4 Years Already

Joshua is 4!

I'm gonna go ahead and give the standard mom exclamation, "I can't believe he is already 4!" Over the weekend we had a few new friends over for a birthday party, a Pirate birthday party of course. Joshua is still quite obsessed with pirates and his birthday was one big pirate whirlwind.  He'd been requesting his party be pirate themed for quite a while so he was very pleased to see that his pleas had been heard.

He had the best day! Lots of fun with his new friends, and of course cake, ice cream, and presents! Luke's parents sent a super fun pirate water table that the kids had a blast with. Our backyard has become quite the play place with the new water table and also a sandbox (Joshua's gift from my mother).The kids all ran and played, and of course pretended to be pirates. I was exhausted by the end of the day but luckily we had our Marci here to help out! Joshua was so excited that Marci came to visit this weekend. It was an added bonus that she flew here because that meant we got to drive to the airport and see all the planes too.

Today is the actual birthday and we've had a relaxing family day together. I took a few special pictures of my Big Boy and for some reason he wanted to wear his Superman footsie jammies in them. Of all the crazy things in his closet I think that he picked the craziest, but I wanted to capture his true character so I went along with it.

So hard to think that he's the same kid that was so frail at birth. God has already done such a work in Joshua and I know he isn't finished. We are so blessed everyday by his smiles, his giggles and his silly preschooler antics. If you haven't heard Joshua's story you can find it here on my blog: http://truepastorswife.blogspot.com/2011/03/joshua-miracle.html
It's an amazing one filled with God's grace, love, faithfulness and holiness.
Happy Birthday Joshua!

It's nice to be nice...isn't it?

I love being a Pastor's Wife.

I'm sure my husband would like to have that recorded and play it back to me sometimes when being a Pastor's wife becomes more than difficult. Over all though, I love being married to a Pastor. I have an amazing Godly man who leads our home and sets a great example for our sons, and I also have the opportunity to be nice to alot of people. As a Pastor's wife I am made aware of the needs of our congregation and I am often able to meet these needs and/or provided encouragement to those who need it. I love doing that! I love knowing that I was able to show God's love to someone who needed it whether it was by sending a card, cooking a meal, or just saying you mean alot to our family and you are loved.

I often read A Diary of Private Prayer (an amazing book I would recommend to anyone & was recommended to me by my dearest friend Marci). This book speaks to my heart always. It is written in very old English and has many "Ye's" and "-eths" at the end of words, but even the language seeps into my soul and is absorbed to (I hope) the point of making me a better, more Christlike person. If you've never read it I would suggest getting a copy, it has forever changed my prayer life.

The prayer I was reading a few days ago is the eighth day morning prayer.
                                            "O God, give me the grace today to think, not of what I can get, but of what I can give, Jesus Christ said, when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.  O God, grant that what I give may be given without self-congratulation, and without thought of praise or reward.

It goes on to continue being completely amazing, but this is the part that has lingered in my mind for days.  "grant that what I give may be given without self-congratulation, and without thought of praise or reward." I'm not sure about anyone else, but I self-congratulate myself like crazy!!! I didn't even know that a phrase existed to describe this action, but I am most certainly guilty of it! So how do I stop?!?! I have given this some serious thought since I initially read it, and here is what I have come up with:
1. stop self praising. I constantly do this when "blessing" someone. I write a nice card and the whole time I'm thinking about how they are going to think I am so thoughtful for remembering them, or I tell myself they are going to tell Luke he has the best wife etc. etc. It is self-congratulation at its worst.

2. Replace self praise with Thanksgiving to God. Instead of thinking of how wonderful the thing that I'm doing is, I replace it in my mind by thanking God for the resources I have that enable me to cook a meal for a family that needs it. I thank Him for giving me the skill and talent of cooking, for giving me their friendship that has blessed my life so that I in return want to bless their lives.

3. I stop making everything about me. This is by far the most difficult. I don't know why this is so easy to do but WOW, I see my kids doing this constantly and I am no different. I can take any situation and in 2 second flat boil it down to me and my feelings. This step will take much discipline, practice and prayer.

I just read in Great Days with Great Lives by Charles Swindoll where he says that the only place to be that is worse than the end of a self- willed life, is being in the middle of one.

AMEN! He goes on to say that when in life we cannot come up with the answer on our own we always assume we need more education and more knowledge when if fact what we need is more wisdom and discernment and those come from God and knowing Him more and being in His word more, and  listening to Him more.

