From Worship this Week

Turn it up, stomp your feet, and worship your guts out!!! :)

Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not

"When to the flowers so beautiful 

The Father gave a name, 

Back came the little blue-eyed one-

All timidly it came-

And standing at the Father's feet

And gazing at His face,

It said in low and trembling tones,

with sweet and gentle grace,

"Dear God, the name thou gave st me, 

Alas, I have forgot."

Then kindly, looked the Father down, 

And said, "Forget Me Not."

Five weeks ago this Saturday, Christmas Eve, we had a very sweet surprise.  It was a big sister's wish for Christmas.  Her answered prayer; a miracle!  Oh, how we rejoiced over the surprise, the new life- we couldn't even wait to tell our family, and spilled the beans that night.

It all happened so fast, I've even wondered if it was true.  I wanted to grieve the loss, and thought I had?

I take after my grandmother, whose father told her, "Indians don't cry."  I rarely cry.  Yet, as I read  a note from my Nanny Monday, the tears finally came in muffled sobs.  Poor Peyton didn't know what to think and ran to get his blanket to comfort me. :)

She wrote, "what a reunion it'll be in Heaven when we meet these unborn babies".  Ironically, she even sent her note on Native American stationary.  It was also the day after someone at church prayed a most precious/prophetic prayer over me.  How God loves us!!!  Looking back, I think my grief was festering.  Where I am normally patient, I have been irritable- yuck.  Something broke and grace filled the cracks!  I have had more than one occasion where I could have/should have felt overwhelmed this week, but I have had peace.

In the short time the baby lived, it was/is most certainly loved.  O drew this picture of her and brother holding "him" the day before we told her the baby was in heaven.  When we told her, she wanted to know what happens with all the babies, but instead answered, "I think God is holding all of them."

We love you, sweet baby, and will forget you not!

The Great I Am

I know this is an overused, even corny phrase, but God is doing a new thing.  His Word says "...we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,^[b] for those who are called according to his purpose."  Romans 8:28  I know this to be true; He's always working on our hearts {working all things together for good}.  Lately, every where we turn, we're running into the same message:  give thanks, praise God in everything, regardless of your circumstances. 

In Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts, she shares, "Eucharisteo {thanksgiving} always, always precedes the miracle... The real problem of life-- in my life-- is lack of thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying happens when I give thanks- take the just one loaf, say it is enough, and give thanks- and He miraculously makes it more than enough." {pg. 72} 

A speaker at our church Sunday night stated, "The problem is not your problem, it is your perspective on your problem."  We can't change our perspective with willpower or positive thinking {"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”}, but the Holy Spirit can!  A few weeks back David and I were prayed for, and our outlook changed.  The Holy Spirit did that! 

I don't think we can truly delight in God's innumerable gifts or even notice them if we are always going at a breakneck speed.  I am guilty!  To be fully present, you have to slow so you can see.  I think taking pictures helps me do that.   God's beauty abounds everywhere you look!  I love this {Ann again}:  "This is where God is.  In the present.  I AM-- His very name." {pg. 69} 

I recently saved this to my desktop as a reminder to be fully present, eyes/heart wide open.

Again, I think God has had a theme for me.  We've been singing this song at church a lot. 

Hallelujah Holy Holy

God almighty Great I am

Who is worthy

None beside Thee

God Almighty

Great I Am

The mountains shake before Him

The demons run and flee

At the mention of the name

King of Majesty

There is no power in hell

Or any who can stand

Before the power and the presence of the Great I am

The Great I am The Great I am

The Great I am The Great I am The Great I am 

May we press into God, praise Him for His goodness, and know He is always more than enough!

Some final quotes:

• If God didn't withhold from us His very own Son, will God withhold anything we need? 154
• This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, eucharisteo.153
• Remembering frames up gratitude.  Gratitude lays out the planks of trust.  I can walk the planks- from known to unknown- and know: He holds.  I could walk unafraid... Remembering is an act of thanksgiving.152
• Every time fear freezes and worry writhes, every time I surrender to stress, aren't I advertising the unreliability of God?  That I really don't believe?  But if I'm grateful to the Bridge Builder for the crossing of a million strong bridges, thankful for a million faithful moments, my life speaks my beliefs and I trust Him again. 151
• The Lord has to break us down at the strongest part of our self-life before He can have His own way of blessing with us. 138
• The only way to fight a feeling is with a feeling... feel thanks and it's absolutely impossible to feel angry.  We can only experience one emotion at a time.  And we get to choose- which emotion do we want to feel? 136
• Whenever I am blind to joy's well, isn't it because I don't believe in God's care?  That God cares enough about me to always offer me joy's water, wherever I am, regardless of circumstance. 130

I could keep going, but will cut myself off there!:)

Week... Insta-style

If I had instagram or instagrid {what is it called?}, I think it would look like this: 

I'll pretend the picture quality is due to phone pictures, too. 

Our first time meeting Lakota

 My little ones in wranglers- I love!

