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I’m very behind in my blogging. The month is already half over and I hadn’t even blogged about any of the things that has happened this month. I’ll try to make up for it by writing several catch up blogs. 

The first Sunday of this month, May 1, Hannah was baptized.  It was the most giggly baptism I’ve ever witnessed.  Usually Baptisms are a serious occasion but leave it to Hannah to giggle the whole time. When Scott helped her into the baptistry she grabbed ahold of his arm and giggled because the water was cold.  She was a little short to be able to see over the edge so Scott held her up so that everyone could see her.  Then he gave the explanation that Baptism is a picture of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and that it shows that Hannah is now following Him. 

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:18)
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. (Psalms 51:12)
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. (Isaiah 12:3)

Joshua and I at the concert.

 This has been an extremely busy month and I haven’t blogged nearly enough during it.  I’m using this post as another catch up blog. 

Our Church’s Youth Group

We started the month with belt testing on the first Saturday of the month in karate class.  Scott earned his blue belt and I earned an orange belt. We take more pictures of our kids than we do of ourselves. 

That same evening Joshua and I joined 3 other sets of mothers and sons from our homeschool group for a Mother/Son date night.  We took our sons out to eat at a Mexican Restaurant and then went to a Inspirational All Gospel Concert.  It was a really great show and everyone had a good time.

Every year on Easter Sunday we take a picture of the kids in our church. Normally I try to get the picture after the morning service but everyone had scattered so I got this picture after our evening service. Our youth group has sure grown in numbers and in size these past 3 Easters that we’ve been here. They grow up so fast. Makes the pictures each year fun to look at as they get bigger.

Ruth in home economics at co-op.

Another new activity we were involved in this month was a Homeschool Co-op. For those who do not know what a Homeschool Co-op is it is where a group of homeschool families get together and each parent volunteers to either teach or help out in a class. This was our groups first time to have a co-op and the kids enjoyed it a lot.

Hannah making a bead necklace in her 4-6 year old class.

We had seven classes in this co-op. They were science, home economics, art, music, and a unit study on horses, a 4-6 year old class, and a 0-3 year old “class”. Technically the 0-3 year old were more in a nursery setting but we called it a class. I taught the music class and other mothers taught the other classes or helped in the classes. The kids really liked the classes they took and are looking forward to doing co-op again in the fall.

Joshua doing a science experiment at co-op.

Also this month we started a garden.  Which has been growing.  We have already been enjoying some of the herbs out of our herb garden and are looking forward to getting some fruit from our bigger garden. 
 
Last week, Scott and I got our shots in preparation for our trip this summer to Thailand.  We also bought our tickets this week. It has been amazing to watch as God helped us have the money for the tickets as well as taking care of issues that we felt completely helpless on. We have a very small view on our lives.  It’s nice to know that God can see what will happen tomorrow. When things may look bleak to us, He knows what’s around the corner and that everything will be okay.    

Jonathan and Elijah in their 0-3 year old “class” at co-op.

This has been an incredibly busy month and it’s not over yet. We still have a family reunion to attend this week.   

I don’t know what all God has in store for us in May.  I’m sure it won’t be boring.  I’m just glad He is here with us each step of the way.  Through the easy times and the hard times it’s good to know that God is here to help us. 

It’s a blessing to be able to look back over the month and despite the hard points in the month, we can still look back at it and say, “This has been a really good month!”

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

If the first thought you had when reading the title of my blog is that it sounds like a mess, you would be right. 

Hannah had gotten some gum today at our Homeschool Co-op class.  I’m not sure how she got the whole thing in her hair.  I think she had accidently got her hair in her mouth and then got a little bit of gum in her hair and then she started chewing on it to try to get it out of her hair which in turn got the whole piece of gum in her hair. 

I reread that last sentence and couldn’t think of a better way to word it than that.  I still don’t know where she decided that chewing the gum in her hair would get it out, but I have found that peanut butter, although greasy and messy in its own way, at least saves a young lady from having her hair cut up to her ears.  So with a lot of peanut butter and a little silent prayer, we managed to get the gum out of her hair.  I’m sure if she had thought about it she might would have eaten the peanut butter out of her hair but I sent her to go wash her hair instead.

