Celebration

 Well, being the 5th child, there really isn't a whole lot of things you need for your birthday, so we decided to take the crew to Discovery Place Kids to celebrate.  Channing loved it and they all had a blast.

 Chloe and the big 2 year old!

 Ready for the store to open

 I got a little overwhelmed with the amount of customers!  We had fun doing some grocery shopping.

 Submarine (does it surprise you that Channing is trying to scale her way out?)

 Harper loved being the car mechanic

 Channing doing some type of messy art project.

 Captain Banks!

 Water table was fun....and WET!

Little Miss Finley enjoyed everything about this place!  It was so fun spending the day with our babies!  They are growing so fast!

And when you have a long day it is great to come home and have a shower and relax with our sweeties.  Not sure if I really want Channing in charge of giving head massages :)

Prayer Journal

Oh the prayers of a child.  The girls got prayer journals from Ms. Penny and Mr. Brian, their SS teachers, a while ago.  3 days after Chloe is saved I find her writing in her prayer journal this.........

Dear God, Thank you for my family and friends so I can have a great day tomorrow and today and so we can't do any bad choices. So I can live my life with Jesus with Harper, Carly and me Mom and Dad (the saved people in our family) and everyone who has not known Jesus and so they know Jesus and homeless people and in jail to do everything right for Jesus. Thank you Jesus for the whole world. So people at church to understand Jesus. I love you so much. You love me more than the world Jesus. And take care of everybody's boo boos. (Then she drew a line and wrote WORSHIP and under the line she wrote) My God of angel armies is always by my side (2 times) The one who reigns for ever. He is a friend of mine - the God of angel army is always by my side! The one who reigns forever He is a friend of mine - the God of angel armies is always by my side.  

What a prayer!  Thank you Lord for my daughter.

My Little Picasos

 Oh the artwork.......So here is how it all went down.  I run downstairs and start cooking dinner.  I am down there for about 30 minutes and I hear footsteps.  Little fast footsteps.  Little footsteps that should be on the third floor, not in my room.  I go upstairs and as I get to the second floor, I am greeted with Carly, Chloe, and Finley.  All of our reactions were the same.  We all froze as the 2 year old artist glared back at us.  Yes, she got in trouble but I just needed her in her bed as I soak this all in.  She got everything!!!  The Wall.

 The pillows, nightstand and window sill.  

 The quilt.

 Luckily my husband, who has earned the title of Stain Master, came to the rescue when he got home.  He painted the wall and got all the stains out from the SHARPIE Highlighters.  

The perpetrators with artwork on PAPER not walls and beds!!  And yes, perpetrators.  When it happened Finley said Channing was doing it and she came in and told her to stop.  When Channing did not listen to her, she went upstairs to get Carly and Chloe (this is when I came into the picture so I know she was coming down the stairs too).  That evening as Matt and I snuggled under our rainbow colored quilt, we realized the stroke marks were too high for our two year old, but at the exact height of our three year old!!  The next morning, Finley did confess and we had to have a heart to heart about honesty.  I love these teaching moments.  When you see their hearts open and they are ready to hear what God is telling them.  My little girls have a lot of energy.  A lot of great ideas too.  But we know that they are going to be used for great things.  The Holy Spirit will totally take residence in their lives and God will use them for great things.  Thank you Lord for my wild ones!  Thank you for their fierce personalities.  Take them Lord.  Use them!!

Laundry

Because laundry folding doesn't have to be boring.........................

I love giving my children assignments and I go to check for completion and see things like this.  It reminds me to be joyful in everything that we do.  Sing praises.  Make each chore a way to be grateful.  Grateful for our abundance.  Grateful for our Savior's love.  Grateful for redemption and forgiveness.  Grateful for every little thing that you have.  

