Homeschooling

Today I am thankful for the freedom to home school my kids. What a blessing it is to know that the teaching they are getting is grounded in the Word of God and that it will not compromise the important things that Dave and I are trying to teach them. I love being able to watch the kids excel not only academically but in character and in their walks with God.

I am very blessed to have my mom come along side of me in teaching the kids. They love the time spent over at "Grammy's" and I can tell that they are benefiting greatly from the schooling they receive there as well as the spiritual input that comes from both my mom and my dad.

Last week we took a field trip to Lancaster to learn more about the Amish people. We learned about their history and about the way that they live and why they live such simple lives. The Amish are very hard working people who seek to serve the Lord in all that they do. I think that we all could learn a lot from them.

Here are some highlights from our trip. (We took my two nephews along with us.)

Amish sleigh.


They had the cutest little lambs!

Beautiful rooster.

Enjoying the playground.

Milking the cow.

One room schoolhouse.



The kids go "Amish".

Happy Valentine's Day

Today I am thankful for my wonderful husband of almost 16 years. The only man I ever dated, the only man I ever wanted to marry, my best friend, my companion, and my one true love here on earth. The husband of my dreams, the father of our children and the one that I want to grow old with. I thank God for the precious gift of marriage and for blessing me with such a loving husband.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!'”
Robert Browning

My Kids

Today (and every day) I am so very grateful for my wonderful children. God has blessed me so very much with eight beautiful healthy children. Each and every one of them are very different and very special.
Julia is 14 and turning into a godly young woman. Every day I see her character becoming more like Christ and I see God cultivating in her the gentle quiet spirit of a Proverbs 31 woman. She will always be my daughter but more and more she is becoming my friend.
Jim is 13 and becoming quite a young man. He is very sensitive to my needs and loves to serve me any way he can. Over this past year I have seen God working in different areas of Jim's life and I am excited to see what God has for Jim's future.
Christiana is 11 and loves to have fun. She has a heart for God and loves to be a big sister to her younger siblings. I see God teaching her many things as she begins to change from a little girl into a young woman.
Mark is almost 10 and has been working on becoming more like Christ. He is the oldest at home on school days and is showing responsibility as the big brother.
Nathan is 8 and is a very quiet boy. He doesn't get into much trouble and he is very sensitive. While I do see evidences of grace in His life, I pray daily for his salvation.
Matthew is 6 and very passionate about everything. He likes to play with his siblings and spend time with his friends. he is very sociable. I also pray daily for his salvation.
Amanda is our love bug. She is 5 and loves to cuddle. She loves to hang out with the girls and do "girly" things. She talks about Jesus and loves to go to Sunday School, but I know that she needs salvation.
Alyssa is 3 and loves to learn. She is quite gifted musically and loves to sing. She also loves to read stories. (She has memorized the entire Dr. Seuss book Gerald McBoing Boing) I pray that she will learn to love Jesus just like her older siblings.
I love my children so much and am privileged to be raising up an army for God. I pray daily for the grace and the strength to be a Godly mother to them.
I am also looking forward to meeting my three children that are no longer with me . I know that I can rest in the knowledge that they are in the hands of our loving Heavenly Father. Soli Deo Gloria!

"Children are a blessing from the Lord...like arrows in the hands of a warrior...blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."

A Sound Mind

Today I had to go shopping for a Valentine's dinner that I am hosting for our care group. So, I packed up my five younger kids and headed to Walmart. I had my list in my hand writing down some last minute items that had to be added and then put it in the pocket of my hoodie as I braced myself against the huge gust of wind that hit me when I opened the door of the van.
I successfully navigated the parking lot with kids in tow and we all trekked back to the photo center to get some pictures developed while we shopped. Once the order for the pictures was placed I reached into my pocket to get out my carefully planned list to shop from when to my dismay I found that it was missing! What in the world was I going to do? It must have blown away when that gust of wind hit me out in the parking lot. Now I would have to rely completely on my memory which as of late has left something to be desired. ;)
Anyway, a long story short - I actually managed to get everything that was on my list without going completely crazy. So, today I am thankful that God gave me a sound mind and the ability to remember all the things that I needed.

"God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, of love, and of a sound mind."

