MERRY CHRISTMAS

Wondering what Mary was thinking as she stared into the face of her newborn son. 

SLIPPERS, STITCHES AND STUFF

 

 

Big fall last Saturday, stitches, ugh....

  But we got the stitches out yesterday and Daddy bought her these Frozen slippers with some matching PJ's and she's good!

NEW ADDITION PICTURES

I have been promising pictures of the finished new addition and I'm finally posting them.

                                                                NEW BEDROOM 

                   

NEW BATHROOM

OUR NEW FAMILY ROOM

Thank you sooo much wonderful hubby and sons for all of your hard work!  Thanks also to my super great brother and sister in law, niece and nephews for driving 6 hours in the middle of the night to come and help work to get it all finished before baby Jeb got here; and then for driving back a week later to help while we were in the hospital.  We can never thank you guys enough! 

#10 IS HERE!!

Our tenth child, Jeb Cole, joined our family on September 24th.   He weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz and was 19 inches long.  Sorry it's been so long since I have posted but it's been a whirlind here for the past six weeks.  I will post more later but I just wanted you to meet our new, sweet, little one.

 

TWO SETS OF JONES'

Which Ones Will You Be?

This song is a bit dated, the 90's to be exact.  However, we were new Christians when it was popular and this song described how God brought us from the first set of Jones' to the second.   He saved our marriage and gave us an amazing love for each other and for our family.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted calf with hatred. Proverbs 15:17 NKJV

Better is a dry morsel with quietness, than a house full of feasting with strife.  Proverbs 17:1 NKJV

DROWNING

I absolutely love this picture.  I NEED one for my house or maybe it would get too familiar; too familiar like my salvation that I so often take for granted.  

I should be so thankful that Jesus saved me from drowning in my life of sin and rebellion, that He freed me from a life of misery but most importantly, a life that was headed straight for Hell.

He saved me from Hell but I was headed there because of my love of sin, LOVE OF MEN,  my need for constant physical and emotional attention, addiction to alcohol and diet pills, selfishness (although that one He's still working on, along with lots of others!)  materialism, vanity, a love of money, debt, lying, slandering others, trashy mouth, love for adultery, lusting, dishonor of my parents, wanting what others had, disrespect and dishonor of my husband, hating people, pride and the list goes on and on.   

Have I arrived?  Ha! No definitely not!  First Timothy 1:15 says, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came in to the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."  

On another note, this picture is refreshing for today.   There are more days than not when I feel like I am drowning in ungratefulness, pride, anger, frustration, selfishness and more.   That's when I remember, "Oh wait, all I need to do is fall on my knees and beg Him, just as Peter did when walking on the water,  save me Lord from this life of little faith.  Do I do it?  No, in my pride I continue on in my misery, thinking I can fix it myself and that surely it has to get better and of course......it doesn't.   But when I do, it's amazing!  I can't explain it to you.  Somehow Jesus takes my wee little, insignificant plea of surrender and gives me a peace that is unexplainable.  Oh, my issues don't go away, things don't get better but I have the peace to handle those things in a Godly way.  Those hard things are here for our refinement.

One of my favorite bible teachers once said, "Your circumstances don't make you who you are, they simply reveal who you are."  For example, I could say, "I never yelled like this until I had all of these children. They make me so mad."  That's not the truth, I was an angry woman and the LORD used those children to squeeze the anger out of me and show me what's really inside. When you squeeze a lemon, lemon juice comes out.  If you're squeezed, what comes out? Does pride, disrespect, pouting, anger, jealousy, a need for control?  Jesus said in Luke 6:45, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.  For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."

I am so thankful 18 years ago Jesus reached into the darkness and turned on THE LIGHT for me so I could see my need for Him.  Blessings this week!

For extra reading:  Matthew 14:29-33

MOTHERHOOD

I love Motherhood.  It's just as plain and simple as that. 

In two weeks, we will celebrate a new birth, our tenth birth actually, but first we are going to celebrate two others.  Our only daughter for 12 years is about to turn 13, yes 13, I can't believe it, I just can't.  She was born on September 11, 2001, the actual day, September 11, when the planes flew into the buildings.  She was our shining light on that dark day and has continued to be since.  She's a little bit spunky or strong-willed, whatever you would like to call it.  We always say it's because she is supposed to be a missionary in some poverty stricken land with the job of taking care of 420 orphans.  She loves babies.  Have you ever heard of Gladys Aylward?  Yeah, well that's our daughter.  She never says never.  She's a go to girl who will get the job done when asked and she is a blessing to our family.  It was hard to find a picture of her because she's always taking the pictures.

