Christmas and prayer

How precious was this Christmas. We had a great time with the kids and my father-in-law came in town to spend some time with all of us. Since we decided to only do three gifts each (which turned in to two gifts with one large gift for all), we asked the kids at the dinner table to answer some questions about Jesus' birth. We thought this would be a great way to not only see how much they knew, but also allow the one with the most answers to be the first to open their present the next day. We were proud of some of the answers and some...well they were just plain old funny! KK told us that the wise men brought Frankenstein along with myrrh and gold. Will told us it was his birthday instead of baby Jesus. But, by far I laughed the most when MiMi was asked what day was Jesus' birthday. She thought real hard and then told us July 4th. I think what made it so funny was how serious she was. Christmas was great though. We had my family over at our house this year. Everyone came except for my sister who is still struggling after having her tonsils out this past Friday. It has been a week today and she still feels terrible:( I hate it for her. I had mine out when I was a senior and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. It seems to be a new tradition in our family though. Will and Ben had theirs out last year just a few days before Christmas. Can I tell you how glad that is over with!!! Today has been nice until my hubby got some bad news. His aunt passed away today. Actually it is good news because she is a Christian and she was struggling so with dimensia(don't know how to spell). I bet she is so happy to have her mind back. I was feeling like tonight was going to be my emotional day because within 30 minutes of finding this out, my brother-in-law told me the most outragious story. He works for Bell South and while working, had to make a call to a call in center. Long story short, because it is a very long story. The man he spoke to wants to come to Memphis (he lives in Birmingham) to pray for my nephew. The quick version of my nephew is that my sister was forced to have a vbac (vaginal birth after caesarian) and she had trouble. He was left without oxygen and at 10 years old he has now been diagnosed mentally retarded. He is a precious child and so loving. He has a lot of issues though...communication being one of the top issues. His teachers are now just trying to teach him enough to get by, not worrying about reading, math, etc. How we have prayed for a miracle. There is a lot more to the story though. The man he spoke with told him he has been through alot healthwise. He has actually seen heaven three times on three seperate occasions. He truely has an amazing testimony that I wish I had more time to write about. I am excited to tell you that he is coming to Memphis to pray for Connor though. He said since his last "visit" to heaven, he has been used by God to pray over several people who have since been "healed". I know this sounds a little off the wall, but God can perform miracles and I know He has the power to use any and everyone. I will have to let you know about it once he comes. He said he couldn't promise anything, but that he felt led to come to Memphis to do this. Isn't that neat that my brother-in-law was at work and this happened?! Be praying for Connor. He is a special kid with a special purpose in life. I pray that God will use him to ultimately glorify Him! Pray on, my sisters!

Treasure and Christmas

I finally sat down and finalized my legacy letter to the family. I will be mailing these out tomorrow. Please pray for my family. Especially those that will really have to think about what I have asked them to do. I ended up writing it as a Christmas letter to let them know what has been going on with us as a family. I spoke of how this year has made me think of one word, treasure. We have a treasure with our family, our health, Philip's job, etc, but most importantly our Saviour, Jesus. I ended it with what a treasure it would be to me and the kids (as they get older) for everyone to participate. I am just hoping that this will open doors to speak to those that I am not sure about.
I can't remember if I told you guys I sew and monogram. I am sure that I have mentioned how busy I have been, but I have added monogramming to my already busy schedule. I love doing it and I go in spurts doing it. I mention it only to say that it is one more thing vying for my time. Sometimes I wonder if my time management issue will ever resolve itself. Because I am sewing, I have to admit that I am truely struggling to keep up with a self motivated Bible study. I feel like I am not doing enough, even when I am studying. I think God is answering my prayer to give me an unquenchable thirst and hunger for His mighty word. I just wish He would add an hour to my day!
One of my kiddos has had strep this week. I went around a bleached all the bathrooms today. I am determined not to pass this germ! Especially with Christmas around the corner. Aren't you excited Christmas is almost here. I am for so many reasons. The break in my schedule, the time with the kids, all of the special things that make Christmas so magical and most importantly to celebrate the birth of Christ. We are having my immediate family over for Christmas day. I am thinking only around 15 will be here, but possibly more. Hopefully, all will go smoothly and I will start cooking before too long! So much to do and so little time. I have to go to bed now. That is if I want to actually make it to getting up remotely on time in the morning. Night!

