A full plate...

In light of my Sisters Blogging break, just a bit of wisdom..





If you take a plate, (in my case, I need a huge plate..) a regular size dinner plate out of your cabinet. Put it on the table. Take a piece of paper, and cut 1x1 squares out of it. (I neede three pieces of paper). On these 1x1 squares, write what you have to do in your life...your day to day living. Such as , daily bible reading or as I call it, my quiet time. write down dishes, floors, laundry, homeschool if you do this, work if you go to work, write each kids name on a different square, write your spouses name on a square, groceries, bills, anyone that you visit on a regular basis, PTA meetings if your child is in school...homeschool coop, homeschool kids play day, moms night out, CHURCH!!!! hunting,

Anything that is considered a to do for you. write each item or person on a square....



Now take a piece of paper....write GOD on it in big bold letters. place this sheet on the plate...now pile all your 1x1 squares on top of the paper. Do they fall off of the plate? Can you still see GOD underneath everything? I couldnt.



Now take it all off except GOD. And slowly sort through them and put only the important ones on there....but make sure you can see GOD through it all.....



This was my new priorities....



Paul, Jack, Kylie, Alaina, Jason, House (this included laundry, dishes, cooking), playday, moms night out, mom, dad, mom2, dad2, CHURCH, hunting.





I could still see GOD through this...If I added one more thing, then I couldnt see God through it. So I stuck with this. If you are wondering why I put Church closer to the end, it is because our Church pretty much takes care of itself. Yeah we have activities. but I am not soley in charge of anything, we all work together to get stuff done. I put my parents and pauls parents on there because they are getting older and I feel I need to check up on them more often. God, Paul, the kids (which includes teaching them and being a mom,) take up most of my time. We have play day once a month and moms night out once a month. They dont take up that much time.



Jack is going to be getting married in January. So while I will still worry about him as any parent would, I wont have the sole responsibility for him anymore, so he will come off of my top priorities.....not saying I dont love him, but he wants to get out on his own and grow up and make his mistakes and learn from them. So I am going to try to let him. But with him off of my plate, does that mean I am going to add another one....no, I am going to use my extra time to spread out between the other priorities and myself....



So there, do this, see what all you have going. I wish I could remember where I found it but I cant so just trust me on this one....It is a real eye opener...



Blessigs

Crystal

My Holiday Songs

I just couldnt resist putting Holiday songs on my music player already. I am going to put more songs on as I find them and yes I love the Chipmunks they are so cute. But if you dont like them, then just mute the sound....

Blessings
Crystal

Lifting Hands Weekly Prayers

I came across this while reading past prayers on Lifting Hands....



Teach me Your ways, enable me to obey Your commandments and do only what is pleasing in Your sight. May the beauty of Your Spirit be so evident in me that I will be a godly role model. Amen.



"The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him." Proverbs 20:7



Week of Oct 26, 2008.



I know there are alot of times that I am not a Godly example for my children. I Know I could be better. Maybe doing the prayers off of this blog during the week will help me.



Blessings

Crystal

Some things I have found lately..

What little time I have had on the computer here lately has been spent doing school stuff and research for a friend. But I have had a few extra minutes with sick kids piled up on the couch and resting. So here are some things I have found that I have started trying to do but not neccesarily posting about as I just dont have the time.

I will be putting a button on my sidebar too. I think this is a great idea. Praying for your kids seven times a day seven days a week.

The Love Dare! This is a wonderful thing to do. Paul and I plan on seeing the movie this weekend if possible (babysitters...) and we are going to take Jack and Amber and then we plan on doing the 40 day challenge. We are even thinking about getting the Couples Kit to do...

Making Your Home a Haven! I love this. I have been working on my home, not in the exact order she has because I didnt find this before yesterday but it is a really neat plan. Please go over and take a look.

My sister has a daybook. The idea was from the Simple womans daybook..but altered to fit her needs. I have been doing this and tweaking it as I go....I havent been poting it but I have been doing it.

And my all time favorite recipe that I tried this week! Autumn Chowder from Heritage Schoolhouse. Oh you must try this...it is delicious..everyone in our house loved it.

Blessings to all..

Crystal

Changes in our Life...

Our house is full of changes here lately. But before I get into them, I want to say a little about the weekend meeting that we attended at the church that I grew up in. We left Friday afternoon to go down to it, before we had even made it an hour, my glasses broke...so we had to go to a wal mart vision center to have the lenses put in new frames....well, they messed up my lenses so now I am having headaches...and I have to get new glasses anyway. It was an awful evening, we did not even make it to Church Friday night.

Saturday, we went to a fall festival and seen lots of beautiful stuff and ate wonderful food. Saturday evening services, we got to listen to a wonderful man speak and boy did he step on my toes... Lets just say that after his lesson, My day Friday was WONDERFUL!!!! Did you hear that JERRY? WONDERFUL!

Jerry spoke about how we are not supposed to let others or events dictate how our day is. And we gripe about our days and we gripe about what we have to do but JESUS DIED ON THE CROSS!!!! HE HUNG ON A CROSS WITH NAILS IN HIS HANDS AND FEET AND A CROWN OF THORNS ON HIS HEAD FOR US AND WE GRIPE ABOUT BEING TIRED!!!!

Nope No more Jerry, I wont gripe...My days are wonderful and marvelous and I am doing great...lol.

I am sure that Jerry had more points in his lesson, and I am sure that they were great also. And I do remember alot of them...this is just the one that stepped on my toes the hardest. I also had three or four kids around me making noise so I couldnt hear all that well...but I am not griping, their sounds are so musical.

