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I kept planning to post about the karate belt testing this week, but am only getting that out today. Today after our normal Saturday karate class, we went home, ate lunch and then drove about an hour away to pick up the used van that we paid cash for.

I had to take this picture of what we do to stay debt free. Yes, we bought this used van with our eyes wide open. We knew it had problems and was being sold “as is”. But my husband has researched this particular make and model and it shouldn’t be too hard to maintain. However we need to at least get it home or to a brake shop. Whichever we can get the brakes to last long enough to get it to. We spent quite a few hours today working on this van in a parking lot less than a mile from where we bought it.

I see potential in this van and see it as a blessing that we were able to pay cash for it, plus have enough money to go to an auto parts store twice and go practically next door from the auto place and buy everyone $1 double cheeseburgers. 🙂 See I found 3 blessings right there.

Another blessing is that it wasn’t raining while my husband was working on it, and we made it to a nice big parking lot that was pretty much empty. Two more blessings right there. That makes 5.

Anyway, you get the idea. 🙂 It can be hard to find blessings in certain circumstances but God’s grace is sufficient. Scott mentioned to me once we were home, how that as he was showering to wash away the grease and dirt, he thought about how blessed we are and how that if we didn’t have any problems then we wouldn’t appreciate the good times as much.

We finally gave up for the night and left the van behind hoping it will be okay until Tomorrow afternoon. Then we’re going to attempt bleeding the brakes again. If nothing else we’ll try to find a good brake mechanic to fix it.

I better tell about belt testing now.

Saturday morning, a week ago, my husband, Scott, our daughter, Hannah, and our son Jonathan tested for their next level of belts in karate.

Jonathan is on the little kids’ belt system and tested for an orange stripe that was added to his belt. He is really proud of that stripe.

Hannah tested for a green belt and did an excellent job.
She is happy because she will soon be matching me, Joshua, and Ruth.

Scott tested for a brown belt. He also did an excellent job. I didn’t get as many pictures of him since I was mostly videoing his part.

Scott’s reaching brown belt level is an amazing accomplishment. It not only shows how much hard work and dedication he put forth to achieve that level, but it also shows how long we’ve been living in this area. Scott has been pastoring the church we’re at now for about 4 almost 5 years now. Time sure goes by fast.

We moved into the parsonage when Jonathan was a baby. And while here God has gave us Elijah our 5th blessing and we will soon be welcoming our 6th blessing. And I’m sure God will help us get the van in tip-top shape by that time.

Philippians 4:19 “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

This has actually been a relaxing week despite the busy title. Scott went to a tech conference that lasted the whole week. I decided that taking a break from our normal schedule and visiting my parents would be a great way to help the week go by quickly. I called it an early Spring Break.

I mentioned that I would get a picture of the kids with their build-a-bears. I took this one before getting the kids to bed at my parents’ cottage.

I got this picture of Joshua on his new skateboard at my Mema’s house. He hadn’t been able to ride it until Tuesday. So he was extremely happy to have the free time to ride on the good old oil roads of East Texas.

The kids also enjoyed playing with my cousin’s children. It’s nice being a close knit family. I had the opportunity to explain first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins to my kids. Hannah still thought it was confusing. 🙂

Elijah started going “poo poo” in the potty this week. He has surprised us with his understanding of what he is supposed to be doing on the potty. We haven’t gotten super serious with his training yet. We are just letting him try going when he wants to. Serious training will commence when we start using real underwear instead of disposable training pants.

Okay, only 6 minutes left to publish this blog this week. 🙂 Yes, I’m blogging late again. But let me share this picture of Hannah with a missing tooth.

She has been really proud of that tooth this week. I was impressed that she pulled it herself without a lot of squealing. She’s growing up so fast.

This week has gone by so fast! I only have one hour to write this blog before I miss posting this week. I only said that my goal this year was to post one blog a week. I didn’t say which day. 🙂

Monday, I decided to stay home and not go to a homeschool meeting that I could have gone to.

Tuesday, I got up early and took Scott to work so that the kids and I could go to my doctor’s appointment that morning. Elisabeth’s heart rate was good and the doctor told me that everything looked great on the ultrasound. I was glad to hear everything was fine.

