Last weekend we had some out-of-town guests stay with us during YC Homecoming.  This particular weekend is definitely one of my favorites of the entire year.  I love being able to have lots of people in our home, and being able to see people who come back to York for the weekend. 

This year, my brother and his family weren’t able to come….so we only hosted my Dad and his wife Tacy, and our good friends Greg and Lisa.

Here are a few picture highlights of our weekend:

Here’s a few of us sitting around eating soup and cornbread. 
I invited my uncle and cousin for dinner so that they would have a chance to visit with our guests.

We made the kids sit at the table to eat their soup so they wouldn’t spill it in the living room…
I suppose Matt and Greg felt like they’d better sit at the table too. 

It was Lisa’s birthday, so we made a chocolate pound cake.  Yum!

After dinner, we got out Family Fun Cranium and played together. 
You can tell the adults are a little bit too full of soup…

I LOVE this picture of my dad with Elias!!!  He sure loves his Papa.

Here are Justus and Tacy and I looking at pictures together.

Lisa and Tacy are playing Uno Attack with the boys after breakfast Friday morning.  Seems like we always pull out a bunch of games over Homecoming weekend.

Lisa always takes the boys to Wal-mart each year and spoils them by letting them each pick out a toy.  Notice how they each picked a new piece of weaponry.  Like we don’t have enough.  Oh, and Malachi also got a red cowboy hat.  You’ve gotta love a ninja cowboy.

Isn’t he just the sweetest cowboy you’ve ever seen?

Lisa took this picture of the boys out with their pumpkins

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was that my dad was honored by York College to receive the “Alumni of the Year Award”.  It was a well deserved honor.  BUT, I knew in advance that he was to receive the award (no one else except Matt knew)…and I had the wonderful job of making sure he was at the chapel service so that he could accept the award.  Shew.  That guy was a tough one to convince…and he knew I was up to something.  This isn’t a great picture…but here he is receiving the award from the President of the college.

I’m so grateful that our weekend with our family and friends was such a wonderful one!  Thanks for letting me share some of it with you!
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What are you grateful for this Gratituesday?  Write about it on your blog and come link up with us here!  Here are the details!
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I’ve decided that one of my favorite places has to be the pumpkin patch.  What a great place to take your kids!  The people who run these things must work SO HARD setting up all the fun things for kids to do. 

Last Friday we took a field trip to a great pumpkin patch.  It was a perfect sunny day and we stayed for hours.  Here are a few pictures of our trip:

The whole group of kids who met at the pumpkin patch that day…an amazing feat to get them all together in one place at one time.

Asa chose a HUGE pumpkin

And Justus was not to be outdone

Elias was a bit more practical

Malachi’s pumpkin was just downright cute

They boys went down this slide something like 30,000 times

Malachi and Elias on the train (oh what fun it would have been to watch me run behind the train to get this picture)

Asa on the zip line

Justus on the zip line

Elias on the zip line

Malachi on the zip line

I’m not sure how they talked me into it…but somehow they did…

Mama on the zip line

I have to admit…the zip line was really fun.  And I went back and did it three times.  Because it was that fun.  I’m happy to report that I wasn’t even sore the next day! 

Have you had a chance to visit a pumpkin patch yet this year?  Oh you really should!  (And if they have a zip line…try it!!) 

I’m so grateful for the fun memories I made with my kids at the pumpkin patch!  What are you grateful for?  Read the Gratituesday details here, then come link up with us!
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We had such a wonderful time camping over the weekend with about eight other families from church.  The weather was gorgeous, all the kids played well together, nobody got hurt (too badly anyway!).  We adults got to just sit around and visit…the kids rode bikes, played soccer, caught frogs and played on playground equipment.  The kids played so hard and got so dirty…it was great! 

Here are a few pictures from our trip:

Here are Malachi and Elias along with some little girls…
they are gathering leaves for their make believe dinner.

