More Summer Days

                                                              B#8 pitting cherries

                                                              Playing with Bub

                                                                    Swinging

                                                             Playing in the grass

                                                     A going away party for Bub

                                                                Water gun wars

                                                          Making 4th of July cookies

                                                     Lavender Fest with the girls

                                  And saying Goodbye to Bub before he leaves for the Air Force

Hold On to Your Crown

In my daily devotional today the title was "Hold on to Your Crown". The author is continuing to encourage us as mothers to stay the course. Society as a whole oozes with attitude that what moms do is not valuable, that someone else out there with a degree in children can do a much better job than we can, that we need to find our value in some sort of career outside the home or we are wasting our talents. I pray, as the author does, that we would stay the course of motherhood. That we would use the many gifts and abilities that the Lord has blessed us with in the God-given job of mothering our children. Staying home with our children, teaching them, discipling them is a huge responsibility that we should not take lightly, nor should we turn it over to someone else lightly. My girls all have some idea of what they would like to do when they "grow up" and I think that it is fine to use the gifts and abilities that God has given them in finding ways to serve others even for pay but my prayer for them is that when and if the Lord blesses them with children that they will not give up the blessing of raising them and staying home with them. I believe that there is nothing materially that we can give our children that could ever take the place of raising them and being there for them. They grow us so fast. So as for me...I am going to Hold on to my crown, my crown of motherhood. And I am purposing to delight in it and not let society steal my joy.

Here is the prayer for the day from the devotional:
    "Lord, I thank you that you have given me the crown of mothering. Help me to remember each day that it is a crown of which I can be proud. When I wear this crown I am walking in Your perfect will. Amen."

And a poem:
                                           What is in Thine Hand?
                             
                                 What is that, oh Christian Mother
                                    God hath 'trusted to thy care?
                                 In thine hand to love and nurture,
                                     Sweetly innocent and fair!
                                 What a high and noble priviledge!
                                Bring them up to know God's Word;
                                  They in turn will call thee blessed
                                When they've learned to trust the Lord!

                                               Mary A. Haydon

Finally Feels Like Summer

Here in OR it takes a while to feel like summer. Yesterday was the first day of summer and it actually has felt like summer here. Tomorrow may be a different story but for now we are enjoying summer days. Our garden is finally sprouting and doing well for now. DH built me a couple of raised beds which I am enjoying much more than a huge garden.

Today the kids and I went strawberry picking at a local U-pick farm. We picked 100lbs of strawberries. It really goes quickly with lots of hands picking. I give all the credit to the kids since I only managed to pick one bowl full before having to put the baby in the backpack. It is really hard to pick strawberries with a baby in a back pack. Once we got home we had the big task of doing something with said strawberries. We froze a good bit, made a strawberry pancake syrup, blended some up for making jam tomorrow and are attempting to dehydrate some. I am not sure how that is going to turn out yet. They are still pretty mushy but if it works out it will be neat to have them around for snacking or adding to oatmeal and granola bars.

20 Common Ways Parents Provoke Their Children to Wrath

The Bible tells us as parents not to provoke our children to wrath. I recently found this list that I keep in my Bible and wanted to share it with you...I got it from an old magazine. I have not looked up all the Scripture references yet so feel free to do that and let me know if you find some you disagree with.

1. By exhibiting anger (Proverbs 22:24-25)
2. By not having marital harmony (Genesis 2:24, Hebrews 12:15)
3. By disciplining in anger (Psalm 6:1, 38:1)
4. By being inconsistent with discipline (Ecclesiastes 8:11)
5. By having double standards (Matthew 23:1-4, Philippians 4:9)
6. By not admitting when wrong (Matthew 5:23-26, Job 32:2, James 5:16
7. By constantly finding fault (Job 32:2-3)
8  By reversing God-given roles (Eph. 5:22-24, Genesis 3:16 )
9. By not listening to your children's opinion or their side of the story (Proverbs 18:13,17)
10. By comparing them to others (2 Corinthians 10:12)
11 .By not taking time to talk with them (Eph.5:16)
12. By not praising your children (2 Cor. 2:6-8; Revelation 2, 3)
13. By failing to keep promises (Matt. 5:27, Colossians 3:9, Psalm 15:4)
14. By scolding them in front of others ( Matt.18:15, John 21:15-17)
15. By being too strict (James 3:17)
16 .By giving them too much freedom (Proverbs 29:15, Galatians 4:1-2)

17 .By making fun of your children (Job 17:1-2
18. By abusing them physically (1Timothy 3:3, Titus 1:7, Numbers 22)
19. By calling them names (Eph. 4:29)
20. By having unrealistic expectations (1 Cor. 13:11)

A Video

Although this guy and I definitely have different fashion styles, among other things, I found this video very interesting and wanted to share it with you all.

Another Canning Jar Project

These two funny guys of mine are getting too big for "Sippy Cups" but sometimes cause us to cry over spilt milk so when I saw these cute mason jars used for cups I decided we had to make some. With the help of my very capable assistant, B#5 we made 4 jars in no time at all. I already had the jars, which are 1/2 pints and the lids from my last Mason Jar project so all I had to buy were the rubber grommets and some straws. If you would like a good tutorial on them go HERE as they can give much better instructions than I can, with lots of good pictures.

An Addendum to Pretty Things

You might be wondering why I mentioned pretty things in my last post but only had one thing...well I had to wait until a gift was given before I could finish my post.

B#4 and I have been making lovely double-sided napkins from a tutorial that I found HERE. I just love them. You can be so creative in your colors and they are not difficult to make. I scrounged through our scrap fabric to find material to make my napkins and even took apart a cute jumper with cherries all over it to make into napkins for myself. But for these pretty ones that we made for a friend's birthday, we went to the fabric store and had fun picking out just the right fabrics to match her kitchen. Although these colors are not my colors, the napkins turned out so beautifully that I was tempted to keep them for myself.