Be still my heart: part 2

So I finally got a chance to go through more of "The Jesus Storybook Bible" (if you have no idea what I am talking about, go back a few posts) , and ever story left me with goose-bumps, because the author brought every story back to Jesus, every single one. As an adult I am loving this KIDS book. It's amazing, and I feel so blessed to 1. use it to teach the kids at our church and 2. Read it to my kids.

Seriously, go buy this book, even if you don't have small ones, you'll love it too!!

Cloudy with a chance of NOT BEING 100!

So today I am counting my blessings. The weather is one of them, the fact it is almost 9 am and still cloudy and chilly, is anyone else saying Hallelujah to that????????

Last night I was Facebooking back and forth with my friend Rachel about our daughters; 2 peas in a pod. And I was filled with gratefulness for the gift of my child's friends. Chloe has been raised quite a bit in Shore life. Not just that we go there, but she is always with me, and OFTEN there, at church, for something. She comes with me to Moms, to set up for Moms, to work on the bulletin boards, to some of the Kid's zones, to Bible Study, and of course Sunday Morning services. She has become part of a community of kids who's moms are also always there, for the same events with me. She already has SO many friends. And not just any friends, friends I am hoping she keeps as she grows. I know their parents, I respect their parents, and I won't have to worry about what she'd be exposed to at their house. They will model true faith in Jesus, and she will see that it's not just her mom and dad that love Jesus.

Now, that's not to say that my Serena doesn't have fabulous friends at church; she does. But she didn't grow up AT church the way Chloe has. I didn't have a car, and didn't get to volunteer as much when she was a toddler, and we didn't even have a mom's group then. SO she is friends with fabulous kids, with fabulous parents; just not as in depth as Chloe's seems to be. I guess that should be my goal, to plug her in more with kids from church.

And as I was thinking about this, I realized one of the many reasons God created the church; so that we could raise our children together. What a blessing to have a village to help with my children! To know that if my child skinned a knee or got into some shenanigans out of my presence there are so many Moms, whom I deeply respect, who would step in without hesitation and help my child (even if it's helping them to the corner). Thank God for other Moms. Thank God for the other Moms in my circle at church. Thank God for the kids who will grow with my kids in stature as well as faith in the God that created and loves them!

If you are in Moms, or in my Bible study, or my friend at church, thank you. Thank you for being there for me and my kids!

Insert laugh track here

My morning played out like some one's bad day on a sitcom. Honestly I was expecting the laugh track after each "really??REALLY???" event I had.

It was going to be a crazy morning, I already knew that, maybe that frazzled my brain a bit. I woke to thinking "Oh no! Did Brian remember to leave me the car keys?" So I ran downstairs in a panic to find that He did. Phew.

We left to take Serena to school, and I grabbed my keys, locked the door and left. I came back, and searched my key ring to find that Brian had left his house key with the car keys and had taken the house key off my ring. So I am standing outside my house, useless keys in hand, with a 2 year old in PANTIES... not a diaper... with no way to get in.
Awesome.
I don't even have a cell phone with me. So I think ok, I'll just break it. I peeled the screen off my bathroom window (Which took forever) and tried to jimmy the window open. It's the long skinny bathroom kind of window. So I push up and in and window falls OUT. It doesn't open, it falls out. Because of course a window would just fall out, right?????
Luckily it didn't shatter as it slammed onto my bathroom floor. Since it's a long skinny window (and I am neither of those things) I put Chloe through the window and told her to open the door for Mommy. ( Right about now I start to think, what if she freaks out and can't get it, or gets distracted by something else????) Luckily she learned to unlock the door months ago, so she opened it, crisis averted.

But now I had to BOOK IT to get everything ready to dash off to Bible study and then to the dentist for Chloe. I had to grab the carseat, plus all my normal junk. We're doing ok, we get to the car, I get the carseat and Chloe buckled in, but I notice an awful smell coming from my car. Lemonade had been left in the baking hot car for a few days apparently and it was RANCID. SO I pick it up, and then lean over my driver seat to dig into my bag to get my keys to open the dumpster, and the cup bursts open and spills sticky rancid smelling lemonade ALL OVER MY CAR. I am already running late. I am already having a crappy morning, and now I have a sticky stinky car. So I unbuckle Chloe (we park in the alley behind the apartment), run back into the house, grab a towel, say #%$! it and throw the towel down and drive off, in the sticky stinky car. I get to Bible study in pretty good time (I.E. I sped like a maniac down the freeway and streets).

It got better from there, a little calm time with God, a cup of coffee (Thank you Gina) and much better news from the dentist than I expected have improved my day. I'm hoping the lemonade was the last of the shananigans to happen to me today.

No more laugh track moments....please!

You can't miss this!

My good friend Rachel is having a super fun night of shopping through all of the amazing finds she picks up at estate sales. To say she has an "eye" for this kinda thing is an understatement!