Hannah, our daughter that just turned 6 a week ago, can now claim to have two birthdays.  She was saved tonight. She can now claim to be born again (See John 3).

She has been asking us questions about how to be saved for quite a while now.    When she asked the questions before she never seemed to care to go any further with it.  We don’t believe in pressuring our children to be saved but we don’t hide the good news from them either.  We make sure that they realize that they are sinners and that sin is the bad things we do.  We tell them that one day when they feel bad for those bad things they do, that God wants to forgive them.

In the earlier years when Hannah would ask about being saved, it was just something she wanted to do to be like her older siblings that were saved.   In her mind it was a club she wanted to join.  The thing she was lacking was the conviction of her sins.  She knew she did bad things but she didn’t feel any guilt about it.  At that time, I told her that God knew that she wanted to be saved and would protect her until the day that she understood.

I then asked her when was a good time to be saved.  She said, “Saturday?”  I decided she needed to hear the verse again.  Then she said, “Oh, NOW! I guess since the Bible says it, I should be saved today then!” 

I then asked her if she wanted me to show her some of the verses that tell about being saved.  She agreed and I started with Romans 3:23.  She then said, “Oh, is this what Daddy did when he talked to the other girl about how to be saved.”   I told her it was, and I asked her if she would like Daddy to show her the verses about being saved.  She said an excited yes.  And we went on with our lesson about Jesus telling his disciples to let the little children come to him.  It was a fitting lesson. 

Then tonight after we prayed our bedtime prayers as a family, I asked Hannah if she wanted to talk to Daddy and she said that she did.  So Scott took her into the other room and shared with her a few verses.  He said that she understood it all completely.  In fact she told him how to be saved!  He told her about how we can’t get to heaven by the things we do and and she told him, “Yes, I know that Jesus died for my sins and that the only way we can go to heaven is by asking Him, and He sees me! I don’t know how He sees me but He sees everything! and He was with you when you were in Paraguay and when you were in Thailand and He was with us here!” 

Then she wanted to be alone while she prayed.  So Scott stepped out of the room and told me about their conversation.  Then she came skipping out of our room and said, “I did it!”  We asked her if she asked Jesus to save her and she said that she did.  She was going to skip right off to bed but we stopped her for a hug.  She is now a new creature.  Now we will get to enjoy watching her grow as a new child in Christ.  What a wonderful thing that is.  After a child is saved they have a new purpose in life and it’s an exciting adventure to watch.  I love my children and I’ll be praying for Jonathan who I’m sure will be ready in about 3 years.  It seems that is the age in our family that our children start really understanding how to be saved.  I will be praying for Jonathan and Elijah that they will be saved at an early age as well.  I couldn’t ask for a better blessing than to see my children follow Him.   God is so good!

Elijah was singing today and this was just too cute of a video not to share.   In this video he is singing while plucking Hannah’s violin.  🙂  Enjoy!

My brother-in-law gave us a bag of ties.  Some of them were a little small for Scott and those he picked out to give to Joshua.   Now that Joshua has a set of “real” ties, that means that someone has to tie them.  The time had come for Joshua to learn how to tie his new ties.

Sunday afternoon the lessons commenced.  Of course, Joshua isn’t the only one that benefited from this lesson.  Scott got out ties for each of the older four children to try tying. 

 The first try wasn’t necessarily the prettiest job, but these are the pictures I took of each of them with their ties.   I thought they did pretty good.  Joshua kept on practicing and was finally starting to get a handle on the length. 

 Jonathan, I just thought was too cute.  He tied his tie himself.  Scott showed them all step by step and well, this was Jonathan’s final result.  I think he did pretty good with his modifications.  🙂 

 Now you may wonder why a girl would need to learn to tie a tie.  I told them that it might come in handy for them to one day.  They may decide to get married and have a dream that they have to tie their husbands tie before church. 

