And now...Rachel

Well, I couldn't just write a big post about Mary Evelyn and leave out Rachel. Rachel asked to be interviewed like her sister, so today is the day. First I will share a little about this big girl that made me a mother. I do find it hard to paint an accurate picture of who these girls are in just a few paragraphs, but I will try.

Rachel is my dream come true. I always wanted to be a mom, and God answered that desire of my heart with Rachel. She was an answer to prayer then as she is now. I tell her that she was the first baby girl I loved. I remember being shocked that they let us take her home from the hospital...didn't they know we were clueless?! But they did and life has never been the same. Praise God!


Rachel is really easy going and obedient so if I am not careful I can forget that I need to be training her as much as the younger ones. She learns most things very easily but she especially loves anything that lets her be creative. She loves art. Her favorite date with Daddy is visiting the art museum at a local university. She is also quite the artist herself. She could spend all day drawing and making books or writing letters and poems. She passed me in artistic ability a few years ago. I have never been able to draw facial expressions or body positions like she does. Her attention to detail is so fun to see.


One of the greatest joys of the past year has been watching Rachel with Betsie. She adores her little sister. She almost seems like another caregiver. She is so loving and playful with Betsie. She can strap Betsie in the carseat, change a diaper, get her up from a nap, get her dressed or bathed, and so much more...all the while singing and talking to her and teaching her new things. Betsie calls her "Shaysha" and I love seeing their bond grow. Rachel will be a fabulous mother to little ones one day. She'll be an amazing babysitter in a few years too.

One thing I love about my big girl is how she can laugh at herself...what a precious quality. She is not easily offended which makes it fun to be around her. If she sees a funny picture of herself, she is not embarrassed but will be the first to laugh at herself. She is confident without being arrogant.

Now, I am not one of those mothers that think my children are flawless. I just don't plan on posting all their character flaws and imperfections in the internet! There are a number of ways that we want to help Rachel grow over the next several years that she is still at home with us, years that I know will be over WAY too soon. The good news is that she is teachable. She has a desire to obey us and obey God so I think we are very blessed in that way. I praise God for the gift of Rachel. I pray that God will help us now to sow the kind of seeds into her life that will result in a beautiful harvest in the future.


And now...a little about Rachel in her own words.


What are you good at?
Swimming

What is hard for you?
Rollerblading

What do you like about being in our family?
I like getting to go to Mimi's house every Christmas and seeing our cousins

How do you know we love you?
Daddy hugs me when he leaves.

How do you show your family that you love us?
By hugging and kissing and making cards

What do you like most about God?
He is powerful, omnipotent. He gave me a bed. I also like that He gave me a family. (Jen's note: yes, she really said omnipotent. And having an adopted little sister, she knows the sad reality that not every little girl has a bed and a family.)

What is your favorite book?
The Two Princesses of Bamarre

What is your favorite food?
Pasta

What do you want to be when you grow up?
A teacher

What is the most fun part about school?
Going on field trips

What are you afraid of?
Riding a bike down a big hill with no brakes...a mountain to be exact

Where do you like to go?
The beach and the swimming pool

Who are your friends?
Mary, Anna, Jenna, Rachel C., Katherine, and Betsie

What do you love about Mary Evelyn?
I like how smooth her hair is when you brush it.

What do you love about Betsie?
I love her laugh.

What is fun about being the oldest sister?
You get to do more stuff.

What do you like to do with Daddy?
Go roller skating

What do you like to do with Mom?
I like to go to the pool.

My Mary

Where to begin?

Mary Evelyn is one of those children that makes you feel deeply...whatever the emotion. She makes us laugh so hard. Sometimes, I weep over her. She can make me crazy some days, but on a good day, my heart swells with gratitude that she is mine, at least for this season. With Mary Evelyn, there is rarely any middle ground. She loves something...or she hates it. And you can't always guess if something will be loved or hated. Like schoolwork, for instance. Recently, she told me she could just wait until college to learn to read. Then there are days like today when we had FUN doing her reading lesson. What a gift of encouragement God gave me today.