After my doctor’s appointment I took the kids to Walmart and bought a few groceries and other items we were needing for the week. Then we had karate class that evening.

Wednesday and Thursday were normal days. Scott, Hannah, and Jonathan will be testing for their next belt level a week from now. Hannah is pretty excited that she will be testing for a green belt which will be matching me, Ruth, and Joshua.

Friday, I took Scott to work again and then came home and after my mornings Bible reading I fell back asleep. It’s time for my Glucose screening and I originally planned to get that done on Friday. It doesn’t require an appointment since I am only taking the one hour screening. I decided to skip that appointment and after lunch the kids and I went to their Keepers of the Faith meeting. Then we got a tire replaced on the van.

Today, we had a large group of visitors in our karate class. We had a lot of fun. After we left class we went out to eat at our favorite restaurant. The picture above is Elijah enjoying his meal.

Once we finished eating we went to the mall. Scott told the kids that he would let them each buy something for their allowance this month. Ruth got a Build-a-Bear with clothes. Hannah and Jonathangot clothes for their build-a-bears that she had gotten in the mail this week. And Elijah got a build-a-bear puppy. Joshua got a new skateboard. I’ll take pictures of them with their new toys tomorrow.

I could write a lot more but I only have about 15 minutes to make my deadline on this post. So I’ll try to have a better post tomorrow. 🙂

Today was a normal day. We have a regular routine we go through on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The kids and I try to make sure that we get everything done and get all dressed for karate class.

Then Scott gets home, we share some highlights of our day. Then we all get in the car and head to karate class.

We got there in time for the kids to get most of kids class. I helped Elijah put a floor puzzle together and then our Sense I announced that kids’ class was going to end a little early today. I didn’t think much about it. But after they did their regular closing ceremony, suddenly cake and punch was brought into the room. I wondered whose birthday it was and then found out it was a baby shower for our baby. 🙂 I was so surprised.

I took a few pictures and had Scott take a couple of pictures of me holding the little outfits for the baby. 



Our Karate Family gave us this cute Pink Gi for Elisabeth.

We didn’t get a picture of the cake before it got passed around but I did get pictures of everyone enjoying it. 🙂

Hannah was my partner during adult class and I informed her that she had a green mustache from the icing. Oddly enough she didn’t seem to mind. 🙂

And the other amazing thing was that Scott knew about it for a week or so and didn’t even let out a hint about it. That really surprised me! 🙂

There was only one sad part, we also found out that a really nice young man was moving. But the reason, I mention this is that our Sensei led our class in prayer for that young man and his family.

I love how family oriented our dojo is and how we all feel like one big family. I also like how our instructor is very open about her faith in Christ and isn’t afraid to show it. She even appointed Scott as our dojo chaplain. 🙂 You don’t see that very often in a traditional dojo!

I just want to share one more picture from tonight of Hannah demonstrating a partner stretch that our class did. The partner was to push their backs until they said to stop.

Hannah is pretty proud of how flexible she is. 🙂 She can do the splits and then lay flat on the floor without any effort.

This was a later blog post this week. I had been trying to decide what subject I wanted to talk about before the week was over. I didn’t realize that a subject would spring up on me like this.

Next week there is a lot going on. I won’t have to have a surprise to give me something to post about.

(1 Corinthians 10:31) “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

After such a busy week, it was nice to enjoy a fun filled weekend.

Saturday, we started the morning with a really good workout during karate class. Then that evening the girls and I enjoyed going out to a Mother/Daughter tea party with friends in our homeschool group.

The girls enjoyed wearing pretty dresses. We were able to bring our own tea cups and enjoyed having fancy tea.
There was a nice area set up where we could have our pictures taken. One of the mothers brought her camera and took our pictures. Afterward I took a picture of Ruth and Hannah all dressed up in the pretty accessories that were there for the girls to wear.

They were so sweet wanting to take a picture together. One of the older girls present mentioned that during next years tea party they will have a little sister to add to their picture.

After the tea party, I took them to Walmart and bought them some hairbands.