Romans 12:12 - Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Chloe Gets Saved

 I am filled to the brim and overflowing!!  So I had mentioned in my obedience post that I was doing a fast.  (I only need to add this fact for the background knowledge of what is going on in my journey of obedience!)  The first week I was concentrating on our revival we were having at our church.  Of course the kids were very interested in what a fast was and why I was doing it.  The night before the revival I participated in a prayer walk through our church.  Running around that sanctuary and touching each seat was so meaningful to me. We anointed our hands with oil as we touched every surface of the sanctuary.  I go home. I am on cloud 9. I go to make myself a rice cake and I just couldn't wash my hands before I did it. I still felt that oil. I couldn't wash it off. I eat my fab rice cake and chat with Matt a few minutes then I just felt compelled to really pray over each of my babies. I prayed for them for a while. It was so sweet. I got to Chloe and I started to pray. The girl opened her eyes huge and looked at me and said "I love you Mom!" I prayed for her to be released from her fears. Carly and Chloe are extremely shy and Chloe will break down and cry if you look at her for more than 2 seconds. I just prayed that she would be bold. I rubbed their heads with my oil soaked hands. I went in and prayed over Matt.  The next morning I was getting the kid's breakfast ready.  (The 3 big ones said they wanted to do it for one day)  So I asked them who had wanted to fast with me for the day.  Chloe said "ME!" Carly and Harper had picked different days, but then Carly said she would do it with Chloe. I asked them why they wanted to do it. They said to get closer to God. (The fast that I am doing is called a Daniel fast and you can only eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and water - so they could eat and weren't starving for the day)  Then for some reason we started talking about salvation. Carly and Harper had asked Jesus into their heart last Christmas. They will bring that up alot that they are going to Heaven and Chloe just said she wasn't ready yet. She can't talk on serious matters. She gets totally gripped with fear and breaks down. She was looking funny at me and I asked if she was ready to ask Jesus into her heart. She said yes and totally broke down in tears! She was able to pray with me. She was able to say the words. She broke down in total sobs at many points. It was beautiful. This was a huge fear for her! She was so sweet. She wouldn't get off my lap for an hour. She didn't know what fasting was until now :) We started laughing because I said, "Chloe, if that is what happened inside of you after fasting from one meal, just imagine what you are going to be like after dinner!!!" Then we looked over at the window and there was a flower that they had been growing from Sparks and usually is looking out the window, but it was turned and looking straight at her. I told her it was praising God for what she did this morning. She thought it was funny! I attached the pictures that Carly took to document today (She was so excited to know her sister is going to join her in Heaven!  She was smiling the whole time and was just boiling over with excitement). 2-22-13 is Chloe's rebirthday!! 

God gave Chloe a sweet message of praise through her flower.  She absolutely loved that it was looking at her as if it couldn't help but praise her decision.

 We decided to have a rebirthday party that night.  We stopped and got an air pop popcorn maker and just really enjoyed our time with our big girls.

 I made myself a smoothie and asked the girls if they wanted to try it.  They have only had water and milk to drink so they had super big eyes when I asked if they wanted to try it.

 Chloe's one sip.  She said it was ok but didn't want to drink anymore.

 Carly's 1st sip.  She didn't like it!

We love hanging out and being silly with them.  It is nice to have quiet moments with them at night as the little ones are all sleeping.  They are growing up so quickly and we don't want to loose a single moment!

102 Years Old!

On February 25, 2013, my grandmother turned 102 years old!  This is my Dad's Mom.  I just think that is just so cool!  For her birthday the kids cut out 102 flowers out of paint samples and we made a banner out of them!  102 is an awful lot of flowers :)  Happy Birthday Grandma!  (And she has looked just like this for so long - amazing!)

President's Day

 On our way home from getting my passport, it just so happened to be President's Day and we just so happened to be driving past Andrew Jackson Park.  So we made a historical field trip pit stop and got to see  some pretty interesting stuff.  The kids loved stopping on President's Day and were inspired after we left for their Presidential writing assignment!