Monday, December 31, 2012

News and Blessings

Another quick update on us and what's been happening around here.  Still don't have our computer problem dealt with, so I'll wait to share pictures... I've got some good ones!!!!

  We've been so blessed to get to spend Christmas and New Years Eve with Stephen's folks, and what a lovely  time we've had.  Christmas Eve we did a pie bake off, had lunch and supper together, and did gifts in the evening.  Christmas day we had a lovely Mediterranean meal and spent more time visiting and relaxing.

Today, New Years Eve, we got a lovely white blanket of snow... about six inches or so of it.  Beautiful.  Clara had lots of fun out there playing and getting pulled around in the sled by Ravi, the young guy who is staying with us.

Mom, Dad, Heather, and Grandma Deemer were here for supper.  The meal was a joint venture.  Heather and Mom did DELICIOUS quiches.  We did toasted bread with an artichoke spread, tomato, capers and a little bit of salmon.  Berry crisp was dessert.  All was followed by tea around the wood stove... and thanks to the wood stove no body was cold... quite the opposite!  :-)

And Lord willing, the kids and I will be getting to spend a whole month catching up with most of my family in  Feb. / Mar.!  What a treat!!!

2012 has been another year full of challenges and blessings.  One of the most obvious blessings was our move here to Kansas.  Stephen GREATLY enjoys working with Dad M. and being near his parents has been such a treat for all of us!  August 15 was a big day of blessing... when our little Ittai was born quickly and, thanks to the Lord's protection, safely into the outside world.  We also got visits from friends and quite a few of my wonderful family members!

The Lord Jesus has been so good to us.  We don't deserve it.  One of my prayers for this coming year will be that I grow in faith and learn to have my eyes and heart fixed on Him!

Unless He returns before, have a blessed New Year!


Friday, December 21, 2012

Well, it's been too long since the last post. So, for a quick update and some pieces of news from these parts.

Last week we were so blessed to have two groups of wonderful company, as I mentioned in the last post.  Hopefully, we'll have our computer difficulties fixed soon and I'll share some pictures.  Thank you to each one for making the effort to stop and see us on your trips home.  You were a blessing!  Look for pictures soon!

We got snow a couple nights ago which, as you can probably imagine, was a rather positive event in this household.  :-)

Ittai rolled over earlier this week for the first time!  He continues to be a joy.  His smiles and squeals  are so fun.  And that way he smiles and looks at you like he just likes you a lot could just melt your heart. He enjoys it when Clara and Hil play with him... and they enjoy it too!  You should hear him squealing.  When both baby and big sibling are having fun, it's hard for Mommy to know when to say something or calm things down and protect the little guy. They're both having a great time and you don't want to stop them from playing with little brother, but......

Ok, now for a Hilkiah line.  When it's getting to be meal time, but things aren't yet ready, Hil will often eagerly jump the gun and start calling people to the table with "Suppee Time!"  And lunch can be "suppee time" too!








Sunday, December 9, 2012

Dressed Up and a Full Week


This is what our fine little gentleman was looking like today!  :-)

If all goes as planned, this will be a busy week... in a very good way!  My brother and sister are scheduled to arrive here tomorrow morning, along with a couple frineds.  They are traveling home from a one semester school and we are one of a couple stops along the way!  Yay!  They should be here until Thursday!  Then Friday evening we have some friends stopping by, who are also traveling home!  They should be here for part of the weekend!  What a treat of a week!

Friday, November 30, 2012

A Habit Put Into Words, Upset Tummies and Moments







Above are a few moments to share from the last couple weeks. 

This last week has made me thankful for washers, dryers, and tubs with warm running water.  Two kidos with tummy troubles will do that to you!  :-)  I thought they were pretty much over it... but last night and this morning they proved otherwise.  Though we've had some messes to clean up, it hasn't been super serious, which is a blessing!