The changes in our life have been for the better we think. Last week, my parents took the girls home with them for 3 days. I managed to get alot done around the house without them. I organized my file cabinets, I organized their room, my room, went through a bunch of clothes, got homeschool stuff caught up on and done lots of Bible reading.

When we came home from the meeting, Jacks fiance came home with us. He is going to be staying in our camp trailer and she will be staying with us until their wedding. (This is cheaper than driving 4 hours each way to see each other...they need to save all they can. ) So we are adjusting to having her here...not real hard since she fits right in.

We are adjusting to having Daddy home more since he has not been working as much and with that comes adjusting to not as much money. Its tough but in the spirit of Jerrys lesson, we are still alive and eating... :) See I'm smiling Jerry...Its a good day..


The Church group where we went saw the movie FIREPROOF this weekend. Paul and I did not get to go because we had to come back home and get him ready for work today. They said it was awesome...and we want to go see it...Please theater have it this weekend...(we live in a little town with a one movie theater.. THANK GOD FOR THE ONE MOVIE!!!) Just please let it be FireProof this week... anyway, Julie wrote about it.

I am going to try to write more inspirational and helpful stuff on this blog.....I just feel the need to get our Christian viewpoints out there. So we will see what I come up with.

Blessings
Crystal

Pictures from our Campout at Church!!!

Our Fall Church Campout!!!!!

This is what we started out the evening doing....laying block around the bottom of the building.. My Hubby and Robert (a very dear friend of ours..)

Setting up the tents...That is my Alaina bear and Mark (a new guy at Church.) I think she was chasing Ethan....lol.

The kids and Keith getting the fire going....

The little Fire Bug of the Night....keeping the fire going...

Curious Monsters arent they.. :)

Kristy and I being silly with Cameras... and Lil Rob in the background...although he isnt so little anymore... (sigh)

These two boys (Alex and Sammy) have more fun scaring the girls....even when they are not dressed up... and "Dorthy"...aka Alison



Almost time to cook Hot Dogs....yummmmm...(Dorthy, Darrel, Jeremy, Jack, Jake, Keith, Lil Rob)

Waiting on Food...lol Most of the kids are in this pic...and alot of the grown ups...

I'm not sure if Jack was cooking for the kids or for himself....hmmm...Julie and Ali in the background.

The little Fire Bug...lol Ethan. Isnt he a cutie..

I was sittin down holding a sleeping baby and so the pictures arent the best. I do love the scenery from our Church....So pretty,,,even prettier in the mornings when the fog is lifting...Oh what a way to wake up...(Can I live at Church..lol) I was enjoying it so much that I didnt get any pictures of the next morning though...Sorry.

We have Nine kids that regularly attend our Church... ages (9, 7,6, 5, 4, 3(2 of them) 1-1/2, and 10mths) We had guest kids Saturday night and Sunday that were (11, 10, 6,5,3,2,) This is not counting the older kids (Jack and Lil Rob). It was so much fun. We are a very loving family Church...The comment was once made that we spend more time with our Church Family than we do our relatives...and it is true...but that is the way it should be...Your Church Family should be more important..(unless you are like me and your relatives are alot of your Church Family...just not in the same town..lol. )

My Hubby has a blog...

Just wanted to put my husbands blog on here. After months of agrivating me because I have one, he decided he wanted to start one too....

Crucified Christian

Blessings
Crystal

Sad Sad Day for America

Please read the following blogs for why I am saying this. I am still too saddend and angry over America's decision last night to say much but these post put it into perspective.

http://www.accordingtohispower2.blogspot.com/

http://charliefogg.blogspot.com/2008/11/tuesdays-turnout.html

http://heartofamommytoo.blogspot.com/2008/11/sad-day-this-mourning-in-history-of.html

Sadly
Crystal

Pray for our Nation and Vote!

According to the polls this morning, Obama is headed toward our Nations Capital. I urge you to pray for our Nation and pray that the right person is put where we need them. I am heading out to vote this evening. This election scares me. I am really afraid for our nation. So I am praying without ceasing. Please join me.

Blessings
Crystal

What we have been up to and Halloween Pictures.

My princess Bear! She was so cute!

My Grown up girl... The story behind this. When I was asking them what they wanted to be for Halloween, Kylie said she wanted to be a Mommy and when I asked her why.... because Mommy's are the best.. (sniff sniff...tears and lots of them..cause I dont think I am a good mommy alot of times. ) So she was a mommy. So pretty and grown up looking....Made her Daddy cry..

And the following pictures are of what we have been up to here lately. Sadly, the kitten whom Kylie claimed as hers and named Pumpkin because we found him in October, passed on this morning. We found him in our yard about 2 weeks ago, (our dog was playing with him.) He seemed to be about 3 weeks old. He was doing great and last week when it got really cold, he got sick....I have been caring for him and trying to keep him going....but he just wasnt strong enough...needless to say, we are having a sad day....he was pretty special..

Jason and Cat Kitty....not Kitty Cat...but Cat Kitty...so cute.

Alaina and pumpkin. She finally warmed up to him scratching her.

Kylie and her kitty. She gets very attached to things. She is my overly sensitive child. I am trying to think of something to make it better....any suggestions...

I have pictures of our Camp out we had at our Church this weekend for Halloween for the kids. I will try to post them later tonight or tommorow. Right now, I have a 5 yr old who needs comforting.

Blessings

Crystal