A little look into our family bible study lesson...

Today we looked at how walking with Christ is like running a marathon....you need to train everyday, you need to live your life at an even pace not a sprint that will sap all your energy before the end, and you need to be grounded and rooted with a foundation in Christ. Our primary verse was Ephesians 3:17-19: so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. With our supporting verse being John 15:5: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." We then read Proverbs 26...Proverbs is a great book in the bible for taking a daily reminder verse from I have found. I use verses from that book to stick on our mirror in the bathroom a lot. So since there are 31 chapters we can use the chapter for the day of the month we are currently on. We are reading out of a separate book of bible stories with the youngest two girls which they love. Our in depth study with verse reading we are doing with the oldest two. They each read one of our primary verses then DH read half of the 26th book of Proverbs and I read the other half. DH and I are reading the Song of Songs together as our study time as well. The Lord is doing such a work in this house of late and it is so AWESOME. I wanted DH to join us more at church and I wanted to nail down a more regular family bible study time....I have been praying hard for both these things....what a wonderful answer to my prayers. The Lord is so good!!!!

We are at the end of another week and so much got done this week. Diva went off and came back from camp in Dallas with our church. She did some scrap booking, bible study, made balloon art, cheerleading, swimming, and saw a Christian Illusionist which she said was super cool. KK worked several times this week, spent the night with her best friend, and has been reading a lot. Love Bug had Adventure Day Camp at the Nature Center....she learned about native animal habitats, made butter (a tiny bit in a baby food jar...it was a cute idea actually)for their afternoon snack, made a native animal diorama, went swimming, did a water observation project, and insect observation project. Diva did a similar Day Camp not too long back and the first day wasn't wanting to go (she sometimes isn't sure about making new friends...even though she never has a problem with it)....Love Bug was the only 7yr old and just jumped right in. I was so proud of her for being able to embrace trying new things. When I commented on it she said "Well Momma, I knew you would want me to be a brave girl so I was." She is so cute and usually totally sure of herself....DH says she gets that from me. Busy Body has been playing fort, going off to school as she calls it..."Momma I have my pack pack (small library book back pack filled with little toys and books) and I am off to school now." She is loving asking me to babysit her doll babies....she brings them and leaves them with me, makes me giggle at her. Then my sweet DH took off Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday mostly for the purpose of me having a MOPS retreat this weekend as well as we had a Sunday school gathering right after I got home. So Friday we dropped Love Bug at her last day of day camp, went by the church to get some supplies from the craft closet for the retreat, ran some errands, got my hair cut, grabbed lunch at Quiznos, and went grocery shopping. Then I came home took a quick shower, grabbed my contribution for retreat breakfast, and my craft supplies, and my bag. DH dropped me off so I could help set up....which made my coordinator smile, I love when I am able to help someone!!!! We stayed at Oakhurst which is managed by the Butts-Holdsworth Foundation. It is a gorgeous home!!!! Four large twin bed bedrooms all with their own baths, beautiful deck to have coffee on, sun room with window seats and bench swing. Two living rooms with fireplaces, huge kitchen, and dining room with Mrs. Butt's original wedding china on display. The thing that I loved the most aside from the time off and quiet shower without little fingers under the door was the tiles Mrs. Butts had throughout the house. They had words of inspiration and bible verses on them, there were some with woodland animals on them in the kitchen, and a running mountain scene in frosty blue around one of the fireplaces. When DH dropped me off he walked around to look and we both said we would love to do something like that on tiles one day too. We had great fellowship, wonderful food (mexican dinner with all the trimmings YUMMO), we planned out each MOPS meeting tentatively based on of course speakers, we did our "prayer tags" as I am calling them....name tags that we then traded at the end of the retreat so we could pray for someone on our steering team till the next meeting. I got to meet some great ladies from other area churches, got to know better the ladies on the team from my own church, we stayed up just a little late, laughed, and talked....it was so nice!!! I think this is going to be a wonderful year, I hope we reach new mom's and encourage those returning for another wonderful year. Then I came home picked up my room which I had left in disarray. We grabbed the salads, some crosses DH made out bamboo for everyone, and headed off. We had a wonderful time of fellowship, great food, lots of laughs, prayer time together, and we capped the time off with homemade blackberry cobbler and homemade ice cream. Then this morning DH and I were providing breakfast for our class....we did cinnamon rolls, fresh strawberries, green grapes, and bananas, apple juice, coffee, and granola bars. We had a wonderful lesson in James 1:19-27. Then the sermon was on the Stronghold of Prejudice and how that hinders loving others. Came home ate homemade bbq beef sandwiches, picked up the house, got in a cat nap, and did our family bible study time. Fixing to have dinner, then get the kitchen cleaned, and watch a movie with the girls'.

Mood: Ready for dinner I am drooling it smells SO good!
Music: None
Weather: Sunset is coming on
Dinner: Hamburgers on the grill and home fries