by Emma Jayne

Emma has been saying for quite awhile that her dream is to be an author one day. She loves to read and she actually has written a few books for us at the house that I thought were actually kinda cute. She made a whole series of books for us for Christmas called "The Armor of God". It's about a brother and sister named Rachel & Levi and it goes through their mishaps of being kids and how each piece of the Whole Armor of God is used to teach them real life lessons. Things like truth, salvation, the Word, etc. I have actually been really impressed with her desire and creativity. I am also impressed at how much Biblical knowledge she actually is learning, (He is definitely showing grace on our parenting skills).

When we went up to Seattle I was looking through the Vision Forum catalog and noticed that there was a writing contest that went with the cover picture. Make up a story that relates to the picture on the cover of their catalog and you could win $1,000. I thought Emma might enjoy that so she took off writing and about 1/2 an hour later her story was written. Here is the cover that goes with the story.....

And here is her story.......

The Knight and The Princess

by Emma Jayne

Once upon a time there was a Princess named Cassie, a Knight named Michael, and a King named John. One day the King heard that there was a dragon in the Kingdom. He called his bravest men and said, “There is a dragon in the Kingdom you need to defeat it!”

Princess Cassie heard this and said, “I’ll go too.”

“NO, NO, NO”, said King John, but before he could convince her to stay she was out the door.

The King called Michael and said, “My daughter went out with the men, you need to go get her, she’s probably there by now.” Michael agreed.

When Michael got there he saw that the dragon was holding the princess in his hands. Then he had an idea, he would climb the dragon. He stuck his sword through the dragon’s leg, and began to climb up to the top of the dragon’s head. Once he was there he saw a rope, Michael poked the dragon in the chest, got the rope and caught the Princess. They swung back and forth and landed.

When they got home they told the whole story to the king. The king told Michael to kneel down in front of him. Michael knelt down and King John kindly said “I declare you my cleverest and bravest knight in the whole kingdom.” Twenty years later Princess Cassie and the Kingdom’s greatest Knight Sir Michael were married……..

and they lived happily ever after

THE END

I really hope she wins but we have prepared her that there are lots of entries and we'll just have to wait and see. She really does love to write which is why she has her own blog. Sorry, not giving the address here, gotta protect my children ;))

Gingerbread House

Riah & Emma have both asked me about gingerbread houses this year. "Mom it's our tradition, we have to do it". Ummmm.....last year was the only year we have done it, where's the tradition in that? Oh well, it's still fun but that candy can add up. Last year I decided that buying a kit was much cheaper than buying all that candy. So I told the girls that I wasn't sure if we would make a gingerbread house this year because the candy is just so darn expensive (I know I sound like such a mean mom but gotta watch the bottom line ya know). But little did they know that I had planned all along that after Christmas I would go and find one for 1/2 off and I knew I would find it too. Two days after Christmas, Wal-mart had a TON of them 1/2 off and I bet if I go in a few more days they will have them 75% off, maybe I'll have to stock up at that price. So I surprised the kids Monday morning with a gingerbread house. They were so excited! The candy actually did end up on the house too. It was fun and now I guess the new tradition will have to be making the houses after Christmas. Although, if they go on a 75% off clearance sale, I just might have some for before Christmas next year. I'll keep you posted.

I was going to include pictures but it seems they may have been lost....darn digital cameras :(((

Update: Hey guess what, PTL, my pictures were recovered!!!! For your viewing pleasure :))

OK, eating the candy is half the fun, right?

love those little finger ;)

Christmas Eve

We have always tried to find the "perfect" Christmas Eve tradition and last year I think we finally found it. Crab & Shrimp feed. I buy an over abundance of crab and shrimp and we enjoy the best meal of the year.

On the menu this year:
Whole Dungeness
Crab Clam Chowder
Shrimp WonTons
Fried Shrimp
Baked Potatoes
And lots of memories!

This year when we went up to Seattle (I'll write about that later) we had dinner at the Crab Pot which gave us the idea to do this at home. We covered our table with butcher paper, handed out mallets and personal size boards (hand made by DH), threw the food on the table and everyone just had at the crab, hammering away. It was so fun and definitely our new Christmas Eve tradition.