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We are using Reading Made Easy, which is a wonderfully gentle approach to teaching reading. However, Mary Evelyn can get easily bogged down by the amount of reading she is required to do. Even if it's not that much, but just looks like a lot to her, she will take a long time just to get warmed up and get going. There have been many meltdowns over just looking at the page in the book. So...I have broken the lessons into smaller segments. I have covered up the parts she is not reading right that minute to make it less overwhelming to her. I thought I had tried everything. However, recently we got a dry erase board for our school that I am LOVING. I started writing out her reading lessons, one line at a time, on the board. She just reads what is there and we keep going until I can tell it's been too much or until we finish...whichever comes first. The great thing is that we usually finish because she ENJOYS reading this way. Hallelujah! If I could only describe what a blessing this is! Today when we had finished I showed her the manual so she could see how much she had read. Her eyes got huge with surprise that she had read so much. It was fun to tell her how well she had done and that I was proud of her. (insert happy tears)

Mary Evelyn is also my bug lover. I'm not sure if I'd call her a tomboy because she loves her dolls and stuffed animals and wears a dress almost every day. But she loves to be outside and she ADORES creepy crawly things. She can catch most anything too. And she can identify most of the bugs she finds. When she was 2 or 3, she used to sleep with insect field guides. Seriously. Now when we want to reward her, we just hand her a washed out plastic peanut butter jar and she is beaming with joy. I think I might just stuff her stocking with bug jars this year. Just watch...it'll be her favorite present. In fact, family members, if you need a cheap gift for her, that's my suggestion.

Mary Evelyn is also my very compassionate girl and my very thoughtful girl. One morning she decided to make Jason's coffee for him before he got down to the kitchen. She had never done this before but figured it couldn't be that hard. She had seen him do it many times. All she did was put some water in the coffee maker and turn it on. Jason had left the old filter and grounds in the last time he made coffee so she was thrilled when "coffee" came out. She had a cup all poured when he came in the kitchen. I wish you could have seen his face when he drank it! He gave her a quick how-to-actually-do-it-right lesson right then.

There is so much more I could say, but I want to give Mary Evelyn a chance to tell about herself, so I am going to conclude with a little interview. I hope you enjoy it! By the way I asked her these questions after I said she was an animal lover. I think this interview proves that point in a big way.

What are you good at?

catching animals, finding stuff, and I have good eyesight

What is hard to do?

to catch a scorpion

If you had ten dollars, how would you spend it?

spend it on a real live animal

What are you afraid of?

ummm...scorpions, but I still like 'em. I'm just afraid of 'em.

What do you like about our family?

That you let me go on dates with Daddy and catch frogs and turtles and snakes.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I'm gonna be a bunch of things. Work at Hollywild, work at the zoo, work at the aquarium, work as a veterinarian, and a doctor for people. And a dentist.

What is your favorite thing about God?

He made everything. And that he made animals.

What is your favorite book?

Animal books

What is your favorite food?

Pizza

What is your favorite thing to do?

Go to Furman and catch snakes and frogs and turtles

How do you show your family that you love them?

By serving them when they are sick. I bring you water and set out food for you for when you get up...like apples.

What are you thankful for besides animals?
My family

Where do you like to go?

The beach and Furman and the park

Yep, when she loves something, she REALLY loves it!

Sweet Betsie

Here are a few updated pictures of Betsie in our new garden. I can never get her to smile until after I take the picture. But I love these pictures anyway.

My Second Wind

Well, we had our first week off and we'll be starting back tomorrow (for our 6th week) as the public schooled children in our area go back for their first day. Just yesterday I was dreading another week of school. I was unprepared with my lessons and the house was messier than I like. Fortunately though, the lesson plans are all written out and the house has been put back together so that I can keep my sanity. One of the hard parts of homeschooling to me is that I seem to be able to teach or keep a neat and clean home...but not both! Ah well, I am still learning and growing and thankfully we can take a day off when we need to to put things back in order.

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Tuesday night I will get to go to this seminar and learn a little about making the most of our learning environment. I have heard great things about the speaker and am looking forward to seeing what might work for our family. One of our girls seems to be easily distracted so I am excited to have this opportunity. Family and friends, if you would pray that this talk would be fruitful for us, I would really appreciate it!

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The girls will finish their swimming lessons this week as well. These lessons were a gift from my parents and they have been so good for Rachel and Mary Evelyn. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) A month ago both were still struggling to learn to swim. Neither would jump in or go under water, even though they love to go to the pool! Now they both jump in, go under water, do flips in the water, and do various strokes. Actually, this summer it seems like some gross motor skill lightbulb went off in both of their heads. They have learned to ride bikes as well. Skills that we have labored over for a few years just "clicked" and now they are having a ball. Rachel has been asking for a pogo stick for a few years. Who knows...maybe now is the time!

