A tribute to my Mother-In-Law

This morning we celebrated my precious Mother-In-Law's entrance into Heaven.  Knowing her, I am sure she made a grand entrance.  :)  She had a list of questions to ask Jesus and many of our Biblical ancestors and was excited to fill in the gaps for so many of our earthly curiosities:  to Mary, what was it like to know she was pregnant with the Son of God and finally feel Him move inside of her belly?  to John:  fill me in on what you didn't say in Revelation!  to the blind man:  what was it like when you first saw your parents after being blind all your life?  These were a few of many questions she and I pondered over... :)

She's met my precious PaPa who went to be with Jesus 13 years ago...  She's been reunited to her husband who died 36 years ago...  She has a new body with no back pain, no cancer, and as she told Cody won't have to go to the bathroom anymore! :)  She is standing in the presence of glory.  And she is experiencing joys we can only imagine...  Good for her. :)

Romans 8:13 encourages us, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed in us." "We grieve, but not as those without hope,"  1 Thessalonians 4:13.  

Her funeral services will be Thursday, December 2 at 10:00 a.m. at Southside Baptist Church (Joe will be officiating) if you want to celebrate her life with us or in your prayers.  Thanks for loving her and for loving us.  She's left quite a legacy of love to continue after her.  I am glad I am a part of it... :)

Angels' Pillow Fight

I am sitting here at the computer, sipping my delicious indulgence (swiss chocolate mocha coffee) this morning, telling the Lord how much I need Him today and listening to Him tell me how He has supplied all my needs in Christ Jesus, even before I ever asked.  My handsome husband snores quietly in the bedroom;  Erin is snuggling up close beside him in our bed.  My little boy just said "Mommy" in his sleep.  Two cats have been silenced with their breakfast, and Peanut (my dog) has curled up in my lap.  And now, I look outside and the beautiful, soaking, drenching rain that the Lord sent us last night has just turned into gigantic snowflakes!  Let me now just imagine the crackling of a fireplace.  Ah, a perfect morning.  Thank You, Lord.

I love the snow.  Especially this kind of snow -- huge, white, fluffy flakes that look like the angels opened their down pillows from heaven and shared the splendor of their pillow fight.  But I don't love the cold.  My nose gets cold, like a puppy's. :)  And I've yet to find the solution for that besides wearing Erin's clown nose, and who who wants to do that all day?  It seems befitting of the Lord, though, that even though we live in a world that the Bible describes as "fallen" and we bear the consequences of our own sin and the sins of others, the Lord brings us blessings in the middle of the cold.  Each snowflake, like His blessings, created uniquely by our Amazing Creator.

Now, if someone would just volunteer to build me a fireplace... ;)

Boo

We are pleased to introduce our newest family member:  Boo Stepp. :)  On Halloween night, after our dress up time was over and our outreach at Church had finished, Bodie decided that he wanted to see the bumbins (pumpkins) again, so I took one for the team, braved the cold one last time, lit the pumpkins, and admired our work.  :)  When suddenly, out of the night, we heard the sweetest, loudest meow ever, almost as if he were across the street, saw us, and yelled, "Hey, wait for me!!!"  And out of the night, the most precious little cat came to greet us. 

I, being the sensible mother I am (yeah, right?), and of course not knowing if the cat was healthy or nice, (but oh, so cute!) immediately told the kids NOT TO TOUCH!!  So, I did...  You know, just to see if he was okay...  In the meantime, this little kitty won the heart of my little girl and gained her good graces.  I got a good look at -- uh hummm, obvisously a HIM, and he looked perfectly fine -- beautiful shiny coat, sweet, sweet, sweet demeanor, maybe a little skinny... After all it was Halloween, and he was hungry, and I have heard of awful things that horrible people do to cats on Halloween...  I never intended that he would make it into the house!  When I told the kids that we needed to come in from the cold, I guess I wasn't explicit about letting the cat continue to be warmed by the pumpkins because once I got a good look at my children when we were all warm back inside the house, my beautiful Snow White had put her prince to sweet sleep on her chest.  He didn't move for an hour and a half.  Neither did she.  She just started her quest to convince us that her prince deserved to have a family...

Her first move:  she named him Boo because he found us on Halloween.  Her next move:  "Don't you know that if you give an animal a name, you get to keep him?"  Then: "Mom, I think I have fallen in love with him."  And her final move:  tears.  Sigh...  Truth was I had fallen in love with the fact that he had chosen my daughter.  And, it's not like I don't love animals too...  We have a dog and a cat already, and they both are really MY animals.  They love me and pretty much no one else.  I have always wanted her to have that special, sweet relationship that comes from an animal choosing YOU above all others.

It was getting late, and I was cowering in my exhaustion, so we laid out our "fleece."  I told poor Erin that the kitty HAD to sleep outside that night -- after all, we didn't know if he had any shots and we owed it to our own pets to not get them sick -- but if he was still there in the morning, I'd talk to Daddy and see if he would take Erin and Boo to the vet to make him ours.  After a tearful and heartbreaking, "I'm gonna miss you, Boo..." and lots of boo hoo hoo, we put a blanket out for him, watched him scamper away, said a prayer, and went to bed.

The next morning when I woke, Joe told me excitedly that he had checked on the kitty at three in the morning, and he was laying on the blanket!  (guess he won Joe's heart, too!)  I took a peak, and sure enough, there he was!  Erin awoke not long afterwards, and immediately wanted to check on Boo.  She opened the door, he meowed an excited good morning greeting, and ran to her open arms.  Precious.  She closed her eyes, held him tightly, and said, "I knew you'd stay!"  She didn't put him down all morning. Joe got the appointment with the vet, and Boo's quest was successful.  He was adopted, complete with golden tag and our last name to prove it.  I sure have a happy girl. :)

It sure reminds me of the excitement and peace I experienced when I was adopted -- into the Family of God. In my search to find protection, security, and acceptance in my life, the Lord scooped me up, held me to His heart, gave me rest, stamped His Name on my heart, and called me His own. "For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.'  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."  Romans 8: 15-17.

See you again in a week!  Thanks for reading!

A peak at our week

As you know from my prior posts, we are homeschooling Erin.  We started out with basic preschool stuff and have moved on to Kindergarten.  She is an eager, enthusiastic learner, is GREAT at math, and she is going to be a quick reader.  I got an idea from a homeschooling website, and after we tried it this past week, I love it.  We are focusing on Erin's school four days of the week (we can easily do that since she gets one-on-one time with her teacher all day, every day!!!) and focus on our toddler the other day. :)  The homeschool mom whose blog I was reading named hers "Toddler Tuesday."   But if you know me, I get a little OCD, and I can't imagine breaking our week up like that, so Bodie is going to have Fun Fridays. :)

We worked on the letter H this week, and I thought I'd share some of our work through the week.  This, of course, is not nearly all of it, but this is what I happened to remember to get pictures of!!!

Letter H, covered with Happy faces and Hearts. :)

Her number circle.  I downloaded these from Confessionsofahomeschooler.com and we really like them.  She counts the dots and clips the clothes pin with the correct number on it. :)

She is making words out of her vowel ladder.  She is working on "hat" and "hen" in this picture. :)

We made Haystacks for snacks. :)

And the timing fell perfectly -- H for Halloween. :)

We took Bodie and Erin to Jess and Doris' ranch and saw the Heifers. :)

 She LOVES to paint, so we painted pumkins, too, for Halloween. :)

These are a few of the highlights, with many, many more sweet spots in our week. :)  Here are our beautiful Snow White and Monkey for Halloween!  Have a blessed week, everyone!