Yes, that happened to me once.  I learned to tie a tie from my Dad a long time ago.  One day after I was married to Scott we were driving to a preaching appointment and I fell asleep in the car.  Scott usually waited until he got to the church before tying his tie but for some reason I had a dream that we were late and he needed his tie tied.  I immediately woke up and started tying his tie.  He thought it was rather strange but he was sweet and wore it anyway.  Even though I didn’t tie it quite as pretty as he would have. 

 Hannah never did tie one.  I think she was determined that it was too hard.  And I guess at almost 6, I would have thought it too hard as well.  So Scott tied one for her but the whole point of tying a tie in her mind is so that you can pull it apart.  So I didn’t get a picture of her with her tie. 

Instead I thought I would put this picture of Hannah and Ruth matching.  They asked me to take this picture of them.  They both had a pink shirt and blue skirt and red shoes.  They love to dress alike when they get a chance.

And I don’t want to leave Elijah out so I wanted to show this picture of Elijah riding behind Jonathan on a bull dozer toy at our church.  He is growing up fast. He now has 6 teeth and knows how to use them. 

The challenge I am now having with Elijah is weaning.  Scott was fixing sandwiches in the car after karate class the other day and Elijah stopped nursing and wanted the sandwich.  I take that as a sign that we’re on the right track.

I never did get a video of Hannah and Jonathan singing.  Maybe I’ll be able to catch a really cute video soon.  Hope you don’t mind these pictures instead.  🙂

Ruth and Hannah had a friend over for a tea party last Saturday.  I pulled out our fancy tea set and baked a strawberry cake.  The girls chose Blueberry tea.  I also made some pudding for the party.

While Jonathan and I prepared the tea and cake in the kitchen the girls painted their fingernails.  Then they watched a Princess movie. 

After the movie was over we gathered around the table and had tea.  This was Amelia’s first tea party.  We have had tea parties before but this was our first time to entertain a guest for tea. 

We discussed the fact that the girls were princesses. And I mentioned that Jonathan could be a Prince.  He exclaimed, “No! I’m a boy!”

I tried to explain that a princess was a girl and that a prince was a boy.  He was still emphatically declaring himself just a boy.  So I told the girls, “Okay, y’all can be princesses and we’ll let Jonathan be just a boy for our tea party.”

The the evening ended with a grand ball.  The girls and Jonathan went into the hallway and entered into the livingroom with their names announced. 

Then they sat in chairs and then got up and danced to Baroque music. 

They danced all the way to the time Amelia’s parents came to pick her up and drop off Joshua who was visiting with Amelia’s brother.

Over all they had a wonderful time. 

We’ll need to do that again sometime.

Saturday morning, Joshua and Ruth earned their orange belts and Hannah has earned her yellow belt in karate class.

Scott and I will be testing in two months.  I enjoy participating in karate as a family.  It’s really neat to help each other reach our goals.

This coming Saturday will be the belt ceremony when the kids will actually receive their belts.  I’ll try to post pictures of that when the time comes.

Tuesday, we enjoyed karate class and ordered the kids sparring gear.  They have now reached a level where they are able to spar.

Wednesday, we had our Wednesday night Bible Study at our house.  I baked a loaf of raisin bread in our bread machine and we pulled out our tea set again.  This time we had Mixed Berry Zinger tea. 

Elijah hasn’t been feeling very well. I’m pretty sure it’s because of his teeth again. He now has 6 teeth and working on his 7th tooth. He’s been real drooly and running a slight fever. It’s never fun when their teething. He wanted to be held all day yesterday. He seems to be feeling a little bit better now.

It’s nice when you get a break between teething spells.  Elijah has sure been growing quick. 

Jonathan and Hannah have been working on a special for Sunday this week.  I tried to get a video of them but Jonathan quit singing as soon as I got the camera.  We’ll be practicing it again tomorrow and maybe I’ll have my camera out and ready a lot sooner.  He was really getting into the song he was singing.  He even had his eyes squinting like he was really concentrating on the song.