trick or treat

It's really hard to get three kids excited about the prospect of candy to be still...

a recap

Just one fun, busy weekend. Started Friday afternoon with a sock puppet project, by lunch on Saturday we had five super cool puppets made up and ready for puppet shows. This was a project inspired by the kids' love of the Muppet Show. It was fun being creative with them and seeing how unique the puppets turned out, pictures will come some time later. Zac worked on the shed on Saturday, it's close to being done then we will finally have a garage for cars, imagine that! The kids had some friends over so that gave me a bit of time to work on some projects around the house, catch up sort of stuff but very necessary for me to get done. It cleared my head, making room for other projects.

On Sunday we received a great surprise, the church blessed us with a ton of goodies for pastor's appreciation, including this beautiful orchid. We certainly were not expecting anything or had even thought of October being pastor's appreciation month, what a surprise for us. We are feeling super blessed, a bit spoiled and extremely grateful. Grateful for the chance to be living here doing what God wants us to do; that in itself is really gift enough for us, it was icing on the cake to receive the things we did yesterday. Oh, and there was cake, amazingly good chocolate cake. What a treat it all was. Then I got to spend the afternoon with Zac's mom shopping, we got some Christmas things and I found some things for our bedroom. I think we'll finally get around to painting and hanging curtains soon. It was fun girl time, very restful and refreshing. Thanks Zac for letting me go, I know the kids can be a handful-I appreciate the break. Here's what they did while I was gone:


And, our sweet baby has a few new words this week: color, amen, juice and water. This is in addition to her growing vocabulary that includes: baby, book, mom, hi, bye, night-night and I'm sure there is more that I can't think of now.

a journey

A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as he was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus...Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to his perspective is the one thing that cannot be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God's call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus...We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were 'foolish' enough to trust God's wisdom and his supernatural equipment. Oswald Chambers

I don't really think of myself as a missionary-I'm not oversees, doing God's work on foreign soil or anything like that. But, I do have a purpose for my life that is God given, it's not my own thoughts or ideas but it's birthed by him. My greatest goal in life is to walk in relationship with Jesus and to bring others along with me on my journey. So I look around in my life and see that I am surrounded by a mission field: my neighborhood, my son's preschool class, even those I pass by in my not so random daily events. All of that is where my journey is lived out, and hopefully the way I live will draw others to a relationship with him. The place I am in is not the priority, nor should it be my primary concern or motivation. My priority is to walk with Jesus, trust his guidance and leading and know that he will place me in the right mission field for the season I am in. This is different for everyone and changes throughout our lives. We need not be concerned with how he moves us and when or even where. We simply need to be concerned with walking in step with him and also focused on allowing our journey to him be an inspiration to others, that they might join in the journey themselves.

just a few more

pictures from our day on Tuesday

glorious fall

Amazing day yesterday. Woke up to beautiful pink-tinged mountains and bright blue sky, a perfect day for a trip to park and a romp in the leaves. Levi has been eagerly anticipating this kind of day, a few weeks ago he exclaimed "It's fall!" to his dad on the way to school. "It's my favorite day" he said as he noticed the leaves changing color and on the ground. I tend to agree, I love the crisp air and beautiful colors-the turning towards indoors and the cozy-ness of home. It seems like a perfect way to slow down after the busy summer-snuggle in under a blanket by the fire, or a great excuse to buy pumpkins and wear sweaters, and of course enjoy a pumpkin spice lattee. Yep, it's a fun time of year.