Also, have to share a great quote from this week.  Clara is a thumb sucker, and like the good Daddy he is, Stephen has been trying to encourage her to stop the habit.  Well several nights back he had been telling her not to put the thumb in her mouth.  After he left the room Clara complained to me "My tummy keeps telling me to."  After repeating a couple times that her tummy keeps telling her to suck her thumb she changed it with "actually my mouth".   So there you have it.  A thumb sucking habit put into words.  :-)

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thanksgiving


Seven cousins!  For the first time ever, this Thanksgiving, we had all seven cousins together!  What a treat it was to have Daniel and Sarah and their four precious kidos in town for the long weekend!!!  We got to spend a lot of time together over at Dad and Mom's place, chatting and eating yummy food and enjoying being together. 


The big girls!  You probably couldn't tell they were cousins.... could you?  :-)


Gigi and Grandma having a moment together.


Hilkiah and Cici


The little guys!   Bea and Ty are about 3 weeks apart.

Special times!  Thanks guys for making the trip here!  Let's get together again soon!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

A Couple Smiles and Blessings




Blessings of late:

Kanamak Thanksgiving Dinner

Family Retreat with our church

Sweet smiles from a THREE month old

A lunch date with my Stephen

Thanksgiving coming up this week and getting to see Daniel and Sarah and have all the M. cousins together!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Smiles and a quote...




 
 

And here is a quote to share, some of which had impacted me before, and it touched me again today! 

"What then of our attitude to Satan?  This is important, for he accuses us not only before God but in our own conscience also. 'You have sinned, and you keep on sinning.  You are weak, and God can have nothing more to do with you.'  This is his argument.  And our temptation is to look within and in self-defence to try to find in ourselves, in our feelings or our behaviour, some ground for believing that Satan is wrong.  Alternatively we are tempted to admit our helplessness and, going to the other extreme, to yield to depression and despair.  Thus accusation becomes one of the greatest and most effective of Satan's weapons.  He points to our sins and seeks to charge us with them before God, and if we accept his accusations we go down immediately.
Now the reason why we so readily accept his accusations is that we are still hoping to have some righteousness of our own.  The ground of our expectation is wrong.  Satan has succeeded in making us look in he wrong direction.  Thereby he wins his point, rendering us ineffective.  But if we have learned to put no confidence in the flesh we shall not wonder if we sin, for the very nature of the flesh is to sin.  Do you understand what I mean?  It is because we have not come to appreciate our true nature and to see how helpless we are that we still have some expectation in ourselves, with the result that, when Satan comes along and accuses us, we go down under it.
God is well able to deal with our sins; but He cannot deal with a man under accusation, because such a man is not trusting in the Blood.  The Blood speaks in his favour, but he is listening instead to Satan....

Our salvation lies in looking away to the Lord Jesus and in seeing that the Blood of the Lamb has met the whole situation created by our sins and has answered it."

~ Watchman Nee  

Thursday, November 8, 2012

So, time for some news from this home front.

This past weekend we had a very nice visit from some friends we had met several years back.  It was so good of them to stop by on their family trip.  Much had changed in both of our families since the last time we saw each other.

And there was a surprise result of their visit.  Stephen had mentioned that he had been doing some thinking about trying to start an internship program at work.  Well, the things he was describing sounded exactly like Ravi, one of sons in this family.  So after a tour of work, some talking and considering, we now have a new "addition" to the family.  Ravi is staying with us and becoming the inaugural intern! 

Our little "homestead" is coming along.  Our friends helped Stephen put finishing touches on up the chicken coop and the layers have been moved into the new yard and coop.

My kidos keep growing and changing.  Clara makes us smile with the cute things that pop out of her mouth at times.  Here's a fun line from her praying at meal time: "Bless it for our hands and help our bodies to like it."  :-)  Sometimes, when Hil is being put down for a nap, she complains "I won't have any friends."  Too precious.  She enjoys getting down next to baby and playing with him.

Hilkiah loves going to the zoo to see "Giraffe, elephant, rhino, monkeys" and he also likes the "pauk" (park).  And agree to play ball with him and you'll have a happy boy.

Our littlest guy is such a sweet dumlin'.  He's smiling and cooing.... though at this precise moment he's complaining.  :-) 

We're blessed!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Friday, October 26, 2012

Aaaaahhhhhh....


Aaaaahhhhhh... what a lovely morning I had! Grandma M. watched all three kidos for me and I went to a local "mom and pop" coffee house, got a large Salted Carmel Latte and enjoyed two hours of reading and writing. The cheery shop was bustling and buzzing and for a while snowflakes where falling outside, but the sun also came out. I soooooo enjoyed myself! Thank you grandma and thank You, Lord for your many blessings!