Blog challenge

So apparently I am "blog challenged". Either that or its a challenge to find the time to blog! You can pick either one, but I personally think that its both. I think I had a total of maybe 9 posts last year??!! Anyway, I've been challenged by my cousin (whether she knows it or not) to be more consistent with my blog.
I started blogging so that I could sort of journal what I've been learning - be it through quiet times or just general life lessons. Maybe I can get back on track with this blog by just posting one simple thing each time I get onto the computer. It probably won't be everyday but I will try.
I think the very best place for anyone to start sharing about anything is with expressing thanks to our Heavenly Father. Have you ever sat down and tried to list every single thing that you are thankful for? I started to but I soon ran out of both paper and time! It was definitely a good lesson in how blessed I am.
So....my first official post of 2009 is this:

I am thankful for the beautiful gift of salvation that is given to us at the high cost of Jesus' precious blood.

Our Summer: Part 3

In between all of our summer birthdays, we managed to find time for some great summer fun.

At the beginning of August we all went to the Harford County Farm Fair. We can usually find something there for everyone. The little kids like the tent with all the kid's games along with the moon bounce area. All of the kids enjoyed getting their faces or hands painted. They also have a lot of fun looking at all the different animals and getting a chance to pet the ducklings and get a look at all of the other baby animals.

One thing that the kids especially like is the watermelon eating contest!

These are our contestants this year. Nathan and Mark each placed second for their age group and Chrissy ate her way to a blue ribbon.

After the whole contest was over, Chrissy walked away with her blue ribbon, a reserved champion ribbon and this huge watermelon!

Even Dave got in on the fun at the fair. Besides being involved at the political tent campaigning for Andy Harris, he also took a shot at dunking the current sheriff.

Before we left the farm fair, we were hit by a huge rain storm. We all huddled inside the political tent while the wind blew and the rain poured. We even got a few minutes of hail

One of the kids' favorite paces to hang out in the summer is the little pond behind my parent's house. This pond is spring fed so it's temperature stays pretty constant around 65 degrees. There is a rope swing attached to a huge tree limb above the pond and the kids swing out over the pond and drop into the water. I had hours and hours of fun in this pond growing up!

All in all it was a great summer for our family. God blessed us in so many ways throughout the summer. We are so grateful to Him for His goodness and His mercies which are new every morning!

Our Summer Part 2: Lots of Birthdays

After our vacation we jumped right into the camp season at Beachmont. I hosted a picnic for the summer staff during training week. We served about 50 people that evening under the outdoor pavilion. Except for a huge thunder storm, everything went very smooth.

The kids went to camp for three of the nine weeks of camp. I got to spend a lot of time with Alyssa who wasn't old enough for camp and got to see her grow up quite a bit during that time. The theme this year for camp was the Beatitudes. The kids learned all of Matthew 5: 1-10. They all also got to improve their swimming skills with extra lessons on Monday nights. Even Alyssa got in on the swimming lessons. She actually got to be quite a fish!

In the midst of all the activities of the summer, our family got to celebrate 4 birthdays! First, Matthew turned 6 in July. He was very excited to get his own Lego set!

The next birthday was for Alyssa. She turned three in the beginning of August. She was very excited about her new scooter, but I think the candy came in with a close 2nd!

Julia was next with her 14th birthday. She was absolutely thrilled to receive her own digital camera and has been busy taking pictures ever since! Julia also started her first summer job. She worked for my mom in the snowball stand after camp each day. Unlike a typical snowball stand, they are only open for about 2 hours each day, but within that time they sell hundreds of snowballs to the campers and their families when camp lets out for the day. Like her sister Alyssa, Julia loves candy - especially dark chocolate!

Our last summer birthday was for Jim. He turned 13 this month. Jim loves legos and was thrilled to get his first "big" set. He built this ship in about 3 hours.

We decided that since he was turning 13 he was too old for party hats, so we went for the "party tattoos" instead!

Our Summer Part 1: Our Vacation

We have had such a wonderful but busy summer! So much has been going on that it would be hard to write it all down so....I'll have to do it in several parts!

Our summers are usually pretty hectic with being involved with the ministry at Beachmont but we did manage to go on our annual family vacation to the Outer Banks. We had a very relaxing time spending over a week together. We started out at Busch Gardens and Water Country in Williamsburg and then on to the ocean!

We spent hours and hours on the beach. The kids played with Dave, my Dad and each other while my mom and I sat and talked or just relaxed in the sun.

Dave and the kids entered the sand sculpting contest again this year and they won!

On the way home we decided to take the ferry across to Virginia beach. Most of the kids enjoyed this experience. Unfortunately, Jim was feeling a little sea sick!

We had a great time and came home ready to face our busy summer!

