Happy Birthday Golden Girl

 Today is this girls birthday -

Today we celebrated having 15 wonderful years with our golden girl.

Her name was handpicked by God – Audriona Rose

Audri means “noble strength” – and our golden girl has a strength that she has not even seen the capability of.
Ona means “one, sweetness, favor, grace” – She was the favor and grace of the Lord that blessed us with the sweetness of another daughter (don’t get me wrong I love all our 4 boys prior to her- they are a tender gift to this mamas soul, but her sissy Brittaney and I were in need of some girly sweetness and she was an answer to our earnest prayers.)

Rose means, well “rose” – and flower or of the flower blossom (when talking about flowers the rose generally means “I love you” and our golden girl was an “I love you” from God to this family.)

She was born on a beautiful September day – one filled with excitement and anticipation…

and she came into this world gracing us with her sissy’s “twin”  looks and her mama’s wacky toes – one a gift of beauty and one a gift of uniqueness.

Today as we celebrate her day of “birth” – we celebrate who she is.

                                     

Beautiful and Unique

                         fifteen  fabulous and fun facts about Audriona

1. This girl  has a natural beauty that people have gasped at.
2. This girl has a quick wit sense of humor.
3. This girl can solve a pictionary clue in record time.
4. This girl thinks of  details behind the details in planning.
5. This girl is creative and makes her own accessories.
6. This girl has a deep love for family and friends.
7. This girl is confidant and strong.
8. This girl  is highly competitive.
9. This girl is thoughtful and giving.
10. This girl is the best organizer.
11. This girl loves to bake.
12.This girl plays a mean chess game.
13. This girl always has a project in the works.
14.This girl is diligent and hardworking.
15. This girl is a gift of girly goodness.

Happy Birthday my beautiful, golden girl.  You bless this mama every single day with your grace and beauty. You keep me organized and focused. You are my gift of girly goodness.

I love you~

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saying “no” to His blessings

Over the years, during this time of the year…   the harvest season – the pumpkin season

        we have taken out all of our books about autumn, leaves, apples,  and pumpkins

                                and place them in a basket to read or look at.

among this array of books is one called Too Many Pumpkins…

this book is about Rebecca Estelle…

each year in the spring she would plant her garden.  She planted carrots and beans, tomatoes and peas, corn and rutabagas.  She grew a little bit of everything-

                            except pumpkins…   Rebecca Estelle hated pumpkins.

She said “no” to pumpkins. 

You see when Rebecca Estelle was young, money had be tight and for an entire month all they had to eat were pumpkins.  Baked pumpkins, steamed pumpkins, stewed pumpkins, pumpkins for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  So, she decided she would never eat pumpkins again.  She did not want to even look at one…

She said “no” to pumpkins…

One Fall day while she was raking her yard, a huge pumpkin truck passed by.  She heard it coming, so she turned away, not to see it. But a huge pumpkin fell off the truck and broke open all over the edge of her yard.  She shoveled some dirt over the broken pieces and buried all evidence of that reminder of lacking. 

When spring came again the once hidden seeds became a plant of green vines.  She decided to ignore it and not water or tend to it, hoping it would wilt away and die.  But the vines just continued to grow. She cut them down, and dug then out, but week after week they continued to grow. She decided to ignore them and not walk on that side of the yard. 

One autumn day, she had forgotten why she did not go to that side of the house and when she walked around the corner, she saw pumpkins growing everywhere.

She had said “no” to pumpkins…   but her Creator had said “yes”

so she took all those pumpkins and made pumpkin, bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin tarts and pumpkin cookies…

A rich harvest of pumpkin goodness…

hoping to get rid of them all to the people in town.  But when she could not carry all those pumpkin dishes she knew the people would need to come to her.  She made jack o lanterns and lite each one along side the yard and path and the people came.

Young and old… everyone in town came. They enjoyed  fellowship together as they ate the pumpkin delights and as they left she blessed each one of the towns people with the blessing she said “no” to, giving away every baked item, every lantern and a bag of seeds for them to start their own harvest of blessing.  She gave away everything that reminded her of the pumpkins she had always hated…  except a handful of seeds, that she tucked away until next spring…

seeds of healing…

       seeds of restoration…

                 seeds a redemption…

                         seeds of blessing…

        The hubs and I once said no…       to  the Lord…    no to His blessings…

We said “no” to children…

              out of hurts…             out of fear…          out of lacking…

we said “no” - 

Yet, He knew our hearts….          He knew our hurts…              He knew our fears…

and He said “yes”  -

and one by one…

He replaced those seeds of fear with the seeds of love…

      He replaced those seeds of hurt with seeds of healing…

             He replaced those seeds of lacking with seeds of plenty…

     Our “no” to  His blessing…   became our “yes” to all He had for us…

 

and one by one these seeds of blessing are being multiplied for His glory…

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.    ~James 1:17

Living in His Blessings~

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Beauties and Birthdays

We were able to celebrate birthday for  two of our beauties this weekend at one of my favorite beautiful places to be.

