no more sippy

I'm finally taking the plunge and taking Henry's sippy cups away. Well, not the cup; just the lid. Isn't it funny how with each kid you get a little more and more lenient? I seem to remember for some reason the other kids being done with those cups by 2. Henry's almost 3! We'll see how this goes-he is very demanding and loud. The best few days we have also been in a regular battle about wearing shorts. He just seems to think he has to have pants. Pants when it is 90-some degrees just doesn't work!

Don't know if I mentioned this, but all 7 of the kids and Brian are in his brother's wedding at the beginning of July. The girls have their dresses, C & M needed theirs altered some. Just got the boys suits today to try on. They are pretty cute!

It's been a long time since writing.
Nothing exciting is going on, so not much to say I guess. Life is just life, moving along. Kids are done with the main jist of school; they are just keeping up with math and spelling for now. Mariah is getting ready to go to camp for one week, Cybil for two after that.
Well, actually a whole boatload of crap is going on that I would love to write and VENT about, but I don't know if this is the place for that stuff. Not sure that some people would want to read about what really goes on here on an almost daily basis.I may need to start a whole other, possibly anonymous blog for that. Wow is all I can say about that stuff.

so what?

I am writing this freely admitting that I have not read “Love Wins”. Heck, I still haven’t read “Crazy Love” and it took a good 6-7 months of owning “Radical” before I got around to finishing it. But, I do admit to reading the different fors and againsts for these books, listening and reading their interviews. So, yes I am writing this without being fully informed for myself. I guess I am a little against jumping on the bandwagon to read them. And in a way, I have no desire to read “Love Wins”, just don’t feel a need to. But the bigger reason is probably because if I were to read it, I would have to take time to study and research and look at Scripture to see what it says. And I just don’t feel up to that right now. In one sense, this whole discussion of heaven and hell has been good-for the believer. I guess I also question if it is a good discussion for those who have little to no Christian background though. If reading a book like “Love Wins” causes you to search the Scriptures, study and reaffirm what you believe, then great! It was a good read. If however, you have little to no background and read something like this and take it at face value and leave it at that, I think you have done yourself a disservice. And I can’t fault the author per se, because we are each responsible for ourselves; at the same time, there is a higher accountability for those who are in leadership. Maybe I have enough of my own questions; I don’t need someone else to add to them. I am all for questions, I just wonder to what end some of them are?

But here’s one of Bell’s contentions in paraphrased form-everyone can make it to heaven. I know that is probably a horrible paraphrase for those who have read it, sorry, but while there is other stuff in the book, the crux of the controversy seems to hinge on this point. He is basically saying it is possible, we don’t know because we haven’t seen a video of what heaven is like, etc. And his own thought process all began when he saw a note that said “Reality check-Gandhi is in hell.” It got him thinking, do we really know that for sure? Who says?

Okay-I have NO PROBLEM saying that God COULD save the entire world and everyone in it, past and present, IF HE WANTED TO. He is God, He CAN DO IT. I personally don’t see that that fits His character as presented in the Bible though. But even so, part of me says “so what?” So what if HE CAN do it, it doesn’t mean that He WILL do it, does it? Because if you go that way, you’re just becoming like *gasp* the other side that says He will condemn people to hell. My point maybe is, what does thinking this way do for you? How does thinking you are going to go to heaven no matter what, anyway, affect how you are living life on this earth? What’s the point of living for Jesus? Believing in Him? In God? I gotta tell you, living for Jesus has really felt sucky for me sometimes here on earth. There are times I would prefer to not deal with it. But as a friend on facebook said, “I don’t know who I am without Jesus.” I have to ask myself, “Is God, God?” And if I believe He is, then I had better live that way. In the review of another book, Bell himself says, “Christian faith only has meaning if it affects the ways that people live their lives.” I wonder how my life would be affected if I knew I was going to heaven no matter what? I don’t know that it would have any effect. In fact, I don’t know that my faith would mean anything-that my life would be any different from one without faith. Why have faith then? Maybe it goes back to that little saying that floats around: I would rather live my life believing that what I see in the Bible about the ONLY WAY to heaven being JESUS and die and find out I was wrong--then to live like I will get to heaven anyways, and then find out I am wrong.

Now Francis Chan is going to write a book with the thoughts from his study on hell. Here is a link to a video about it. I have watched it a few times. He also freely admits to not understanding all of what God does and how He works and gives a few examples. But he knows hell in not an issue we can be wrong about. He plans to present what he sees in the Scripture, lay it on the table, and let you-before God-decide what you believe-because he believes as I do-we can’t afford to be wrong about hell.

