogies and sausage.

1000 gifts (64)

55. Life giving gentle rain for our thirsty fields

56. life giving worship with fellow believers

57. ministry to my children that opens their hearts like flowers to the Son

58. angelic guardians watching over my hyper-active son to save him from death, literally

59. lovely red and white fabric that is becoming a beautiful Canadian quilt

60. quilting with my daughter as she painstakingly learns to whip-stitch her binding on

61. heart felt prayers from tender young lips

62. annointed dance that you know doesn't come from your flesh

63. coming home after being away

64. anticipation for adventures yet to come

Josiah's Quilt

Here are some pictures of Josiah's finished quilt. He picked the border colors, the boy's got good taste! The blocks came from Periwinkle's Saturday Suprise Sampler for this year. I love these colors. My man child is planning on moving downstairs this summer to his own room and wants to use brown and green to decorate his room. The bottom picture is my favorite block.

more gifts (54)

43. my husband is a gracious and generous man who decided this week to encourage me in a very practical way in the gifts that God has given me, I don't deserve the gift and I don't deserve him, but I am thankful anyway.

44. Which only serves to remind me of the gracious gifts the Lord gives each and every day, like patience on the days when my 2 year old is whining constantly and getting into everything sticky and gooey

45. my mother and her quilting machine!!

46. My homeschooling year is done and we did it well! That is truly a gift from the Lord.

47. Next year's resources are ordered, yet another gift from the Lord, the ability to make decisions and carry them out.

48. I am so thankful for the increased resources the Lord has blessed us with this year, we could never have imagined it was even possible.

49. walkathome.com has been a gift to me on the road to feeling better and having more energy

50. What a gift a small, close community is, when you can call someone and ask them to pick things up for you, or when you can do it for someone else, I love that so much.

51. Friends who are excited to have my children at their home and thank me for bringing them...how wonderful is that!

52. Little girls who know how to make lunch for everybody. KD, tuna and salsa, a really good combination.

53. A familiar voice that you haven't heard in a long time and sweet communion, there's nothing quite like that.

54. The sound of the dryer buzzing on the last load of laundry for the day!!

28. I am so thankful for weekends away. A true gift for a busy mom. Yes I had all my children with me and not my husband, but I was at my moms......

29. Where I don't have to worry about asking to use shampoo or soap or even her moisturizer, I'm at home and I am free to do what I like.

30. I am thankful for my mom's long-arm quilting machine with which I quilted my 12 year old man-child's coming of age queen size quilt in about 3 and a half hours!!! (not years, hours). what a blessing

31. I am blessed to have a wonderful niece (actually I have quite a few nieces that are wonderful) who I had the opportunity to worship with during the offeratory at her church on Sunday morning, God's annointing was present and it was so much fun to sing with her.

32. Scripture that is speaking right into the heart of where you are walking is a gift, particularly when it comes from a place you didn't expect it.

33. A sermon on greed and where our true love really is...

34. Sunshine, warm on your face and a cool breeze, wide open grassy lawns where children are running and playing with carefree abandon.....so sweet

35. My dad and his enormous garden and generous heart.

36. Being reunited with my husband after not seeing him for 4 days! So sweet to walk through our fields, hold hands, come back and sip tea and talk about everything and nothing.

37. The school bus is a gift some days.

38. A knee that can now bend at a 45 degree angle and is getting stronger everyday.

39. Accidents that are far less than what they might have been

40. A little book by Robin McGRaw on life lessons that was inspiring

41. Excellent devotionals that get to the heart of the matter.

42. my youngest in the throes of potty training...12 years of diaper changing might possibly be coming to an end

Exercise and eating

I have been complaining about my weight for quite some time now, as well as the fact that I am terribly unfit. On May 1 I quit whining and finally started doing something. I got an in-home walking video from Leslie Sansone's www.walkathome.com program. I really like it. Where we live the weather is extremely unpredictable and walking outside is not possible most days, this last month the wind would have levelled you!

My wonderful husband found an eating plan for me and ordered it. I find it difficult to fit into someone else's idea of what I should eat when but I've been trying to work with it. Why is it that following an eating plan is so much more expensive than eating the way I normally do? I really don't understand that. I was whining about the plan and he said you're either going to have to decide that you're doing it or not, it's up to you. Hmmmm so whining doesn't help eh? OK. The truth is, I feel better when I eat that way, my body likes it alot. My IBS likes it alot. On the days "off" I return to what I normally eat and I bloat and feel nastier. It's less work but maybe not so good for me.

