More Snow Pictures!!

The kids went out in the snow again and had a blast!!! Shasta(our Siberian husky) went out to play too. The kids made two snowmans and had a snowball fight, all of them had a really good time!!

~Shasta looked so pretty playing in the snow~

~Here is a picture of behind the house we thought it looked really pretty with the snow~

And the finished project.....

Snow, Snow, Snow!!!!!!

We did not get that many snow pictures because all the kids would not stop running around throwing snowballs, trying to make a snow man, and getting the lid off the trash can and trying to "slide" down our driveway finally realizing it was NOT going to work. I wonder who thought of that one, Morgan.


-- a picture of our house you can't get a good picture of it because we have so many trees--

Have a blessed Sunday everyone

Schedules

Now that the kids are much better we are enjoying getting back into our regular schedule for school and home. This is not easy for me. I have a tough time keeping up with everything but life runs much smoother when we implement our schedule. The best thing we have ever used is from the Maxwell Family. Managers of Their Homes and Managers of Their Chores. It helps us to stay on track, this in turn helps with better behaved children and that is always a plus. When we are off our schedule it seems like everyone is going in a different direction. This usually ends in chaos and confusion. Not a good thing ever. I need to get the Managers of their School book from the Maxwells. This sounds like a good one too. I had planned on getting it from them when they came through our area but plans changed and we didn't make it. This also allows time to schedule in all the extras. There is so much we want to get to but never have the time for. I hope to do better at that. We are also back to the Flylady for keeping up with the house. The kids enjoy doing that so I just let them go for it. Not everyone enjoys cleaning house(that would be me) but they get in pairs and enjoying working together. Older with the younger works out well!! The boys can't be partners very much they seem to get sidetracked.

This Sunday is something I have been looking forward to. It has been several weeks since i made it. We have a group coming in "This Hope" . My husband has a wonderful video of these on his blog. It is worth your time to watch it. It is based on a true story and it brought me to tears. ( I know that sometimes isn't too hard). I love the words to this song. We are so free in our country to worship God. I can't imagine what it would be like to not have that freedom. But lets not kid ourselves about it. It might not always be that way. We need to pay attention to what our kids are being taught. We need to make sure they have the correct truth and not what the world wants to teach them. Okay so watch the video it is so good. To think what this man had to go through. It makes me want to stand even taller and be even prouder of this life that we have chosen. I know I won't go to jail for this because it is legal. But to get teased, be made fun of or talked about. Through the years we have faced this at some point. But the blessings from God and the encouragement and kindness from others totally outweigh the negative. Isn't there and old saying that a true friend loves you, faults and all. I pray for me this is true because I have plenty faults. Would I change anything if I had to go to prison and be away from my family. Very tough question. I pray that our family would stand strong with Gods help. Here's the link to the video http://sixparriskidsandcounting.com

