Wednesdays in the Word

I love how powerful the Word of God is. I love that it can heal our hearts and change our perspectives.

I experienced a huge disappointment last week and my heart was heavy for days but the Lord used two verses to give me hope. I love how He does that!

He gave me hope in a 'Holy However,' as I like to call it now.

I was reading in Acts 4 about Peter and John who were preaching to a great crowd of people and right in the middle of it, they were arrested and were put in jail. It says the Sadducees were "greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead and they laid hands on them...." As discouraging as that might have been it wasn't the end of the story...

Because it says "However, many of the those who heard the word believed and the number of men came to be about five thousand." Acts 4:4 ~Awesome!

That 'However' reminded me of what God can do to change a situation. So now, I'm going to view that disappointment through the eyes of faith and look for it to turn into a 'Holy However.'

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." Rom.8:28

~Becky

Weekend fun!

We spent Sunday afternoon with some friends who live on a lake!

~And after asking the obvious Floridian question about alligators, we all had a blast!

They taught our kiddos how to knee board! ~They loved it!!!


It was so much fun!
I got a kick out of Andrew who watched Joy do really well on the knee board and when it was his turn he found a way to out do her by trying it one handed. ; )

What fun memories we made! Thank you L Family, for your sweet hospitality!

~Becky

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Today is Andrew's actual birthday!!!

On this day nine years ago, we had so much to thank God for!

Psalm 68:20 says "to God alone belong escapes from death."

Hallelujah! He was so gracious to us that day!

We know that He has awesome plans for Andrew's life!

~Becky

The funky and the fun

There's been this funky rash going around our family for a couple of weeks now...

We have finally found out what it is!


POISON IVY, of all things!!!!!

And guess who had the absolute worst case of it?

The boy who didn't even spend his weekend camping in the woods! Isn't that strange?!
Bless his heart. He missed Pow Wow for his TBQ quiz and then got a case of Poison Ivy worse than all the guys in our family who camped!
This was our first experience with it and it's beastly! But, he's on the mend now. -And come to find out most of the men who went, got it too.

This weekend ...we have the pleasure of celebrating the birth of Andrew!




His name in this family brings to mind:

A sweet spirit
A fun sense of humor
A sold out heart for Jesus
A bright mind
Cute freckles

and peanut butter and jelly!!! (because mega-picky eaters have to eat something!)
He is the kiddo who once asked me if he could skip dinner because he did so well at school that day!!! ; )

I loved my hubby's idea of making him a birthday cake shaped like a Pb&j sandwich, but he's not a big cake fan. He ended up choosing brownies and ice-cream instead.
But,
I found this recipe and now these are just going to have to be apart of our celebration!
Because "Roo" and peanut butter and jelly, they are synonymous! ; )

Have yourself a happy, itch-free weekend. We plan to! LOL!
~Becky

Wednesdays in the Word

I've been enjoying what the Pharisees said about Jesus in Mark chapter 12 lately.
They were on a mission to trap Him in His words but what they said about Him was true and I think it's inspiring.

"Teacher, we know that You are true (meaning genuine, real, the opposite of having any human inconsistencies, concealment's or falsehoods)

and care about no one, (sounds like heartless but it literally means "court no man's favor!")

for You do not regard the person of men, (meaning "look at the face of man." We know He "looks at the hidden person of the heart.")

but teach the way of God in truth..."

Could our enemies say such awesome things about us?

Would they have to admit that we are:
~Always genuine and don't have inconsistencies in our lives.
~That we are not in the least bit concerned with status or position.
~That we could care less about being seen with the right people who look/dress right, because we care about 'the hidden person of the heart" and not outward appearances...

He truly taught "the way of God in truth" and what a compliment that was. I want my life to express "the way of God in truth" too.

~Becky
-who is going to be working on this : )

One loud bird

Somehow our parrotlet did not get the memo that his breed is a quiet one!

We used to keep him in the family room but our teen likes to have it quiet when he studies and I didn't want a parrot that could say "Shut up, Jimmy." ; )

(which by the way, doesn't work)

So now we keep him in the living room where he competes with me when I read aloud. Ugh!

"Guess what is the only thing that will make him be quiet?

When we say:

"Jeeee-sus loves you!" (in a really high pitched voice)

He will usually completely stop his squawk/chirping and its like he's pausing to reflect on that thought for a minute or two. LOL

~It is rather funny to hear people throughout the day getting frustrating and stopping midsentence in their conversations to say "Jeeeee-sus loves you, Jimmy."

Yes, His love is strong even though ours is waning! ; )

And hopefully he'll be saying it back to us one of these days.

~Becky

Here they are!

It was a beautiful evening. Praise the Lord!

~Becky

Because I'm a mom...

The other day when we were at the park to jog for p.e.