The overall result for the month is that I've lost about 4-5 pounds. Not huge, mind-boggling results, but a start at least. I'm only trying to get rid of about 20-25 and get toned up, so maybe it's worth doing. I really do like my exercising part, it's great.

22. I am thankful that not ALL my flowers froze the other night, just a few of the several hundred that I planted.

23. Our apple trees are clothed in beautiful white dresses, they are so lovely.

24. It is truly a gift to be able to go visit my mom, dad, sister (and family) tomorrow.

25. Josiah's quilt top is finished and it is beautiful, I'm so pleased with it and he may even get it on his birthday as he steps into manhood!

26. My prayer chair, it isn't new or beautiful, a cast off from former days of glory. Every day it beckons me to come a sit awhile, let the words of God wash over my spirit and let my body catch up to my soul.

27. There is hope and I am so very thankful for that!

11. Brother and sister playing happily together rather than fighting.
12. "Open the eyes of my heart Lord" sung in warbling 4 year old as this active little boy snuggles into his blankets.
13. The power company DID make a mistake!
14. Teaching a 2 year old to pray.
15. Morning snuggles and gentle kisses and smiles from tiny bodies who crawled in after daddy went to work
16. The seeding is finally finished.
17. The wind has settled down so spraying can happen.
18. An unexpected call from my sweet sister-in-law.
19. Kathrin
20. Dancing again with a group of wonderful young ladies, exploring this art form for the very first time.
21. "Everlasting" sung by Brenton Brown

1000 gifts

I have to admit my frustration levels have been a little over the top lately. My cup has not been full and I have not been a good example of a godly woman lately. I've been bursting at the seams with problems and issues that need resolution and no idea how to resolve them. The trying and striving have been uppermost. And in the midst of this I've been teaching a women's Sunday School class and this morning I felt like the Lord wanted me to teach about grace. Grace to be Mary and Martha, grace to fail, grace to be weak and grace to not be perfect. I was convicted that my motivation in cleaning my house and correcting my children wasn't necessarily for their benefit but my own desire to look good. So I repent. In an effort to refocus my heart I want to count my blessings. Reminders of the gifts of grace that God gives me each and every day. To read more about 1000 gifts you can go to Holy Experience (link in the sidebar) who has encouraged many in this effort of gratitude.

So it begins:

1. I am thankful for my husband who has great taste in shoes! (I realized that the best pairs of shoes I've purchased in the last year are the ones he picked out for me)

2. Grace that goes where I cannot.

3. The precious knowledge that God is taking care of business and there are things that are simply not my responsibility.

4. Sam is getting his cast off tomorrow. Praise the Lord!

5. Rain in our dry and windy land.

6. The beauty of creation.

7. The opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder with God in making the world a prettier place to be.

8. cheese and bacon bagels

9. a really good cup of tea

10. Sunday afternoons

Have you started your own list yet?

The last 10 days...

So...my life is crazy ... as usual.

Sunday am - teach Sunday School, Soar Heartland report
Sunday pm - 20th birthday party for Kathrin, here
Monday am - ship some kids off in order to prepare for birthday party
Monday pm - birthday party for Abby with her friends
Tuesday am - Sasha at preschool, clean up party mess
Wednesday am - madly going through stuff to take to the rummage sale, get a call from the school, there's been an accident on the playground, Sam wants me, get all the rummage packed up and head to town, pick up Sam from school and head over to the clinic to see if he's okay
Wednesday pm - Sam is not okay, his leg is broken just above the knee, need to take him to Saskatoon to get casted, don't get home until midnight
Thursday - supposed to go to Bible study, I skip it 'cause I'm brain dead - need to take care of my son
Thursday evening - son #2 has a major blowout - I go for a walk in the cold in my slippers cause Im so stressed
Friday noon - niece, boyfriend and nephew arrive to spend the weekend.
Friday evening - all other adults leave the building for the youth group progressive supper, I stay home and referee fights end up playing computer games and watching a movie with niece and nephew late into the night
Saturday - try to do some laundry, get ready for baby shower in the evening, hang out with my niece and make cards
Saturday evening - host baby shower here
Sunday morning - passover with sunday school, Mexico mission trip report, potluck lunch at church
Sunday evening - host family birthday supper for Abby and Kathrin at our house
Monday - Kelly takes kids to dentist appointments in the city - I start working on the farm books - dad comes over to help, we realize there is a problem
Tuesday - continue to work on books with dad, there is still a problem
Tuesday evening - volunteer interview at church, quit doing farm books and play Ticket to Ride (much more enjoyable)
Wednesday - Kelly takes Sam to the city for follow up appointments, I will try to sort out the problem in the farm books
Thursday - I will go to school with sam so he can participate in the Kids Convention
Friday - I LEAVE FOR REDBERRY FOR AN ALL WEEKEND CRAFT RETREAT WITH MY FRIENDS AND NO KIDS, NO FARM BOOKS AND NO HOUSE TO TAKE CARE OF AND NO MINISTRY EXPECTATIONS (I'm a little excited about that and it's almost here)