Thank goodness God gave her a baby sister 18 months ago.  Surely you've heard the saying, "A daughter is a daughter for life and a son is a son until he takes a wife."   We told her before we found out she was having a sister, "Honey, we have 7 boys who will take care of their wives once they get married.  You better pray for a sister, otherwise, it's all on you!  You get to take care of us when we're old."   

We will celebrate another birthday on September 21st.  I call him our little ball of energy and if you see the "Wishes and Mushies" post over to the right on the side bar, that post is all about him.  He has so much energy!  He reminds me of the Energizer bunny, he never runs out of energy.  He will definitely be a command man when he grows up because he likes to be the boss.  He tells me every Sunday morning when I get in the car for church, "Mom, you look so pretty and you smell so goooood, just like a flower!" 

Then of course, our new little bundle of joy will be here on the 24th.  We can't wait. 

Before I go, here's a short video our daughter made this afternoon that I wanted to share with you.  I've already shared some of it on Google plus. She has this amazing gift with movie making and picture programs.  She makes these videos in like - minutes, it's amazing.  She begged me to let her fix it and add more to it before I posted it but I thought it was great and I didn't want to wait.

The house is ALMOST FINISHED!!!!!   I'll post some more pictures later.........gater

BEFORE AND AFTER

MY BEDROOM IS ALMOST FINISHED!


They are almost done with the bedroom!  Well, technically they are finished with it, we are just waiting to finish the bathroom so we can put carpet in the bedroom. Then we can move in to our NEW BEDROOM!



BEFORE

AFTER

 BEFORE

 AFTER

 THIS IS MY BATHROOM BEFORE......

Walk in shower

Claw foot tub will go in this cubby!

Vanity and closet on this wall

I'll let you guess where the potty is.  It's not outside.  Thank the Lord for indoor plumbing.  I ain't the outhouse type, if you know what I mean.

  Just a shell right now but wait until you see what they have in store for this.

We're also waiting for the Central heat and air to be installed in this new part. 

Three more weeks to go until the baby gets here.

Keep watching!

FREEZER MEALS

With the new addition coming in 3 and 1/2 weeks, it's time to start getting some food ready for my family to eat while I'm recovering from a c-section.  My husband is an absolute wonder in the kitchen.  He is a great cook but he does NOT do recipes.  He is a true cook because when people ask him for a recipe, he's like, "I don't remember what I put in there!"  I read somewhere that good cooks don't need recipes.  They don't let recipes hold them back, they improvise.  So in preparation for the last C-section, I made a menu for the whole month, breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I printed a menu, put in on the fridge, attached the recipes, went and bought the ingredients for every recipe....I had them all ready and prepared.

 Being confined to the bed, I didn't know what was going on in the kitchen.  When they would bring me lunch or dinner (yes, they are sooo wonderful to me) it would be something that was not on THE MENU.   After a while, I told hubs, "You know I made a menu for the month and everything is in ready and in the pantry."  His response - "I hate using recipes!"  Oh - ok, something I wish I would have known before I made a menu.  The truth is, I don't like for him to use a recipe either.  He just throws things together and it is d-d-d-d-d-deeelicious.  However, I am a different story.  Oh, if it's something I'm familiar with, I don't have to use a recipe, otherwise, I use a recipe and do not dare stray from it.

You can imagine how excited I was to find these easy freezer meals on YOU TUBE.  The you tube channel is called EAT AT HOME.  They are EASY!  Years ago I tried once a month cooking and even though I liked the recipes, I didn't like the preparation.  That's what I like about these freezer meals;  I can stuff all the ingredients in a freezer bag so the fam can grab the bag out of the freezer, pop it in the crock pot, turn it on and DONE.

So finally, after all my blabbing, here's the link to the you tube channel.......Happy cooking!

TRAIN UP A CHILD...PROVERBS 22:6

CHECK OUT OUR NEW LITTLE TEACHER HERE!!

My cousin and I used to play school using my Grandpa's old truck.  My cousin was the teacher and I distinctly remember learning, at age 3,  that a noun was a person, place or thing because she would use the side of his truck as a chalkboard.  Boy, you think nails on a real chalkboard are bad, just try learnin' some school on the passenger door of 60 model Dodge pickup, eeeeeek. I will never forget those fun times of learning (and my Grandpa didn't either I'm sure) just like my children will never forget the lessons they learn in our home.

 

I don't know about you but my favorite days of "real public school"  were the first and the last. The first because I got to wear new clothes and see my friends and the last because that meant summer vacation!!!!   I don't want it to be the same with my kids. I want them to have fun learning.  Yes, actually learning, not regurgitating facts that do them absolutely no good.  Often times, we as homeschooling moms just do what we were taught to do in public school.  We buy workbooks, sit our kids down and make them as bored as we were, resulting in a hatred for learning. Are workbooks bad? That's not what I'm saying, but are they just public school formalities reproduced in pretty christian packages?

