Making brothers friends by working together

Don't ever underestimate the power of work.
Our boys doing projects together has brought more
unity than anything I could have taught.
Letting our older boys be "in charge" teaches our younger boys
to be under authority.
This is where training the oldest is so important.
You cannot put a younger child with an older one if you can't trust him
to lead in the right direction. I know you have heard the sermon
"Why satan wants your first born."
If you let your oldest ones be lazy and complaining how will your younger ones be any different?
If your older ones complain about your authority and complain about the job being done
I would not place any younger child under his authority. This attitude will effect your younger ones.
You want your older child to be respectful and a good influence.

Tucker is great with the younger ones, but he has had to be taught to be patient
and mindful of their age.
This is not always a fun thing to watch moms.
These are boys and the way I would want it done or dreamed of it being done never
happens, buttttt I'm not the one in charge, Tuck is.
If Coop comes to me and says "Mom Tucker wont let me pour the water"
I always try and be on the side of the one in charge..I'll say "Go talk to Tucker about it."
Their whole life is going to be filled with people not letting them get to do the 'fun' thing....
We can't and shouldn't fix it all. Don't make victims of them..Let them rise to the occasion instead of feeling sorry for themselves.
If I see a true injustice and it's Tucker's fault I will usually bring him aside and remind him
to be as fair as possible because he is trying to build a friendship. I will then give some ideas on how to fix the problem.

The end result is always something beautiful.

What in the world are we thinking?

I'm reading a great book called The Family by J.R. Miller this book is copyrighted in the 1800's but I love his simple elegance regarding the family.
He believes one of the down falls of American Families is the lack of relationships between brothers and sisters. He writes:

"Oftentimes the intercourse of brothers and sisters in the home lacks even the graces of ordinary civility.As soon as the door shuts them within, restraint is thrown off, selfishness comes to the surface, courtesy is laid aside. There is no pleasant conversation. Neither lives for or tries to please the other.
The speech is rude or careless and the whole bearing cold or indifferent. The better nature is hidden and the worse comes to the surface.
Instead of a tender idol of grace and beauty, the exchange is a harsh and painful discord.
Brothers and sisters are each other's natural keepers. If they fulfilled their duties in this regard, the one to the other, life would show fewer wrecks. They would shield each other.
They should be an inspiration to each other in the direction of all noble thought and better life."

I have often wondered what my own life would have been like if my brothers and I would have been taught that we had to get along.
That we had to respect each other,
We had to help each other,
We had to protect each other.

Parents have bought the lie that:
Our kids should be in every sport possible and thus keeps them away from the most important relationship of their lives. Brothers and sisters.
We have made it where little baby Johnny is so spoiled rotten that even if big brother was home he doesn't want to be around his younger part.
We have continued to strip the family down to just four walls.
No relationships, no duty for anyone except their own thing.
We cart around kids that are unappreciative and rude and we call it 'normal'........

I choose different...
I say it's not acceptable for a child not to be grateful if you take them somewhere.
I say it's not acceptable for a child to talk down or rude to their younger brothers or sisters.
I say it's not acceptable not to help prepare a meal and help clean up after wards.
I could go on.......


Mr. Miller writes:
"Is your home plain and bare? Must you meet hardships and endure toils? Have your cares and privations? Do you sigh for something finer, more beautiful, less hard? Call up love to wreath itself over all your home-life.
Cultivate home friendships. Bind up the broken home ties.
Plant the flowers of affection in every corner. Then soon all will be transfigured. You will forget care, hardships and toil, for they will all be hidden under lovely garments of affection."

Lets start today teaching our kids to be friends..
Teach our boys to be protectors.
Teach our girls to respect their brothers.
Be affectionate one to another.

Lets transform our home it starts with us.

Boys in the house and the house is packed...