Do Hard Things

Dave and I took our three older kids to the "Do Hard Things" conference this past Saturday. What an amazing time! Brett and Alex Harris have really been inspired to challenge young people to overcome the low expectancies that others have for this generation. I was so blessed to see the amount of teens there ready to be challenged and walking away changed.
It was really cool to see that this tour was completely a family effort by the Harris family. The entire family was present in Gaithersburg and all of them had a part in the conference whether it was on stage or behind the scenes. Kind of makes me wonder what MY family could be doing in a few years...
I look forward to seeing what God has in store for this generation. If the other conferences on the tour were as packed out at the one we went to, then God is gathering up an army to Himself all across America, and I am excited that it is made up of inspired young people ready to totally mow over the expectancy that they are going to fail in life and instead are going to show the world that they can Do Hard Things for the glory of God.

Random thoughts...

1.) Our T.V. fast went by really quickly. No complaints at all. It really helped that God gave us beautiful weather most of the two weeks and the kids played outside a whole lot.
The favorite things to do during the fast besides playing outside was to play in the dark with light sticks (Walmart has some great ones in at least 6 different colors!) and read lots of books. Jim finished the complete Lord of the Rings series and the little boys all got into the Star Wars books. In the evenings I would real out loud from one of Brian Jacques books.

2.) School is almost over! We are winding down to the last lessons in our books and the kids are battling spring fever! (okay yeah, so am I!) We are looking forward to our "schools out" trip to O.C.!

3.) The kids have a home school co-op presentation night coming up on Friday, May 23rd at Grace Community Church in Kingsville. There will be an open house from 6-7 where you can view their Art and Science projects for the year and then at 7 they will start their musical presentations. All the children from ages 2 through the 8th grade will be performing.

4.) OBX here we come! Once we are finished with school we are headed to the Outer Banks with my parents again for our family vacation. I'll be sure and take lots of pictures!

T.V. Fast Take 2

Its time once again for the Tritt family T.V. fast. We decided that we benefited so much from the last fast that it was something that we should do on a regular basis. So... this Monday begins another 2 week fast from watching any television, going to the movies or playing any video games.
If anyone is interested in joining our family in our fast I'd love to hear about it!

Our Easter Celebration

Dying Easter eggs is a tradition that all the kids love!

It took 4 dozen eggs this year!

We all went to the Easter Sunrise service at Beachmont.

It was sooooo cold!

Easter morning before the sun came up...

Easter morning after the sunrise!

Hallelujah, He is risen!

The start of our annual easter egg hunt.

Road Trip Part 2

Our weekend adventure continued Sunday morning with an unexpected trip to K-Mart. I was feeling really on top of things and was getting all the girls ready to go ever and get breakfast before heading to the park when uh....my pants ripped.

You gotta understand something about my pants. They are really old. I have this problem with buying clothes for myself. I buy them for everyone else in the family, but for some reason I always put off buying them for myself. Just last weekend I told Dave that I needed to pick up some new jeans for myself before I got in an embarrassing situation with my old ones wearing out to the point that they just start falling apart. I really did intend to get some when I went to Walmart, but they only had the low rise kind in my size and I refuse to wear those stupid things! Why anyone would want to wear a pair of jeans that sits that low is beyond me. They feel like you always need to pull them up because your rear end is hanging out! Anyway...I ended up not getting the jeans and sure enough, I found myself in an embarrassing situation! I sat down on the bed to change Alyssa, and the jeans ripped from seam to seam right across the back of my thigh. UGH! Now I HAD to by myself some new jeans.

So, off to the local K-Mart I went (with my jacket tied around my waist to cover up the lovely gaping hole in my pants leg) and wouldn't you know, they just happened to be having a 25% off sale on their jeans! I bought 2 pairs for myself and headed back to the hotel to pick up the gang and head to the park.

Once we got there we met my parents and then headed out to hit the rides and enjoy the park. We had a great time hanging out with my mom and dad and enjoyed watching the kids have so much fun.

Jim had the unique privilege of working alongside of Italy's master sculptor Antonio Accietto. This man's flowers are amazing, and he invited Jim (who loves art of any kind but especially modeling/sculpting) to try and duplicate one of his flowers. He gave him a lump of porcelain clay and showed him what to do and then when Jim was all done Mr. Accietto let him keep his creation. It looked pretty good, too! Maybe Jim has a future in flower sculpting?

We ate lunch in Germany's Oktoberfest while watching their Festhaus show and then took the kids to the section of the park just for little guys. Each of our older kids took a younger kid and we set them loose for about half an hour while Dave and I got to sit and chat with my parents. Ahhh...I love having older kids!