Justus is discussing the upcoming camp soccer game with our friend Hannah (who WILL become one of my daughters-in-law some day if I have anything to do with it) (which I realize I don’t…but a girl can dream)

Asa, Justus and Elias roasting their hotdogs for dinner
(since the leaves didn’t look all that great after all)

Justus with one of the frogs he caught. 
Too bad he wouldn’t let me have a turn holding it *cough*

Malachi and Elias getting snuggled into bed in our trailer

Our group coming together for worship time on Sunday morning.

I’m so grateful for the chance to spend such a nice time with our friends.   (And since I’m pretty much a home-body…I’m also grateful to be back home where it’s a little less…froggy…) 
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Share what you’re grateful for this Gratituesday!  Read the guidelines here then come link up with us!

Every day we have to make decisions.  And some of them are hard.

Matt’s boss is looking at possibly moving soon, although we don’t know how soon.  We’ve know about this possibility for a while, so for several months, Matt and I have been talking  about our future…what would be best for us to be doing as a family as we raise our boys into godly men…what ministries our family should be involved in that would work for our family as well as be a benefit for God’s kingdom… 

And also, we need to be able to make a living, so that we can eat and all that stuff. 

There are so many good ideas, so many great things to think about…so many hurting people out there who need love from Christians and the hope of Jesus.  So whatever we choose or whatever job works out for Matt, we know that it will be one that will glorify God.

And because of that…I’m not even worried.  I don’t have stress over the fact that Matt may need to find another job soon.  (Okay, maybe I have a little stress…but mostly I don’t.) 

When I look at all the ways God has continually taken care of our family…ways He has provided for us and given us more than we even need…I can’t help but feel peace about it.  My husband is a hard worker full of ideas and vision for our family.  (BTW, for those of you local readers…we feel pretty strongly that God wants us to stay here.  Just so ya know.) 

So, while we know we’ll be making some tough decisions in the near future, we know that God takes the pressure off by opening and closing doors as He sees fit.  And that’s a really good thing, since we really have no idea what direction we should be taking. 

We’ll just pray and listen and wait and watch for His direction.  I’m so grateful that really and truly, God’s yoke is easy and his burden is light!  He knows the plans he has for us! 

Why, it’s all rather exciting, isn’t it!
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Please join us for Gratituesday!  Read the details here, then come link up with Mr. Linky below.  Don’t have a blog?  Please leave a comment telling us about something you’re grateful for!
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I finally got to meet my new nephew last weekend!  It was so wonderful to be able to hold him…and kiss him to pieces! (And, while little Austin was sort of the highlight of our trip…I also enjoyed seeing my other nephew and nieces and my brother and sister-in-law and my dad and his wife Tacy and her kids and two of my aunts and an uncle.)  (Oh, and I received a great hug from Jayme via her MIL…and I sent one back for you!  And one for you too Sally!  Make sure you go get them!)

Of course now I miss everyone more than I did before…and I’m so glad we were able to make the trip!

Here are a few pictures of Austin with his (favorite) Aunt Laura.  Would you believe this little sweetheart is barely a month old and he’s starting to give big smiles and coos already?  I’m pretty sure it is all because he was so happy to see me that he gave some of the biggest smiles he’s ever given before…

Hehehe…look at ‘im!  Isn’t he just yummy!

Oh look, Aunt Laura got this big smile out of him!! 
Look at that sweet face.  (His, not mine.)

It wasn’t until we were on our way home Saturday night, when I was going on and on about Austin, that Matt pointed out that he hadn’t had a turn to hold the baby.  Ooops.  I guess I was being a baby hog.  Hey.  We were only there for a total of seven hours okay?  There was no time for sharing.   You would have done the same thing, right?

This Gratituesday, I’m just so thankful for the chance to be with our family over the weekend, even if it was a crazy quick trip.  And I’m grateful that Austin shared some of his very first sweet smiles with his favorite aunt.  (Okay, okay, his favorite Nebraska aunt.) (Yes…all the other aunts live in Kansas, but still.) 
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Join us this Gratituesday and share what you’re thankful for!  Read the Gratituesday details here, then come link up!  Don’t have a blog?  Leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!
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Last Gratituesday I told you about our chance to go to Kansas City to watch our good friend Brad Ziegler pitch for the Oakland A’s. We were almost to KC when we got the phone call that the game we had tickets for was rained out.  (We’d been driving through a lot of rain, so we had been dreading the thought of having to sit out in it for three hours.)