I love having boys in the house. One min their shooting guns the next looking for an imaginary
treasure. Their boundless energy keeps you on your toes and their huge hearts makes mine melt at times. I try and teach the boys a wide range of things.. From cooking a simple meal to caring for pets. Gun safety or bb gun safety is always something that is taught early....
But matters of the heart sometimes are not easily taught.
My oldest son Tucker is very busy.
He has alot of chores and jobs along with school and boy scouts. He has very little time to goof off and even less time to himself.
Over the past few days our home has been a little turned up side down because Taylor has been sick. So how do you want your oldest son to step up?
Tucker started off making breakfast for the clan and then doing his regular chores.
He hid a treasure for the little boys cleaned Tay's room and had a tea party with 'flower.'
The smile on her face said a 100 times over what I could never express....True delight.
Teaching our boys to be multiply tasked will benefit them when they have a family.
Now I will say all days are not like this. You teach and encourage and 'wonder' if they have
grasped what your trying to teach them and out of the blue your 13 is caring a tea table to a private spot in the tea room and he has a princess on his arm..

Collecting Sea Shells

Galatians 6 v14
May I Never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus, through which the world has
been crucified to me, and I to the world.


I was listening to a message by John Piper this morning and it was powerful.

He told a story of two ladies in their 80's who recently died in a remote area of a third world
country when their brakes went out and they ran off a cliff and died instantly.
These two women, one a Dr. from Queens, and the other a single life-long follower of Christ, had
devoted their life to traveling from village to village. Sharing the gospel and mending the sick.
Comforting the lonely and holding small dying babies were just a few of their many task I'm sure.
He asked the question of their death "Was this a tragic death?"
He went on to say "absolutely not."
These two women had no inheritance to leave, they didn't have the stuff to pass down to the next generation. They died not able to boast about anything except the cross. They had nothing to present to the Lord except their lives work.

The next story was about a couple who worked hard their whole life. They had a plan to retire early. They worked hard and at the age of 51 and 52 they retired to the beach. They had a huge beautiful house and a great car. They collected sea shells every morning.
When at their death they were standing before the Lord the only thing they could say was "Lord,
look at our seashells. We have a huge collection. It took us years to collect all of these."
Their life was tragic, their death even more tragic.


Do we boast? Do we brag about the things we're good at or the area we're smart at?
Does our homes reflect the seashells in our life?
Do we build our children up to think more highly of themselves then we should?
If they are prideful and get their feelings hurt easily they probably have an issue with self..
Does our life reflect the stuff we have collected or the difference we have made for the Lord?

One thing I have noticed about the older couples and singles of this generation is the race in which we run to have more...
As the years go by the selfishness seems to be the race everyone is trying to win.
Better cars.
smoother skin..
better bodies...
bigger houses...
more toys than the rest...
trips to the casinos...
trips on big ships...
They somehow feel they have 'earned' the right to live selfishly.

The one thing I have noticed about the teenagers and 2o's is they too feel
they have the right to live their life the way they want to.
They want no responsibility and no one to tell them what to do.
They don't want to be accountable to their parents, teachers.
They are putting off getting married so they have more time to be foot-loose
and fancy free.
Most of the parents are in favor of this because little Johnny (who is 28)
can't take care of himself much less a wife and kids.

The generation in between are getting divorces at an alarming rate...Dads are hunting more,
playing more and working more...
Our society is filled with anything but boasting of the cross.

Even Christian families boast about how well they "have it together."
They have all the answers, unfortunately it's not the bible or the cross.
" We want you to be impressed with us or our life style, not our Lord. Our sea-shells may be different shaped but their still sea-shells. "

Where does this stop?How can we make a difference?
I say our fathers. Our dads have to step up and be leading our children in the
direction of home. Our boys have to be trained to be leaders not followers.
We have to stop giving our kids more stuff and start giving them more time to serve others.
Why do we feel so badly when our kids have to work harder than most? Is that of Christ?
Why when our kids are not in the rat-race we get comments like "poor little Taylor, she should
be able to live a selfish life like her peers" or "She will grow up to hate kids because she has so many brothers and sisters" etc.

