1 Corinthians

• Paul is thankful to God for Jesus; Jesus keeps us strong to the end
• Paul l earns of problems and arguments in the church; who each group say they follow: Paul, Apollos, Christ - Christ should be the answer (Paul & Apollos aren't important)
• Paul came to teach nervous and trembling so you'd know it was God's wisdom through the Spirit
• Spirit - inner knowing (only the Spirit knows the deep secrets of God); we really can know God through the Spirit
• Only our inner spirit knows our inner thoughts; Spirit teaches us
• Not spiritual if quarreling; talked to like babies without the Spirit
• Paul planted seed; Apollos waters it; Only God makes it grow (God important; not Paul or Apollos)
• Paul & Apollos are God's workers, will be rewarded, but not important
• Wisdom of the world is foolishness to God
• Apostles serve Christ and feel las in the world
• Don't associate with believers who cheat, sin sexually, are greed, abuse or worship idols; don't want evil among you, but it will be in the world in non-believers because to avoid them you'd have to leave the world
• Solve problems among believers in the church, not in court
• We can do all tings, but not all things are good for us
• Your body is connected with Christ, do don't sin sexually to sin against your own body
• Your body is a temple
• God says no divorce, please your husband/wife
• Paul says single is better unless you are too overcome with sexual desire
• Don't cause another believer to do something they think is wrong because you think it is okay (i.e. eating meat)
• Learn from Israel's past
• God will give you a way out when tempted
• Do what is good for the most people, not just yourself
• Woman came from man and for man
• Wait for each other to eat in the church; dot use it to display your abundance; if you're really hungry, eat at home to avoid judgement
• Spirit gives different gifts to different people
• Out gifts are like part of 1 body, all needed, important and working together for God
• I am nothing without love
• Out gifts will end; they are not perfect
• Faith, hope and love continue forever, love is the greatest
• You should want spiritual gits, especially prophecy for it helps the church grow stronger
• Speaking in languages isn't useful if people don't understand, use only if there's an interpreter
• Women shouldn't speak at church, but ask their husbands at hoe
• Christ was human and raised from the dead so humans can be raised from the dead
• If we aren't raised from the dead, there isn't much to live for
• Earthly body and heavenly body
• Work for God is never wasted
• Be strong in faith and have courage

Fresh Out of Amazing

I finished this book up last night.  It was an alright read.  Sections of it were relatable, and reference to scripture was good.  I think personally I've already learned some of these lessons too, so there was some repetition, but some new things too. 

Love on the Line

I had picked this up on a whim at Goodwill and rather enjoyed it.  It was an easy read, and I was only luke warm to it for awhile, but the ending really made me think, which made me like it more.

Friends

There was a time in my life when I was in search of friends.  I need my people, who supported me, loved me and where close and accessible. 

Don't get my wrong I have had friends over the years, but life changes impact friends as do moves, and I had a lot going on, didn't have a lot of time, and needed people.

Every time I met a new gal I'd think, could she me by friend?  She seems nice?  How can I extend an invitation to start a friendship?  And I was always thinking this way, looking for friends, trying to build friendships to carry me and my family on our adventures.  I knew I needed people. 

I distinctly remember on of the first time I realized I had been somewhat successful at this.  My family had been sick; and a 2nd cousin of my and some folks from the church brought my family dinner.  It was left from a SOUP meal they had served at the church that night, but they thought of us and brought of a warm home cooked meal.  The left that food for us an I remember telling Keith, "we have people!"  And I meant so much with that; we had people who loved us, thought of us and cared for us in a way that I'd been looking for in friendships. 

That was a starting point for us, and I think we've done a wonderful job of connecting to people and building a community of friends for each of us individually, but as a family too.  We have people.  They're people from church; they're family, and a few good friends I've known for many years now.  I believe God wants us to live in community with people who loves us, and we've built that.  Friendships and relationships take time and forgiveness and communication and we've done that.  And I couldn't be happier!  Thank you Lord for these people! 