 I wish I could tell you this was a home run craft, but 'twas not the case.  I thought we could make some fun artwork for the home school room, but the mess, oh the mess of this project.  Should you attempt this, be sure to adequately cover the perimeter. 

 After you hot glue your crayolas to a canvas, hold a hair dryer to them and watch them melt! 

 Reminded me of lava

 It is fun taking pictures of the precious little things that are our days, like how a sister plays cars with her brother. 

She clips a hair clip on

and drives them while wearing her crown and princess dress.

Waking up to  s n o w !

 

 Can I hear a hurrah?!  We are moved into the basement and Jules even watched her first movie {Baby Einstein} in the new space.  Previously, we've watched movies on our laptop, so we are pretty pumped about the new family room!

A reminder... spring is coming!

For Sale

~ Art for your powder room now for sale at OnaFarm ~ 

I was inspired to try to recreate the print my Grandma had hanging in this house when I was growing up.  The poem hung right above her toilet and always made me smile. 
I don't know the whereabouts of the original picture, but here is a modern day version of it! 
You know my computer skills leave a lot to be desired, so Amy and Angie made the idea a reality!  Thank you, Thank you, ladies!!!  

Please check them out and let me know if you love them as much as me!
Also, please not the pictures I took aren't the best quality... I've discovered it is difficult to get a good picture of a print! :)
* additional colors available!

P.S. I'm not sure where the theme is coming from, but I hope to have something else for your lavatory soon!

Farm Girl's Field Trip

~ Hauling Wheat to Portland with Grampy! ~

A New Year

It is January and we are in the thick of construction dust once again.  What is it about January and tearing apart the house with us?:)  Actually, we have been eagerly waiting to start this project since we moved in.  The basement floors were covered with a black sticky residue, which liked to adhere to your socks, the furniture, rugs, toys, etc., so we knew grinding the floor would make the area  w a y  more usable.  What we didn't know is what a job it would be and how d u s t y.  Oh my!  Hats off to my husband for all his hard work!  It used to be that we had to tell people to put their shoes on to go downstairs, and now they had better take them off! :)  Talk about a transformation!

The dust-coated shroud of plastic finally came down. 

He started on the project when we got home from Bend and we should be finished by this weekend.  Hip, Hip Hooray!

This is what the floors looked like before and I'll share some pictures once we're done!

Besides taking on some construction mess, we also did our fair share of cleaning out, organizing, relaxing, reading, and playing over Christmas break.  We were excited to start school again, but really enjoyed the downtime.  I read a new book I received for Christmas over the break and it is one of the best I've ever read.  Have you heard of Unbroken? 
It is the powerful true story of Louis Zamperini.  Talk about an awful, compelling, unbelievable, can't-put-it-down kind of book.  My head is still spinning.  We owe so much to men like him!  He is a living, walking miracle!
We're also reading the Little House on the Prairie series {another Christmas present}; O & P are loving it!


I don't think I've ever made New Year's resolutions.  I'm not sure why, I think they didn't interest me or I didn't want to set myself up for failure?  I feel the same about diets.  If I do something, I have to stick to it, and diets seem impossible to sustain {although Weight Watchers seems more doable}.  Anyhoo... 

I don't know what got into me, but I did jot down a few things for this year {albeit random!}:

• feed the family blueberries every morning.  The little nuts absolutely love them and they are such a yummy snack right out of the freezer.  {I thaw the ones for the baby and she gobbles them up}  Their health benefits are outrageous!  I love them, too, and don't know why I forget about 'em.  I have a new rule that I have my blueberries before my morning chocolates.  Sometimes, they satisfy my sweet tooth and I don't want my chocolates for at least another 10 minutes. :)
• do thoughtful things for David on a regular basis.  It is easy to forget to be creative about showing my love and appreciation for my number one man, so I want to do a better job this year.
• set up a home school room.  I'd like to have this ready for next school year!
•  accomplish even the unlovely, monotonous tasks in a timely manner.  Set the timer for myself if need be
• sew more
• get a nice camera, and learn to use it {dream big!}
• establish a new bible memorization plan that is laid out for the year {one/week}
  

We created a token jar for when I observe one of the little nuts doing something especially helpful, thoughtful, kind, etc. They get to pick their token   I saw the idea here and thought it was so neat!  It is a creative reward and also a way to see what they need {a hug, a story, pep talk, massage, game, walk with Mom, baked good}.  You can buy tokens here.

It can be hard to vacuum the floors when your handyman wants to inspect and give it more "gas" every 3 minutes!  He takes his job very serious!

 Sweet girl ironing and hanging her doll clothes up to "dry" in her room.

She pleads to wear her fanciest dresses every day. :)

Jock has a new friend!  I have some pictures of him, but Blogger is not letting me upload them for some reason...Boo!  I'll try again soon.  He is three years old and is a grey dapple.  He hasn't been worked with much, so he definitely needs work, but my Dad loves a project horse, and he seems to have a sweet disposition.  Everyone already loves him.

I wanted to share a few more things, but the eyelids are heavy, so I'll come around again soon!

God bless and keep you!