We need to put this verse on the door-frames of our houses. We need to have a copy for our cars.
Our stuff means nothing.
Galatians 6 v 14:
"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world
has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

Standing before the Lord what will we bring before Him?
What will our life work reveal about our heart?

Wild At Heart

I was reading one of my favorite blogs the other day and came across her analogy of boys and horses and I just loved it. I also agreed with it totally.
You see we just recently gave away a horse we had hand raised since the horse we called 'Winnie' was 4 months old. We loved her. She was so pretty and beautiful.
When you looked out over the pasture and the sun was making her shine..she was breath taking.
She even looked good when you were looking at her from the fence line. Graceful and slick.She ran as though she was a prize racing horse, mane flying in the wind.


But when you got up close you started to get a little nervous. She had no discipline in her life.
She was rough and rowdy.She did not like to be led around by a lead rope.
She fought you the whole time.
Forget putting a bit her mouth. She was her own boss and she knew it.
She had a big problem with throwing her head up, nibbling at your fingers, and biting your arm.
She was pretty worthless. We bought food, and had someone coming over to do her feet every 3 months but it was all for not. She gave no enjoyment except to look at. She was a worthless horse and it was all our fault. We did not train her. We let her have way too much freedom and not enough time training.


We tried to fix all of these problems when we realized we had messed up in her training but she was older and trying to un-train her was beyond our capability. We had indulged her while she was young and cute but the end result was not what we desired.

On Laura's blog she wrote:
"Recently, I was correcting my son Jonas for some foolish behavior he had displayed. I also included Jerome as a recipient of my lecturing due to similar behavior on his part. As I was speaking, God gave me the analogy that when a boy acts foolish, he is like an untamed horse--he is acting wild, with no self-control, and is not useful to anyone. An untamed horse will not allow anyone to ride him, nor will he be fit to pull a carriage or a plow. A wild horse is good for one thing: to be watched, a spectacle. Isn't that what my sons' behavior is when they are acting foolish and out-of-control? A spectacle. In contrast, I told my sons that a horse that has been tamed has accepted the bit in his mouth and is willing to be led obediently. A tamed horse can be used for transportation, work, or leisure. A tamed horse has submitted to his master and is self-controlled."


In our society it's very common to see wild untamed boys all around us. Most people accept this as part of the normal process of boyhood until that little boy is not as cute as he used to be.
Then the same people who laughed with you while your little Johnny had a tantrum are looking at you with scorn and disapproval.

Most parents spend more time training their boys in the art of baseball than they do in training them to be leaders for Christ.

Is there a time and place to be wild and work off their boy energy of course. My boys jump, wrestle, act goofy ete......but they know the time and place..(most of the time.) We are still training.
In Eccl 7 v18 it says The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.
There is a time and a place for everything...

We have got to take our training seriously. I know some who don't train because they think their angel is too young and don't understand what is being asked of them. I say guard yourself..
It's very dangerous when you put off training......Before you know it you have a 1000 lb horse that refuses to be led and there is nothing you can do about it.......

Beating the cold North Wind

My friend Anna brought over a bunch of old toys her daughter no longer played with. We dumped them in the floor and let them search out their favorite find.




Our Bath-tub was transformed into a mini swimming pool this afternoon.
The temps are so cold out side and yet in our little slice of heaven it's warm and cozy.

What if we would of said "no"

"I understand that you couldn't make room -
that there wasn't a place,
I was not of your womb.
That my age was all wrong,
and my history belonged,
to a place and a people you know have all gone.

I see in your eyes that my life was a chore,
that my needs were too big,
my emotions to raw.

That you were afraid I might never leave home,
or I might find anger and by failure be known.
That my heart was too broken
my mind was too slow,
That the drugs in my system
defined me, you know.