After having them spend time in "Land of the Dragons" with the little guys riding ladybugs and little dragons with loud irritating noises, we knew it was time for some real rides! So after riding the bumper cars and the big swings, Dave and the 3 older kids headed to the roller coaster "Alpengeist" while I took everyone else on the carousel. Then we switched and everyone rode the train back to the entrance while I got to take the older 3 on the "Griffon" - the park's newest roller coaster. This thing hangs you at a 90 degree angle above the park for what seems like forever and then sends you plummeting towards the ground only to pull you right back up into twists and turns before another 90 degree drop! It is so much fun!

After saying goodbye to my folks and slapping together some sandwiches for supper, we headed out of the park and back on the road to MD! Most of the kids fell asleep on the way home, so it was a pretty uneventful trip.

What a refreshing weekend! Now I am ready to get back to schooling and get on with Spring! We have some great field trips coming up and before you know it school will be over and it will be time for summer vacation!

Road Trip!!

Every year Busch Gardens in VA hosts a "passport holders only" day sometime in March. This year it fell on Palm Sunday and we decided that we would make a weekend of it with the family. We thought it would be fun to surprise the kids and just take off and go Saturday after breakfast. We packed the car the night before and tried to act as laid back as possible Saturday morning letting the kids sleep in and letting them hang out in their pj's for awhile before sending them out to play. The two older kids figured out what was going on awhile ago, but they had fun keeping our secret safe!
We ate lunch and drove down through Washington. Dave took us right by the front of the capitol building, the Washington Monument, tons of museums and right by the Pentagon. He often works in D.C. so he is pretty familiar with all of the "important" places.
Once we got through Washington I put on a movie for the kids and we actually got all the way to Williamsburg before the kids figured out what was going on! It was great watching their faces when we pulled into the hotel and told them that we were going to the park the next day. They were very excited!
Since our family exceeds the fire hazard limit for a hotel room, we had to split up for the night. The girls in one room and the guys in the room next door. I couldn't tell you what went on in the guys' room - I'm not sure I would want to know - but the conversation in the girls room was pretty amusing! I'll leave out who said what, but if you picture our room with me (the mom), a teenager, a 10 year old, a 4 year old and a 2 year old, you can probably figure it out. :o)

"Can we watch Disney Channel?"
"Sure."
"Alyssa, get out of the fridge."
"Hey, move your head. I can't see."
"Alyssa, close the fridge."
"I'm hungry."
"Have some chex mix."
"Alyssa, don't jump off the bed!"
"Move your head, please."
"Move over. You are in my personal space."
"Mom, Alyssa is in the fridge again."
"I don't really care if she opens the fridge."
"Mandie, lay down."
"Alyssa, want to snuggle?"
"Hey! My personal space just got cut in half!"
"Can I have a juice box?"
"Your head is in my way again."
"Alyssa, don't put that in the fridge."
"You are taking all my covers!"
"No, I wasn't. I was just rolling over."
"Alyssa! Get out of the fridge!"
"Alyssa, come get in bed."
"When are we going to Busch Gardens?"
"Can you please roll over? You are in my personal space again."
"Well, you have all the covers!"
"Did you all brush your teeth?"
"No, Alyssa, don't eat the ice out of the freezer."
"Is anyone tired yet?"
"I don't want to sleep."
"Can we get a cot?"
"Alyssa, come away from the fridge."
"What time is it? 9? Okay. Turn off the TV. We are going to sleep."
"Alyssa, out of the fridge and into the bed right now."
"Move over away from my space."
"Can you all PLEASE be quiet?"

Well, it went something like that! We prayed and eventually everyone fell asleep. It's not something I would want to do every night, but I would definitely do it again if it meant spending time with my girls!

More Cleaning

I decided to answer the comment on my last post with another post!

The question basically was, "What can little ones do to help with the chore load?"

In my house, everyone has to do their share of helping to keep the house clean. Everyone down to the youngest kid that can walk is responsible for their own dishes each meal. Even a toddler can put dirty dishes in the dishwasher or the sink! Alyssa loves to put the silverware away. I get a stool or chair and pull it up next to the drawer and let her stand there and work on that while I put the other dishes away. Of course, I remove any sharp knives first!

As far as sweeping, we have a small wisk broom and dustpan set that I keep under the sink. Amanda is getting to be pretty handy with that! You could even get a couple of these and let your kids work together on this project - get it done faster!