I reached in my pocket and felt something strange, small and hard...

And when I pulled it out, I found that it was some body's molar!!! Ewwww!!!

~I guess that is because I'm a mom by day and the tooth fairy by night. ; )

~Becky

Our first performance

For the past four years or so my hubby has been working on our dream which is to have a family worship band.

We are pretty excited because Friday night will be the debut performance! (AKA playing for people who aren't related to us!) ; )


Our home school group is having a talent night, so we've been doing lots of practicing this week.

At first we were just going to have all the kids play a song together, but they aren't used to playing without Dad, so he's going to do it with them. ~And are they ever glad about that!


Andrew is on his way to being a great guitar player but he hasn't had enough time to learn the song yet, so he and I are sitting this one out.
They are going to play 'Draw Me Close.'
Joy is also going to be in a beautiful dance to one of the Newsboys songs
with a bunch of the girls in the group.
It should be a fun night.

~Becky
Who will be sure to get it all on video for the olive plants' grandparents! : )

The Retreat

We're back! We had a wonderful time!

This place reminds you of going back in time.

How many resorts have a rooster to wake you up while you are on vacation?! LOL

There were about 95 of us there this year! I always feel like I have a small quiver when I get together with this group. : )

The resort has a barn full of bikes, that the kids spent all weekend riding. Here's Andrew with his Bible all ready to ride to church.

They have a cute chapel for holding weddings! And we always enjoy holding our church service in it. (sorry my picture is a little crooked)Instead of company meetings this year, my hubby's boss had a guest speaker who taught the employees and their spouses about leadership from the book of Nehemiah. It was a great class! Zach was our hero for babysitting our kiddos and taking them to play tennis and swim while we were in the class.

Volleyball is the big sport of choice when this group gets together and our gang learned how to play 'speed' volleyball.

I talked my sweet hubby into taking me kayaking. -even though he'd just been out in canoes with our kiddos. And that was some wet fun, for me anyway. He managed to stay completely dry!

I had fun learning how to arrange flowers from the other ladies as we helped make the centerpieces for the banquet.

They hired some of the girls to play their violins and cellos for us at the banquet. It was beautiful!

Each year at the banquet awards are given to the employees based on character traits. The employees vote for whoever they feel exemplifies each trait.

My hubby was voted:

First runner-up for Gentleness: Expressing truth without harshness, allowing for mistakes while other improve

Second runner-up for the Team Player Award

And the winner for these three awards:

Consideration: Being sensitive and responsive to client, team member and associate needs

Respect: Treating others with respect and dignity

Clint service: Going the extra mile to serve our clients

AND he was the only person who received at least one vote for ALL 17 character traits!!! Praise the Lord!

It was so fun to watch him being honored for being the wonderful, godly man that he is!

~After lots more volleyball, we headed home! I know our kiddos are already looking forward to next year.

~Becky

Watching and playing Idol

Here I am again, in awe that the Lord was praised on American I*ol last night.
We were so surprised that the finale was Shout to the Lord!
Wasn't it beautiful?! We loved it.
That song has a special place in our hearts. When we were in youth ministry, we took our youth group on a mission trip to Mexico and we sang it in Spanish in the streets, parks and in churches. (I think I did some lip syncing, come to think of it.)

And speaking of Idol, my kiddos friends wanted to trade video games for awhile and the one they loaned us was American I*ol on the PS2 with a microphone.

I'm pretty sure they forgot they loaned it to us though,
because the next day,
I heard Joy on the phone saying:
"My dad is in the top 4 on American I*ol!!!"
And then her friend must have been getting excited because then I heard:
"Not the real one! The one you loaned us." ~Evidently, they aren't watching it this season. LOL!

~Becky
Who is going to have to make a sign with his name on it and wave it from the kitchen! ; )

Time for some fun!

Every year the owner of the company that my hubby works for,
takes all his employees and their families on a vacation for an extended weekend!!!!
(He is so generous! I could do a whole post about this inspiring man! His love for the Lord shows through in everything he does!)

The whole trip feels like a big church event full of homeschoolers! (because almost everyone is homeschooling their children or they were home schooled as kids)

It's lots of fun!!! The kiddos spend their days fishing, swimming, playing tennis, basketball, archery and riding bikes. It's a great time for all of us moms to relax since all the meals are served in the dining room. (I LOVE that part)
The employees attend meetings in the mornings and then have the afternoons to goof off with their families.
On Saturday night we all get dressed up for a company awards banquet which is always a special evening. On Sunday we all worship together and then we get ready to head for home!

It's something we look forward to all year long!

~Becky

My day as the damsel in distress during the TBQ trip

Oh, Lord,

~Thank you for helping me get to the TBQ match when I lost the people I was following...

~Thank you that friends behind me, pulled ahead and led me to the match.

