Worship

Today, I had the best experience I have ever had with Ellie in worship.  I believe it is my job to teach her to worship.  It is not easy, at times, because she is 3.  When it is hard I try to remember that it pleases God a lot for her to worship Him.  Today as we were singing she was in my arms singing as well.  When I raised my hand or my husband raised his, she raised her's as well.  When we were praying she put her head down and closed her eyes.  She sat with her sermon notes paper in her lap and a pen during the service and "took notes" just like the rest of us.  What a blessing it is to worship as a family... the whole family!  She wants to know who Jesus is and she has the capacity for learning much in worship.  Is there anything else as important as teaching her to worship God?  What else will she spend eternity doing, but worship?  Tonight I am thanking God for the joy she was today in worship and the priveledge I have to teach her why we worship and show her how!  <3 

A good book on the topic... Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman

Making Pickles

Today I made pickles for the first time with the help of my friend Gwyn.  They need to soak in the pickling lime overnight and then we will finish them tomorrow.  Slicing 28 lbs of cucumbers goes really fast when you have a friend to talk to and laugh with.  I would not suggest doing it alone!  :)

"Camp"

So, two of my boys have been taking Tae Kwon Do.  The yougest for 6 months and the middle son for about 2 months.  They are really enjoying it.  At the facility where they attend there recently has been a push for summer camps.  My youngest son brought me the flyer with the "PLEASE!!!!!!! Can I go? PLEASE??????" not too long ago.  Well I talked with my darling husband and we chose 1 week of the several they offered to send our boys to "camp".  They started yesterday.  Drop off was from 7:30am - 9am.  I realize that many working parents need the early drop off time but since "camp" activities did not actually start till 9am I dropped my boys off a little before that time.  When my hubby went to pick them up yesterday evening Matthew broke down.  It is an understatement to say that he had a very bad day.  Apparently this "camp" really is just summer day care with a different name.  From what we gathered after talking to him it was organized chaos with very little "camp" activities at all.  There were lots of multi-age kids who were disrespectful to authority, downright mean to their peers, me-centered, blasphemers, and cursers.  My boys were troubled by what they saw.

 It is really hard to discern how much of this world we should let our kids experience.  On one hand, there is the "you don't want to shelter your kids too much" idea that says they need to learn how to live and deal in the real world.  I get that.  I do want my kids to live and operate in this world but not so they can be successful here.  I want them to live and operate here so they can be successful there, in heaven.  I am not raising my kids to be pagans like the majority of the community I live in.  I am raising them to be Christians, to be followers of Christ, and frankly I am happy that when they hear a child drop the name of Jesus Christ as a explicative that it is offensive to them.  I am thankful that they identify disrespect of an adult and it bothers them to see it and see it NOT being corrected.  I am thankful that they see me-centered attitudes as offensive and are troubled when they see all the smallest kids getting pushed around and bullied out of a chance at the pool table.  I am thankful that hearing children use the "f" word still bothers them. 

I do not want my kids to become successful pagans.  I want them to become successful Christians.  There is a difference.  I don't want them to measure their success by the world's standard.  I don't want them running after the pagan gods of money, popularity, and worldly success.  God says, "Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and their children forever!"  Deuteronomy 5:29  I pray my kids would have a heart that loves the things God loves and hates the things God hates.  I pray that so that it "might be well with them."  I want them to realize the difference between right and wrong and choose to do right.  I know they will fail many times as I have myself.  Ultimately, though, I don't want sons and daughters who can blend into the pagan culture we live in successfully.  I want sons and daughters who will stand for God and live set-apart lives.

Dinner

Went to the Virginia Homeschool Conference this past weekend and got to browse the Bread Beckers booth.  I started milling wheat and baking my own bread awhile ago and slowly and gradually have tried to add to my recipe collection of healthy meals.  I have found the "healthy eating" thing a little hard to navigate and unfortunately nutrition was something I did not learn when I was young!  I grew up on spaghetti-o's and white bread pb&j!  I have been learning and changing things as I go.  My goal is to make one positive change per month and stick to it!  So, while at the Bread Beckers booth I picked up some hulled millet.  This is a grain I have never eaten before and so my June change it to add millet to our diet and learn some recipes that use millet.  Tonight we are having a new salad.  Hope the family likes it!

http://recipeland.com/recipe_photos/zoom_vote/2542?iframe

Except...