 

 

This week

our Angel Girl turned 12

and

our Golden Girl turned 14.

 

They are growing up into such beautiful young woman.

 

 

 

We surprised these two beauties by taking them to the YWAM base that my missionary daughter is serving on and stayed the weekend . The past few years they have not been able to celebrate with their oldest sissy… who they adore…

 

So we packed up a suitcase and loaded the car up, while our unique son took them out for a soda.  When they got back we told them we were going somewhere for the day for a family outing for their birthdays…  oh the excitement.    We took our special son, little one and unique son with us and headed off for our adventure. 

Half way through the trip they began to wonder, but they did not ask any questions… until we stopped at a gas station we always stop at on our way to seeing their big sister.

 

 

 

When we arrived our missionary daughter had our cabin decorated for a birthday party.  We had a wonderful cabin with a wonderful view and enough room to move around and be comfortable.  We got settled in and then went for a swim at the pool on the base, while hubby went into town to get some food for the weekend.

 

 After hubby returned and the swim was done, unique son was off with his friends from the base and missionary daughter was off to take engagement pictures for a couple on the base. We went to the playground and the girly girls did a little exploring…It was a beautiful day.  

 

 

 

   The next day was filled with deer observation, hikes and exploration, more swimming, a trip into town for the girlies to do a little shopping, a mini rain storm, a lesson in how to properly kill a rattlesnake, special son learning how to ride a bike and a birthday party celebration ending with a popcorn filled movie night. 

   

  

    

   

    

 

A full day at a place filled with the fullness of God’s Glory and beauty.

 

 

A weekend filled with memories…

     A weekend living life to the fullness….

           A weekend of celebration for the birth and life of these two incredible daughters…

My heart is full.
 

 

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Weekly Wrap Up – Week 10

We started a new unit this week. We will be spending the month of November studying Europe.

I filled out our Monthly Unit Form to get an overview of what we will be covering.

Bible Theme Moses – Ruth 10 Commandments	Character Humility	Habit Daily Duties (Chores)
Continent Europe	Biography William Booth	Magic Tree House Thanksgiving on Thursday
Biome Mountains/Caves	Animal Classification Mammals	Science Unit Landmarks
Country 1 Spain	Country 2 France	Country 3 Italy
Genre Historical Fiction	Grammar Verbs	Story Element Plot
Artist Pollock	Composer Bach

   

We have been reading out of our William Booth book from Ywam.  We are really enjoying this book.  We decided to read Thanksgiving on Thursday since we will be celebrating Thanksgiving this month, I will tie this book in with our Europe Unit, since the Pilgrims came over from Europe.  We watched our School House Rock Video on Verbs and completed some worksheets on verbs and main ideas that I printed from . I have I subscription to this web site and use it often to back up our units.

 We are reading the Kingdom Tales Trilogy this year.  We read one chapter a week for our Bible Read-a-load on Fridays.  I LOVE this book.  I hope that the girls are enjoying it as much I am…

We read and completed our notebook pages for all three of the countries we will be covering this month for Europe.   We will be covering Europe in January and cover three more country then.  (We take December to complete Advent/Christmas Units)

We were able to get to our Music Appreciation Study this week. We listened to some pieces by Back and filled out a Biography Sheet for Bach We read the World’s greatest Composers book on Bach back in September, So I will be reviewing this book next week as we finish our Notebook/Lapbook elements for this Composter.

 We started reading our book on Mammals and filled out our  notebook page for mammals:

 

 

 

 

We worked on our new Habit and Character sheets.

closed our week with some pics…

Linking up to:
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Youth Nights – Bake Off

I recently started serving with our churches youth ministry.  Since I have the majority of my kiddos either serving or attending the youth, I felt it was the best place for me to put my energy. 

 

This past week we had a bake off competition. It was so fun to participate in.

With the help of  we came up with these entries:

My golden girl entered “Owl Wishes” – she won the exceptional cuteness award.

my angel girl entered  “I have my eye on you pops” – she won the Here’s looking at you award. her pops were inspired by her oldest brothers attempt to make cake pops that looked like eyes.- they did not turn out :( 

  My unique son entered “One of those ice cream pie things” – He won the most controversial award for an item that was not baked.

  I entered Doggie Casserole  - I won the doggie most filling award.

My rock star son entered “Goulish Delight” – He won the grand prize for the Edge 2012 Bake Off  - His trophy was a rolling pin.

We all enjoyed the many entries of sugar treats.  One of the other mom’s that helps with youth also brought “real” food, we both felt with all the sugar we were going to need some balance…

Things I am thankful for this week:

an awesome youth group with wonderful, dedicated leadership
opportunity to serve along side of my kiddos
oldest – giving son’s faithfulness and steadiness
seeing this son thrive and love serving as intern for our church
family fun night
serving at family fun night
seeing my kids serve whole heartedly
watching my little one enjoy life
youth leadership catalyst meeting
being able to hear youths hearts
50 cent can of chili
seeing need to trust even more

Enjoying serving my King~
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