A Time For Every Season....

While driving home from dropping Gabe off at school Drew and I had the following conversation - Drew: "Mommy, I have a word for you!" Mommy: "You do, what is it?" Drew: "Do all things without grumbling or complaining." Mommy: "Thank you Drew, that is a good word, does that word have power?" * I've been trying to feed of his love for having "powers" and correlating that to God's word being powerful when we speak it. Drew: "Yes, it came from the Bible so it has power." Mommy: "Do you know what the Bible says about God's word?" Drew, "Yes, but I can't remember." Mommy: "God says his words in the Bible have great power and are sharper than a double edged sword, His word has power when we speak it and will never return without impact." Drew: "I remember now, so....(after thinking a few seconds) is it powerful enough to even chop your head off!" I couldn't st...

So I just finished posting about our lives the last few weeks and I am sitting here perplexed.  Why is it that life looks so wonderful in pictures yet I don't appreciate those accomplishments? I see my blue eyed blessings sweet faces and smiles in those pictures and all the fun we had and can't believe we actually did have a fun few weeks.  That fun was marred by all the pictures not taken. The fighting between brothers, unkind words spoken to my husband, time wasted, lunches not made,  the mornings I slept in, the frustrated mommy who didn't want to read one more "Good Night Moon", the time Drew told me he wanted to go live at Mrs. Kelly's house because she is way more fun, the poop on the floor which ended up being cleaned up twice because I'd thrown it in the diaper pail and then Drew flipped the lid later that day and it flung out of the pail and back onto the floor. Or the two hours I spent cleaning up dog poop in the boys room because the dog ...

Help Me! I'm Teething!

Celebrating the First Day of Fall in Pictures! The Mayflower Boat Is Out of the Attic! Fall Books Are Here! New Fall Books to Read! We Made Fall Cookies - Pumpkins & Leaves Gabe getting into his cookie - he had more fun decorating that eating  since he isn't big on sweets. Measuring and Mixing Reading Fall Books Nature Journal Time Outside drawing leaves Licking the Icing is the best part Abby wants to be older so she can have school too! Brotherly Love right before arguing about who was going to frost which cookie!

This week we finished up our Apple unit and then went into Blueberries for Sal. Here are a few pictures from our first few days learning about Blueberries For Sal. Abby Loved Frozen Blueberries Too! We baked blueberry pies, read the book "Blueberries For Sal" numerous  times & listened to the audio and learned about bears! We also talked about how different animals and people prepare for the upcoming winter. It was a busy week, I didn't feel like we accomplished very much, but we're pressing along. I'm learning to enjoy the special  times I have together with the kids, no matter where my "random" child  takes the lesson or if the baby is fussy or Gabe is gluing and cutting up Drew's worksheet.  Drew is learning, just in his own random ways, which I am learning to celebrate. God made Drew so unique and He has a great and mighty purpose for Drew life. I just facilitate the opportunities for his God-given style of learning to be expressed,...

Listening and meditating on "Only You Can Save" by Chris Sligh this morning I want to love because you loved, I want to Give because he Gave, I want to reach my hand out to the lost, I know only Your hand will save Only You can save.

Always Smiling Love The Rolls! Look What I Can Do!

The next generation needs to know the glory and wonder and greatness of God. The next generation, my three little blue eyed blessings ,  need to hear and see God active and lived out in my daily life - they also need to hear about our family history while we're daily laying down the rails of life. I've been thinking a lot about where I've been and where the Lord might take me along this faith journey. There are so many stories already written, I pray thousands more will be penned here and shared with multitudes of Williams. So, this blog came into being back in 2005 - a tale of great and small and mighty moments that all relate life's circumstances to God's plan. The good, bad, ugly, redeemable, and real -  put out there for my children and those brave souls who dare look at this place. All will see in plain black and white - many times unedited and not proofed since that takes time and I don't have much these wonderfully busy days. Williams History Lesso...

Luke begins chapter 13 with a story. As I meditated on this passage, a dialog began to take place in my head about why I blog, whether it is worth the time, whether it is of benefit to my family, whether I'm "called" at this season in my life to put my story down for the world to see. The answer, for me, became an encouragement and  I'll be sharing the Williams history more frequently with my blue eyed masterpieces - more thankful times of remembrance, more dialog about events, more time spent teaching my children about God's presence in my daily life. Luke begins chapter 13 with the history of the Jewish nations - the history lesson is being told to the Gentiles. The gentiles were hated by the Jews (they were like the popular kids in the class who never wanted to play with the ordinary girls with the glasses) and after Christ's resurection and many miracles and angels and revelations -  God finally convinced the apostles that these gentiles were His peo...