Sam and Sarah update

It has been a long week so far-after a quick trip to TC Thompsons Sunday night we found out that the RSV had caused Pneumonia to start setting up. They didn't want to keep him since he was feeling pretty good and thought the antibiotics would work well. Let me just say this is a very hard place to be at. I walked down the hall to go for a chest x ray and everywhere I turned I heard screaming sick babies. They were full at the ER in every spot. I noticed several times many Dr's and nurses working on one baby. One image in my mind I wish I could forget but it keeps popping up. I am so thankful that my little boy was looking up grinning at me almost to say" Hey I feel better let's go home". My heart was so heavy for the other parents there. When we first pulled in I saw an ambulance bringing in someone. Never a good thing to see at any ER but just something about it being at a Children's hospital gave me that sick feeling in my stomach. When we got home with the baby Sarah had already started running a fever. We Had thought she might be able to get over it easier because she was a little older, but of course I was back at the Dr. with her Tuesday morning. Her chest x ray showed no pneumonia but her high fevers really scared me. As of Wednesday things seemed to be improving except for the fact that Samuel still hates his breathing treatments and just loves to spit out his medicine. But that's OK he will probably have to get used to them if he is anything like Jacob. Now on Thursday the Dr. has decided to finally put Sarah on antibiotics because her symptoms are changing just like Samuel's did. Hopefully we will see a major improvement in her in about 24 hours. So what we are trying to do is just keep a normal routine as much as possible and let the older 3 do alot of independent school stuff and then if the little ones go to sleep at the same time we do our group time together. Poor Katie is starting to get sick now too. She has been such a little helper to me. The oldest 3 have been such helps around here. Morgan and Katie doing just about whatever needs to be done. From house stuff to food to helping with the little ones and Josiah is trying to keep up with folding our always huge pile of laundry and also doing some of the girls regular chores as I need them in other places. This has been a time for us to all pull together. Anyone who knows me well knows I don't do very good without sleep, I know I should just get used to it, so I really appreciate them working.
A funny side note- when Sarah and Samuel weighed we were sure that he had passed her up but she still has about a pound on him. So funny, one petite one and one chubby one. Who would have thought. Prayers for all of us would be great. #1 for no more of this junk to be passed around and #2 I can't seem to get over this queasiness of maybe indigestion stuff . I think I need to just get back on some prilosec and here's the big one stop drinking coke and lose about 50 or so pounds. I just can't stand this yucky sick feeling. It could just be nerves. Looking forward to the weekend and praying away this sickness. Thank you Lord for taking care of us!!!!

Our sick Baby Boy

Just wanted to do a quick post and ask those of you that keep up with our family through the blog to pray for Little Samuel. He had been sick for a few days so we made an appt. with the Dr on Friday. He has RSV. That is a pretty scary thing for us just because he is still so young. They also did a chest x ray and checked his oxygen level. It was at 100 % and there was no sign of pneumonia. He was just having a hard time with his breathing so they wanted to really check him out. He was able to get past the flu somehow a few months ago and just caught this somehow. The Dr said he should be improving by Sat. Well it's now Sunday and I don't think he has improved but it could be worse. He doesn't like the breathing treatments but of course who really would. Sarah has started to feel yucky too. If you remember, say a prayer for us.

Sunday Service

We had an awesome service this morning. I was excited to get ready and be at church for the first service of 2010. Sammy took a Sunday off last week and we did not have service Wednesday so it seemed like it had been so long since I had been in church. We had some great music!!!! And then a sweet little girl that I have known and loved since she was a baby was baptised today. I have been friends with her Mom for over 20 years and her parents were in our wedding and we were in theirs. I know they are so excited to know that both of their girls have accepted the Lord. What more could you ask for? When our oldest daughter Morgan was baptised it was on Easter Sunday. I'll never forget it . We were in revival and she had went forward one night. Then a few days later her Daddy was able to pray with her and she asked Jesus to be her saviour. How thrilled we were. Since then we have seen Katie and Josiah both be saved and baptised at Waterville. We do something a bit different than I was used to but I really love it. When the person along with the pastor come out into the Baptistry, he asks for a word of encouragement to be shared. This is when a parent or spouse or maybe even a teacher speaks directly to this person and gives a bible scripture. Sammy did this for Katie and Josiah. I watched them look at their Daddy so sweetly as he spoke to them. It is a very special time. Today Kendall's Dad, Tim spoke to her just before she was baptised. You could tell he was moved beyond words. Sammy and I remembered tonight when Tim was saved quite a long time ago in our younger years. We are so proud to be in church serving the Lord with Tim and Loren and their girls. Our pastor then challenged us to daily read the word and pray. I really enjoyed the sermon. We all need to be reminded of the basics. It is so easy to get in a rut. I am not one to do a typical New Years Resolution but I do enjoy a fresh start. I think I am going to get our One Year Bible and start reading with the kids. I know they will do their best to keep us up to date. I saw on another blog I enjoy reading that she had a 90 day challenge going. That sounds great too. Morgan, Katie and I are also going to do a study together called Raising Maidens of Virtue. I am looking forward to it too. I have wanted to read this with them for sometime now. We might share more about it as we're going through it on one of our blogs. Not sure who will post about that one. Looking forward to the year ahead.