There's also the issue of pride; pride in ourselves, resulting in pride in our children.    As homeschooling moms,  we often times want our children to be the smartest, to have the most head knowlege so they make us look good.  When we have that as the purpose and focus for teaching our children, we begin to sow seeds of pride, arrogance and scorn into the hearts of our children. (Psalm 1:1-3, Proverbs 16:8) Not good. 

One of the questions we should be asking is, do they REALLY understand what they are learning? Do the things we are teaching make sense to them?  Can our children pull out a yummy cake recipe, see that it's not nearly enough to feed a family of 11, double it and use fractions to find out that 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup = 1 whole cup or are we just teaching facts in a workbook that are not applicable to life?

You see, life IS learning.   Every minute of everyday is an opportunity for learning.  Your kids want to be right by your side doing what you are doing.  They want to pull out change, learn how to count it, put it in a baby food jar and go buy some ice cream. They want to be your helper in the kitchen while you're cooking dinner.  They want you to read exciting stories to them to feed their imaginations.  They want to learn by seeing, touching, tasting, feeling, singing, drawing and painting. Sound exhausting? Absolutely, but that is when we need to draw our strength from the LORD.  He has called us to this high and holy calling of motherhood, therefore He expects us to call on him for the strength and wisdom to do it for HIS glory. 

Which brings me to the last, most important point.  The reason we as Christians homeschool (or it should be) is to teach our children for the glory of God only.  Soli Deo Gloria is a latin term meaning Glory to God alone.  It is a term used by artists like Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel to signify that the work was produced for the sake of praising God. However, we lose sight of that focus and we get so busy "DOING SCHOOL" that we don't have enough time to open the Bible and teach them about the very One we are supposed to be doing it for, JESUS CHRIST!  Better yet, we rant and rave, scream and yell, get on the phone and talk bad about others in front our children, then we sit down to Bible time with a gentle and quiet, but extremely fake spirit and expect them to listen to us teach on humility.  It doesn't work, trust me.  They see right through it and they will begin to despise God's word.

The things that are important to you will be important to your children. The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."  Proverbs 22:6.  If the only thing that you can accomplish for the day is to sit down with your kids and read them the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, then do it and show them how mighty and powerful He is. 

I once heard someone teach on the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and it encouraged me so much as a mom.  Just imagining the scenario and without reading into scripture, this teacher said it was very possible that some mom got up one day and did what most would consider the very unimportant, mundane job of packing her little boys lunch.  She faithfully did what God called her to do, packed up his five loaves and two little fish and sent him off to learn from the Saviour.  Little did she know that Jesus would take those five loaves and two little fish and feed 5,000 men (that's not counting the women and children).  God, Himself, took that little, seemingly unimportant task of making lunch for her son and used it to perform a MIRACLE THAT STILL AMAZES US TODAY! Now that's MOMMY MATH!

Momma, being a mommy is the most important job in the world, none others even come close.  It's also the hardest job in the world.  My wonderful hubby often tells me when it gets too hard, "If it were easy, everybody would be doing it."    God has chosen you for such a time as this.  Your life is very important to Him.  Are you exhausted, discouraged, blundering, thinking it's all in vain? Call on Him, ask Him to give you a vision, a love for learning, a love for teaching your kids the way He wants you to teach them. One of the mistakes I made as a young homeschooling mom was to follow what others were doing.  Big mistake!  I was miserable trying to make what they did for their child work for my child and my child was miserable as well.They were not teaching my kids, I needed to seek the Lord for what He wanted for me and the children He had given me, not what the magazines said were the best curricula or the book fairs or even well meaning peers.  

As the Lord begins to transform your heart, be faithful and joyful in the little, everyday tasks He has called you to, then wait and watch, you might just be able to see Him do some Mommy Math!  Praying you have a blessed year.  Soli Deo Gloria!

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.  Colossians 3:17

CONFESSIONS OF A BOY- CRAZY GIRL

STILL SUMMER FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER......

Red slushees, swimming pools, 110º weather and hot dogs on the grill are slowly giving way to front yard football, crisp fall air and hayrides......enjoy the rest of the lazy days of summer while you can. ♡

THE HIDDEN MESSAGE OF THE LOST PEARL

The Hidden Message of the Lost Pearl



When I was eleven years old, my family took a vacation in Florida. One morning my brother and I went swimming. The shallow water revealed an oyster bed. We began digging up oysters. It was great fun. During the morning we accumulated quite a collection.

Our greatest finds were not the live oysters, but dead oysters which still had both halves of the shell joined together. Many were closed shut, and we didn’t know until we had pried them open whether they were alive or not.

The live ones we threw back. The empty ones usually did not reclose, but remained partly open. These we set aside as our most prized treasures.