While we girls were gone Scott and our sons made home made pizzas and watched a movie. Scott told me that my brother would be proud that after the movie, Scott showed the boys some YouTube footage of Michael Jordan.

Sunday, we had a good time at church and enjoyed visiting with our members after services.

Today, Scott was off for Martin Luther King Jr. day. We took the kids to a skate park where they could enjoy trying out their new skooters and skateboards. Elijah and I took pictures and videos of Scott and the kids trying out all sorts of half pipes and ramps.

We had a really good day. This week should be a little less busy than last week. Tomorrow, we will be back to the normal routine. It’s good to take a break every once in a while and enjoy some time together as a family.

Last week was busy. Scott started back to work and the kids and I got back to our homeschool routine. Between Scott’s car breaking down, us hitting a skunk on our way home from karate class, and then a long day on Friday between taking Scott to work, driving to my doctor’s appointment, taking the kids to wal-mart and then standing for two hours at Keepers of the Faith, I was worn out by the time I got home.

Scott was such a dear to listen sympathetically to my day’s frustrations. I know that all the work that I had on that one day is really nothing compared to the burden he bares daily to provide for me and our children. I am so blessed to have him!

Saturday, we had karate class that morning and afterwards we went to the grocery store and bought some groceries for this week.

Most of the groceries we bought were for the baby shower that I am giving for a church member that is also a friend in our homeschool group. I am hoping that I have a good attendance of the other mothers in our homeschool group as well. I have a tendency to go overboard on preparations and then I wind up very disappointed if no one comes.

This time I am trying to keep an open mind and have a backup plan if no one that was invited comes. I may do like the king in the Bible that calls people from the street to come to the banquet (check out Luke 14:16-24). Okay, maybe I won’t go so far as to call strangers to eat with us. Maybe just call our children and husbands to join the party. I must say that is one advantage to having a large family, you always have party participants available.

Wednesday, I have an appointment for an ultrasound, where we hope to find out our baby’s gender. The kids are hoping for a girl. Joshua and Ruth said that they wouldn’t be disappointed if the baby did turn out to be a boy. Hannah however is determined that this baby has to be a girl. So for her sake, I’m glad that we are finding out early. That way she’ll have time to adjust before the baby gets here.

Everyone seems to be curious about the names we’ve picked. If we have a boy, we plan to name him Joseph Harold. If the baby is a girl, we plan to name her Elisabeth Rose.

We have a pattern to naming our children. For their first names we choose a Bible name, and their middle names are all a family name or a slight variation thereof.

For instance Rose comes from one of Scott’s grandmothers whose name was Rosa. The interesting part is that her full name was Rosa Elizabeth.

Even Joseph Harold has extra significance. Harold was not only my husband’s grandfather’s name, it is also the middle name of my childhood pastor that my father always called his father-in-the- ministry. His first name was Joseph, although he went by Harold.
We would call ours Joseph.

Well, I better quit blogging about my upcoming week and get busy living it. 🙂 I have a lot to do before I’m finished being ready for the shower. I better get busy.

Happy New Year! For my first post this year, I wanted to share some pictures of some of the things we did yesterday.

This first picture is Joshua and Ruth working on their computers. We found out about a really great website www.kahnacademy.org. It’s a great resource for learning all sorts of subjects. It’s free and the kids love learning with it because the lessons are interesting and they receive points and awards that we can keep track of.

Even though she doesn’t look like it in this picture, Hannah really does like working in her workbook. The biggest realization she had with yesterday’s lessons was that word-find puzzles really aren’t as hard as she thought they were. She finished finding all the words today without any help.

And this is the best picture I could get of Jonathan. He loves to be goofy and make funny faces for the camera. I have a hard time getting a serious picture with him. I guess he makes up for Hannah always making serious faces. Now if I could get them to meet somewhere in the middle for pictures. 🙂

And Elijah wouldn’t stay still for a picture because of the flash, so I chose this picture of him from Christmas.
He spent most of our lesson time tackling Jonathan. Although Elijah did learn a major lesson yesterday.

