Holy Home

How do we bring the Holy home? That's what andwe asked us as we started our bookclub today. (We're reading No Ordinary Home, btw, if anyone wants to join in.) It's also kind of what they're talking about over at Choosing Home so be sure you check that out this week. It's a topic that's really close to my heart. I want to have a home filled with His presence - I want people to feel Him when they walk in the door and I want to equip us to take Him to the rest of the world. But how does it look? What do we do?
Right from the beginning with Levi we've had daily prayer times. My dad always said our prayers with each of us at night and that's a really special memory of mine so I wanted to be sure and include that in our family. So every evening Casey and I pile all the kids on our bed to talk about the day and say our prayers. We start out teaching them to say "now I lay me" but also pray for people we know or specific situations that have come up in our talk. Levi is starting now to forego the "now I lay me" part and pray in his own voice. He amazed the people at church on back to school prayer night by praying outloud in front of everyone (and cracked everyone up by praying that God would help me make more milk for his little brother!).
We've recently started having a family prayer time in the mornings, too. Our days are so much smoother when we start off that way.
Another thing we do is have scripture all over the house. I'm still working on painting on the walls. I only have one verse painted on so far, the Train Up A Child verse in Levi's room. Complete with a train:) I have framed caligraphy all over the place though with scriptures from the "fruits of the spirit" to "choose you this day". I can't wait to paint even more - I'm especially looking for a good marriage one for our room, if anyone has any suggestions.
We're also both very careful to make sure that the kids see us reading our Bibles and hear us talking about our Bible study (even if it's over their heads). We want them to understand that reading the Word is a daily thing.
I've been thinking a lot lately about celebrating the Sabbath in a new way. We've always gone to church on Sundays and usually spend time either as a family or with our church family then, too. But I think I would like to do something more. So I hope to spend some time looking into that soon. I'm really excited to see what ideas other people are trying, too. You never know where a great idea is going to come form:)

Works for me Wednesday!

I thought I'd jump back on the WFMW bandwagon! I've learned soooo much over at the other Shannon's site - check it out!
So my tip for this week is ...plastic placemats for kids. I'm sure most moms already figured this out, but scrubbing the table after EVERY meal was getting old fast. The placemats are so easy to wipe down or just haul to the sink. And the kids loved picking their own at Walmart. For $1.88 it sure has made mealtimes easier!

1st day of homeschool

This morning was our first "official" day of homeschool. Official to us anyway:) Levi's very excited about being in preK - he wanted to show off his pencil box and school supplies. We also marked his and Brenna's height on the doorframe. Brenna did NOT appreciate that. I don't know what she thought was happening, but she howled! And that's why we have no picture of Brenna.
We have a few other things planned for today - cupcakes for snack time and an after-supper in-our-jammies (the kids! I meant the kids!) ice cream run. But lessons are over for today (the preplanned, sit at the table ones anyway) - we kept that kind of short. And they went really well. Levi's reading is coming along:)

Monday - time to check in

I actually didn't weigh myself this morning. As of Friday I hadn't lost any weight, but I can tell a little difference in the way my khakis fit:) I've been sticking with my original goals (except the coconut oil - forgot it at the grocery store!) and I think I'm ready to add in a little more.
1. a walk every day except Sunday - I'm going to try to head out alone right after Casey gets home while it's still pretty cool, but if I have to I can walk around the yard while the kids are playing. Jack loves the walker now that the grass has come in a little:)
2. start pilates again a couple of nights a week. I always sleep so well if I do this workout before bed, and that brings me to...
3. Go to sleep earlier. Ideally, I'd like to be asleep by 11:30. But Jack's going to have to stop waking up at 1 (and 3 and 5 - what's the deal?!?).
So hopefully after a few weeks these will all be second nature. My aunt and uncle are doing a very interesting sounding 3 day on/ 4day off diet that I may look into when I can start "dieting" just to speed this process along. But I'm trying really hard to focus on being healthy and not so much on being thin. Sure is hard though!

On the health front

Well, it's Monday - time to check in. I've lost 2 whole pounds! For a grand total of 7! It was a long stressful week and I won't claim that I met all my goals, but I did manage to handle the stress without binging and without relying on coke to keep me going. That's definitely progress. I'm going to stick with these same goals for one more week and hopefully by next Monday I'll be ready to add a few more.

A Sad Weekend...

We lost my Uncle Jack this weekend. The memorial service today was very moving. Casey gave the eulogy and I don't know if I've ever been prouder of him - he did such a wonderful job of capturing Uncle Jack's personality. We will miss him so much, but can't wait to see him again in Glory.
This has been the first opportunity we've had to talk much about death with Levi and that's been emotional, but so special to me. We talked about Uncle Jack's mansion in Heaven and Levi wanted to know if it would be near ours. I promised him we'd all be in the same neighborhood - it's Heaven, right?

Obedience and Weight Loss

Well, I haven't lost a pound this week. Five pounds all together but none this week. But that's not the real measure of success here. What I'm really concerned with is how I obeyed Him. So on that count how did I do? Well, not well enough. Never well enough. The exercise, the coconut oil and the coke didn't give me too much trouble, but I didn't reach my water goal even once. SO there's still room to improve. But I did learn one very important thing over the past week. Every time I was tempted to ignore what I knew I was supposed to do, the outcome depended entirely on whether or not I prayed. If I wanted a coke and prayed "Lord, I know that for my own well-being You've asked me to set this aside, but it's hard and I need your help" then I could put it down and walk away. If I thought about trying to lose weight as if that was my goal, it was all over but the drinking.:(

My mom and sister are coming for a visit today!

I'm so grateful for a chance to see them. They live way out in Texas and didn't get to make their usual trip home for the summer, so I've been extra missing them. My sister is about to start her senior year of high school this fall and I was really bummed about not getting to spend anytime with her first. She's been busy (BUSY!) this summer with mission trips and work at church and a few fun trips too, so this is really the first chance she's had to visit, too. So we're squeezing in a long weekend! I wish my dad didn't have to work:( But I'll take what I can get!