Being a Pastor's wife has blessed my life in unexplainable ways. I hope that when I bless others they can see that it is God's love in what I do. I hope that I can step out of the way of my own actions and let Christ be seen in my own life.

God's Will-Inside the Red Sea

We've been having a great week full of new experiences and making our house into our home! I have spent countless hours unpacking boxes, hanging pictures and wondering how it is possible that we could own so much STUFF!

 A bit of a spiritual note for those who have missed that in my last few posts. My husband has been thoughtful enough (and also learned from experience) to give me a morning a week that I can truly spend in God's Word & Prayer. This is something that aim for everyday, but as a mother who is rarely found without a 2 extra pairs of blue eyes peeking over her shoulder, it is nice to have a day that I know I can spend quality, uninterrupted time focusing on God's will. This week I headed to a Starbucks in Denver and settled in comfortably. I have a devotional that from time to time I pull out and add to my reading: "Great Days with Great Lives". I wouldn't say that I love it, but I often find it hits me right where I need it, or offers me several "nuggets" that I ponder throughout the week. Moses was the focus of this weeks passage. A story that I've heard since I was probably 3, but it amazes me that the Bible is so timeless and consistently relevant that I can always learn something new or see something from a brand new perspective.

God's timing is found all throughout the story of Moses and the Israelites. There are so many times that God could have intervened or answered the people's pleas, but He waited for His timing and His plan. God's timing and Plan are perfect and have nothing at all to do with our own timetables, a truth that often frustrates me completely. My frustration however comes from my total lack of understanding not only of what the future may hold, but also who God is. Where then do I find a peace in trusting in God's time and His will? - in what I do know. The Bible is true. God is faithful. God was amazingly faithful to Moses even when there was no easy solution. He parted the Red Sea!! If that doesn't show that God is willing to do whatever it takes in the right timing, I don't know what does.

This had me thinking about our own lives (my family) and the timing of our move and where God's will is taking our lives. God could have chosen to move us at any time but he didn't, he chose now. In God's will is an incredible place to be, like inside the Red Sea, it is amazing.

A little Blurry, but the boys new tape recorder

Other mentionables of the week include a cassette recorder with 2 microphones that I scored at Savers for a dollar. I knew it was perfect for our kids when I noticed It had 2 microphones and not one. The boys LOVE IT! They have been singing and recording and playing back and loving it. I had to round up some blank cassette tapes, but one call to my mom and she had several in the mail so we are set for a while. Church has been great and Joshua is really enjoying Awana. Jonas loves going to the nursery during the service and I cannot even begin to explain how great it has been actually getting to hear a sermon "live". The kids also had a super fun time at Chick-fil-a today. We stopped in to have lunch and they got to run around in the play place there. Joe was so sad when we left and Joshua has already asked when we can go back to "Chick-Way again."

We are settling in, making new friends and seeing where God's will takes us.

The New House- A Work In Progress

Many of our friends and family have asked to see pictures of the inside of the house. If I wait until it is clean and everything is unpacked I'll be posting the house pics along with Joshua's graduation pics I'm afraid. Be warned that the house is NOT CLEAN in the following pictures, but they do provide a good idea of what our new home looks like. I have just begun the task of moving furniture around and actually decorating while I'm unpacking so hopefully this will satisfy the wonderment for a while :) We haven't painted in any of the rooms yet. We are going to paint Joshua's room first and begin that this coming week.

These first pics are of the living room/dining room area

The next pictures are of the Kitchen. I love the Kitchen it has just enough counter space without being so much you're constantly wiping the counters!

Joshua's room is looking good but will be amazing when we get it painted and the wall words etc. up.

I did notice that in this picture there is underwear hanging from the ceiling fan. hmm....wonder what else Joshua does when I think he is sleeping

 Our bedroom probably needs the most work of any room in the house. We've only unpacked a few things. But my mom did just buy us this beautiful bedroom set that we LOVE!

Joe's room is going to be super cute and decorated with Robots but for now the fabric is just hanging out on the window :)

The family room use the be the garage so it is really a large comfy room for watching TV and playing with the kiddos.

I love this room, I'm not quite sure how to arrange everything in it yet, but I love it!

Luke has his office at the church, but the house also has a home office for him (so cool)

Luke's been at the church working all week so he is no where near being unpacked at home.

