Strong of Heart

Praise the Lord! 

How happy is the man who honors the 

Lord with fear and finds joy in His Law!  

His children will be powerful in the land. 

Each family who is right will be happy.  

Riches and well-being are in his house. 

And his right-standing with God will last forever. 

 Light rises even in darkness for the one who is right. 

He is kind and has loving-pity and does what is right.  

Good will come to the man who is ready to give much,

 and fair in what he does.  

He will never be shaken. 

The man who is right and good will be remembered forever.  

He will not be afraid of bad news. 

His heart is strong because he trusts in the Lord. 

 His heart will not be shaken. 

He will not be afraid and will watch those lose who fight against him.

  He has given much to the poor. 

His right-standing with God lasts forever. 

His horn will be lifted high in honor.

 The sinful man will see it and be troubled and angry.

He will grind his teeth and waste away. 

The desire of the sinful will come to nothing.

Psalm 112

This Psalm is really speaking to me today. I want to walk in the path of the Lord. I want our family to be right and happy. I want us to be in right standing with God. I want to be strong of heart, not shaken, and not fearful. 

Blessings to you today. I hope that this Psalm speaks to you like it is for me. 

Chore Charts and Challenges

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.  Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.  Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,  and so train the young women to love their husbands and children,  to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.  Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.  Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity,  and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Titus 2:1-8

With this in mind we are giving Little A a chore chart.  She is only two but she is a brilliant little girl and is really enjoying doing whatever she is able to do on her own.
We are trying not to do for her what she can do for herself. In doing that she is learning to be persistent : 

for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again,    but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.Proverbs 27:16 

Our rule of thumb is that she must try twice on her own first before asking for help. Then we will guide her with words or a little assistance and we try not to take over entirely. When it is entirely necessary, we will take over but we try to walk her through what we are doing so that she can try on her own next time. 

Little A's chore chart has 3 divisions: 

1. Chores respecting her body. 

     ..your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own.1 Corinthians 6:19


2. Chores respecting our Home and Things in it.

For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. 
Hebrews 3:4

 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
James 1:17


3. Chores respecting Others.

Love each other as Christian brothers. Show respect for each other.
Romans 12:10 


She knows that all she does needs to be done as if for the Lord and we will expect her to really try to do the chores to the best of her abilities. There is always room for growth and change and she will get better at her tasks as she learns. 

Each chore will first be explained and exampled by us so that she knows the safe and proper way to do them. (The chart says "I put away the Dishes" but she actually only does the cutlery right now, and really just spoons and forks and baby cutlery)

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
Colossians 3:23

I made two charts for the chores (Click Here for just Words, and Here for the Chart with Pictures), one with just words and one that I attempted to put pictures on.  I printed out both charts and put them in a self sealing laminating pouch.  
The plan was to use littler star stickers when Little A completed a chore then at the end of the week I would just peel them off and start again.    But then I decided that I really don't want to deal with sticking and then peeling off all those stickers every week.  
So with the laminated charts I can easily use a wet erase marker (dry erase will wipe off too easily) and then wipe them off at the end of the week.  I do need to find a more exciting color than black though, it is rather boring. 

Examining the charts for the first time. (and guessing at what each chore is)

Drawing on her own reward marks.

Little A making the bed and E man climbing onto it.

And up he goes laughing the whole time.

Standing back in frustration saying, "No, I am making my bed!"

Trying to clean up her books with the little man trying to take them out.

Proud of herself for getting them all in and the lid on. 

Little A loved her little chores. She was so excited about the chart and getting to write on it herself.  
We will see if the excitement continues as the week goes on.  

The Boy Thing

I am new to this whole "boy" thing. Already, even though Little E is only 10 months old, he shows that he is a boy.  He is rougher than his sister and he already has gotten hurt more than she ever has. It blows me away how different they are and I know that it will only become more and more evident as they grow older.

I grew up in a house full of women. My poor father had four women that were hormonal and crazy and were normally all crazy at the same time (if you know what I mean . )  Dad had lots of hobbies to keep him out of the house and away from the insanity, but I am sure there were lots of times that he wished he had a son to share his hobbies with.   Now, he is blessed with 3 sons that have married into the family and he seems very happy to take them out hunting, shooting and building.

It is so very different having a little boy, I have nothing to go by since I have never been around a boy as he grows up. I have babysat a ton of boys but it is so different being the mom.

When we were pregnant with Little A, we decided to find out the sex of the baby. They told us a girl and we both started to cry. Hearing the sex of the baby somehow made everything so much more real. We left the ultrasound clinic and got into the car. We hugged, we kissed, we looked at the little picture of our cute little baby girl.  And then it hit me.

"We were going to have a teenage girl someday!" I cried out to Hubby.

 Girls are mean. Growing up I was rarely friends with girls. And when I was friends with them it always was  horrible, we would fight, we would tease, and we would judge. Even with my sisters it was the same. With them we would fight and tease and judge but if anyone else did it we would band together. " I can be mean to my sister, but if you do it watch out."

As we drove home, reality set in and I started to have a bit of a melt down. "I am not ready to be a parent. I can't be the mom of a girl. Someday she is going to hate me. She could end up being mean and crazy and rebellious. "  

"Your going to have to buy a gun!" I told Hubby through tears and hysterics.

Thankfully, Hubby is calm cool and collected most of the time and he just laughed at me and told me to calm down. He reminded me that I have never hated my mother. That I never was that mean, crazy or rebellious. He encouraged me and told me that I would be a great mom and that we would just take it a day at a time. No need to worry about teen years before she is even born.


See, I was not so frightened of having a boy.  I was aware of the fact that I would have no idea what I was doing, but it really didn't scare me so much while I was pregnant.  Maybe that was because I didn't have much time to think about it with a 9 to 18 month old baby running around and going a mile a minute.

But now that he is here and his "boyness" is starting to show more and more everyday, I am starting to wonder how on earth I can really train this little man to be a man of God that lives daily with integrity and love.

Thankfully, I have an amazing man that just so happens to live with us and is the other parent to our special kids. God really knew what he was doing when he made both man and woman. We are so different and fit so well together. Where I fail he excels and where he fails (like taking care of vomit and bowel movements,  seriously if our kids vomit so will hubby (thankfully it hasn't happened yet but we have had some close calls)) I excel.

Hubby is a great example for both of our children because he can teach E man to be like him and he can teach Little A what kind of man she should look for.

Also, I am glad to have this great book that helps to train little men in the ways they should go.  It talks about having righteous anger and when to hold back or hold your tongue. It talks about love and wisdom and honor. It talks about being a warrior and a hero. It tells what kind of wife to look for and what kind of husband to be. And has great stories of how God has used men and women, young and old,  for His great purpose.

Thankfully we already have multiple copies of this book in our house so I didn't have to go out and spend a fortune on any of those other parenting books.


(I hope that you caught on that I was talking about the bible.)

I am so excited to read some of the amazing stories in that great book to my kids.   Stories of David, Moses, Abigail, Ruth, Solomon, Jonah, Sampson, and Jesus.

Honestly, the more I worry about my children's character and who they will be, the more stories God has brought to mind to show them Godly character and great things that God has done with his people. No parenting book necessary...well one I guess.

Way more fun to climb up a slide than go down it. (his 2nd time playing with this slide)