I cooked pancakes for us to eat on our drive home from karate class. The kids were wanting to have some but I explained that they just had lunch and that I wanted to save the pancakes for later. Elijah kept asking and I told him a very infatic no. I was distracted for a few seconds typing something into my tablet when I looked up and saw that Elijah had stolen the big bowl of pancakes right from under my nose and was helping himself to them. I knew that I had to teach him real quick that what he did was wrong.

It’s hard sometimes as a mother to be firm with your children, when they are young and cute. I don’t like seeing my children cry, but I learned quite early on that if you allow wrong behavior when they are little, it only gets harder to teach them what is right when they are older. So to help myself teach my child, I imagine him doing the same crime as a teenager and I nip it in the bud while it is fresh on his mind and while he is still young enough to take me seriously.

He did pucker up and cry real tears of repentance because with his punishment, I explained in simple terms exactly what he did wrong. Then I removed the pancakes from his reach. I held him as he thought, in his young mind, about it. A little later he was showing me something he drew on a magna doodle and I smiled and really bragged on how good of a job he did. I could tell by how he approached me that he was making sure that he had been forgiven and that all was well between us.

Children learn so quickly at such a young age. That is why the Bible tells us to raise them up right while they are young.
This going to be a really good year of growth in our family.

This year will also be good in that we’ll be getting to find out whether we are having a girl or a boy this month, the baby is due at the end of May, and my brother and his family will be visiting us while on furlough from France. We’re going to finally get to have a family picture with my kids and our brand new baby, his 5 kids (one of whom I hand’t met in person yet), and my sister’s new baby will be in it.

I am so excited to see all the blessings unfold in 2012!

Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

I’m just testing a new blogger app to see if I can make my posts prettier.
This picture is of the birthday gift that Hannah made for me.

This picture is Elijah climbing on the slide.

This picture is of my children waiting in a chair during my doctor’s appointment. Who says 5 kids take up a lot of space?

This one is of my parents, my sister holding my new niece, and my brother-in-law on Christmas eve.

Okay this should be my last post for now. I’m determined to have blogging simplified while still being nice looking. 🙂 Thanks for baring with me while I experiment.

I looked back over the pictures of 2011 and am amazed at how much has happened over this past year. I was not the best at posting especially toward the end of this year. I gave the excuse that I was too busy living my blog to type about it. Now I am taking a break to catch up on 2011 and plan to get a fresh start in 2012 on blogging.

There were sad moments in 2011 as well as happy moments. Let me get the sad moments out of the way so that we can focus on the happy. The two main sad times were the passing of my grandfather James Taylor in January and the passing of my great uncle Trenton Jones in December of this past year. Both of those moments for our family even though we take joy in the knowledge that they are no longer in pain and we will get to see them again one day.

The funeral for my grandfather took place at the beginning of February. It was good to see family face to face and not just on Facebook. I enjoyed getting to visit with my second cousins whom I hadn’t seen in a long while.

In March, we celebrated Elijah’s first birthday and Hannah’s 6th birthday. It’s hard to believe that Elijah took his first steps by himself on his birthday. He not only can keep up with the rest of us now, he also can climb just about everything and seems to have no fear of heights. It shocked me one day when we were at the park to see him by himself at the top of a very tall slide smiling down at me.

In April, Hannah was saved. That seems like a long time ago, but she was Baptized in May. She is growing so fast spiritually that I have a hard time fathoming how all this growth can happen in just one year.

In June, I signed the 4 older children up for swimming lessons. That built their confidence in the water. I would like to get more lessons for them this next year as well. Also towards the end of June, Scott and I took a 3 week trip to Thailand where we enjoyed helping a missionary teach English classes in several of the schools there. We met so many wonderful people and got to learn so much from that trip. If you check out my June and July blog posts you’ll see a lot of what we experienced on that trip.

Joshua turned 13 in June, and Ruth turned 11 in July. Then at the end of July, we had church camp. I taught the 3rd grade and Scott taught the High School and College aged class at camp. I also enjoyed leading the children’s choir during the week.

In August, I threw a baby shower for my sister and her husband, whose first child, a sweet baby girl was born in September. She was my parent’s 11th grand baby. Then shortly after her arrival, I called my sister to let her know that I needed my maternity clothes back.