I've always wanted our home to be a place for people to gather, and I think I tried to push that too hard early on after we've bought our own place, but naturally it has happened over time and we welcome groups of friends, family, friends families, and our kid's friends into the home often.  This past summer, our first summer at our new home, was the epitome of that, and I'm not sure we'll have a summer like that again, but we were able to gather people from all our different areas together celebrating and enjoying each other and introducing our people to each other and it was a beautiful thing. 

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In the last few months I've had this realization; I still think like I did when I was searching for friends when I meet new people.  Maybe I'm misguided, maybe I'm ignorant, but I realized I don't need to do this anymore.  It's not that I'm not open to meeting new people and developing relationships, but I don't have to search so hard for more people.  Quality of quantity right?  I already have my people.  Sure that will change with time and life with change, but I will adapt, our family will adapt.  If I keep searching for more friends now; I need more time for each of those friendships, and I don't want that to take away from the current friendships!  I don't want those to suffer because I feel the need to keep searching for more, more, more. 

Resolution for 2018

2018 Goal: solo date night with husband once a month.

The Heart of Marriage

I finished this book over the weekend.

 

It was an excellent quick read.  I marked several of the essays that were convicting, thought provoking or particularly insightful that I might want to share or refer back to. 

 

I want to be a good wife for my husband.  I want to be a better wife than I am now, and I want to be a Godly wife with a sound marriage rooted in faith.  

 

Vow Renewal

Yesterday, on Valentine's Day, in front of our church on Sunday morning, Keith and I, and a handful of other couples in our church renewed our marriage vows. 

Our kiddos were there, well Ruth ended up in the nursery, but even Camerin was able to join us and our mom's with there too.  And our church family was there.  It meant a lot to me to have our community in the church there for it for all they've meant to me over the last several years since we've joined our church. 

I was closer to crying yesterday at this than I was at our wedding.  Our love has grown and is so much deeper and we have a greater understanding of what it takes, what it means for us, our family, and we've grown in our faith too in the almost 6.5 years we've been married. 

Dear Keith,
I love you more now than the day we wed; and I expect to love you more in another 6.5 years.  Thank you for all that you are to me, our family, and our community.  You are awesome. 
With love,
Beth

The 5 Love Languages

I finished reading this book yesterday.  I've had this book for years.  I once had lunch with a leader at work who recceomnded it to me.  I bought the book shortly after that and tried reading it, but I never got into it.  It sat on a shelf for years, until I decided to pick it up again recently.  This time, I read right through it, nodding my head and thinking about the relationships in my life.  I thought about Keith of course, but also about how this relates to parenting our kids.  I was so interested in the kids aspect of it, I have bought the 5 Love Lanugages for Children and am awaiting it's arrival to read too. 

I learned how to be a better wife and how to show love to others.  I realized there were things I could easily be doing to show love that I wasn't.  It really was a good read.

Are they really married?

So as the financial secretary at church, twice a year I print out reports and provide to the entire congregation.  I often end up mailing them out since I can't catch everyone at the church and some don't attend regularly, so I always address them and put return address labels on them.  I have a drawer full of return address labels.  They're the free ones that non-profits send you to try to get you to donate more.  Most of them come in my maiden name.  I always figured the address is the important part, so it doesn't matter if my last name is wrong. 

After the first of the year I was handing them out again.  When I gave a friend of ours, who's very active in the church, his letter, he asked when I'd be getting new address labels.  I explained to him my thinking on it and asked why.

Apparently every time I do this he gets a handful of questions from people asking if we're really married! 

Girlfriends

The weekend before Christmas Keith and I drove the kids around to look at Christmas lights.  It's one of my favorite December traditions, but I think they boys are starting to get old on us, they weren't nearly as excited about it this year as usual.  They slept through some of it even! 

On the drive, we learned how we'd failed to teach the boys, especially Caden about a good marriage. 

As we drove through one town, Keith was talking about the place he went with his guys from work for lunch recently.  Caden, from the back seat, pipes up and asks why he goes with the guys to lunch and why he doesn't take his girlfriend to lunch.  He was completely serious.