I have been studying the life of Solomon in my quiet time.  This morning this verse stood out.  "And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places."  1 Kings 3:3  Solomon was using pagan alters to sacrifice to the Lord which had been forbidden.  In fact, the high places were to be destroyed.  (Numbers 33:52 and Deuteronomy 7:5)  Except.  What would go after the word 'except' in my sentence?  Megan loved the Lord, except..... 
I love the Lord.  I want my life to have a period there.  I don't want there to be an 'except'.  There isn't a period there, though.  The word 'except' stood out to me this morning because I have an 'except' in my life.  The truth is, God would be able to throughly list the things that could come after the 'except'.  This leads me to repentance and confession.

We must constantly be on our guard.  The world and her ways can creep in so quickly and before we know it we have compromised.  God tells us clearly in His Word what he expects, just like with reguard to the high places.  I pray that God will help me remove the 'excepts' from my heart and life so that I can accept His perfect will.  I pray He will help me parent my children in such a way that they will recognize when they have an 'except' as well.  Lord, help me be who I should be so that my children can see Christ in me.

Momma Date Take Three

While my mom is in town I have had the "momma date" with each of my boys and today was Nate's turn.  He loves doughnuts so we went to Krispie Kreme for some hot and fresh glazed deliciousness and after an hour of GREAT conversation he told me that what he Really wants to do is write books.  He is my imaginative, creative son who loves make believe so I was not all together surprised about it.  I was a little surprised however when he told me his book(s) will be about a mouse named Flinn who travels the world.  We have recently started "Around the World in 180 Days" by Apologia so I was thrilled to hear that Flinn's first stop would be Egypt which is the country we have been studying this week.  He told me Flinn would sail the Nile and see the Pyramids.  The more he talked about it the more excited he got... and the more excited I got!  You see, he has been a  little  very reluctant to embrace the new modified year round school schedule we began in June just when he thought summer should be in full swing!  Yesterday was not good and he received the rod of correction during school time.  The thing is, since that moment of correction yesterday, my heart has been praying for him and for our school in general.  I need God's wisdom every moment to help me school my kids with any sort of success.  He is faithful!  Today as Nate talked about Flinn I knew God was giving me the wisdom I asked for in that area.  He showed me clearly how to help my reluctant student become an excited student with the addition of some story writing.  This is new territory for me since my two older sons would rather be raked over hot coals than write stories.  God cares more for Nathan than I do.  He knows him better than I do.  AND He wants to help me disciple him if I will ask for His help.  Thanks be to God!

Luke

Luke's mom and I met when we were pregnant with our first sons over 12 years ago.  She has been a blessing to my life and our sons share an incredible friendship to this day.  Luke is the kind of kid you WANT your son to hang out with.  They love to hunt and fish together, ride bikes and shoot skeet. Today with Luke's inspiration they built a potato gun for some summertime fun from the book Backyard Ballistics!  Good times! 

Momma Dates

Today I will be taking my second oldest on a momma date.  A momma date is some special one on one time with me.  The kids seem to love it but I REALLY love it!!!  When you spend so much of your time as a family group, it is such a special treat to talk to each individual child away from everyone else.  I took my oldest last week and we had lunch and a great conversation about our school, his future, our upcoming trip to Uganda, and much more.  Today is date #2 with child #2 and I am looking forward to it!  I have to give credit to my dear friend Kim who taught me the value of these times.  She is a wonderful mother of 6 who encouraged me to start doing these one on one times which we have come to call the momma date.  Also on the agenda for today: dentist appointments, library, karate lessons and my oldest son is having a friend over to spend the night!  Whew, better get going!  

My mom has been visiting with us for a few weeks and will head home to New Jersey on Friday.  She has adjusted easily to the hustle and bustle of our busy home of 6.  She has been widowed since I was 15 and has lived alone since I left for college a couple of 19 years ago.  She has done all of my laundry while she has been here.  Lots of laundry!  She has joined in our regular family activity of "high/low" at dinner.  During dinner each night everyone shares their high and their low for that day.  She has had the same high and low each time over the last 3 weeks.  High- "Spending the day with my grandchildren" Low- "I didn't have a low."  How great is that?  She will be back in August to go to the beach with us.  Love her so much!

A blog?

Well I am starting a blog so that I can have it all in one place... all the thoughts, memories, joys, heartaches, and adventures of Raising Rainears.  I hope it will be a gift to my kids in years to come to look back on their childhood and read about our life together through their mom's eyes.  I am sad that I didn't start all they way back at the beginning.... better late than never!