So, instead of going to a game, we were able to meet Brad and all of his family at McDonalds, which was super fun and a great chance to visit with everyone. 

Then, Thursday we were able to watch a double header since the Wednesday game was re-scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and there was already a Thursday game scheduled for that night…so we got to watch both.  (Did that just make any sense?)

Oh, it was SO MUCH FUN!!  The boys had a blast, and so did we! 

However…Brad is the “closer” for his team (which means that if his team is ahead…he goes in for the last 2-3 innings and pitches to “seal the deal” because he’s such an awesome pitcher) (and I know you knew what a ”closer” was already…but just in case you didn’t…).  The Royals were ahead in both games, which meant that Brad didn’t pitch either game.  Talk about disappointing.  We watched him warm up once just in case…but they ended up not needing him, and the A’s lost both games. 

Sigh.

Oh, but it was so much fun anyway being at a major league baseball game with so many people that we loved.  Even my brother met us there because he happened to be in KC for business that week!  

While I am typing this post…all four boys are outside with baseball caps on playing a baseball game in the yard.  Before they went outside, I got to listen to them (kindly) argue about which one of them got to be the “closer”.  How sweet is that?  I’m so very grateful that my boys have such a great Christian role model in Brad Ziegler.  You can bet they think he’s great!  He even signed baseballs for each of them!  (Balls they had been using for warm up even!!)

I was disappointed that this picture turned out so dark…
but here are the boys with their signed baseballs with Brad.

And here is a picture of the back of several people’s heads…
and a picture of the teams on the field.

I quickly grabbed my camera for this shot when the Royal’s mascot came and sat down by Justus and started to steal his blanket from him.  Justus didn’t quite know what to do! 

We sure did make some great memories!  God is good!
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What are you grateful for?  Read the Gratituesday guidelines here, then come link up with us!
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There is MUCH excitement going on at our house right now!  Tomorrow we’re leaving to go to Kansas City for just a real quick overnight trip…to go watch the KC Royals play the Oakland Athletics (um, that’s baseball, for some of you who might be a little like me when it comes to sports). 

And guess WHY we’re going?  Because a friend of ours, Brad Ziegler, was pulled up several weeks ago to pitch for the Oakland A’s…and he’s doing awesome…and he’s already broken a major league record…and we decided that if he ever played in a game close enough to us…we’d HAVE to go watch!! 

So, we went online to get tickets, and found that there’s all kinds of silly hidden “convenience fees”.  Then Matt suggested we check on Ebay.  Would you believe we got six tickets (for decent seats I might add) for the grand total of $22!!!!  That’s less than $4 a ticket!!!  I almost feel bad for the person we bought them from.  (Almost)

And of course, not only will we be able to watch an awesome major league baseball game…we’ll be able to see Brad’s wife and baby, and his parents, and enjoy a great visit!  (We’re not sure if we’ll get to visit with Brad or not…depends on the night.)

I’m not sure who’s the most excited around here!  All four boys are old enough to be able to enjoy the game…and just the experience of being at a major league baseball game.   And Matt and I are so excited about the get away and the fun of the game…we’re just giddy! 

So…WooHoo for us!  We’re headed out to the ballgame! 

I’m so grateful for this wonderful, fun opportunity to go on a little trip with my family that is sure to create awesome memories for us all.  And I can’t wait to see our friends!  And I’m so thankful God provided such a great price for tickets.  What a treat!
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What are you grateful for this Gratituesday?  Read the Gratituesday guidelines here, then come link up with us.  I LOVE reading about what you all are grateful for!  God is so good!

During the six years we’ve lived in this house, we’ve had this ever growing pile of brush and sticks accumulate in our back yard.  It’s ugly, a nuisance, and it keeps growing. 

Yesterday, Matt was finally able to borrow a Chipper from a friend.  We were so excited to bring it over and work on making our big brush pile shrink!  Bring on the CHIPPER!!

Matt said it’s actually pretty fun to use…which is a good thing since we have such a big pile of fun waiting to go through the chipper. 