I popped up quickly and said "he better not have a girlfriend; I'm his wife!"

Caden, again, completely serious, says, but "he can have a girlfriend too!"

Keith and I then had to start talking about marriage and relationships and commitment.  It was brief int he car, but the next day at lunch, I told the boys a short version of our dating and marriage to help them know us better and better understand commitment!

My Grandpa

I was at our church serving the SOUP supper tonight when a man I'd never met before walked up to me and asked if I was Edson's granddaughter.  I thought about it for a second as my Grandpa has been gone for almost 15 years, before I said yes, yes I am. 

He went on to tell me that he had worked for my grandpa when he was about 14 years old.  He said he was hired to do farm work many many years ago.  He talked about how my Grandpa always had a story for everything, and that is so true. 

He told me my Grandpa once told him that marriage was like bath, once you're in it for awhile it's not so hot.

We chucked and I listened to him talk about the farm work and the people who worked on the farm for a bit.

Later I found out he is actually now married to my Dad's cousin.  They were married last year and coincidentally he and my dad share the same first name too!

3rd Anniverary

Keith and I have been together for 5 years, and today we are celebrating 3 years of marriage. 

It was supposed to be my first day back to work after maternity leave.  However, we've never worked on our anniversary.  We take a vacation day to spend it together, which I something I plan to continue every year.  Our marriage is something to be celebrated!

This year we'll be spending it with our kids and a lunch out together.  

August 2007 - The first photo of us together.

September 2007 - The first trip Keith made to visit me at College.

Spring Break 2007 - England

Graduation 2008

Summer 2008

May 2009

September 2009 - Our wedding day.

September 2009 - Our honeymoon.

May 2010

Thanksgiving 2010

May 2011 - Walt Disney World

Easter 2012

I love you Keith.  I'm looking forward to many more anniversaries and adventures with you.

Maternity Leave

My 12 weeks of leave was not long enough, not even close.

I'm not a big dreamer.  I have visions of the future of how things will be.  I focus on reality, and while I hopes of how things turn out, I don't have concrete plans.  God has a plan, and his will always trump mine anyway.  My pregnancy was no different.  I couldn't imagine life with a baby and the boys, but not that I have these three precious kiddos, I couldn't imagine my life without them. 

Maternity leave taught me a lot about myself.

I can accomplish a lot if I put my mind to it.  I've never been very good at sitting still, even in school I was always busy and participating in lots of extra curricular activities.  Not that I'm an adult, I still keep busy all the time, the activities have just changed.  I have a very difficult time resting if I know there are dishes to be done and laundry to be done or trash, you name it.  I try to go to bed every night with the house picked up and mostly in order.  I think this will be a big help to get us all out the door on time in the mornings!

My faith has really grown over my time on maternity leave too. Since I've taken on a role in our church that requires me to be there every Sunday, we've been much better at getting out the door every Sunday morning.  I'm glad we're doing it.  It's something I'd always tried for, but it was so easy to let the devil sneak in and allow us to be lazy on Sunday mornings.  That is no longer an option.  And with Keith working lots of Sunday mornings this summer, I've been managing to get the three kids to church solo.  I've started reading a devotional and the recommended selections from the Bible.  I'd like to say I'm committed to it every day, but I haven't managed that yet.  But a few times a week I'm spending time with my Bible and reading, and that is good for my soul. 

I've learned a lot about my husband too.  His experience with a baby this time around is much different than his baby experience with Caden and Caleb.  When I was pregnant I found comfort in knowing he'd done this before, but there were so many things that we both felt like we didn't know what we were doing!  Keith doesn't like to stay home for long periods of time.  He gets antsy if he doesn't leave the house for a whole day.  I on the other hand, could stay at home for days and not mind at all.  I suppose in that matter he's good for me; maybe I won't become a hermit this way!  But the most important thing I've learned about my husband, he loves us.  It's been amazing to see him grow and expand welcoming Elinore into our family and developing that bond.  As a daughter, who is a Daddy's girl, I hope for nothing less than that wonderful relationship between Elinore and her Daddy.