Safety and thankfulness...

I am having a thankful day. Thankful mostly for my children. Thankful that the prayer I say so often for my children's safety is answered everyday. A neighbor told me several weeks ago (when we were discussing car seats) about a story a lady did on Good Morning America. This lady lost her three year old when she was involved in a terrible accident. The car seat malfunctioned and the seat belt came undone. She has started a foundation to help others not only afford the car seats that are the safest but also just to inform people like me who are in the market for a new car seat. This little snippet on Kyle's story is powerful:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3674114
After watching it, I am pretty sure that I have the car seat that they show Kyle sitting in for my daughters. This will motivate you to make sure your kiddos are safe. Also, you can look up his site to find out which car seats are the safest. Here is that link:
http://www.kyledavidmiller.org/pages/3013/Car_Seat_Info.htm
Please take the time to look at these...

Fight to the finish!

Have you ever felt like it wasn't meant for you to do something? I have just about decided that about my Christmas cards this year! After Christmas last year, I thought I would be smart and get ahead by purchasing all my boys red sweater vests. They were on clearance, which is my favorite word! I really thought by getting them early all I had to do was get the girls a couple of sweaters and life would be great! Well, sometimes I am really wrong. This would be one of those times. I have gone to what feels like 500 stores looking for something identical in both girls sizes yet to no avail. (They are size 6X and 7). Finally on Monday, I found the cutest little dresses for my girls at the Gap. How precious. I tried them on the girls and I just wanted to eat them they looked so cute! The dresses were knit green and white striped and I monogrammed them in red! Doesn't that sound scrumptious. So, I started laying all the clothes out on Tuesday after the kids went to school. When I picked up Ben's sweater, it had something on it. No big deal. I put it in the wash. Everything was organized and ready to go. When I pulled the sweater out of the wash, the stain did not come out. Have I mentioned that the boys are in to EVERYTHING? Guess what was on the sweater? Desitin. Have you ever tried to get Desitin out of a sweater? Let's just say I wasn't singing praise hymns while attempting to get it out! So, after much scrubbing and no luck, I called Pfizer (the manufacturer of Desitin). Guess what. They do not have any suggestions on what takes Desitin out of clothes. I thanked the customer service representative for at least attempting to get that information for me and went back to scrubbing! At this point I am getting desperate. All of a sudden, a light bulb flashed in my head. My last hope...Goo Gone. IT WORKED! Yeah. So the problem of the girl's outfit and the mystery stain have been solved. As soon as the kids got home, I started shouting orders. You get dressed. You, let me fix your hair. Don't touch that bow. Pull down your turtleneck. Ben and Will, come here and let me put on your shoes. Ty, help me! KK and MiMi, don't wad up your dress. Will and Ben, I said come here! Etc, etc, etc. We finally make it to the car. Half of the battle over, I drive to the Collierville Square. We get out and I am getting excited. I see a picture in sight. One thing I have learned over the years, many pictures are needed when you have a family this size. So, I am ready for this. I pull out the camera and shout a few more marching orders! I can do this! I get the kids posed and take the first two pictures. You won't believe this. My camera totally dies. I try to get at least one more shot. It works. Then, I realize my camera has died and resusitation is not in sight. I can't believe this. I take all the kids home and immediately plug in the camera. We are home long enough to watch an episode of Diego and we are off again. This time we meet with success. I got the shot! YEAH. But, it sure seems like it has been a fight to the finish. I think I will purchase everyones outfits for next year when Christmas is over this year. Also, if you get a Christmas card from me this year, realize that there has been alot of work in that little card. Post it somewhere. It will make me feel better.

Chip off the old block...