There is tons of room for storage:

This is baby clothes/ Christmas decor storage

Where we are currently stashing our empty boxes, not sure what I'll put here later

This will hopefully be my sewing/craft area once we move our bikes and other garage items

Lastly is The kids' playroom. I plan to really work on this area and make it supercute!:

This house is in no way small. In fact there is a laundry area, 2 bathrooms and an extra bedroom that I didn't even take a picture of because they're boring and I already had so many pictures!! We are loving the house and as you can see there is plenty of room for company so feel free to come stay with us!

Coloradians

There have been a few minor bumps in the road since we arrived at our new home in Colorado. The pirate room seems to be on plan C currently. Once everything got unloaded from the moving trucks (which took about 3 hours, many men and a few women who worked VERY hard) Luke set to work trying to maneuver our crib into a toddler bed for Joshua. The plan was to convert the crib and then build a mast and add a ship's steering wheel to the bed to "pirate-it-up a bit". Well, in actuality the Crib doesn't turn into a toddler bed it turns into a transitional bed which will not work for a child as large as Joshua :(

Onto plan B for the bed we looked into buying a twin mattress and box spring and maybe making the steering wheel at the head of the bed attached to the wall.....well the cost was going to be similar to buying an entirely different bed at IKEA so Joshua is getting a very cool Plan C. The bed we bought for him yesterday is a little loft bed with a little cove underneath to play in and it has a tent that goes over the top. We are still planning on attaching the steering wheel and I will post a pic as soon as Luke finishes putting it together. He is hard at work on it as I type this. The last obstacle with the pirate room...for now that is....is that the bedding I ordered was for a toddler bed and not a twin bed. Well, my mother has agreed to take a look at the sheets and see if she can add some material and sew something together. Also, last night at target I purchased a pirate red comforter for only 10 bucks! I think that will look pretty good with the pirate blanket he already has.

Things are coming together slowly but surely and I think that we will start painting his room late next week! I'll get some pics of the house up as soon as I get enough boxes unpacked. We are hard at work making Colorado our new home!

6 days to go!

Quick update. The moving truck is here! Joshua and Jonas could not have been more excited when the Giant moving truck pulled up with 2 huge trailers. I'm pretty sure that all of Joshua's dreams came true when the driver honked the horn for him. So far the day has been filled with lots of excitement and Joshua chanting Col-o-rado! Col-o-rado! I'm glad that everything seems to be going smoothly and we are all very excited. One of the highlights of my day so far has been picking up lunch at Subway and discovering that February is any footlong for $5! In fact I was so excited I bought enough for us have 2 meals of subway and bought lunch for the guy behind me too! For those of you who don't know- Subway is the only fastfood chain within 22 miles so this is big deal :)

Soon to be filled!

From now until the weekend you may not here much from us. We will be packing, loading, tying up loose ends, and saying our goodbyes.  I ordered a new wall saying for Joshua's pirate room but probably won't get much more done on that until we are in the new house. Can't wait to start posting pics of our new digs!

Soon to be on Joshua's bedroom wall!

Bittersweet, what's the point of that?

One week to go! Lots done and still lots to do. The best news is that we managed to get most of our checking account money back, and the rest has been temporarily replaced by wellsfargo pending their fraud investigation. In other words we were finally able to buy milk, trash bags and other much needed supplies :) Praise the Lord, I know that situation could have been much worse.

Packing is going well and the Moving truck is coming is a just a couple of days. The reality of the move will set in soon as we begin to empty our current home until it is no longer ours. Every morning Joshua asks how many days until we live in Colorado. He has become overly enthusiastic about the change and consistently talks about his new home. I'm so relieved that he is happy about the changes and not sadly dragging his feet. Jonas of course would be thrilled even if you told him were going to live in a tent somewhere, he is one of the most easy going kids I've ever met (a blessing for sure).

Today is Luke's last Sunday preaching at MBC, he is baptizing one of our dear friends this morning. When she asked to be baptized Luke was thrilled, "I can't imagine a better way to wrap up my ministry here". This last week has been a mixture of feelings for us. Bittersweet for sure, although I'm reminded of a quote from The Office when Michael says: "That's why I hate bittersweet chocolate. I don't even... what's the point of that? Why not just sweet? Who are you helping?"

So glad that in just over a week we will be past all the sad goodbyes and stressful packing and on to the fresh starts, new friendships & excited unpacking!