I've learned a bit about our marriage too.  I admit, I was somewhat naive about how having a baby would impact our marriage.  I mean we already had kids and were raising them; we already had established a lot of our thoughts on parenting and discipline, etc. so we shouldn't have to figure that out again.  While that may still all be true, the things we've learned about our parenting style are not yet relevant to our sweet little Elinore.  Our style focuses on older kids, and boys; I think we'll be making some adjustment to our little girl's personality too.  While we disagree about some things, we're working them out and getting along just fine.  I now have a better understanding why I've read so much about continuing to focus on your marriage after children, and I am very conscious of that in our actions.  It's something we talk about together and something I hope continues, 'til death do us part. 

I've learned a lot about being a mom to Caden and Caleb.  I've learned to include them in as much as I can with Elinore.  They love their sister and are very interested in what she's doing and what she can do at this age.  I learned to plan an activity for them each day, it can be something simple, a tent for the swing set fort, baking cookies, coloring a picture for someone, just so long as there is something in the day they can look forward to doing.  That has helped us all for the days they are home all day.  They weren't used to be home without our kids around them and things to do all day when they stayed home with us for the summer.  They are growing and learning and I loved being able to see more of that as they spent the time home with us before kindergarten started. 

I've learned kindergarten was a bit adjustment for Caden and Caleb, and Keith and I too.  It is one adjustment I think we're still working through.  One that will probably take us longer with my transition back to work as well. 

I think it goes without saying I've learned a lot about babies.  I'm so glad I've found the blogging world and so many websites to read about things.  I'm constantly reading to learn more about different people's opinions and studies about raising children.  I love the availability to it and the flexibility it affords us to pick and choose what methods we want to use for our family. 

And of course, I've gotten to know Elinore.  I know my baby, and I know it's going to be hard to leave her later this week when I go back to work.  Your first day at the babysitters will be another first for your baby book. 

Marriage Lesson Learned

As I mentioned earlier, my hubby and I recently reach our second year of marriage. 

In those two years, we've learned about each other, our relationship and our family.

One things I've noticed is that over time, I spent less time calling home, aka mom and dad, to ask questions, get help, bounce ideas off.  I spent more time relying on my husband.

It wasn't an instant thing.  And don't get me wrong, I still ask my parents questions and they still help us out, but I always start with my husband now. 

We are a team, my husband and I, and our families, they support us.

That difference that I felt, when I've separated more from my parents and focused on my husband, I'm sure my parents felt it too. 

And that's the thing.  I want to remember how it felt when I realized my husband and I were making a family of our own, just like the family my parents built for my brother and I when we were kids. 

I want to remember this in 20+ years.  Because then, I'll be the mom, who's feeling her son pull away and build a family of his own.  I want to remember that it wasn't anything fault of my parents, that it is natural and a good thing that my boys build their own family.

God Gave Me You - by Blake Shelton

This song, stops me in my tracks every time I hear it. 

It reminds me of my husband and how we blessed we are to have found each other.  

And it is a reminder of the strength we have in our relationship and the ability to handle the ups and downs with God's help.

This song, puts a smile on my face, and makes me want to hug my husband a little extra every day.

Simplicity

Over our first anniversary weekend, my hubby and I spent part of our weekend in Ohio's Amish Country.

In that day and a half that my husband and I spent together wander the towns and shops of a different lifestyle, we pledged to take some steps toward simplifying our life.

We made a commitment to ourselves that at least one day of our weekends would be spent in our home.  Doing house projects or just enjoying the day as a family.  With only two exceptions: 1) if the day is Sunday, church is still allowed, and 2) we're allowed to plan periodic (less than once a month) weekend trips.

We've been so focused on taking the kids places and having them experience different places, tastes, and travels that somewhere along the line we forgot the importance of enjoying your home. 

It's almost as if we're taking a time our from the hustle and bustle of our busy lives to count our blessings.  Maybe we're taking a step to returning Sundays (or Saturday, weekend plans depending) to a day of rest as God intended.

The kids and I have been successful thus far.  This is our second weekend.