And maybe, just maybe,
I wouldn't love you -
for my mind was too battered
too deep were the wounds.

But I wish you had tried,
I wish you had found room,
For this one tiny boy who
so achingly stood
and looked in the windows and watched
as you prayed,
and asked the Lord Jesus
to move you each day.

To bring out the family
that He had prepared
but none came forward
as I stood lonely there.

I understand - that man would say
my childhood has slipped away.
I have a father, this is true,
I know the same strong God as you.

But I wish that I had, had a mom,
a brother, a sister, a dog, some lawn.
That you had tried to reach me there
not left me to my own despair.
To people who were paid to feed,
and paid to wash and paid to read.
To those who didn't stay too long
and those who chose to teach me wrong.

I wish,
that you had found a way
to wedge me in and let me stay."



from Urban Servant



Adoption is not an easy road, but it is a road.
It has changed our lives Forever. The things our
family have learned will stay with us a life-time.

The little girl who visits from time to time

The little girl from years ago often cries out in the dead of night to be heard.
Her tears so very much real. The pain of not having a father who loved her as only a father can do. The fear and sleepless nights that this little girl survived. The many times she had to run away from the very person who was supposed to protect her.

The reality that all hope is gone for this little girl to ever believe that maybe he would change his mind.

The hope..The one thing the little girl always believed in.

Maybe one day he would come to her door and tell her how very proud he was of her.
He would tell her how he wanted things to be different .How he wanted her to be his little girl after all.
But sometimes happy endings don't happen. Sometimes your hope dies and your left to wonder.

Sometime the voices in my memories are not all good.
Sometimes it's the voices of those years that are so deafening.
The words of insult. The words that cut so deep that you cry yourself
to sleep. The words that no little girl should hear from a father.

Those voices don't last long now. I have a family that drowns out that voice.
I have a heavenly Father that yells over that voice.....Yells over the voice of my earthly father....... The Lord reminds me time and and time again that I'm His.

Sometimes I walk my way back down memory lane and cry for that little girl.
I cry for her loss.
I cry for her having to run and I cry for having to endure so much.
I long to tell her that everything will work out ok.
I long to let her know that God has a huge plan and this will make her strong and she will understand years from now..
but in reality I think she knew..
I think that's what kept her going.

The little girl comes to my dreams from time to time and the memories are just a blur but she
finally understands that the Lord has healed her. He has made her whole......
by just One Touch...
He has given her a life that she could only imagine.
He has given her an incredible husband who happens to be the best father in the world.
He has given her Hope in Him......


The wounds have healed and the hurt pops up from time to time
but I'm thankful for the past
and I'm thankful for how the Lord used it to grow me and to show me how much I need HIM.



Lyrics:

Been ostracized for 12 years
I’m used to being alone
Spent everything I had
And now it’s gone
I’m used to being put down
My issues tell it all
My only hope is anchored
In this fall

Chorus
If I could just touch the hem of His garment
I know I’d be made whole
If I could just press my way thru this madness
His love would heal my soul
If only one touch

So many people calling
How could He ever know
That just a brush of Him
Would stop the flow
If he knew would He rebuke me
Or shame me to the crowd
Well I’m desperate ‘cause it’s never or it’s now

Chorus

Suddenly He turned around
He said somebody has unleashed my power
Well, Frightened and embarrassed I bowed
You see I told Him of my troubles
And how…

I had to touch the Hem of His garment
And I know I’ve been made whole
And how I had pressed my way thru the madness
And His love has healed my soul

Then with one word He touched the hem of my garment
And you know I’ve been made whole
And somehow He pressed His way thru my madness
And His love has healed my soul

I tell you He touched me
He reached way down and touched me
When no one else would touch me
Jesus, shol’ ‘nough He touched me…
And I know I’ve been made whole