Doesn't that look just delish.....

Emma doesn't care for the crab but Riah seemed to really enjoy it this year. I'm not sure about Sarah though, she just kinda picked at everything. John's mom and brother joined us this year, I think they thought we were completely out of our gourds, LOL.

After we stuffed our guts full of the best seafood we headed out to our new church, Calvary Chapel Lebanon's Christmas Eve service and celebrated our Savior's birth. What a humbling truth, our God, in the flesh, Jesus Christ came here to live amongst wretched sinners so that you and I could be saved from death and destruction. That, my friends, is.......

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.

Have you put your full faith and trust in Jesus?

For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

Photography

New Photography pricing:

$125 for a session of approx 2 hours with a result of approx 200 pictures. You will have approx 20 pictures edited with full printing rights. You will have your photos back to you within 2 weeks of your shoot. This price is for one family, if you desire to have more families (i.e. extended families) the price will be on a case by case basis. A $50 deposit is required upon booking. The price of $125 does include a USB flash drive so if you have a flash drive you would like to use I will take $15 off the price. In Him!

Blogging vs. Facebook

I just read a blogger post about how they hate Facebook because no one ever blogs anymore. I think this might be my claim here too. I can't archive my facebook profile into a book and I think that's what I miss the most. One of Emma's Christmas presents this year was putting her blog into a book and she completely loved it. I have lost an entire year of our families lives because of Facebook. At this time in our lives (because of our church move) I'm not sure if I want to be done with facebook but I think blogging will take the priority over it.

vs.

Which one is your favorite? Where can I find you most often?

My life line

How do I get through my days??? Well #1 is my Lord and Savior Jesus (you should try Him sometime, He's great) but #2 (and a close 2nd at that) is.......


My flavor of choice is Peppermint Mocha (which I have to stock up on since it's only seasonal) and Special Dark Chocolate syrup. Oh that is so yummy. What is your flavor of choice?


I know I haven't blogged for awhile but I have missed it so much and really desire to try to get back to it. Here is my first attempt. They may be short and sweet but at least it's here.

Family Photo Sessions

It is close to the holiday season and as most of you know, I have been praying about starting my own photography business. So here is the holiday deal I have for you and your family. I will spend a morning/afternoon with your family where I usually take upwords of 200 outdoor photos and in the end you will end up with a CD with all your pictures and a few (5-10) edited for you to use as your family Christmas picture all for $35. Send me an email or call me (541) 259-4249 to make arrangements. My time is filling up fast.

I know I'm supposed to discourage it but boy is it cute.........

Leah sucking her thumb

Bible Study

I started a new Bible Study last night called Believing God by Beth Moore. I have done two other Beth Moore studies and have found them challenging. The first one I did was Breaking Free but being the first of her studies that I had done, I found it difficult and was hard to follow. Now that I know her style I can study better with her. The second one that I did was called Jesus the One and Only. This is where I came to understand her studies a little bit better and was able to get more out of it. This time I understand her way of thinking and her teaching style so I am ready and on fire to learn. I just finished another study by Kay Arthur, The God Who Cares & Knows You and found it difficult because of the season that I was in at the time. Having a new baby (brand new at the time) it was difficult to give Bible study a whole lot of effort and time. Now that we are starting to get back to normal life I feel like this is the time to really get focused on my relationship with the Lord and come back to my first love, Jesus.

Here is the "Five Statement Pledge of Faith" that comes with this new Bible study and I thought I would share it here.

1. God is who He says He is!
2. God can do what He says He can do!
3. I am who God says I am!
4. I can do all things through Christ!
5. God's Word is alive and active in me!

I am excited to dig deep into God's Word again and dig out of the trenches that life can bring.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. Ephesians 1:17

My Mom

Last night I ended up following an ambulance with mom in it to the Emergency Room. After checking all of her vitals, taking xrays and waiting, they decided that she has pneumonia. Now if she was a healthy 57 yr old woman they probably would have sent her home but since she has heart issues and is diabetic they decided to keep her for observation.