The Painting of the House

The painting is finished and here are all the pics. We all love the change and finally feel like this house is really ours. Above is the computer station. All those shelves have finally organized an extremely 'hot' spot in our house, we're really enjoying this space. The counter top was a little God thing. I had 5 minutes to find that counter top at the ReStore, pay for it and get it loaded into my van - and we did it!

The Kitchen

Picture 1
At first I was a little concerned our kitchen would look like McDonalds but obviously it doesn't. It looks great! This is what you see when you walk in our front door. We were considering painting the cupboards since they were so dark but after the yellow was on it really drew out the golden tones in the cupboards, so they'll stay the way they are!

Picture 2
We painted and recovered our ugly chairs and they look soooooooooooo fabulous, this pic doesn't do them justice. We also recovered the benches in the breakfast nook. I used over 1000 staples doing those chairs and benches - it was so worth it. The fabric was a God-thing. I walked into Fabricland, saw one of my friends who works there, stopped to talk to her and told her why I was there, we looked down, saw this roll of fabric and I knew it was the one. It was also 70% off! I was in and out in about 15 minutes - probably my quickest fabric shop trip ever!!

Picture 3
You probably can't see the details on this wall because it's pretty subtle, but the word 'life' is painted on in 10 different languages. The cart was another gift from God. We wanted to take out one cupboard that blocked the kitchen and took up too much counter space so we needed to get something to hold those dishes. We decided on a cart but figured we were going to have to fork out quite a chunk of change for it but God showed me this one in Wal-Mart for only $150. That was a nice gift.

Picture 4
(It was baking day when I took these pics - hence all the baking stuff on the counters.)

The Bathroom

Top Picture

A friend of mine helped me antique the cabinet doors and then I stenciled the words and pictures on.

Middle Picture

More stencils and some Dollarama decorating pieces. The angels were a gift from Kathrin, they're so pretty.

Bottom Picture

The first little quilt I ever made!

Hallway and Porch

The hallway started out a much darker yellow but we didn't like it so we repainted it in this soft "Kelly Yellow".
The porch was rather painstaking to do the stripes free-hand. It took Kathrin several hours to do the first round. It's done in Almond and Olive Brown.

The Living Room

I love our living room! It's so peaceful and comfy. The colors in here are Olive Brown, Almond and Kelly Yellow. The inserts in the window frames are olive brown with tea-dyed cheese cloth wrapped around. I made the signs with stickers that my friend Sue gave me. I love the shelves, you can really see what is on them now.

The verse on the back wall is "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." The cool thing about this room is that I've been in a bible study regarding the tabernacle and in the HOly place olives and almonds were very significant, I thought it was kind of interesting that those are the colors that we chose for this room.

We still have to figure out lighting and eventually we'll get new carpet and some chocolate brown leather furniture (that's the dream anyway!) Thanks for coming on my house tour!!

and the paint goes on

Shocking, it isn't even a month since my last post!!

So....this week we're doing the porch, the living room and the trim in the hallway. The red velvet drapes are down, the holes are filled, the shelves are primed and tomorrow morning Almond Wisp and Olive Brown will be filling my walls with color. The porch is also Almond Wisp and will have Olive Brown accents. We painted the paneling and will do the skinny stripe in the Olive Brown. The end of the paint is near. Then maybe we can actually clean up this house. My bedroom has been the dropping point for pretty much everything that I couldn't shove somewhere else!

