We just spent a week in the mountains.
Just the family and the outdoors.

It was great family time....
A great refresher...
and just a little sad to be back to "fast pace" living.

Of course I took LOTS of pictures...
now to the hard part of picking out the best.

I'll share with you soon.
I'm taking the day to relax...
not really...
we have to get the kids' rooms cleaned for company that's coming.

Happy Birthday Kaylie Joy!

Today my baby is SIX years old.

How did time fly by so fast.

As she is growing, we are seeing her personality more and more.

She loves to sing.
She loves dresses.
She loves to color.
She loves pink and purple.
She loves girl time.
She loves "her boys".
She loves her daddy.
She loves me.

She LOVES dogs!
If there is a dog in the vicinity she will make it a point to go up to the owner,
no matter who it may be,
to say "I like your dog."


I keep having the conversation about strangers to her but her philosophy is,
If they have a dog, they're good people.

She has no qualms about stepping into the middle of dogs playing to split them up.
No matter that they each weight 2-3 times as much as she does.

She is also loving horses.
Thankfully we don't see horses every time we go to the park,
otherwise she would be running up to the people saying,
"I like your horse."

But she plays with horses,
buys horses,
checks out horse books,
and sometimes she IS a horse.

She seems to have no fear. (Except for spiders and at bedtime.)
She knows no stranger. (Just like her daddy.)
She can play, fight and get dirty with the best of them.
She makes "friends" every where we go,
it doesn't matter that she doesn't know their name,
that's not important to her,
they are her friend!

She is funny!
She makes me smile.
She is a JOY!

Wait For It

"Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained..."
Proverbs 29:18 NAS

"Record the vision
And inscribe it on tablets,
That the one who reads it may run.
For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay."
Habakkuk 2:2-3 NAS

Being the "profession" Jeff is in I hear the word "vision" a lot.
I'm use to it in the church setting.

These words spoke to me in a book about homeschooling.

My vision is getting clearer,
the Spirit is leading our family in a new direction.

I have to remember,
at home and in ministry,
the "the vision is yet for an appointed time"
and "though it tarries"
I'm going to wait for it
"For it will certainly come."

Keep His Company

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?
Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life.
I'll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.
Keep company with me
and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

- Matthew 11:28-30, The Message Bible

I've read these verses many times,
but never in The Message.

I love it.

I get tired,
worn-out,
and burnt out
way too often.

I want real rest.
I want to recover my life.
I want to learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I want to live freely and lightly.

And I have.
I know this.
I've experienced it.

But still...
I easily slip back.

That tells me that I'm not keeping company with Him.

Are you?

Struggle

"If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle
until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all
the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God
to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone
else. Go through the winepress of God where the grapes are
crushed. You must struggle to get expression experimentally,
then there will come a time when that expression will become
the very wine of strengthening to someone else; but if you say
lazily -- "I am not going to struggle to express this thing for
myself, I will borrow what I say," the expression will not only
be of no use to you, but of no use to anyone. Try to state to
yourself what you feel implicitly to be God's truth, and you
give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you.
Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think
out what it accepts easily. Our position is not ours until we
make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you most
is not the one who tells you something you did not know
before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that
has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance."

-Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest

You will probably have to read this through a few times to really get it.

Read that last sentence again.

Have you ever gone,
"Aha! That is exactly what I'm thinking, or going through, I just didn't know how to put it into words."

I have, so many times.

What good are our struggles and trials,
if we don't struggle to "re-express" ourselves
so that others can get some good out of it,
and just maybe be drawn closer to the Living God.

He Knows Me

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

¹ O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

³ You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

⁴ Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

⁵ You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

¹⁹ If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.

²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?

²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

This is my favorite Scripture.

There is so much I love about it.

The blue, shows me how personal He is.

He knows each of us.

The red, means a lot to me.

I've always struggled with fear and that verse is security for me.

He is before me, behind me and His hand is upon me.

I'm surrounded by the Almighty God.

The fact that we each are fearfully and wonderfully made,

shows that "God makes no junk."

It's all good!

Read it again.

Bask in it.

Soak it up.

Be in awe.

I'm in awe!

He IS Faithful

For the next few days I'm going to share words that have spoken to me recently.

"Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
if we are faithless,
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself."
-2 Timothy 2:11-13 NIV

These verses help me to remember that God is faithful to me
and to what He has called me to do,
even when I mess up
or when others aren't faithful to Him.

He's not going to let my fall because someone else doesn't listen to His call.

A Boys Day

On July 9th, the boys went one way
while us girls went another.

Jeff was going to take all the kids hiking on that Friday,
while I went and did some reading for homeschooling.

Plans changed last minute,
because Kaylie cried out that she wanted to stay with me.
I let her.

So we went and had lunch,
did some shopping
and then came home and watched a movie.

The boys went to Loveland Pass and hiked.

These are the pictures of their time together.



And then the batteries died.

Zippin'

So my inventive son,
who can just about do any knot and can create anything from a pile of scraps,
worked to create a zip-line,
with the help of Landon.

All he needed was several ropes, a chain, a pulley, and a couple of carabiners.



They used some tire chains, that they picked up from some garage sales,
as a ladder to get into the tree.
Which Kaylie is modeling on how to use.



Also needed was a brave little brother,
who was kind of like the chimpanzee's sent to space,
to make sure it was safe.



They even figured out how to get the rope back to the tree.



Once deemed safe, the rest wanted to go too.



Things were fine tuned so those who couldn't climb up in the tree could still enjoy the fun.
All friends worked together so all could enjoy.

~July 20

A Trip to the Dentist!

A year ago, we had allotted so much money for the dentist
(because I had dental work that was needed to be done since my pregnancy with Landon).
Once my work was completed I took kids in,
one at a time,
in the order I thought was most needed until the money ran out.
Preston and Landon got in and the money ended there.

Well, Tanner and Kaylie have been waiting,
and waiting,
and waiting,
until we saved more money so they could go to the dentist too.

Before we saved the money,
the same lady who donated her services to us last time,
came to me and said she worked it out where the whole visit would be free,
not just her services.
(I believe this was totally God's faithfulness to us, and a blessing for our obedience to Him.)

So Tanner and Kaylie finally got to go to the dentist,
and they were very excited!!!

In "the chair".



Up close and personal.



Checking out each others mouths.



The dentist, Dr. Teri, and Ms. Laura.



We once again left the dentist office with NO cavities!!!

So we had to celebrate!

~July 13

Frisco Trip - Part 4

This is the final part of our Frisco trip. Catch up on Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

It was our final morning.
Once again, because I'm not a morning person
and the rest of the family gets up at the crack of dawn.
Jeff was able to get some pictures of the morning sun over the mountains and lake.


We then decided to go on a nature hike.
This is what the lake looked like by the time I finally got up and around.


Starting out...




The wildflowers... and a squirrel...





Heading back with feathers in tow...



I then went back to the condo to start packing and cleaning
and Jeff took the kids to the lake to look for frogs.

He must have not gotten any pictures because Landon and Kaylie are in no pictures
and they returned back to the condo before the others.
Landon isn't really big on lake water, he wants to "swim in clean water."

There was some pictures of the the older boys messing with this log.


They returned from their frog hunt (minus the frogs),
ate lunch and then we got everything cleaned, packed, loaded
and we were on the road back home.

~July 3