~Thank you for keeping us safe when we got a flat tire on the interstate when we were almost 2 hrs. from home after the TBQ match.

~Thank you that it happened near an exit ramp.

~Thank you for those sweet tourists from Ohio who stopped to see if I was OK. And who let me use their cell phone since I only had 5 calling minutes left on mine. They reminded me what sweet people there are in the world.

~Thank you that my hubby actually answered the phone from his camp where he doesn't usually get any reception.

~Thank you that my hubby said he was leaving the camp which was out in the middle of nowhere to come and rescue me even though I tried to talk him out of it. Am I ever glad he didn't listen to me.

~Thank you that he had me call*911 for help.

~Thank you for the sweet Road Ranger who changed my tire for free even though he almost laughed at the thought of me making it all the way back to our city with the spare which had cracks and dry rot! He handed me his cell phone (because I was down to 1 minute on my phone) to tell my hubby that we were going to have to head right to a tire place once he located me.

~Thank you for causing our TBQ friends who had all gone out for ice cream after the match, to actually see us off in the distance on the exit ramp and come to our aid!!! That was miraculous!

~Thank you for those wonderful friends! It's amazing what 5 cell phones and a GPS can do! They drove my van, found us a tire place, helped my hubby meet up with us, called ahead to order us the right size tire, fed my hot and tired kiddos donuts and made me feel so loved until my hubby arrived. (I get all teary every time I think of what they did!What a blessing they are!)

~Thank you that we made it to the tire place that was only going to be open for 10 more minutes! They got us in and out and on our way again....

~Thank you that my sweet hubby didn't go straight back to camp.
He led me all the way home safely after my adventures. : )
And bless his heart, he didn't get back to the camp site until 10:30 pm! Just in time for camping in a torrential rainstorm! ~That made camping interesting, with leaky tents that were swaying in the wind!

You were so good to me, Lord! Thank you!!!!

P.S. ~Our TBQ team that is going to Regionals!!!! And can you guess who is driving us there?
-Not me! : )
That, I know for sure!

~Becky

Two big events

Oh my goodness!!! What a weekend we have already started.

Yesterday was a flurry of sewing uniforms, ironing, shopping, packing and a whole lot of scripture quoting....

We have two huge events that happened to have fallen on the same date....

Pow Wow and TBQ!

The Royal Rangers have their yearly Pow Wow which started early this morning. They will have 3,500 boys and men from around the state all camping, playing and worshipping the Lord together this weekend. Nathan calls it "the best kid event of the year." It's a lot of fun. Joy and I usually go up on Saturday to help out with my hubby's class of K-2nd graders, who are only old enough to come up for the day, and we always have a ball too. They have go carts, BB guns, tomahawk throwing, rock wall climbing, zip line, tubing and you name it. It's little boy heaven on earth for 3 whole days!

And now that Andrew is in 3rd grade, he can stay the whole weekend with Daddy and his brothers. Is he ever one happy camper!!! Zach was chosen to be the senior guide for our outpost for this event, which is a neat honor. So, he will be in charge of all the boys (in our outpost) and he will be the senior commander's helper in making sure that the camp runs smoothly and that everyone makes it to the events on time etc... Sounds like a big job. I'll be praying for him.

Saturday, Nathan has a Teen Bible Quiz match! -Which means that he had to give up 'The best kid event of the year,' and it was a little hard but he's OK with that. So, Joy and I will be with him at that event. And this is the big match!!! The one that determines if your team goes on to Regionals or not. If not than your team is done for the season... Of course we are hoping they go on to Regionals. It would be pretty amazing since this is their first year. These kids have worked so hard! The whole thing has been a huge blessing. Nathan has made some great friendships with kids and adults through this program and he's learned more of the Word than I ever imagined possible. We have some great discussions when he's quoting. -He's never too thrilled when I remind him that he needs to live out this or that verse. LOL (And get this: most of the time when I listen to him practice quoting, he insists on giving me foot massages. I'm really living it up!) ; )

Because of these two events approaching, it was totally crazy around here yesterday! We had sleeping bags, pillows and uniforms everywhere, I had Nathan quoting me a good bit of the Epistles and we had to drive all over creation.... And I'm exhausted and its only Friday morning. Ahhh! Maybe Nathan will want to give me a foot massage today! I could use one! : )

~Becky

AI and how Dolly rocked!

Do you know how many times Jesus' name was sung last night in front of 30 million people or so?!
-I don't know either, but it was awesome! : )

I've never been a fan of country music
but Dolly is my total hero today! Wow!
What a testimony. Her remark to Ryan was too cute.
And when they announced the first band playing "This Little Light of Mine," I thought I hadn't heard right. : ) I loved the verse about healing. Amen!

What a great night!
~Becky