And when he’s done…we’ll have a big pile of mulch…which means he’s turning a big, ugly, nuisance pile of brush into something helpful and useful.

I was watching the ugly sticks turn into a nice pile of mulch (by this really loud machine that just obliterates those sticks like nobody’s business) and it got me to thinking…

I have some areas of hurt and bitterness in my heart that are ugly and can keep on growing into a bigger and bigger “pile of brush” if I continue to let it.  I want to just run all that hurt and bitterness through a big chipper.  I want to just stick it in there and let it be torn to shreds so that my heart can be whole again.  Because if I don’t…the pile will just continue to grow and become uglier.

And then I want the “mulch” that is kicked out of the chipper to become something useful and helpful.  Something with a purpose. 

God promises that I can do that.  He can help turn my hurt into forgiveness and my bitterness into peace.  And for that, I am grateful.

Bring on the chipper.
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Join us for Gratituesday!  Read the details here…and come link up with us!

I grew up with only one sibling…a brother…Kevin.  We are only 14 months apart in age so he and I were pretty close growing up (even though he tortured me sometimes). 

He married a girl, Michele, who was one of my great high school friends, which has been such a blessing to me…having a sister in law that I’m so close with. 

And now they just had their fourth baby!

When Kevin sent the pictures, I emailed him and asked if I could put them on my blog…because I NEEDED to show him off!  Of course Kevin responded that it would be fine….just have my people get in touch with his people.  (I didn’t know the baby had an agent already.) 

So here you go…my newest nephew…Austin Lee.  He was born Tuesday, August 12 weighing in at 7 lb 9 oz and 21 inches long.  (And by the way, Michele felt her first contraction at 6:30 am and gave birth at 7:30 am.  Her story pretty much rivals my story of giving birth to Elias.  Must run in the family.  Is that possible with sisters-in-law?!…)

Here’s Austin with his biggest sister Kailey (6).

And with his big brother Troy (4).

And with his 21 month old sister Renee.

Isn’t he so sweet?  I can’t wait to meet him, hopefully sometime in September. 

And yes, between my brother’s kids and our kids, when we get together…it’s pretty much a big party!  Whew!

I’m so excited to be able to share this with you!  And I’m so grateful for his safe arrival and that he is healthy and strong.  New babies are such a blessing!
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What are you grateful for this Gratituesday?  Please share with us!!!!

Yes, it’s official.  Matt and I are oldy-weds.  It’ll be fourteen years this Wednesday, August 13.  Fourteen years. 

Can I first just say how thankful I am that my husband asked me to marry him fourteen years and nine months ago?  At age 20, I had a lot of growing to do.  I’m so glad he loved me anyway.

And can I also just say how thankful I am that after 14 years….four babies and several other life changes…my husband thinks I’m more beautiful now than I was when I was 20.  He really means it.  Even though my face now sees make-up pretty much only on Sundays and my hair is usually in a ponytail.  And at the end of the day when he comes home my ponytail is usually half way in and half way out. 

And there’s bread dough in it. 

I’ve read that one of the best ways to make ourselves attractive to our husbands and to show our respect and appreciation is simply to smile at him.  Often.

Matt makes that easy for me.  He is good.  He is godly.  He is kind.  He is consistent.  He is real.  He loves our boys.  He loves me.

Yeah, he’s easy to smile at. 

And this weekend we’re both smiling because we get to go on a wonderful anniversary date.  Probably out for dinner…maybe on a walk…doesn’t matter really.

And we were blessed with the offer of free babysitting!!  Way back many months ago, several teen girls came over and learned how to make mozzarella cheese with me.  (Yes, I’ll share details of cheese making some day.)  Their thank you gift to me was to be a night of free babysitting…and between our schedules and theirs, we’re just now able to take them up on the offer.

So, our boys will be here having a blast with the attention of three awesome teen girls, and we won’t be sitting on our date calculating how much longer we should stay out so that we don’t go broke!  Blessings all around!

(Maybe I’ll even put on make-up for our date…even though it isn’t a Sunday!!  )

What are you grateful for this week!?  Link up and share so that we can all be encouraged!
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