Maxx's birthday

My sweet Maxx turned 7 this summer. we had a great time at his birthday party. We wanted to throw a army/ top shot party. We invited several boys and asked them to bring their bb guns. We had a scavenger hunt and made an obstacle course to run through. we also had different target they had to shoot and a final package (pinata) that they had to bring back through. The weather was beautiful and we had a great time of fellowship. I can not believe Maxx is seven. He just started piano lessons and loves playing. He is growing into a wonderful young man.

Westport

This summer we went camping in Westport with a few friends. It was so beautiful there, I had to share some of the pictures.

I love the beach. when I am at the beach or in the country I feel like I can breath deeper and the weight of the world has been lifted of my shoulders. Hope we can make it back next year.

Clayton

When I found my camera bag on Friday I realized that I had not downloaded pictures in a long time. This last quarter in school was a long one, but now it is over and my workload is a bit lighter. School with the boys is going great, we also just finished up our first quarter. I still cannot believe they are in 3rd grade, They are growing into wonderful young men. The pictures are from Clayton's first Taekwondo tournament. This sport has been a blessing for him and he does quite well with it. He competed in 2 events, forms and sparing. He took 1st in forms and third in sparing, he was very happy to place in his first tournament.

Want to be God's hands?

My dear friend Charissa is hosting a blog auction! We all pray for opportunities to serve God, well here one is! Lets all skip our coffee's this week and give a few (or lots) dollars to bring home two beautiful girls. Go to her blog to see all the great things up for auction and to find out how you can help. http://anextraleaf.blogspot.com I can't figure out how to link the site to my page so you will have to do it the old fashion way and type it in, but don't let that stop you. Thanks

Pictures

These are the last of the pictures from Idaho. The first is of us at the sand dunes, we had an amazing time at night looking through all of the telescopes. we got to see Mars, Saturn, super red nova stars, and the milky way. The next morning we ran up and down the dunes, it was a great workout! I was so glad the boys could pass the swimming test at the pool. I have told them how much fun diving boards are, they finally got to test them out. I miss the 100 degree weather and my sisters very much. No matter how long I am away, there is no place like home!

"The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent conversations, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths." Sheldon Vanauken

My Birthday!

My salvation birthday of August,5th 2007, is coming soon! I wanted to post part of my testimony paper that I just wrote for my evangelism class. And also wanted to include a great picture of my Dad, sisters, and I. Hope every one is taking opportunities to witness this week. My Life Before I came to Christ. I grew up in a Catholic home; I always believe that Christ was the son of God and that he rose again from the dead. I always believed that God was real and that the Bible was a good thing. The one thing that I did not know was that I was a sinner. I did not know that I was headed to hell. I always felt lost and without purpose. I would pray to God when times were bad, but I never felt that he heard or answered me. I always tried to please people, looking back I feel that is was trying to be a good enough person for God. How I came to a cognitive knowledge of Who Jesus is and what He did for me. From a child I believed in Christ. When I received him as my savior is a different story. My life was falling apart; my husband and I were headed for a divorce. I was partying more than I ever felt comfortable with. I had decided that I was done with partying and I was going to change my life for my children. I did not know how, but I knew I wanted to do better. Circumstances surrounding your conversion. It was August 5, 2007, at the age of 23; I went to church with my mother in law to get her off my back. I figured that if I went with her once that it would make her happy. I always surrounded myself with people that misbehaved more than I did, I did this so I felt ok with myself. I never would admit if I was wrong. During the middle of that church service God showed me through the preaching that I was a sinner."John 4:29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?". I always knew that Christ died for the sins of the world, but in that moment I realized that He died for my sins. I cried and cried realizing where I stood before God. I went home that night and prayed a sincere prayer to God. I told Him that I was sorry and that if he would forgive me that my life was His; whatever He ever asked me to do I would. In that moment I felt clean and had so I had so much unexplainable joy. I had never heard the word “saved” until 2 days later when I met with a Pastor and he told me I got saved. I did not know what it was called, but I knew in my heart that something wonderful happened!