Now this flu bug is the same one that my kids had and I'm not completely convinced that it's not swine flu (not calling it T5U3 or whatever funky name they have given it). They had all the symptoms of swine flu (what's the difference again???) and I read an article last week saying that the swine flu is actually contagious for longer than the normal. We purposely kept my mom away from the kids until they were completely better so she wouldn't get sick. Granted, I guess she could have gotten it from any number of other places (licking the grocery cart, picking her nose after touching someone else who had it, LOL!!) but all of her symptoms are EXACTLY to the tee, the same as my little kidlets. I guess it doesn't really matter if she has swine or not because either way, she is in the hospital now and they are taking care of her.

I woke up with this verse on my heart today:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him.

Yes I am trusting You Lord!

My mom holding Leah

On another note: Emma is doing much better. I was getting a little scared that she might have some permanent damage but all is well now. We serve a merciful God, Thank you Lord!!!

Sunglasses in the house??

We are at John's mom's house for the weekend (which probably explains my availability of time to blog :) ) bringing her a new computer and just doing some projects around the house to get the house ready for the winter.

In the middle of the night, Emma came into our room crying saying that her eye hurt. I looked at it, prayed for her and told her that it looked fine and there wasn't much I could do so just go back to sleep and we'll see how it feels in the morning. About 6:30 in the morning she came out again crying and we still couldn't figure out why it was hurting so told her again, go get some more rest and we'll see how you're feeling in the morning "but don't run into anything on the way".

That's when she remembered,

"Oh mom, I just remembered what happened, when I was going to the bathroom and I came back to the bedroom, I ran into the cabinet".

So after talking to her, we decided that she must have had her eye open when she hit it which would probably explain so much pain, ya think?? Thankfully, in this tiny little town, there still is a nice nurse that we could go see to get an opinion and she agreed that we should probably take her in. Guess where you have to go in a tiny little town on a Sunday. Yep, 45 minutes away to the Emergency Room. Oh well, anything for my babies, right??? They have the coolest gel that you can put on your eye, and under UV light, you can see the abrasion. She ended up with a corneal abrasion about the size of a pinky nail. Not a small scratch on the eye. He gave her some "numbsit" type stuff for the eye and we just have to wait for it to heal. Now we'll just pray that she doesn't have any permanent damage which we won't find out for a few more days depending on how well it heals. So this is how she is spending the rest of the day.



She keeps saying "I wish I would've had my hand out to see where I was going", I guess she'll only do it once :))

I'm Back

I originally quit blogging because I felt the tug of the Lord to stop because between facebook and blogging I was being selfish with my time. I feel like I have learned alot through the last 9 months of where my time needs to be spent. What is important to the Lord and myself is my family. I can't say that I haven't shed any tears over not blogging. The few times that I have come back to look something up I have gotten somewhat emotional about it. So here I am, I think I'm going to try my hand at blogging again. If it comes to take up too much of my time then I will have to quit again. Hopefully I can continue this time.

Over the last 10 months we have had a baby, been on a few vacations, done lots more photography, sent 2 kids to the hospital, and lost John's dad. We just recently started school and I'm sure over the next few weeks, I'll update you on what we are doing this school year. I am very excited for what this school year will bring us.

See Ya!

Well people, this is it, the end, a time to say adios. I have felt for awhile that I needed to end my time of blogging. I don't know why and I can't explain it but I feel if I were to continue I would be in disobedience to the Lord. I hope you have enjoyed this blog. I have been over at facebook alot so please if you keep up on this blog and would like to continue to get updates on this family circus you may shoot me a friend request, just don't forget to mention that you watch my blog. If you don't, chances are I won't know who you are and I'll reject ya. Hope to see ya'll on facebook soon.

Being Crafty

Friday night a friend of mine had a craft night at her house. The idea is to just bring whatever you are working on, scrapbooking, cards or whatever and work on them while fellowshipping. I always have such a hard time doing that because every time I take my scrapbooking stuff over somewhere I just do the fellowshipping part. Well this time I actually got a project done, it wasn't scrapbooking though and that's probably why. This time I made a pennant to hang in my dining room. It was such a fun time to just hang out and do girly stuff even if it was just for a couple of hours (a whole weekend would be ideal, hint hint Ang :)))).

