Pictures of Life Part 2...

Pictures of Life...

What I WOULD have blogged about...

It's official. I'm not a summertime blogger. We fill our days and weeks with too much activity for me to find time to blog! Summer moments are so fleeting when your kids are school-age (and go to school outside the home) that we try to make the most of every single one of them! If I were a diligent summer blogger, here are some things I might have written posts about, in no particular order:


*Our trip to Erie...cornhole, the beach, ice cream, haircuts, fishing, hikes, and lots of fun.

*Getting out of the boat and initiating a prayer group for parents in our public school district.

*Half-marathon training.

*Going back to Erie to say good-bye to my grandpa who passed away in June...and the sadness over the very distant relationship we had.

*How much I LOVE the book of Ecclesiastes.

*Hosting a Backyard Bible Club with some great helpers and lots of great kids from the neighborhood.

*Having a garage sale and letting go of all the baby stuff.

*Delivering food to, and praying with, some needy people in our community through our church's food ministry...great way to serve as a family.

*Forgotten God and seeing evidence of living more in the Spirit than in the flesh.

*Ethan and Karis competing in their first track meet.

*Bible study on Revelation and the minor prophets with some great girlfriends and getting to do my own book study on the book of Amos.

The one my heart loves...

There is no question that Mark is the man that God created me for. I wish the journey to him had had a few fewer distractions, nevertheless, I thank God for each day that brought me to the moment that I knew he was the one.

It seems crazy that it was 12 years ago {when I hardly knew who he was} that I was invited to tag along on a weekend trip to his house by some mutual friends {who I'm quite sure knew what was potentially brewing}. Twenty four hours later {thanks to those same friends} I was riding in the cab of a truck with him back to Malone. That hour and a half was all it took for me to know that he was the man I was going to marry.

It seems crazy that it was 10 years ago that he sat {shivering} next to me on a couch at my parents' house at the end of July. I couldn't figure out why he would be cold on the hot evening until a few minutes later when he got down on one knee in front of me.

It seems crazy that it was 9 years ago that {with butterflies in our stomachs and tears in our eyes} we pledged faithfulness to one another. We had no idea what the future held, we just knew we wanted to find out together.

Nine years {4 babies, 756 sleepless nights, 2 houses, 1 back surgery, and 8 football/cross-country and track seasons} later, I have never once felt the need to look back and wonder. While I do cling to many memories we've made through the last nine years, I know they are only the beginning of our story.

Mark balances out my emotionalness (is that a word?). He stands consistent in the face of my mood swings and has never once lost his temper with me, even though I have with him. He has amazing eyes. He makes every effort to understand my insecurities. He tells me on a regular basis {with all sincerity} that I'm beautiful. He gave me four of the most beautiful kids on the face of the planet. He doesn't need a special day of the year to show me or tell me how much he loves me...he does it all the time by being present and investing in me and our kids. He has sexy legs. He has to be the most selfless husband and father I have ever met. He probably is also one of the most capable fathers I know {I still recall, with awe, that he was the first one to take care of our one year old and one week old alone...while I went to the ER with some mysterious internal infection}. He understands why our house is almost always a mess or why he sometimes has to dig through a laundry basket to find a clean t-shirt {and has never once made me feel bad about it}. He loves the Lord with all his heart.

I could go on and on. I am blessed with more than I could have asked for. "...when I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go..." Song of Solomon 3:4

How Spring weekends are meant to be spent...

One thing that I am ADORING about this Spring is the fact that Mark is no longer coaching track. This is the first Spring in 9 years that he's been home at a reasonable hour during the week and isn't gone half weekend. It has been so nice for him to be able to be at all of Ethan's soccer games and take Karis to some of her gymnastics practices. That has made the financial sacrifice worth it. I know that I am so blessed to have a husband who understands the value of being with and investing in his family as much as he possibly can...especially while the kids are little.

Anyway, we enjoyed what seemed to be the first nice weekend, weather-wise, in weeks. Karis had her gymnastics recital on Friday night. My parents came down to see it and Mark's parents came along, too. Here are a couple videos of her performance. We were thrilled that she actually got out there and did her stuff. Karis is a girl who wouldn't get on stage at her Pre-K graduation, and practiced for weeks for a Christmas program at church then decided at the dress rehearsal she wasn't getting up in front of the church. She fell off her bike a couple hours before the show and skinned her whole left side up. Injuries are the one time the girl will draw attention to herself. You would have thought her arm fell off and leg was broken the way she screamed! It wasn't till about 5 minutes before we had to leave the house that she decided she'd be able to perform. We loved watching her and cheering her on in "her thing". (I couldn't figure out how to flip the one horizontal...sorry!)

My mom, the "master gardener", helped me put together some flowers for a big tiered flower post my MIL got me for Christmas. We had a nice time browsing the garden market down the road with Natalie. The girls enjoyed watching Grammy work her magic and picking up some tips on how to split the roots.

The guys spent the day putting together our new playset. The big kids have far outgrown the one we've had since they were 2 and 3, so we decided to take the plunge and go for a wooden one. We spend so much time outside, we knew it would get a lot of use over the next several years. It was great having my dad's carpentry/contracting expertise and power tools to help with the job.

More Revival thoughts

I wanted to share a couple more things about our Revival Summit...

I bought a set of CD's if you're interested in borrowing them. Or you can listen to the teaching from the week at Berean's website.

A great ministry that you can access online is Revive Our Hearts. I am currently doing their "True Woman Makeover", which has had some great teaching on the Proverbs 31 woman and is now moving onto to modesty and purity. I am also doing the 30 Day Husband Encouragement Challenge. Lots of good stuff to sift through on this site.

The whole week and a half was draining and refreshing at the same time. It's something hard to describe. The testimonies that came out of it were amazing. The Holy Spirit definitely moved. Which brings me to some thoughts on what the Summit did for me. I have been a Christian my whole life...prayed the prayer of salvation at the age of 4 and was baptized in 4th grade. This video from Francis Chan pretty much sums up how I feel like I've lived the much of my Christian walk:

Well, I'm determined to get off the "middle road". I feel like God spent the week calling me to let go of the complacency and fear of looking a little "crazy" and just tap into the power that the Holy Spirit offers. I want to be a believer that hears God's voice and obeys...whether it be spontaneously praying for a friend, neighbor, or complete stranger or paying for a random person's groceries, or sacrificing time and resources to serve wherever there might be need.

I don't feel like I know the Holy Spirit and what He makes possible for the true believer. It's like any good person could do the things I do. There isn't much that sets me apart as holy. Ever since I read Crazy Love, and read the excerpt from Forgotten God at the end of it, I knew that it is my relationship with the Spirit that is lacking and I needed to find out what being a Spirit-filled Christian should really look like. I know I was given the gift of the Holy Spirit when I prayed that prayer 25 years ago. And I know there have been times where His guidance has kept me from disobedience and moral destruction. But, I also am realizing that He has so much more to offer me if I know Him and His power in a real way. I want people to notice that "I've been with Jesus", to quote our pastor as he referred to Acts 4 this morning. So, I'm burning my ships (look up the story of Hernando Cortez to understand that analogy), reading Forgotten God and Acts, and training myself to conciously tap into that power. It feels good to see the Fruit growing as a result. I expect more changes in the days to come.

Beautiful Faces

I realized it's been quite a while since I've posted pictures of our sweet kiddos, so enjoy...