I finished the decorative painting in the bathroom. I'll have to post pictures cause it looks really, really good!!! I just have to get Kelly to hang a corner shelf and that room is totally done.

Saturday will be a scrapbooking day. I've come to the realization that I will never be a true 'scrapbooker' - I just don't have time. But I'm going to enjoy doing what I can, when I can cause I love all the papers and textures and stickers and doo dads that I get to play with when I do it. It's also great fun to look at all the pictures again and put them in beautiful settings and visit with people I enjoy.

Oh yeah. I got to play on the worship team again cause their pianist cancelled on Saturday afternoon. I didn't pray for that I promise. However, there were some talk about making room for me on their team, how fun is that.

My big boy went to his very first junior high retreat this last weekend. That was bizarre. He can't really be that old yet. And he actually did things to impress some girls - that's a little scary to this mamma - he's always had good girl friends but I think this was a little different than that.

all the excitement in our house

THE LAST MONTH
Well, well, time certainly flies when you're not home! We've been down to Mexico and back. We built two houses for two wonderful families, stopped in Disneyland on the way home, lost my glasses somewhere in L.A., made it back to Saskatchewn just in time to head to Cypress Hills for a pastor's conference, back home again to go to Bible Study, Quilting, youth group and a fabulous training session called "Spiritual Protection for your Children".

THE LAST WEEK

Sunday morning I got to pinch hit on the piano for the worship team. Wow! That would never have happened before here. It was so fun and I felt God's annointing on me and I played songs I've never even played before with drums and a bass guitar even. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN I want to do it again. I might have to do something to the pianist on a regular basis - hee hee.

That wasn't very Christian was it?

Then we started painting our main floor! Woo-hoo my kitchen is now a stunning yellow and red concoction, my hallways are a rich buttery cream. The bathroom is blue and brown. My living room and porch are next - olive brown and almond wisp here we come. We'll have to restrain ourselves on flooring and furniture but we'll survive to pay in cash when the time comes.
Tomorrow I head to the city to get new glasses, a hunk of countertop (hopefully), some shelves, blinds and a few odds and ends to finish the kitchen off. We painted the word 'life' in 9 different languages on my wall (English, French, German, Spanish/Portugese, Hebrew, Chinese, Africaans, Russian) You could actually count 10 cause one of the characters in the Chinese script is the same as Japanese.

SKIRT STORY
So my mom made this skirt at the Lord's leading for a pregnant mom down in Mexico. She sent it along with the little girl skirts and I was supposed to watch out for someone to give it to. Well, asking someone in your own language if they're pregnant is one thing, asking in Spanish is quite another, so I waited and watched. As the houses were finished we decided to give skirts to the families since between the two families there were 7 girls. When I got to the mom of the house I was building on we had a lovely time picking out skirts for her girls, during the course of our 'conversation' I discovered she was expecting!! I whipped out my mom's special skirt and gave it to her. I cried buckets. Then she went and got pictures of her dear little girls and showed them to me and told me their names - Lolita, Flor, ?? (couldn't understand or pronounce that one) and Esperanza (which means Hope). So cool! They should have their little girls back by now we hope in a comfy new house with pretty skirts.
We were able to give the rest of the skirts to the orphanage because the lady who runs it just 'happened' to come to the base the last night we were there. That was cool. Can't wait to do it again!

THE NEXT FEW WEEKS
IN a few weeks we head to Winnipeg with our youth group for another missions trip, very different from what we just did. Inner-city North America. The very cool thing is that we get to take our oldest son with us - and he actually wants to go! I have to admit I was looking with a longing heart at all the families that were together on our Mexico trip, hoping that one day we'd get to do that - and here we are, just a month later, introducing our son to something we love so much to do.

YEAH GOD NOTE
After the Spiritual Protection session we sat down with our kids to ask them fairly directly if they knew if they were a child of God or not. They ALL responded very positively including our dear sweet Kathrin, who was not a believer when she landed in our country. We are so excited to have another family member in the Lord!! She's coming on the Winnipeg trip, too. Yippee!

Life in the past few weeks

My how time flies when you're way busy!! Updates, updates...