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Sorry about those weird ** between paragraphs. Every time I tried to hit enter to create new paragraphs it would ignore it and jumble the whole thing together. I am on an older computer this time so maybe that's it. I'll try to fix it later.

He Will Do It

Last night I was at a support group meeting for homeschooling mothers. It was our kick off meeting for the year and was a time of sharing praises, prayer requests, and just praying for each other. Each of us was asked to share a verse that had been an encouragement to us in our homeschooling. Isn't it hard to pick ONE verse out of all of scripture that God has used to bring encouragement? I think so too, so I picked two.

The first one is the verse Nikki shared with me several weeks ago as I was starting a new school year. I was wondering how in the world I was going to do what needed to be done this year. Each year seems to present new challenges and opportunities for being s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d by God. Last year it was coming home with a baby from China followed by a season of sickness and dealing with getting it all done as she gave up a morning nap, etc. This year has its own challenges that can leave me fearful if I fail to remember His faithfulness. This verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:24 and it says, The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Yes, this is definitely an encourageing verse. I am sure God wants us to homeschool at this time, so it's good to know that He is faithful and that He will do it...because I am simply unable to on my own. By the way, I think a lot of what He will be faithful to do is to change me...not make my kids little geniuses.

The other verse is one that Jason and I memorized together a few weeks ago. I love to go to Psalms before I pray in the morning and then do my regular Bible reading. Sometimes (but not often enough), I get up early, read a few Psalms, then go for a walk and pray for each of my children and my husband, then I come back and read the Bible and pray some more. Those are the best mornings. One morning, and after a really hard day when I was completely overwhelmed, I ended up in Psalm 68 before my walk. Psalm 68:19 says Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Oh yeah, that was the encouragement I needed. I have meditated on this verse many times since that day. I do tend to try and carry the burdens myself sometimes. It doesn't take long to find that I just can't. It's just too much and my own sins makes them even heavier. What a loving God to carry them for me.

I am so thankful for God's word and the way it can bring us just the encouragement we need.

My New Favorite Series

I have to say I am surprised how much I am enjoying the Yada Yada Prayer Group series by Neta Jackson. There are 6 books out now with the seventh to be released soon. I have read the first five and the sixth has already been shipped from Amazon. (The library did not have that one.)



The basic story line is that a hodge podge group of women are "randomly" put into the same prayer group at a weekend Christian women's conference. They could not be more different and get off to a kind of bumpy beginning. However, circumstances lead them to continue praying together even after the conference. Over time they become close sisters in the Lord, but only after enduring and praying through many trials.


I love how this group hangs in there together even when they struggle with community. They hurt each other but eventually deal with it. They speak the truth in love. They minister to each other with meals, carpools, baby sitting, visits, and lots and lots of prayer. They make a lot of mistakes but there is always someone in the group who is able to draw the rest back to the foot of the cross.


I love the scenes where they are praying together. There are a few in the group who love to pray scripture and I love to do that too. And they make a point to always begin not with a long list of prayer requests, but with a time of praise to God.


This series, which would probably not be too appealing to most men by the way, is fun to read. I can read each book in a day or two depending on whether or not Jason is home to help with the kiddos. However, I am always challenged as I read the books. The friendships in these stories were built on prayer rather than what the participants had in common. They had little in common other than the fact that they belonged to Jesus, but they learned that this was the only bond that they really needed.


Big thumbs up for the Yada Yada Prayer group and sequels.

A Few Concerns About High School Musical 2

It seems that girls Rachel's age are nuts over High School Musical, including Rachel. She is saving her money for a High School Musical doll. It also seems that girls everywhere are getting all excited about this weekend's premiere of High School Musical 2 on the Disney Channel.

Before I share my concerns, let me say that I liked High School Musical. It was cheesy of course, but there wasn't anything that really upset me in that movie. I'm not crazy about Rachel wanting to own anything with High School Musical all over it. Marketing to kids like that really gets on my nerves...it makes me the bad guy when I have to say that word that nobody seems to know anymore, "no."

Also, before I share my concerns let me share a little of what I want for my girls. I want them to be feminine in the Biblical sense, not in the worldly way. I want them to understand the masculine and feminine roles that God has shown us in His word. I want them to learn to wait on God and trust Him for his provision and His timing. Pretty tall order and something that does not come naturally...for them or their mother. I also want them to care about the boys and men around them and learn how to be beautiful and feminine without being a stumbling block.