Come join me at her house for some shopping fun! (And if that wasn't enough, let me tell you, the food will be FABULOUS! I have first hand knowledge of the yummy creations of this woman and look forward to enjoying her baked goodies again!) You can follow this link to her blog and check out all the deatails.


http://number17cherrytreelane.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you all there!!

Inbox insight

2 Corinthians 4:18

We set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever.



That was the daily Bible Verse in my inbox this morning. Thanks God for reminding me to focus on you and all the annoyances of life won't seem to important.

Look at the coach purse on that one!

I started a book with my Bible study a few weeks back by Beth Moore Called "Esther. it's tough being a Woman." The first weeks' theme was "It's tough being a woman in another woman's shadow." It was a phenomenal week, one which really hit home. I can totally relate with that, because I live in the shadow of a flawed woman who's image distorts mine (before you even ask, no I will not name her, that's just wrong).



This weeks' theme is " It's tough being a woman in a world where beauty is a treatment."



Ouch.



Our culture is flooded with ads for products to make you younger, thinner, prettier, curvier, less curvy, etc etc. Even the young and beautiful aren't young and beautiful enough. "Esther" opens with queen Vashti being dethroned and King Xerxes looking for a new queen. He sent out ambassadors to every province to find the most beautiful young women in all the land, though they weren't yet beautiful enough for him, they have to go through months of "beauty treatments" before he'd even see them. Young and beautiful wasn't young and beautiful enough in Persia either.



So then I started thinking today, how much has this ideal of beauty being something I do rather than something I am sunk into my brain? Like most women I have a list. A list of things I don't like about me. My chin and nose are too pointy, and I hate the oblong shape of my ears. My face never got the memo about growing into my buck teeth, my hair is too course, and going grey way too fast and way too young. That's just the beginning...I could keep going, but my flaws aren't the point; who I am is.
I am a woman made in God's image. He created me the way He wanted me. Psalm 139:13-14 says, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." He knit together every course hair and pointy appendage. He made me as I am because it pleased Him. I need to focus on that more than on my list of things I don't like about me.



Then, beyond even me, I was blessed with the task of rearing two wonderful daughters; princesses belonging to the King himself. I need to impart on them the fact that God loves them! How can I ever teach them they are beautiful in God's eyes if I don't first grasp that concept for myself? I don't want my daughters growing up to think that they are only beautiful if a man thinks they are (even if He is their husband, their beauty isn't based on his opinion). They are only beautiful if other women think they are (Lord knows how badly we try to impress each other, what man has ever said "Wow look at the Coach purse on that one!"; we women dress for each other too). They are only beautiful if they feel pretty that day (and you all know our opinion of our looks varies by day, and eh-uhm, time of the month). They are beautiful because Jesus knit them together in my womb. He knew their names and faces before time began, and as it says in the story of creation, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Genesis 1:31.

As I face the overwhelming influence of our modern day version of Esther's Persia, I need to focus on my God's view of me if I ever hope to raise girls who could care less what anyone but Jesus thinks of their looks.

Quote of the day from our family outing

We went to the LA county fair...I'll post on that later, but as we were looking at the beautiful, majestic Clydesdale horses Chloe said:










"Look! That's his pee pee!"

Be still my heart

Ok so kind of a dramatic title for this type of post, but I really get far too giddy these days over everything curriculum related.





The books that were ordered for our first service lessons came in and OH MAN I love these books! I will be going out, soon, and buying a copy for my children. It had me at Hello.

She's a rebel through and through

Chloe was born with the desire to do things her way, this was no more evident than today.

She has a rash, on her upper arm running down the back of her elbow. I saw it and though Eczema, great. It goes part and parcel with the asthma, so I was bummed but not shocked.

SO we go to the Dr, he sees it and says it looks like Eczema but it is not in the spot you usually find Eczema. And the fact that she has asthma suggests eczema, but it's just in the wrong spot. So we're going to try Hydocortisone cream for a few days and see what happens.

Her strongwilled doing it "my way" streak is so deep even skin issues follow suit. That's my Chloe.

Ready to vomit

Friday was the 8th anniversary of September 11th (duh) and I, along with everyone thought about the feelings of that fateful day, where I was, what I was doing, etc etc. But that night I watched a show on the History channel that made my stomach churn.

There were 2 shows, the first was the stories of a few people who survived the Trade Centers falling on the Marriott they were in. It was good, hearing a firefighter cry because one of his friends didn't make it out that day was heart wrenching, to say the least.

THEN.... was 102 minutes that changed America

It was a real time compilation of videos; professional and amateur, without interviews, so the only talking is done by the people on the videos. They also played some 911 recordings. It was real, it was really real because none of it was post interviews, it was all as it was happening, people's reactions. That's probably why it was so hard to watch. I knew what was coming next, I knew the second plane was coming, I knew the towers would fall, I knew it all, and I couldn't stop it. Sounds weird, right? Of course I couldn't stop it, I am watching it 8 years later, but the urge to yell at the screen "Don't go in there!! It's going to fall. Run for your life!" was strong.