Drew has successfully, for the most part, completed his first set of catechisms. We've worked on these through the summer and into the first few weeks of school. The video is a little long, but shows great 5 year old knowledge about God and  His word. Gabe too is learning and his video is below too - he is working on the first 4 catechisms. Catechism, a Greek word Katacheo, simply means “instructed” (Luke 1:4). Catechism (pronounced: katakism) is a question and answer type method of instruction type teaching in basic Christian doctrines. This method of question and answer creates a framework for  interacting with the Bible and helps me as a mom to bring everyday life activity back to God's holy word. This type of learning will assist in developing a childs basic understanding of God, prayer, obedience (10 commandments) sin, salvation, prayer, the Bible, the church, and heaven and hell; each answer in the catechism is supported by a scripture references. I've been learning...

John took the Drew out of donuts last week because he earned enough checks. Gabers gets to go tomorrow morning with Daddy since we ran out of time last weekend. This week Gabe gets to spend his checks on his very own train from Target and Drew is getting a new Lego kit. Best of all, the boys were wonderful again this week. They certainly weren't perfect - like  when Drew  threw a football in the house tonight and broke my favorite vase.  Oh well -that is what glue is for right? The boys had many opportunities to serve and care for others. Drew even did the dishes with a huge smile tonight! I don't think I've ever seen him volunteer to wash dishes, let alone actually stand up on his stool and complete the task. Such fun and exhausting days! I'm home alone for a whole hour and a half on a Friday night - finally able to change up my blog a bit. Abby has finally drifted off to dreamland thanks to the Tylenol I gave her. She slept from 9:00 pm last night until 2:00...

9/12/2010 Drew and I have been talking about choices and how real love for God is a choice - to love or to reject God, which led to the discussion about Heaven and Hell. So we're in the Dr. Office and the waiting room movie shows a scene in which a lion kills some humans (Tarzan) and Drew yells at the top of his lungs for the wh ... ole room to hear, "Momma, that Lion is going to HELL!" 9/9/2010 Taught Drew about the difference between Fact or Fiction, when he doesn't know the answer he just says "Faction?"   9/4/2010 This afternoon I told Drew that he couldn't grow up and he said, "Yes mommy I have to grow up - to become a man. When I am a man I have to work otherwise God says I won't be able to eat. If I don't eat I'll die! See, I have to grow up mommy." My little man, almost 6, is indeed growing up - what a wise young man he is ... in the process of becoming. 9/8/2010 Too much rain! Our school/dining room is flooding! It...

Here is a sweet story from Wednesday that I hope will encourage all to participate in some way - big or small - in the Northwood Home Makeover coming up October 8-9. Drew's character quality for this week is generosity and his Bible verse is "Even a child is known by their deeds." So while we were talking about generosity Drew asked if he could take all the change in his piggy bank and give it to someone poor. Drew immediately ran upstairs and wanted to count it all. I was a little smarter than him on this one and found that coin star will take change and waive the fee if you have over 40.00 and buy a gift card. So I asked Drew if we could support the Home Makeover with all his change and he thought it was a great idea. We headed down to the coin star machine, feeding on his excitement,  and had 69.97 in change, which he converted into a Lowe's gift card for the Makeover. Drew was so excited! I rewarded his generosity with a  trip to Starbuck...

Have you laughed this hard recently! Happy Friday!

We've  been learning a lot these days - or should I say Mommy has been learning a lot! We had a great week learning about Johnnie Appleseed and working on character. The character chart and rewards is working wonderfully! I just loved all the "yes momma's" this week,  we're going to  work extensively on cooperation next week - since there were still a lot of arguments between brothers that brought out some selfish hearts. Overall it was  a good week of staying disciplined and working through challenges. Our new revised schedule will  be morning circle time for about an hour, which covers: counting, months, continents/oceans, prayer, calendar, learning a new song each week, a new verse of the week, letters, character focus, and lots of jumping and running around to silly music! Then before lunch I'll sit the boys down for some fun reading time where we all take turns picking the books we want read. After lunch Drew works on his lap-book projects and does some...

Just a quick pop in to say that the honorable character chart and reward system is working  better than I could have ever imagined. Drew is working so hard on character, which is "Doing right when no one, but God, is looking." Gabe is also working so hard on self control and has been dry for days, his little tantrums are down to a minimum and he sat nicely today for the barber! I love focusing on the positive and redirecting back to the positive when all kinds of bad attitudes begin to flair up. Today John caught Drew teaching  Gabe how to put on his own clothes, then helped him succeed when Gabe said he couldn't do it.  I also found Gabe giving his brother hugs and sharing a book with his sister when she was fussing. Drew had a wonderful report from his Texas History teacher, she said he sat better then some of the older kids -  which for Drew  is HUGE! He has been working so hard on focusing and being still since we started school last week. We only have a f...