Power of Prayer

So I know most people have heard of Stormie Omartian's books about prayer, and though I've heard a lot about them, I've never read any of them.
So I'm starting The Power of a Praying Parent, because I want to be able to give my children over to God and not become so attached that I'm unable to function in my life because all I do it worry about things happening to them.  I want to be free to just love and teach and lead them and not worry so much.

So here we go... things I learned from this book:
Chapter One:
   She talks a lot about prayer groups that she started just for praying for her children, and how they watched these children from this group grow up into adults.  The thing that struck me immediately was how my life in the Air Force kept me from having this experience.  I won't be able to have one cohesive unit of parents who get together once a week (or even once a month) and pray for our children.  This made me sad.  Then it occured to me that I could be the one to start a prayer group, and I could continue to start these groups everywhere we go.  I won't have the same "long-term" feeling that she had, but we could start a chain reaction that would lead to LOTS of these prayer groups being started all over the military.  If I start a group, and someone moves away from our group, she could start another group where she is, then another would spawn and continue.  That way our one small group could grow exponentially and have so many women (and men) praying for their children.


I was really hearing God saying that this is what I should do.  So I picked five women (I tried to let God lead me), and I invited them to begin.  Something keeps coming up every week with the ladies, so we've not even had our first prayer group yet.  I am feeling discouraged about this, but resolved not to give up.  I know this is what we should do, and I'm not going to let a couple of setbacks stop us.  Chip Ingram from Living On the Edge says that when we begin a big project where God's going to do great things, then we will always have opposition from satan.  So I'm just going to pray alone for now, and believe that sometime soon, we're going to  get this group going, and we're all going to be blessed by it.

Chapter Two coming soon!

Room #1.... Bookshelf, table, books, and maybe a fort!

So we've moved in and hung MOST of our stuff up on the walls... now it's time to add the finishing touches to have these rooms "decorated"... We've come a long way, baby!

Day One!!  

Our entertainment center we had made in Turkey... LOVE IT!

Uh... yeah... we've moved in... 

Our "problem windows"... finding a rod that long was more difficult than we thought... 

We needed to repaint our table and bookshelf, and we decided to surprise Han by working on it while he was still at work... he happily finished them when he got home!

All done... I love the color, Mama helped me pick it out... 

Once we got our shipment from storage in Colorado, and were finally reunited with ALL of our books, we couldn't wait to hang the shelf and put the books up.  We're feeling "almost" moved in... 

Next... we're working on curtains for the windows... pics of them later!!  Oh, and remember the fort?? Here is a "day time" picture!!  Isn't it awesome!!

School Days...

We homeschool at our house! :)  This is the first year that I've had both boys officially doing "school".  We have our mornings pretty scheduled... we start school at 8am exactly (I have an alarm set).  Then we work pretty hard until lunch, have a nice little break and finish up just after lunch... then they head outside to play in the fort. We use Sonlight curriculum for most of our school, and we love, love, love it... So many books to read.

Here is where we are right now... 

Wesley:

Reading on his own!! WOW!  He reads two or three little books every day (about 8 pages each).  He is flying through the Core K (now called Core A) reading program, and he's going to start on Core 1 (Core B) readers very soon!  He loves his kindergarten math program also, from BJU.  He's "officially" doing Sonlight's Core P4/5, and he loves all of those books, especially Things People Do...  That's the book he picks to do first, and the one he asks to read the most...

We are out of town tonight, so this is short today... stay tuned for information about our current adventure and where we are now... In the meantime, check out Wesley's favorite book!!
 

Why I love my (Big Boy) Jango!

For anyone who really knows me, you know that I don't do mornings very well!! :)  I just don't like to get out of that warm bed.  There doesn't seem to be anything better than "just 5 more minutes"... BUT I've started getting up at 6am every morning.  I know this isn't early, and I know that some of you (including my Daddy) are already at work by 6am, but this is a huge milestone for me.  I get up at 6am to get my day started the way I want it to start, and to get a little bit of alone time before everyone else gets up.  I have also recently started doing something I'm sure will make some of you faint... I drink coffee!  Every morning, I have a small cup of half-caffeinated coffee (is it wrong how much I love saying "half-caff"?).  I'm not sure what kind of difference it makes in my life, but I like to think its helping me!  I sit alone with my bible (sometimes my reference book), and my coffee! :)  For the first time in my life, I look forward to getting up early.  There is something magical about that time of the day... or maybe I'm just getting old.  Don't all old people get up early!?  :)  

I enjoyed this quiet, alone time for only about two weeks, then something happened... I'm not sure whether it will ultimately be good or bad.  My oldest child, Jango, doesn't get to play video games or watch TV until after we finish school (around 2:30pm), and then he has to take turns with his brother AND pay to play (nothing is free around here) BUT if he gets up before 7:00 (when he's supposed to get up), there are no rules.  Everything is free and he can play as much as he wants (in that hour)... This rule applies to both of our children, but Boba takes after his mother, and would much rather have those "just 60 more minutes" in the bed than extra game time.  Jango begged us to set an alarm for him so he can get up at 6am when I get up and have time to play.  Now my quiet, alone time has been invaded by a BOY!  Eeewww gross!!  ;)   But I guess I'll allow him in my club.  After all, he's quiet when he gets up, and he's about the cutest boy in the world, so I can make an exception in his case...  my mornings can only be better with him around!

Jango!

Scrapbook Flashback... January 2010

No one needs to remind me how far behind I am with my scrapbooking... I'm even spending most of this month just organizing all the pictures I have on my computer and figuring out what pages I'm going to do next... but in the mean time, I thought it would be fun to do previews of the pages I've finished... so we're starting with our first 

New Year in Turkey... JANUARY 2010!

Weird Al Experience

I went to see one of my favorite musicians this past week..."Weird" Al Yankovich.  I had an absolutely awesome time.  Admittedly I have not been to a lot of concerts but I find it hard to believe that you could find a better live performance.  From the numerous video clips to entertain you during costume changes to the humorous takes on pop culture to Darth Vader swaying his lightsaber to "The Saga Begins", I thoroughly enjoyed myself and highly recommend a live show to anyone.  I can't wait until next time he is close and take everybody.

Amish Paradise

White & Nerdy

Fat

The Saga Begins

Ft. Meade, Fort... yes please!!

Our wonderful neighbors have gotten orders and will be leaving soon :(   BUT they called and asked if we'd like to have their "fort".  Their dad has collected fallen trees and sticks and tied them together to make a barrier fort thing for them.  Our families spent the afternoon moving the "logs" from one yard to the other... we nearly finished in one day, but we needed the next day for finishing touches.  The boys (and girls)... and there are A LOT in the neighborhood, are having a GREAT time with it... YAY for being kids and using their imaginations instead of video game skills!!

   Some of 

 us were 

 hard at 

 WORK!!

A few of us were hard at play!!

They did not want to stop!!

I know it's too dark to see... I'll post a "daytime" picture in a future post... stay tuned!!

Homemade Popcorn

So who knew that you could buy tiny cobs of popcorn kernels?? Our family didn't know, but during our exploration of the pumpkin patch, we discovered we could buy our own cobs, knock all the kernels off, and pop them in our air-popper machine.  We all had a lot of fun... de-cobbing (my own word!), watching it pop, then, the best part, eating it up!!

It was a little harder to de-cob :) than we thought it would be!

it was blowing hot air out!!

It's starting to pop!!!

What was left when we were done... they were soft and fuzzy!

YUMMY!!

He really liked it... even though he looks confused!