opening my eyes...

In the past week I have been making more time in my chaois for some quite time with God and I just wanted to share how cool it has been!

My mentor gave me a book titled "New Day New You" my Joyce Meyer. It is a daily devotional book and at first I was not very interested because...well honestly I am not her biggest fan but I read it because my mentor gave it to me.

This week my dear friend called me and encouraged me to start training with her to run a half marathon. This is something I have thought of in the past but never worked on and this time...with a little push :) I decided to do it.
After that converstation was finished I found a few moments to read my devotional and BAM God reaffirmed my decision to run the race "Don't spend your life looking back, wishing you had tried different things or done things differently." (hmm thats me!) Basically why not try it..."you wont have to live your whole life hearing about what everyone else is doing and wondering what it would be like (once again...thats me!)

Now for today. I have been down, on and off, for several weeks and I hate being negative and being a complainer but sometimes...well thats what I am.
I laid all of the kids down for their nap and sat in a comfy chair to read my devotional again. The title today..."Complain and Remain, Praise and be raised" "When we praise God in the midst of difficulty, He raises us up out of it"

Wow! God is amazing. The book is designed to be read daily..each selection has a date at the top. He perfectly planned for me to read about these two topics on those specific days!

So now I pray that I can stick with my running! and accomplish something that I have had in the back of my head for a long time and I pray that I can praise God in all things - even in the midst of a messy house and a grumpy husband. God is Good

september in review

A quick update for everyone out there...

Ben is now 8 years old. We had a party at Grandma Barbs with our family and a few friends. We planned our party to be outside but, it rained the ENTIRE weekend and were stuck inside.
A few days later, it was still raining, but we headed out to the bowling alley with several of Bens friends. They all had a great time bowling and playing video games. It is so hard to believe that my baby boy is getting so big. He is such a sweet little guy (for the most part) He love to play football, soccer, fishing, playing the computer/Nintendo DS and he is a pretty good reader.

Sydney is learning SO much in school. She comes home talking about all of the things she is learning. I was so concerned that she would be behind but she seems to be right on track! She loves to dance and sing and is planning to try out ice skating lessons soon.

The business is still going strong. We haven't had much down time, which is good and we have been expanding quickly. I am so proud of Chris - he is working so hard and has scaled back so much on his hunting/fishing - although he still finds time for a bit of both.

Thats all for now...