They showed all the firefighters walking up to the towers, some of them seemed scared, I saw one guy (not heard just saw) say the "f" word, just before he went it. And that's when the urge to vomit hit me; I knew these men were now dead. I knew these brave heroes who went up 100's of flights of stairs to save peoples lives in a burning inferno of a building didn't make it out. Tears couldn't even come, but my dinner wanted desperately to come screaming out.

Then they played a recording of a dispatcher talking with a fire chief, giving him a run down of every engine and ladder and battalion company in the building, that's when the tears came. She just KEPT GOING. There were so many, so many, so so many. She went on for what seemed like hours, and I knew all those men were probably dead now.

I watched as they showed people ABOVE the areas where the planes hit waving flags out the window, trying to get someone to come help them. I saw the people jump. I had never watched that before, because I knew it wouldn't sit well with me, and still 8 years later my stomach churned violently seeing that desperation. They had two choices, die in the fire or die by jumping, what kind of choice was that????

Then I started to pray and cry out to God, What did we do to your world? This is what we humans do to each other? I am so sorry. I can't imagine how my Savior felt as his precious children died in such a gruesome manner. I can't imagine how He felt with such an awful thing being done in the name of God! So many human tragedies done in the "Name of God" that had nothing to do with the will of the real God, and they all make me sick.

Such a tragedy...

Day 2

So here we are, the second day of school. Serena really enjoyed yesterday. However, she did not like that they changed her lunchtime around, and now they play first and then eat (it may just have been a first day thing, I'm not sure).

Chloe was a monster yesterday, she does NOT like Serena being gone. All day I was ready to scream back at her and have a tantrum myself.

This morning Serena put on a super cute outfit...then as we were leaving I saw how SHORT her skirt had gotten on her rear end (the Alvarado genes bring a rump with them). SO we did a mad dash upstairs picked out a new outfit, then dashed off to school to find out they didn't move the start time up by 10 minutes, though the school wide phone call last week said they would.So, we got there on time, with time to spare.

They started their morning routine of flag deck, where the kids all line up outside, they do announcements and say the pledge of allegiance and sing a patriotic song. Serena looked glad to be back to this morning ritual, but Chloe didn't like it. She was calling for "see-ya" and had a bit of a fit when we came home without her big sis.

I love how they fight like alley cats, then cry when they are apart; normal sibling stuff I suppose, but it still makes me laugh.

So now back to my routine of setting up for moms, and then moms, then Bible study. I'm hopnig getting back to seeing her friends so often will help this transition for Chloe....reallly hoping......really hoping!!

Day one

Here we are, Chloe and I, home without Serena. It feels odd. Chloe, as we were on the long (Super sarcastic) walk home from school was already asking to go get Serena. We had seriously, left her side 1 minute prior.

Serena woke up at about 6:45, honestly much later than I had expected. She came down stairs and seemed not nearly as nervous as I had expected. She fell right into her super slow-mo getting ready for school mode; it was like seeing an old friend. Then as we got to school I could see her nervousness rise.

We stopped and prayed, and she seemed a bit more, well, Serene after that.

The friend she complained about ALL SUMMER LONG was not in her class, and she was bummed. "We're like sisters!" she said sadly, which I find hilarious.

A few girls from her girl scout troop were in her class, as well as a few kids from her first grade class. But, there were also quite a few kids that I didn't recognize, so I am sure she will come home with a new list of friends.

We ran into her first grade teacher (who, sigh, didn't move up to 2nd grade, BUT still has a job, so that is an answered prayer). I don't yet know if this teacher is a Christian, I mean I don't expect all her teachers to be, but last year was great.

Her teacher seems nice and very gentle, her name is Mrs. Fish.

I am now eagerly awaiting 2:19, to hear all about her first day!

Not so wild about Wilde

I don't think that I have previously read any of Oscar Wilde's books, could have back in my high school days, but not that I recall. Well, our book clubs pick this month was "The Picture of Dorian Gray" I read the back and it seemed like a fascinating story. I started with great delight, but really had to force myself to finish it simply so that I could talk about it at book club. To me it seemed as though he spent more time describing the flowers in the gardens and the books Dorian was reading than he ever did a single character. And the plot line, I feel, could have been amazing, but it was kind of skimmed over until the last 20 pages or so. Sigh. Maybe next month will fair better?

But I am loving (well technically loved, since I finished it tonight) my Bible Study's book "The Life You've Always Wanted". It sounds like a self-help thing...but is not at all like that. It is encouraging, and honest, and left feeling more equipped to do the tasks set before me by my savior.