Time for Vay-Cay

hmmm... my post just got deleted. anyways. Were off for a week and a hjakf to the cold north! Wont be blogging! Bye!

Bedrooms, babies, picnics and books and baking

I'm a lame blogger, I've said that before so here is a quick.. sorta.. update on everything we've been doing. Ayden spent a week in Colorado two weeks ago. While he was gone we redecorated his and B's room. We dropped him off at the airport, delivering him into Ehren's care and then headed directly to Ikea. I will admit my husband was more excited than I was. We were easily pursuaded to buy a loft style bunk bed, thats mid height so as not to be too scary should Ayden fall. I had seen this in the catalougue and never thought to put a bed under it, but thats how Ikea had it set up and voila. Perfect for my two small boys to get a great nights sleep. As for mattresses they are on air mattresses for the moment. We'll deal with that later. We then bought new cheap bookshelves at walmart and I painted the cardboard backing on them to match my awesome finds at Ross. We had no twin bedding so we had to go get sheets and blankets. Ross happened to have two matching Eric Carle sets, YAY! So my idea to bring some COLOR into their room fell into place perfectly. After some painted letters and rearanging we have this:

Babies: I have become a bit focused on reading blogs about sick babies. I'm not sure what to do with that. I'm thinking a prayer blog may be in the works. I've prayed for Stellan and Jonah for two weeks now. Along with thousands of others. It gets me thinking... these two are like celebrity babies now.. what about the hundreds of other babies. Maybe babies whos mamas dont have the blogging bug. They need to be prayed for too. They need their financial needs met as well. Typing my thoughts.. maybe March of Dimes would be a good place to start. For now. Keep Praying for these two.
Pic-nics: We went to a church picnic this Sunday with our new Friends at Grace. We are so excited to be developing relationships. Lucas went to lunch with someone yesterday and is playing ultimate frisbee tonight. I'll ne joinging a ladies book study group soon when they start their next book. We are still going to our old small group and are perfectly happy with that! We love being able to meet once a week without our kids with grownups for dinner and conversation prayer and a peek into the Word.
Books: I was talked into reading the Twilight "saga". While on one hand I feel I am completely wasting my time.. on the other I'm quite interested. but still annoyed. Vampires. Seriously?
Baking: I made my first Challah. Lucas wants to keep Kosher, somewhat at least, for Passover starting next week so I pulled out my Jewish cookbook. (Which I bought back in college to have on hand to impress him...) Ayden and I made bagels.. turned out ok.. a bit doughy and I made my first loaves of Challah. The first one was too big and split in the middle and seemed really dry. The second two (i split the dough in half) turned out better. I used honey in the egg wash at the end instead of sugar and on one I put sweet spices like rosemary and lots of kosher salt. Yum. We had homeade chicken parmesean in the sandra lee semi-homeade style and our yummy hot Challah. I learned a lesson about God while I was baking, but that's another post! Here are some other recent pictures since I have been hiding from my blog...

Why I'm grateful today

We've been searching. For a home, for stability, for something, for a church. We were attending a church this past year, joined it, joined sunday school and a small group. Lucas got baptised, we dedicated Balin, we never found it a fit. Week after week I left frustrated, or tired, or annoyed, or sad. I'm sure the church is reaching people. I know people who are thriving there, but for some reason I was not. WE were not. So we've been searching. It started with some visits to other nearby churches. Just to see. We've also been looking online at houses, and spending our evenings driving around town. Searching for a home. Just to see. We even applied to get pre qualified for a loan. Just to see. We were rejected for the loan. Apparently we have too much school debt. (anyone else as NOT surprised as we are?) so we've stopped that search. We are keeping our eyes open for rentals, but our lease won't be up until the end of May so thats kinda pointless. But for the Church. The first one we visited was charismatic. Joyful. Strange. They remarried us. I laughed that we were on a secret taping of Dr. Phil as he called all the married couples up to the alter and had us repeat our wedding vows. Our vows were not typical so it was a first time for us. Again. It was strange, but an experience. Then we got to pet a hedgehog that was visiting the children's ministry. Again. strange. So that wasn't home. I then was encouraged by my sister and a dear friend Becky to look up PCA churches. It's a branch of the Presbyterian church for those who don't know. Conservative. Believe the Bible is inerrant. Use a more liturgical service style. I've been more of a free spirit kind of gal. Non denominational. Band style worship. But we're searching, so I figured it was worth a shot. The building they are meeting in is a museum... literally. A manuscript museum that was oringinally the Opera house. A small building, it has old fashioned curved wooden beautiful pews and a white alter area with an organ. The walls are tall and covered by windows. There is a balcony area. Everything is yellow, bathed in natural light and simple. Beautiful. I've been finding worship noisy lately. Noisy with the sound of controversy and pride. Noisy with man made attempts to entertain a congregation and fit into an image a pastor has created. Noisy determing who gets to be the soloist and who gets to play the guitar. I'm searching for rest. I need a way to enter into the throne room and be still. We walk into this church and were gently and honestly welcomed. People actually seemed to want to know us and who we are. EVERYONE said hello and tried to go beyond the "good morning, how are you, fine" conversation we are so used to having. Within minutes I knew the names of two other homeschool families, another oil services family and the names of other mothers of multiple children. Within minutes we were hearing Grace preached out of love and authentic Joy. The worship began with strings. Piano, violin.... and hymns. I've avoided hymns. "Theyre out of date" "theyre not interesting" "they are boring." I was quickly reminded that in their beautiful simplicity the love our ancestors had for Christ Jesus was expressed clearly and wonderfully. Songs written not with churches of thousands in mind, but of the heart of one man for his Father.This past weekend I got to go on a ladies retreat. Friday evening and all day SAturday I got to sit without my children and listen to women share Biblical, Grace and Gospel focused lessons on community and discipleship. I found two other women with stories earily similar to mine in terms of how they got their first children. I found a purpose for my addiction to blogs about women who are carrying terminally ill babies to the end of their pregnancy (God's timing)instead of terminating at the Doctors will. A woman shared that her neighbor was on the cusp of that decision after finding out her baby is developing at 4 1/2 months with no skull. I got to pray for this stranger and bring her resources I had quietly been collecting over the past few months. I see opportunity here to grow and to love and befriend. The pastors started a classical school that though I can't afford it, I'm sure I'll be able to glean from. There are several other homeschooling families that I can get to know and Ayden can play with. There are men who Lucas can also grow and learn from. The Lord clearly directed us here. No more searching. We found a home.