The little thumb sucker

.The ultra sound room was dark and as the technician waved her wand around my belly I layed there and watched her face for any kinda of concern. She wasn't saying much and had her mind on doing her job. Finally, I blurted out "you see a heart beat don't ya." She glanced at me and said "oh yes he is fine." I just have to make sure everything is normal.
Normal what a concept.
I'm laying there in a dark room with dark thoughts of the past and my heart is filled with the words "everything looks normal."
Your baby looks great.! He weighs 9-ozs and he is sucking his thumb...Normal.....
as I think back to our little baby we lost in March I have to say she or he was Normal also.
Just like God designed. He makes no mistakes and ab-normal to us may be beautifully normal to the Lord.
Willy T as we affectionately call him around here is normal by the doc's standards and we are happy that He is growing and thriving and sucking his thumb.....shoot I'm happy he has a heart beat.I don't take that for-granted.

Seeing his life, Seeing his heart beat, Seeing his ears, Seeing his toes, Seeing his fingers I'm sorry but that's so far from normal.
It's a miracle..
Me being able to carry his little life inside of me. Me being able to feel his little feet kick and move. Being able to see his kidneys, his bladder, his stomach, his mouth opening and closing.............. Seeing him suck his thumb, may be normal for some but not for me.. I don't take his little life for-granted. I guess if you have traveled the road of losing a couple of babies you realize that there's not much normal in having a baby..... only Miracles.....Precious priceless gifts.............

I want to stop and give God the Glory for Willy T's life ....
This child is an answer to our prayers, not a mistake but a miracle.





Not the best pic up top but his head is on the right and he is sucking his thumb.Right thumb..
He has gotten bigger so the pics are not as clear as when he was smaller.

Going to see my baby Willy T.

Today we are going to the Dr. We get to see this little life inside of me .I want to share this with
the rest of my family. I want them to be able to catch some glimpse of this life that I share everyday with.
I feel his kicks, I dream of his little nose and I can't wait to see him on the big screen.
He is starting to move around alot during the day and for you mom's out there you know
how great of a feeling that is when you stop and think about life inside you.
When I look at Channies foot and think she used to kick me as well It's amazing.
I will put up up-dated pics when I get home.
Please pray that Willy T is safe and all is well..

Willy T is short for William Travis.....I know,I know we have had a very hard
time sticking with this boys name but I think this is it...

rob

Things I've done today.

1. Ate breakfast with my hubby and kids.
2. Listened to my husband teach on being vigilant and ever watchful
for the adversary.
3.Spring cleaned the boys room with their help(well actually they did most of
the work and I bossed from my perch)
4.Ate an incredible lunch with some interesting people 6 of them to be exact.
5.felt and numbered the kicks of my little one growing inside of me.
6.Watched a American girl movie with those same interesting folks I had lunch with.
7.Put the little ones down for a rainy day nap, mom also relaxed beside them
8.Tip-toed up stairs to spend some time with the older kids and to get help with school work
9.Listened to several piano pieces by my talented daughter.She and I solve most of the worlds problems in one sitting.
10. Watched and laughed as my older son rapped his home-work to me.
11.Taught spelling
12.Taught math
13.Played dominoes with Cullen and Channie and Jo.
14.Read a book 4 times to Channie because she LOVES it.
15.Snuggled with Jo and listened to his incredible laugh as I wrestled with him
16.Assisted and aided in the making of supper
17. Talked to a friend for a few min's as she deals with the heart ache of watching her
mom suffer.
18. Continued to teach manners I have to do this every-day.
19. My 5.30 phone call that I can't miss from my hubby we do most of our communicating
via phone.
20.Ate supper with the my best friends.
21.Watched hubby and kids clean the kitchen.
22. I put out tons of fires.
23.I wiped noses
24.I dried tears
25.I kissed boo-boos
26.and changed diapers
27.I am a wife and a mother and a friend
I would not leave my post for anything

My life may not be for every-one but I wouldn't trade one thing on my list
to be any where else in the world.