The skirt sewing went really well, we have about 40 skirts to take to Mexico. Kathryn, our house guest from Germany, is fitting in beautifully. We all love her to pieces. She loves to play games so she fits in very well! We were playing Dutch Blitz one evening and she'd beaten Kelly and I soundly. She turns to Kelly and says, "Want to lose again?" I like that girl. She also love cheese in any form, sundried tomatoes, seafood and olives. She loves to read and craft, too. Definately a good fit!

We are getting a little confused in the language department as we teach Kathryn English, she teaches us German, I teach Abby French and try to learn Spanish songs for our trip to Mexico. Aye caramba, je ne fershtay pas!

We just got through a run with the flu. That wasn't so fun. I discovered during the many loads 0f laundry that the washing machine is a very effective tool for disintegrating Bibles. All that was left was the duct tape that had been holding it together.

Our new van is great, but we have to find some new seats for it! We don't have quite enough seating capacity in there, though it is very roomy. We could rent it out as a small theatre.

Life in ministry is busy and interesting. Next week we head to Mexico to build a couple of houses. On our way home they'll drop us off for the rural pastor's conference. A month after that we're taking a team of youth to Winnipeg with Soar Heartland to do inner-city missions exposure. Then the first weekend of May we'll go with the grads on a trip to Edmonton. PHew!!
In the meantime we're developing a servant leadership team among our youth and are thrilled with what we've seen so far. Breakthrough is very encouraging. We both teach sunday school so that helps round out our weeks.

OH don't forget we're farmers, so in there somewhere we have to ship grain, plan for seeding, get the machinery ready and seed. Yeah....so....

The kids go power-skating every week and have learned to love skating...can't say the same for myself. I still hate ice. They're all doing really well in their studies.

Since there's a blizzard going on...again...we've cancelled youth group and are staying home to eat junk food and watch movies. Such a hard life we lead.

Toodles!

Skirt sewing day

Tomorrow is sewing skirts day! I'm so excited. WE're sewing skirts to take down to Mexico when we go on our missions trip in February. I got the idea from Randi at I Have to Say. Got the instructions from Kuky Ideas (www.kukyideas.com) and have been drawing patterns, writing instructions, washing fabric and pressing it all week. Finally the day is here and we're going to sew up a bunch of skirts for some kids who could use it down in Mexico. Yeah. To make it better...my mama is coming, too. She's already got a dozen made (what a surprise!)

Bible adventures

Our wonderful German house guest has arrived and been with us for a week now. We absolutely love her, she is as sweet as they come! Her English is excellent, she is observant, thoughtful and flexible. I hope she can stand us for the next 5 months!!

Now that the press of the holiday season is over I am back to teaching Sunday School and have joined a Bible Study. Both have been requiring much study from me and I must confess...I love it. We're going back over the Angela Thomas material in Sunday School, working through parts of the sermon on the mount.

On Sunday as I was teaching I had a revelation that I couldn't quite wrap my head around at the time, but now as I think and ponder and study I have noticed that the heart conditions mentioned in the beatitudes are a progression of maturity. It's really quite fascinating. Take a look. At some point we realize that we're broken (poor in spirit), life has nailed us to the wall and we're falling in pieces, we need a Saviour. When we break we end up mourning the loss of what was, whether it was a person, an idea, ideal or dream. In the midst of our mourning we become humbled and look to the Saviour. As our souls are healed we begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness, we are satisfied and we realize how much we needed a saviour. We can be merciful, because we've been shown mercy. Because we have shown mercy, God will contiue to show mercy and we become pure in heart. Our hearts are made pure, they are at peace and we can bring that peace into the midst of others - we are peacemakers. However, in the midst of giving away the peace that Christ offers we will most likely get persecuted. After much persecution we are poor in spirit and once again the cycle begins, another step up towards Christlikeness. Another interesting tidbit is that the blessings are bookended by receiving the Kingdom of Heaven - with getting everything else inbetween. I am fascinated by this and am going to continue studying it.

IN our Bible Study we are studying the Tabernacle with Beth Moore in a study called, A Woman's HEart - God's Dwelling Place. This, too, is a fascinating study, bridging the whole of scripture, showing the incredible brilliance of God and His design. One little tidbit from that study. The curse that was given after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden was that the land would produce thorns and thistles for them. What did Jesus wear on his head as he hung on the cross? A crown of thorns. He literally took the curse on his head - isn't that amazing! God is so good.