Here are a couple shots from bath time several nights back.  Clara has helped out with little brother's bath twice now!  It seems like Ittai looks more grown up in pictures then in real life! 





And here is my "Mr. 100-watt-smile-man".



And no, my life is not all coffee shops and sweet bath times.  Just a bit ago one kido stumbled over backwards and sent milk splattering about.  And yesterday, we left an outing early, due to another kido that was misbehaving so much!  And that kind of stuff is just "icing on the cake" of mommy's own struggles and hang-ups!  But what a blessed lady I am to have a faithful, patient, forgiving God, three precious growing blessings from Him, a dear hubby, very helpful and caring parents-in-love, and a lovely morning outing!

Saturday, October 20, 2012

One day, awhile back, I suddenly realized my gentlemen were matching in their kahki and white.  Had to snap a couple shots.  Love Hil's pose in this top one!  The girl had to get in on the pictures too!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Smokey: the Dog Cat


Rather needy, but you couldn't hardly find a nicer cat - that's Smokey for ya.  In fact, Smokey is more like a dog then a cat... she is rather amazing.  She puts up with all sorts of inconsiderate handling from little people and has only lashed out a few times.  If you could see what she endures, you'd be impressed.

When we go on walks, she trails along behind, very much like a dog.  Funny, cute and impressive.

She LOVES to be with us when we are outside and wants to be loved and petted and have plenty of attention.  She tries desperately to get in the house.

Smokey also drives poor Stephen crazy because she MUST hang out with him when he's outside working and will even try to swat at and play with nails and screws AS he is trying to drill or hammer!!!  And get this, one day he was out working while it was drizzling outside... and that CAT put up with getting WET to be with him!

 


And to top things off, Stephen had Ittai with him outside this weekend, and the cat proved to be a sweet little babysitter.


And the final proof that Smokey is very much like a dog: she hasn't yet caught a mouse!

Friday, October 12, 2012

 
Ok, so it's not usually quite this bad, and they were only ALL in there until after we got up... but still....  :-)  And look!  Ittai is even smiling about it!!!



Let's put our heads together!




Awwwww.....




My lovely sister left last Friday, after a very nice visit.  Here are some memories from our time:


Lots of help around the house... rearranging stuff, painting the bathroom, staining the kids bunk bed.

Serious sister chats

Sharing smiles over something the kids had done.

Two trips to the zoo

Taking in an impressive craft fair along with a couple friends and Mom M.

Someone to give baby to at 3 in the morning

Trip across the state to a cousin's wedding

Walks

LOADS of help with the kidos and clean-up around the house

A little tea party with Clara and Mom M.

....

Thank you for coming, Anna!  Come again SOON!!!! 


Monday, October 8, 2012

Precious Little Man

 
Precious Feet!




The two pictures above reminded my sister, Anna, of the verse in 1 Corininthians 9:26, which says "Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;..."




And as you can likely tell, the tiny guy is becoming less tiny!  :-)

Monday, October 1, 2012

The Gentlemen


Here are a few pictures to share of my fine gentlemen!  I love these shots of the boys!

Hil is now 2 1/2 and can sure be a handful!  He can be sooooo naughty and then later on be ever sooooooooooooooo cute and adorable!  We love that boy.  He enjoys playing with sister, rough housing with anyone that is willing, kicking balls, GOING anywhere in any vehicle, the zoo, french fries and much more!

Ittai is growing well!  Still a pretty content baby, though he does have more awake and fussy time then he used to.  He's a sweet little fellow, and when he does fuss he can usually be helped pretty easily.   Still not sleeping through the night... but hopefully we'll get there!



Thursday, September 27, 2012

31 Balls of Fluff




Have you ever had your phone ring at about 6:15am to let you know that there was a box full of little chicks waiting for you at the post office?  Well, Stephen knew from past experience, that was when the call would probably be coming... and sure enough, we got the call dark and early this morning.  :)  We are now the owners of 31 balls of fluff!  So far, all have survived little hands!


And an Aunt Anna moment.