We’ll see what happens when that book comes out :-)

more photos

Few months ago I brought the kids in for an "Antiquities" fundraiser. We used to do these more often. The boys did great. I think they are still at the stage where these types of pictures are still totally adorable. The girls pictures were good too, but I think as they are older now, it seems they need more "sophisticated" shoots, or more serious ones, I don't know. They are always cute, but I am not sure this type of photo works for them as well anymore. Regardless, their distinct personalities showed through!


















Of course these types of photos are really expensive if you purchase the packages, so I wasn't planning to buy any extra and didn't have them take any of just the boys. But then I got there, and well, you moms out there know how it goes. They are just SOOOO cute you can't leave them there! I did get a pretty good deal for the amount of photos I got though.

Can you believe it? This is Greta a few months ago. Her Stars group on Wednesday night had an afternoon of learning about taking care of yourself-skin care, hygiene, etc. Then they were "beautified" by some of the older girls and teachers. Can't hardly recognize her!

Read this (the underline and different color means it's a link-click on it!) and thought maybe Brian had helped write it.

This kind of sums up where things are at right now:

I will likely be connected to some group for the purpose of fellowship but I am under no illusion. I realize that if I had to live on that as my primary source of spiritual nutrition I would probably die of heart failure at a young age.

What/where/how else are you being fed spiritually? (Hmm...does reading people's Bible verses on their facebook status count?) The bigger question--are you?

Just thought I would let you all know that I had a GREAT time at the home school conference last week! I will say though, that I was thoroughly exhausted by Saturday morning, and about dead by that night. The convention center was quite spread out, so walking to the exhibit hall, to coat check to drop off books, to used book hall, to drop off more books, to upstairs and seminars, plus the 10 minute walk to the hotel (thankfully in a skyway!) was quite exhausting. My shins were killing me. Wearing tennis shoes would have been a great idea I know, but of course I didn't.

And Brian and the kids did survive. It's too bad we had such gloomy weather though-in the house all weekend. The vehicles didn't get cleaned :-) ! No super big issues until around the time I hit St. Cloud on Saturday night. They were all pretty tired and crabby for a few days, but I think we are all back into the groove.

Thursday was the high school workshops. They were fine; I think I am getting to the point where I have all the information I can, now I just need to do it. There are still choices about what class, when, and where--but I just need to get started and do it.
That night we hit the mall for a few things and then ate at the Texas Roadhouse. Oh my, we were stuffed!

Friday morning I worked at pre-registration. That was fun; seeing people I hadn't in quite awhile, seeing who came that I knew from this area. I did some shopping at used books and most of my non-main curriculum shopping and got a lay of the exhibit hall land. One full-size suitcase of books filled.
At 3 pm I went to the first of the 2 seminars I was looking forward to. It was for adoptive and foster parents, parents of kids with FASD, ADHD, RAD, learning disabilities. I enjoyed it. The speaker jumped around a bit (he admitted his own ADD), but I came away with some things to think and do.
When that was done, it was back to a little more shopping and checking out new things.

Friday evening was the keynote speaker, Dr. Larry Gutherie. One of my dear friends was his interpreter from a Russia trip 20 years ago. He told the story of a fire that took place before he went on that trip and then talked about the Russia trip itself. Well, I am telling my friend we HAVE to go say hi-he needs an ending to the story! We got down there and have a little visit. Now the cool thing is-he remembers her! Saturday morning he again spoke and shared with the whole convention how emotional the night before was for him...a woman who looked familiar came down to say Hi and said I am H from Russia. (at this point I am bawling just like the night before!). He shared how she interpreted for him on this trip, presenting the gospel over and over again and she wasn't a believer at the time. Well, here it is 20 years later, she has 6 kids, home schools and loves the Lord. Isn't God great?!

Saturday morning I finished my shopping for my main curriculum, loaded up at the used book fair and took extra time to stroll through the exhibit hall. I talked to the Northwestern college guy about PSEO and stopped at a few other places. Ate my lunch and went to a seminar on correction (of children's behavior). By this time I was exhausted and slept through a few parts ;-). After this I went back up the stairs to the seminar I was looking forward to called "How long does God expect me to do this?" Again, I enjoyed it and came away with lots to think about-some actions I need to take. I have spent a few days this week working on those things, and well-that will be another post for another day.

Some of the curriculum wasn't available directly at the convention as they had already run out (which was probably good in the long run-I don't know if I could have carried anymore!). Well, it came last night! And the geek that I am I have been looking through it, planning how to do lessons, and getting excited to start! I have a hard time believing we'll (okay, I'll) be able to wait until August to start it all! Baby #8 may help, but I just get excited for the new stuff! We'll do a few things in the summer-I'd like all the kids to be a little further in math and Cybil will do one of her elective courses, maybe some other "fun stuff". School is just such a part of our daily routine and life, that it is actually more disruptive to stop. Sure, we scale back, but we need to do a little just to bide some time.

The rest of the curriculum will be here by the middle of next week-can't wait to see the rest of it!