We had to hurry to get the news out to all the family before it was spread across Facebook. Sorry, our family grapevine has precidence over Facebook. Then we announced it to the rest of the world on my blog and Facebook.

In September and October, I taught a recorder class in our local home school co-op. The kids each chose classes to take. Joshua took Creation Science and Teen Drama. Ruth took Stomp and Creation Science. Hannah took Texas History and Home Economics, where she got to do a lot of cooking. Jonathan was in the 4 and 5 year old class and Elijah was in the nursery.

At the beginning of November, we celebrated Jonathan’s 4th birthday with a family camping trip with our homeschool group. I also found out that his favorite color is green. He wanted a green cake for his birthday. Oh, and when your 4 your 4 the whole month is your birthday. He has been growing so much and I am often entertained by some of his anecdotes. One time I heard Hannah hollering from the livingroom, “You can’t fire me! I’m working!” When I went to find out what the problem was she told me, “Jonathan is pretending that the living room is his yard and I’m his worker but he keeps telling me that I’m fired and I’m still working!” She seemed to feel better about it when I reminded her of their ages.

Another time in the past month Jonathan was singing at the top of his voice while we were driving to the park, “I’ve got joy in the river, I’ve got joy in the river.” It was to the tune of “I’ve got peace LIKE a river” but I was smiling so big that I couldn’t bring myself to correct him.

One thing I never got around to blogging about was that Scott and I celebrated our 15th anniversary at the end of November. I chose to stay off my computer for that weekend. That was why I never got around to blogging about it. I was also having problems with loading pictures at that time.

Then December blew by somehow! My birthday is in December and fell during Scott’s Christmas break from work. For my birthday, we ate cake balls for breakfast that I had made over the weekend. Hannah gave me the sweetest gift that she made herself with a little help from her older siblings. She even declared the gifts value when she told me, “…and that’s my last dollar!” I had a brief thought of telling her that she didn’t have to give me her last dollar but then I thought of the widow’s mite and realized that I needed to let her give me this gift. It would later be returned to her in other ways. God loves a cheerful giver.  I then accepted her gift with a hug.

We then left around lunch time to fulfill my birthday wish of having pizza at Cici’s on our way to visit my parents for the week.  We enjoyed a good variety of pizza. When the kids had eaten their fill of pizza Scott gave them each $2 to play games. I had such a good time just watching them.  It was a wonderful birthday. We then arrived that evening at my parents. We did some last minute Christmas shopping with the kids. Scott had each of the kids draw names and we took them in pairs to buy gifts for the name they drew.

My Mom and I had a day of birthday shopping. I think the part I enjoy most about going shopping with my mom is the quality time we get to spend together. I love quality time. 

One of the books that I read this year was “The Five Love Languages”. I highly recommend this book. In it the author talks about the five basic love languages. I find that my biggest way to show that I love someone is to find a way to spend quality time with them. I try to pay attention to my children and the ways they each show their love as well. Some love hugs, others may like me to do something for them, some feel loved just by a gift that I might give them, and others love having one-on-one time where they can just spend time with me. 

My sister and her family also came to visit my parents and we had a fun time reminiscing and laughing over good times. We sorely missed my brother and his family, but we are all looking forward to sitting and having a great time with them when they come on furlough in June. It will be great getting to have another cousins with all the new arrivals in the family. The last picture we got is missing my brother’s youngest baby and my sister’s new baby and by the time my brother is down in June our new baby will be here.  So there will be 3 additions to the cousins picture we take whenever we can.

But we did get to talk to my brother on Skype on Christmas eve. Then Christmas day we enjoyed the services at my Dad’s church. Then Christmas night we drove through a light show. The show was pretty and I got all sorts of Christmas songs stuck in my head after that.

The day after Christmas, we visited both my grandmothers. We really enjoyed our visits and decided to go back home Monday night in order to be home to get the trash out to be picked up on Tuesday morning. This week has been spent organizing the house and getting all the rooms cleaned. 

Today is the last day of this year and I don’t plan to blog again until next year. 🙂  Although I do plan to blog more in this coming new year. 

Have a happy New Year!!!