Instead of wiping the table myself after every meal, sometimes I will give one of the younger kids a wet sponge and let them wipe off the table while I put the food stuff away. It may not get perfectly clean, but it will get most of the visible stuff off for the next meal! I usually wipe the table after dinner and make sure that it gets a good cleaning at least once a day or let one of the older kids do it.

Most of my younger kids like to dust. I either spray for them and then let them wipe everything dry, or if I am trying to get something else done, I get a pack of dust wipes - the ones that are pre-moistened - then tell them where to work and then let them go to work. There isn't a whole lot that the kids could actually ruin with those wipes so it's ok if they accidentally clean something else! I also like the Mr. Clean wipes - the kids can do the front of the stove, dishwasher and refigerator. Just make sure that they are old enough to know not to eat them or wipe their face with them!

If you have a vaccuum with a hose attatchment, the kids can clean the stairs and around the baseboards and in the corners.

Everyone except Alyssa - who is 2 - is perfectly capable of making their bed. It may not be perfect but hey, it's made and I didn't have to do it!

It's amazing how much fun kids can have while cleaning! Little people love to play with sponges and rags and see how much dirt they can wash away, so I say take advantage of it and give them something to clean!

Hooray for Clean!

My schedule has relaxed a bit this year with my wonderful mother helping me out by schooling our three older children. That leaves me with 3rd, 2nd and 1st grade as well as some preschooling. I have found that I have more time for household projects and keeping my house clean in general.
However, I tend to look at my disorganized mess of a house and not know where to start and I end up cleaning the same messes over and over again while the rest of the house disappears in piles of toys, books, and the whirlwinds that often frequent our address. (We like to call them Amanda and Alyssa!)

Quite a while ago, my mom gave me a book by Emilie Barnes called "More Hours in My Day". When I first got the book, I was excited to see what great organizational skills I would acquire from reading it. She is a good author and I have been inspired by some of her other works.

Anyway, as it happens with many kids and a busy schedule, the book got put aside for quite some time and I sort of forgot for a while that it was sitting on my book shelf!

Well, during our TV fast (which, by the way, went extremely well) I rediscovered this book. In it, it has some wonderful tips for scheduling your household chores. I have since adopted some of her scheduling tecniques and believe it or not (I'm not sure I believe it!) my house is beginning to resemble a smooth running and (most of the time) clean place to hang out!

In this book, Emilie suggests making lists for your various jobs to be done. She lists them daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and annually. I decided that for now, I would work on daily, weekly and monthly. My schedule sort of looks like this:
DAILY -
wash dishes
bathrooms
kitchen/dining room counters and sweep floors
tidy my bedroom
WEEKLY -
Mon. - laundry
Tues. - water plant and do girls' bedding
Wed. - scrub floors and do boys' bedding
Thurs. - water plants (this is a light day due to co-op)
Fri. - scrub the microwave
Sat. - do windows and pay bills
MONTHLY-
Week 1 - refrigerator
Week 2 - walls and baseboards (our walls get pretty yucky cause of all the little fingers!)
Week 3 - cupboards (clean and/or organize)
Week 4 - Oven
Week 5 - basement (will it ever be clean?)

For the monthly planning, she says to take 15 minutes a day to work on that week's project. Don't try to do it all at once. By the end of the week it looks really nice!

We also have the kids doing more of their share of the cleaning. We have chore cards that they have to take each day, and so that frees me up to do my scheduled cleaning. This is working out really well. We talked about this in our family counsel and so there isn't ever any complaining about doing chores...so far!

I am very excited to be putting this schedule into practice. I have a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day and am happy that Dave can come home to a cleaner than usual house.

"She looks well to how things go in her household, and the bread of idleness she will not eat." Proverbs 31:27

Our two week challenge

Almost two weeks ago Dave and I sat down with the kids for a "family counsel" meeting. This is where we talk to the kids about some things in our family routine that need to change or problem areas that we need to work on. Usually we have to remind them to do their share with the chores around the house or maybe give out new chores with the changing of ages. Sometimes we talk about incorporating new things into our routine. Last year Dave and I started alternating weeks taking out the kids one on one. It can be easy to lump them all together sometimes and we wanted them to feel like they were special individually. This has been great for all of us.

That brings us to this year's big change. Even though our family probably doesn't watch a lot of TV comparitively , we felt like the kids were often choosing their electronic companion over each other and we felt like they had become disinterested in finding constructive things to do with each other. Perhaps we discovered an idol?