Idaho Fun

The boys and I are in Idaho for a trip with my family. We have camped a few nights and now are at Grandpa and grandmas for a few days. Hope everybody is having a great week!

A baby story....

I remember when I first got saved (Aug 2007), I had a dream that Luke was a pastor and we were sitting on a porch with several kids running around. When I woke up I thought "ok Lord, you will have to work miracles for that dream to come true". Luke and I at the time were separated and he was not saved, he also had gotten a vasectomy after Maxx was born. Ever sense then I have truly desired to have more children. After Luke got saved and we were back together, God performed many miracles to give us a wonderful marriage that we have today. When I first moved back to Washington I thought I would miraculously get pregnant. Month after month went by and still no baby. I look back at those times when I was a baby christian and I laugh at how little I understood about God's character. We knew we needed to get out of debt, so we started that process. We had 59k of debt when we started, so we started paying down bills and growing in the Lord. We had prayed about getting a reversal many times; but we knew that God wanted us to be debt free first. Spring of 2010 came around and our friends the Brownings were adopting! Through them God opened our eyes to the awful conditions of special needs orphans in Eastern Europe. We thought this is it, this is how we will grow our family! We fell in love with a little boy named "Monroe" through Recces Rainbow. We were going to pray about adopting him for two weeks and then if God gave us the ok we would commit. We were out of town on a job and had no computer available where we were; however, we decided to commit to him that next week. The day before we got back into town I got a phone call, It was my friend Charrissa telling me that he had a family. I was devastated, I loved him and wanted to be his mommy. I was grateful for God's guidance and that he had a wonderful family; but I wanted to be his family. That summer we moved to Everett area. We settled into a new church and made a new group of friends, that also loved kids and homeschooling as much as we did. I though adoption was the answer, I wanted more kids but really did not care if they were biologically mine. We tried to adopt 2 other boys(Gage and Sam)and God closed the door by providing wonderful families for them. I remember after I found out that Sam had a family that I got into a huge "fight" with God over children. He told me NO, then showed me through scripture that just because something was a good thing that it was not always His will. I did not accept it, I thought foster care was the answer. We went through all the hoops for foster care and 3 days before our final inspection Luke got laid off. Well you have to have a job to qualify (July 2011). We were going to put everything in a storage unit and hit the road. We thought this was the answer for figuring out where God wanted us. We met with out pastor the next week and told him our plans, he continued to ask Luke questions to figure out why we were doing what we were doing. During that meal Luke surrendered to the mission field! Our pastor asked us to stay and move into the duplexes by the church. We both were ready for change so we were somewhat hesitant and told our pastor we needed a job for us to be able to stay... Luke's phone rang at this time, and you guessed it, a job. He went back to work that Friday! Through this I finally gave up on trying to force the issue of kids, I figured that we must be going to a mission field where I would not be able to have more than 2 kids. We both started Bible college though correspondence that January. We were happy to be in God's will and thankful to have friends that shared their kids with us. We were 6K away from being debt free! I though this is the year that we can finally be debt free and maybe with next years tax return we can get the reversal if God allows. Well Luke got laid off 2 weeks later (Feb 2012). We both started school and I started piano lessons,but I honestly thought "why now". I kept telling myself well it will only be a week or two....but the weeks turned into months and we were traveling all over the place for work. I still continued to pray for a baby. I would tell God "ok I know you said NO,but I am going to keep asking". I was content and at peace, truly wanting God's will and not mine own for our life. Well last week was the beginning of June. Luke went to work for our church for the summer to help out with some construction projects. This also was our last week of school for the boys. I was so excited for Luke to be working and have the boys done with school. I thought "yay, I can focus on my school and my piano lessons for the summer. And while all of this is still true, we had an exciting answer to prayer. On Thursday (June 7,2012) I woke up to Luke sitting on the bed with an envelope in his hands. The verse on the card was "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (Jas. 1:17). In the card was an anonymous letter with enough money to pay for the reversal! Luke and I are so humbled by God's goodness and giving families sacrifice. It was so awesome for God to provide in this way, and His provision grew my faith ten fold. I had heard and seen of things like this happening to others, but never thought we would receive such a large monetary gift. So no babies yet but we do have the surgery scheduled for very soon! God is good!