Toward the end of the morning, I dug up a very nice, complete oyster shell which was in perfect condition. It was obviously dead because it was already open about an eighth of an inch and seemed empty. it was definitely one that I wanted to keep, except for one flaw-it had some kind of object trapped inside that rattled. I thought it detracted from the quality of my shell.

The halves of the shell were still very tight and were hard to budge with just my fingers. It took all of five minutes to remove this rather large, round, perfectly smooth object. Having successfully removed it, and being pleased with my now empty and unblemished shell, I threw the object toward the end of the pier.

At about the midpoint of its flight, a horrifying light dawned in my mind. I was old enough to have known, but young enough to overlooked the value of what I had just thrown away. I had treasured what was secondary and had lost what was real. My focus had been wrong.

I visually marked the location of the splash. With great care I slowly approached the spot, trying not to disturb the bottom. For the next half hour I searched diligently.

Finally, when it was time to leave, I told my parents what I had done. Then we all looked for it. Our efforts were useless and our time up. Our schedule demanded that we leave.

When I was twenty-five years old, I got married. For some undefined reason, I rejected for seven years the suggestion that we have children. I thought I had valid reasons, but no counsel or teaching from either family, friends, or church. No one seemed to consider it to be a critical issue. In addition, the world had all kinds of new medical methods for preventing pregnancy.

As I look back, I don’t remember hearing one dissenting voice. Down deep I always knew that I wanted children someday. So, after seven years of some very difficult decision-making, we had our first child- a girl.

To my great amazement, I found that I actually liked having children. In fact, having a child is one of the greatest things that has happened in our lives.

 

The fears which had prevented conception for so long proved to be mostly imaginary. This new member of our family changed our lives. We discovered a multitude of rewards that we had not known we were missing.

My wife and I have just been told that it now looks medically impossible for us to have any more children! Suddenly, all of our newly established family dreams have been erased. All of the excitement and anticipation of a newly discovered future have vanished. It seems as tough there is a void in our lives – like four of our five children have just been killed.

What makes the burden so heavy is that we had the treasure within our grasp and we threw it away. We saw the outer shell and mistakenly overlooked the treasure within. With our hands we plucked it out and cast it away. We tried to take God’s timing into our own hands.

                                                                                                 Jim Sammons

Psalm 127: 3-5 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

MAM-MAWS TABLE

Mmmmmmm.....I can smell the fried chicken as I am typing this post.  Every Sunday afternoon, about 19 people would gather in a tiny, white, East Texas house home, around this very table, for some of the best southern food you ever did put in yo mouth.  Oh lord, help me shut up in heeyah.

I was Mam-maw's ANGEL, so I was blessed to be there everyday of my life.  One of the most miserable  days of my life was my first day of Kindergarten. I hated being away from her because up to that point, we were inseparable. Until the day she died (last year), she would remind me of how I would get the stool, drag it up beside her and wait to lick the bowl and beaters when she was making cookies.  Then we would spread the cooling racks all over the table and put the cookies on them to cool. 

This table was a very special table because Mam-maw used it for everything.  She cut out baby dresses, prom dresses, wedding dresses and clothes of all shapes and sizes.  She did people's taxes and had counseling sessions with hurting souls (not without some homemade pie and coffee to make it better of course).  She and my grandpa played 42 with friends around it.  There was no end to what would take place around Mam-maw's table.

You can imagine our surprise when one afternoon my dad called and said he had received a call from a  Sheriff's deputy telling him her house had been broken into and was in shambles.  They had caught a man leaving her house with her dishwasher in the back of his car.  They arrested him but found that, over the course of a few weeks, he had been stealing things a little at a time. Now, the house we all spent so much  time in was totally trashed, destroyed and emptied of all the precious things we remembered.  For some reason though, he decided not to steal the table.  

Which was weird because it's an antique, mahogany table, complete with rollers on the legs so you can roll it all over the place.  Maybe the formica top with the big silver trim around it threw him for a loop.  Mam-maw had someone put a formica top on the table because she wanted to protect it from all the damage it could have received from all the stuff that took place around it.  I'm sure she had the idea she would take it off once everything slowed down a bit, but it never did and so the white formica top still remained.  Good thing, huh?  It tricked him. 

Since hubby turned our living room into a school room when he built the family room, I needed a table to go with these adorable rainbow colored chairs he got me.  What better table?  He and the boys went and waded through the mess (and I do mean mess)  in Mam-maw's house and got her table for me.  They brought it home, cleaned it up and I couldn't be happier.  It's a great game table.  The kids and their friends play it all, nertz, checkers, play-doh, fiddlestixs, spoons, you name it.


 A priceless gift of sweet memories from a grandma that gave me a magical childhood.  Praying I can do the same for my children.  Blessings from Texas y'all.

Mam-maw