So....we have been abstaining from any and all TV for almost 2 weeks! That means no TV, no movies (on TV or in the theaters) and no Nintendo. The kids took the announcement pretty well - especially when we told them that Dave and I would be included in this TV "fast".

The kids have rediscovered how fun playing with each other can be as opposed to playing against each other in Nintendo! They found out that Play-doh, puzzles, Legos and coloring are just as entertaining as watching a movie.

I thought that it would be a lot harder to do this, especially during school hours when I can put on Leap Frog movies for the little girls and have some quiet time to school the boys, but they have been really good about sitting and coloring or doing puzzles together and it hasn't been very hard at all.

This has been really good for Dave and I as well. We have been getting to bed earlier which makes getting up for quiet times easier and have even gotten in a game or two of cards!

I have been so blessed to see my kids becoming better friends and our family drawing closer through this time and I know that it has been glorifying to God. We have been so blessed by this that we plan to take a 2 week TV fast every 3 months - that would mean that for 8 weeks out of the year we won't be sitting in front of the TV at all!

If you feel like the television has become somewhat of an idol in your home, I would challenge you to take a TV fast - it might just bless you!

Another Update

On Saturday, December 8th, the Amish community held a benefit auction for Diane Goslin. They began their day at 7 am and stayed until about 3 pm. There were an unbelievable amount of items being auctioned. Everything ranging from toys to tools to the famous Amish made quilts.

My family attended for a couple of hours, and while we didn't actually do any bidding, we consumed mass quantities of the delicious home made food that was being prepared right at the auction site. We had barbecued chicken, hot dogs, hot pretzels, donuts and apple dumplings. The donuts that they made were so incredible that we brought home several dozen to eat for breakfasts!

The community was able to raise $21,000.00 to contribute towards Diane's legal fees through this event. I know that this must have been an incredible blessing to her and her family.

Thanks for all your prayers and please...keep praying!

Crazy Mom!

My days have been incredibly busy lately! Besides the daily schooling and general mothering, we have been involved in a homeschool co-op, fitness at Beachmont, serving at Beachmont Round-ups, taking Julia back and forth to soccer, Tuesday Teen Bible study, and practicing for our church's Christmas cantata!
Sometimes I feel like I am running a marathon at times. There are days that I wish I could remember what it feels like to sit down let alone have an uninterrupted night of sleep! Still, I wouldn't trade these days of raising our kids for anything. I absolutely love the walk of life that God has put me in!
There are times, however, that I think I get ahead of myself and don't take enough time to pause and make sure that my life is in order. A perfect example of this happened just this morning! I was being my usual busy self and thought I would be a good Proverbs 31 woman and get up while it is still dark and go to Walmart to do our monthly grocery shopping. (Hey - it sure helped me make this decision when I realized I could shop solo and not take the chance of having a 3 ring circus in the aisles of Walmart!)
Anyway, I got up and dressed in the quietness of a sleeping household, kissed Dave and was on my way to a early yet peaceful shopping trip. On my way home, Dave called and asked me to pick up donuts for Nathan's birthday breakfast, so I made a slight detour to the Wawa and then came home and unloaded the car, put the mountain of groceries away and then decided that I could finally take off my shoes and relax for a little bit before going to Julia's tournament game. (Her team is undefeated at the moment - yay!)
When I went to take off my shoes, I was suddenly horrified, mortified and highly amused all at the same time when I realized that when I put my shoes on in the peaceful dark hours of the morning, I had put on one of my shoes and one of Dave's! I had flaunted my new style of footwear for over an hour at Walmart and then again to the gazillion people that flood the Wawa on Saturday mornings!
For the first few seconds of realizing my mistake I was embarrased and then I burst into hysterical laughter! Here I thought I would go and act like a totally sane mother for an hour or two and actually get my shopping done without multiple potty breaks and "clean up in isle # whatever" but nooooooo, I had to go dressed like some crazy woman who can't even match her shoes!
The saying usually goes "You can dress them up but you can't take them out", but in my case..."You can take them out but you can't dress yourself".

Update on Midwife

Some of you have asked what has been happening with Diane Goslin.
According to PA news, the fine of $11,000.00 has been waived...for now. She is in the midst of an appeal, but the judge who waived her fee has given her very little hope for continuing her practice.
Her legal fees have surpassed $40,000.00 and later this month the Amish community will have a fund raising rally for her. Whether or not she is able to practice midwifery will not change the way that the Plain People have their children. If she is unable to attend their births, they will have their babies unattended which of course raises the risk of complications.
Please continue to pray for the judge to rule in favor of allowing Diane to continue her ministry.