28 years young!

We have had a busy few months, Luke has been laid off and we have been traveling all over the North West. The wild ride is now over, Luke goes back to work tomorrow. The boys graduated from sparkies last week. They will be TNT's next year for Awanas,they also completed 2nd grade with great grades. We have been able to create a beautiful garden this year, we have several birds feeders. We also have a flexible squirrel that has figured out how to get into one of them. I celebrated my 28th birthday yesterday. I awoke to the sound of boys singing me happy birthday with donuts and new p.j's. Clayton and I went off to Taekwondo and came home to a beautiful flower arrangement from my Mom. My neighbor also made me a cake, so I also was able to gain 5 lbs on my birthday! Have a great week!

Pictures!

Here are some pictures of Clayton's first belt testing in Taekwondo. We also had some friends over tonight and the boys wanted to play navy seal/ army guy so Luke painted their faces!

In his loving hand.

So doing something of this caliber is not all to typical of me... (all that being said this is Luke) by all this I mean posting on a blog; however I've come to realize that to some degree it is a good way to share what is going on in life.
As you know from my wife's post this will be my last week at my job, and I couldn't be more excited. Allow me to explain, I am looking forward to what God will have our family to do over this next year and seeing my wife having such peace at where the Lord has us right now encourages me as a husband. I am so blessed to have such a loving wife and boys.
I wanted to post this to share with everyone that last night Mary and I were able to share with a woman in her home she did not get saved but she had lots of questions and wanted someone to come back, so Mary and another lady from our church are going to her home tomorrow at 3:00 pm to share more with her. What a blessing it is to tell others about the love of Christ, be praying with us if you would for Juliet.
This next year as a family we are also setting it as a family goal to read through the Bible in a year together, I love to hear my kids read the Bible and I see no better way to spend time as a family than in devotions. Mary and I both are doing school now and are anxious to see where God wants our family to serve though we both now we have much to learn and always will it is a good turn of events to be doing school and moving ahead in the grace of God.
I had my first opportunity to teach an adult class this last Sunday and was honored to be given that. I was nervous and feel insufficient but God is faithful and he promises his word will not return void (Isiah 55:11). We have some missionary's living across from us in the mission apartment that is here on the church property. I am looking forward to gleaning what we can from them and building z relationship with their family. I do feel like the Lord is pulling our family to a region of the world but do not yet feel like we have confirmed that.
Before I go I wanted to encourage husbands to seek God and ask him what he will have you lead your family in this year. I asked God recently what he would have for us this year and in the midst of it he reminded me of the things I have set out to do in the past and let go by the wayside. Our family's need us, our kids need men that love God above all else and will teach them how to have that on their own. It cannot be some self expected thing that our kids will know how to worship God if we do not give them the example of how. They need to see us love their moms, and moms (wives) need our love.
I know it sounds simple but me personally, I forget to love my wife like Christ loved the church, I forget that my children are a gift from God and not just "another mouth to feed". I don't want to sound uncaring and insensitive but I am being transparent in hopes that it will be a blessing to some one else. I know as a man I don't always pay attention in the areas that I need to and I wanted to share what has been brought to my mind by the Lord recently.

-Luke

Dear Tooth Fairy...

Maxx lost his second tooth tonight! He was very clever in preparing his tooth for the tooth fairy. He thought to give her a kind gift, so he could ask for an even better one in return!



this is all for you tooth fairy
I want ten dollars
I love your work
thank you



He added a piece of candy for her enjoyment! I love how creative kids are. I hope he gets ten bucks!