That said, here are a few of my concerns from the sequel. First of all it is a summer movie and some of the characters are hanging out and working as lifeguards at the local country club. My guess is this means less than modest attire in many of the scenes. Yes, we swim. I am not anti-swimsuits or anything. But I do try not to put unreal images of beauty in front of my kids if I can help it...or myself for that matter!

Perhaps my bigger concern is the competition for the boy between two girls in this movie. The website says that Sharpay's number one rule is to "get Troy." She seems to do this by offering him opportunities that he otherwise might not have. This puts her and Gabriella in a little competition for Troy. Ick. Maybe the movie won't be so bad, but good grief, this sounds like nothing I want for my daughters. And I know Rachel, she will want to watch it again and again and again.

Because of my "gut feeling" and because my concerns are still there after some time in prayer, I am saying no to High School Musical 2. Or at least, not yet. The movie will still be there later if I find out I am totally wrong, but we can't un-watch it once we have seen it. I keep thinking of things from scripture like be transformed by the renewing of your mind and I will set before my eyes no vile thing and be not conformed to the patterns of this world. Even if this movie is "okay" and my concerns are invalid, will it do anything to draw my child into a closer walk with Christ?

I am not condemning anyone who chooses to watch this movie. We watch more than Veggietales here. Much of it has to do with my own child and her tendencies. I am attempting to explain our seemingly against-the-norm weird choice for our family, and my own blog seemed like the place to do it. Mary Evelyn does not like High School Musical...she says it's too teenagey and we tend to agree. Too teenagey for a 9 and a 7 year old.

The Law of the Harvest

Reaping and Sowing...

This seems to be a recent theme in my thoughts lately. Recently one of my children was having trouble getting along with one of her siblings. I brought her into my room and drew a picture of a garden for her. I explained as I drew that if a farmer plants corn, well, corn is what comes up. There is no way that farmer can plant corn and expect carrots to pop up at harvest time.

Elizabeth George says in A Woman After God's Own Heart that we are what we've been becoming. In other words if you are healthy, it's because you have been doing things to stay healthy. You are reaping what has been sown. If you are out of shape, you probably have not been sowing seeds of regular excercise. I know that in a fallen world there are people who are sick not because of their own choices, but many of us have made choices that have caused us to have less than perfect health.

The law of the harvest applies to every single area of our lives: finances, health, relationships, etc. It seems like it would be a good idea to consider what kind of harvest you hope to have later on and then plants those kinds of seeds now. I hope to have a strong marriage that is as enjoyable in the retirement years as in our newlywed days (moreso actually). What seeds need to be sown to reap that kind of harvest? I also hope to have close relationships with my daughters. When I enter heaven I want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Have I done anything today toward that end?

I listen to Walk in the Word as a podcast. Recently, James MacDonald was teaching about this principle of sowing and reaping too. He made a point which I have been considering...you reap in a later season than you sow. The farmer plants in the spring but he harvests in the fall. I can see this in my life now. The good and the bad in my life is because of choices I have already made. This can be great news though...I can plant seeds now that will reap a harvest of righteousness later. I can choose how to spend my time, how to speak, what to eat, how to spend my money, etc. Yes, there are consequences for poor choices, but there are also rewards for wise choices!

Galations 6:7 says Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. But don't we live in a culture where it seems like people get away with stuff all the time? Don't many live like God can can be mocked? I am taking God at His word, believing that one day everything will be set right. Those seeds of both righteousness and wickedness will be harvested.

Something else I see in Galations is that we should not lose heart. I've never lived on a farm, but as a Little House on the Prairie enthusiast, I think I can say that farming is very hard work. There is a lot to sowing seeds and keeping the fields in good shape until the harvest. Maybe that is why we are encouraged in Galations 6:9 by these words, Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. It is hard to keep teaching my children when they don't seem to be understanding. It is hard to return a kind word for an unkind word. How many times have I said, "I am tired of this!" But God tells us to keep going...the harvest will come up.

So I am going to keep praying for a good harvest...good fruit...in my life and in the lives of my loved ones. I am asking God to help me remember these principles from His word. And I am asking Him to help me believe it too. I will plant the seeds, but I am trusting God to do the rest. He will be the one to send the rain and the sun. And I will enjoy the harvest in due time.