Are the holidays as crazy for you as they are for me? This weekend has left me with no energy, but full of the Christmas spirit! We have had something going on all day everyday for the entire weekend. I have to admit I love it though. I am not one to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. I love to be going somewhere, even if it is some little nothing errand. The thing is...when I had one child I could run all day. Now that there are five, I seem to be moving in slooooow moooootion! When I use to be able to run five to six errands in a morning, now I am really having a good day if I can run three. I wouldn't trade it for anything though.
I was trying to remember if I had a good kiddo story for you, but nothing is coming to mind right now. I am still studying Job. Yep, I am in slow motion on that, too! But, I am trying to absorb as much as I can. The main conviction I am getting out of it right now is that we need to be careful not to allow Satan to use us to hurt those we love. It seems like Job had enough sadness with loosing everything. Then the more you read about his wife and his three friends, you see that it just gets worse. I just so happened to read about his third friend, who also was the most critical of Job, the night after I had the most embarrassing thing happen. I was trying to take the kids to church to drop them off for a choir rehearsal when they all started bickering. I am a pretty patient person. Okay. Maybe I am just a somewhat patient person. We all have our limits and my limit was officially met when we drove up to church and they were still fighting. Just when my horns sprouted and I officially lost my temper by yelling at the kids, wouldn't you know that Ty just had to open the door. We were in front of the church and there sat one of the ladies that filled in for my MOMS small group leader several times. The look on her face could make me miss a few Sundays of church just from the shear embarrassment I felt! She blew it off and was quite nice considering I was verbally abusing my kids in the church parking lot! As I came home that night and was reading Job, my eyes were opened to how I am given moments with the kids to lift them up and make them grow emotionally and/or spiritually or to break their spirit and make them lose focus on God just from my lack of self-discipline. Can I just tell you how convicting that was? Satan allowed Job's wife to help at attempting to chip off pieces of Job's foundation of faith. Satan continued with his friends. Do I want to be that for my kids? Absolutely not! Yet, how easy is it for me to fall in to my old carnal ways. Please pray for me as this is not something I see just disappearing overnight. I need to be and plan on being in constant prayer over this issue. I think we, as moms, fall in to this quite often, so I will pray for you, too! I don't want my kids to follow in my footsteps either. How I desire to grow up great children of faith. Please stop right now and bow your head in prayer. Allow God to open your heart to this issue and let Him show you how damaging it can be.

Choo Choo!

We are starting this holiday season BUSY this year! Today, we went to the Collierville Town Square to see our sweet girls perform in the school choir. It was so cute. Then, we walked around the square to visit all the booths. Well, that is actually not true. I wanted to visit the booths. The twins found Happy Times Farm and we stayed there for 45 minutes playing with and feeding the goats, looking at turkeys and bunnies and just watching the kids faces with enjoyment. I literally had to drag the boys away to head to our next stop. We had lunch on the "Polar Express". My aunt has for several years had a cousins party where we get my moms siblings and all the kids together as well as some close friends of the family. This year, she rented one of the dining cars on the square and we all ate. They had the "conductor" read us the Polar Express story and we had lunch and dessert. It was really cute. Guess what. My twins didn't even sprout their horns. I was so proud! I am sure it has something to do with their fascination with Thomas the Tank Engine right now. Going back to the party though, I did find out that she paid $20/plate. WOW! The kids loved it though. I just bet her and her hubby's pocketbook did not like it that much! Then, we raced to basketball practice with the 10 year old. By the time we got home, I was exhausted! I can't figure this out, but I am still having that sleeping problem. I am wired, yet tired and can't sleep. When I finally do sleep, I crash. With that said, I have been going to bed after 1 am most nights and waking at 7:15 am. You have to know I am one of those people who is not very nice to be around without a full 8 hours of sleep. Maybe that is not the best way to put it. I am grumpy, on edge, moody, gripy, tired, and all in all not a happy camper. I am pretty sure my hubby is ready to camp out back tonight. In the back corner of the backyard. In a soundproof tent. Away from me. Am I making my point? I have not been especially sweet today! It is funny how we have those days. Girl, I tell you I really need your prayer too! I am slacking on my special time with God, too. The last two days, I haven't even cracked my Bible. You know what I don't understand? I love reading my Bible. I love feeling God's presence as He speaks to me through His awesome word. Yet, I fight reading. I am always thinking up something I "need" to do. But how I love it when I discipline myself. Seems like I am going over the same verses that I have got to memorize...
For discipline:
2 Timothy 1:7
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."
For anger:
Proverbs 15:1(with the kids)
"A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."
Proverbs 29:11
"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control."
For dependance:
Psalm 62:7
"My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge."
I am going right now to read my Bible and get in bed. Hope you have have a good night, too!