Thank you Shannon for hosting us and letting us stay so late. I love my pennant and now I have made a few more for the girls' rooms.

Where oh where has she gone?

I know I haven't blogged much lately. I'm really not sure why except for lack of time. I used to wake up at 5:00 to go swimming, come home, eat breakfast and do devotions. By the time I was done with devotions it would be only 7AM and my kids don't get up until at least 8:00, hence I have an hour to do whatever I wanted so I would blog. Since I've been pregnant I haven't been able to get up that early so I just don't have as much time. I don't like to blog during the day so I'm not taking away time from the family and at night it's my time with John. Yes I'm blogging at night now but that brings me to the next problem, our computer. Our computer's hard drive has decided to go on the fritz so I've had to wait until night to use John's laptop. I know I sound like I'm complaining again but I'm really not. I guess I'm thinking on the keyboard. My thought lately has been maybe I should just stop blogging to make sure my family is #1 (well after the Lord). I'm still praying about that one.

An update on my sugars. I have been taking them daily at least 2x per day and they have been great. Last night I had a banana and that didn't go over very well but other then that I've been able to eat Almond Roca at night which is my favorite candy, YAHOOOOOOO!!!!! Thank you for your prayers.

I'll try and see you here soon, pending our computer issues. I can't post any pictures since I'm on John's laptop, (he doesn't have the right kind of card reader). So until I have my computer back, maybe a week or so, I won't be able to post any pics, sorry.

Sugar sugar sugar

Now that I'm pregnant I have to think about my previous pregnancies and remember my sugar problem with Sarah. I remember when I was told that I had to cut out sugar, I cried and cried. What this meant was NOT that I couldn't have sugar but that I would have to eat steak and cheese because not only does that mean sugar but all carbs because they all turn into sugar. When I was pregnant with Sarah I didn't have to do that until the very end, 9 weeks left in my pregnancy. This has become an issue again already and it's hard. I think snack time is the hardest. I was just trying to find a snack to eat and it was Kielbasa, nuts or cooked broccoli, I chose the kielbasa. Probably not the healthiest but it sounded like the better of three options. All I really wanted was the monkey munch sitting on the counter that no one else is eating and I can't, maybe it's time to just throw it away. One of my good friends just found out she is diabetic and is having to make lifestyle changes which has been difficult. I need to get some good snack options from her. Oh and by the way, so far I am not diabetic but I do have to watch it and check my blood sugar periodically to make sure I'm keeping it under control.

Anyways, with all this said, could you please pray for me and my sanity in these snack times? I know it will get easier but there is no changing this one for 6 months (hopefully long enough to make a lifestyle change). Thanks for listening to me vent.

To end this on a lighter note:
Emma opening her Christmas present with her American Girl books, probably her most favorite

Bring on 2009

Now that we are the beginning of 2009, I thought I would just say how excited I am about this upcoming year. I think it will be pretty exciting with a new baby coming along and maybe a new layout in the home. I don't think any real vacations are in store for this year but hopefully some short jaunts to OMSI, Gilbert House or the coast.

This last week I spent most of the week updating our bedroom. I have never had a "pretty" bedroom so this was very exciting to me. I am just in awe at how well it turned out, thanks to some wonderful friends. The pictures don't really show it very well, I guess I'll have to see if I can get a better picture to share.

This next week I think will be a difficult one. John is headed back to work after a week and a half off and now it's back to school time. We didn't do much school in between Thanksgiving and Christmas so now it's back to the real life and real schedule. It might prove to be a tough week. Lots of prayer and perseverance should get us through just fine.

For Christmas I got some new filters for my camera and I am so excited to start using them. Hopefully you'll see a neat difference in some of my pictures. I guess that's what you'll have to look forward to here is some more experimenting with the cam.

HAPPY 2009

PS I know I never posted the last two doctrinal questions here and maybe those will be in my projects for the next couple of weeks. Keep your eyes peeled.