Grateful Acres

...It's time to tell the Devil he's barking up the wrong tree. Do what you will to me, I AM NOT SWITCHING SIDES. Hand me the sorrows and loss you have intended to destroy me, I WILL NOT DENY MY CREATOR. I've blogged about this before, but it's time again. There have been too many children lost in our community. Accidents, still births, and lots and lots of miscarriages. It's STILL happening! I know a portion of that is "just life", but the frequency and depth of sorrow we are seeing, leads me to believe that the enemy has his eye on us. I don't know theologically how that all works out,  but I do see a pattern. A dear friend  of mine reminded me just the other day of the times in the Bible when the killing of children occurred: RIGHT BEFORE SOMETHING GREAT. Think of when Israel was enslaved to Egypt. Orders were given to kill all male, Hebrew babies. Lots and lots of babies were killed! But Moses survived and in partnering with God, years later f...

In my effort to have our time be more structured (which is going well, BTW!), today we made home-made playdough. We colored it orange, rolled it into little balls, and poked dry macaroni noodles in the top to make pumpkins! I turned the oven on to 250, and after it reached it's temp, turned it off and left the pumpkins in for about 45 minutes. They came out hard and adorable! Here's the link for the recipe we used: http://www.playdoughrecipe.com/no-tarter-playdough-recipe/ I snagged a few of the most pumpkin-like ones to put next to some of my other fall decorations. Please share any fun fall activities you've enjoyed! Happy Fall!

Yesterday, the boys and I vacuumed up a whole clan of elder-beetles. EW. You know those {slightly creepy} annoying beetles that take over around this time of year? Yesterday they showed up on the outside of one of our upstairs windows. I noticed them in the morning, but they were outside, so I let them be. ...however, during naptime, I discovered they had found cracks in our window sill, and started invading!! The whole window and walls/ceiling surrounding was crawling with them. While I'm a little weary of elder-beetles, I'm significantly less afraid of them than I am of spiders. So, when the boys got up from their nap, I informed them that we had a mission: vacuum up bugs. I had spent their nap stuffing the sill of the window with toilet paper to prevent more from coming in. Jonathan and Henry thought it was hilarious, chasing after them all with the hose of our shop-vac! I got to thinking... I have known since we moved in this summer, that the windows weren't sealed w...

I'm thinking of making some changes. First, it's time cut the hair again! I have at least a whole inch of grow-out, and when I run my fingers through the length of my hair, I can feel it thinning towards the bottom, from all the pony-tails my hair has been forced into. I'm thinking of going short again... :) The next changes I'm contemplating might seem a little "duh", but bear with me. My parents watched our boys the other night so Josh and I could go out for a friend's birthday dinner, and I could tell the boys were feeling a little "squirrely" when we left. They've been a little wound up lately (a little?), and honestly I've been a little grumpy lately- ya know those days when nothing fits, and all you want is chocolate and coffee?... Anyway, I was "debriefing" with my dad, about how the boys did that evening, and he had some thoughts for me: Kids thrive on routine. That's why they like the same songs over and over...

Hi! Today I spent the day with my mom and the ladies from her church, at Women of Faith. Since you weren't there, I thought I'd share my experience with you :) Honestly, I came into it a little skeptical. I SO don't like cheesy, "christian-ese" stuff, and I'm not really into large groups of women crying all day. (Which is not how it was- just to clarify.) I was the youngest of our group, with the exception of one other young mom. Most of the women I have grow up knowing- they watched me grow from pig-tails to bell-bottoms (what?? at church??) to worship team as a teen, to getting engaged... many of them came to my wedding, and ALL of them hear stories about my boys from Grandma. :) The day began with meeting a new member of their group, a woman scheduled to be the speaker for their women's retreat in January. I'll be going as their worship leader, and we were introduced to eachother so that we can start forming a team. She was such a sweet woman,...