Easter Pics

We had a wonderful time at my parents yesterday. It's been a busy weekend for me... Chris birthday, easter prep, making dishes for brunch, and more house stuff. Yep their have been some new developments with our house situation. I'll leave details for later as so much is still up the air. So in the midst of all the madness I tried to get some good pictures of the kids in their easter attire. All adorable clothing compliments of my mom. Thanks for helping me out mom... Easter dresses were far from my mind this week!

I've found it easier to split up rylee & trevor as far as pictures go. I stick Taylor with one of them. Rylee is seriously so hard to get to sit still. She is quite the wiggle worm and the last thing she wants to do is sit in one place, let alone look at me a smile. I tried the whole hitting myself on the head to make her laugh... as you can see that just turned into a game of mimicking :-)




And now Trevor. Thanks mom for the cute outfit! I've had people asked me if I have his hair like that on purpose. I replied, If you mean have I purposed not to get his haircut? Sort of. It's been a little crazy and well he freaks out like you wouldn't believe when he gets his haircut so I'm thinking we'll deal with the shagginess for a little while longer :-)



yep he still loves trains!

And what holiday wouldn't be complete without a mess. I knew it was bad when my mom turned to me and said "Don't worry about the mess Tara, we'll take care of it."

Uh, oh what mess mom?

I thought they were quite out there for a little to long... the picture don't do it justice. Chris said to my mom, "That why we don't do grass JoAnn." My mom said "thanks for telling us now!"
And guess who I found in the middle of it all... I'm sure she wasn't the mastermind but she sure enjoys making messes these days!




I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Happy Easter & Happy Birthday Chris

1 Corth 15:20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Today I get to celebrate two things that have changed my life. One being the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. Oh how different things would be today if Jesus stayed dead. But no that is not the case! Hallelujah what a savior. This year the resurrection has become more dear to me. Because of his resurrections I know that I too and all those that I love who trust Christ as their savior will be resurrected up with him into Heaven!

Also my dear husband turns 32 today! Wow honey you're getting old ;-) He can't remember the last time his birthday & Easter fell on the same day! I am so thankful for you Chris. What joy you bring to my life. I am thankful for your amazing leadership over our family and your caring heart. In addition to being the love of my life, you are also my best friend. I have really enjoyed our sweet times of fellowship lately. I love you!




Happy Birthday to Uncle Scott too!

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

Getting ready for warm days ahead

Warm, sunny days are among us. Of course when isn't it warm and sunny in AZ? Well thanks to Uncle Keith and Aunt Carrie, Trev man is ready to go to the beach.





And apparently they are serious days at the beach... he was cracking me up with his face. I think he was afraid the glasses would fall off if he smiled. I did get a small one out of him though.

Not My Will But Yours

I have been reading the Gospel Primer during my devotions. The Primer recently came out as a book with a few additions from the original copy. It is outstanding and food for my soul. I have been mediating on a section called "All Things Crucified-Part 1".

"The gospel is not simply the story of "Christ, and Him crucified"; it is also the story of my own crucifixion."

"Nevertheless, I must set my face like a flint toward the cross and embrace this crucifixion in everything I do. I should expect every day to encounter circumstantial evidence of God's commitment to my dying; and I must seize upon every God-given opportunity to be conformed more fully to Christ's death, no matter the pain involved."

"When my flesh yearns for some prohibited thing, I must die. When called to do something I don't want to do, I must die. When I wish to be selfish and serve no one, I musts die. When shattered by hardships that I despise, I must die. When wanting to cling to wrongs done against me, I must die. When enticed by allurements of the world, I must die. When wishing to keep besetting sins secret, I must die. When wants that are borderline needs are left unmet, I must die. When dreams that are good seem shoved aside, I must die. Not my will, but Yours be done..."

When does your flesh resist dying? I have tried to add my own "When... I must die" to help my embracing fully this part of the glorious gospel. When it's late and I'd rather be sleeping than be up late ministering to others (something that can happen when you work with singles- love you guys though :-) When I need to release Chris for something even though I'd rather have him home all to myself, I must die. Or as I touched on in my previous post, when my heart desires something our budget does not allow for, I must die. But as Vincent states in the next section, every death is a new beginning- a beautiful inheritance in Christ.

And we're off...

Our house went off the market today. What a crazy few months it's been. I've come to realize that this process has been more about my heart than anything else. We began the year with an unexpected solid renter for our house. In AZ it's a great time to buy but not the best time to sale. So we were off with my dad looking at houses and landed on an amazing house at an unbelievable price. It was more house and more beautiful than I'd ever though we'd be able to own. After a week of negotiating with the bank it
was looking like it was going to work out. Than at the last minute someone else came and offered more than we were able to and the house was theirs. It was painful but also very clear that it wasn't the Lord's will. Through that process we realized that weren't comfortable with the risk of owning two homes so we geared up to try to sale our house instead. That too was revealing... Calls from Realtor's who gave me two hours notice, I would clean for the entire two hours, pack up my kids and leave for the hour they said they'd come (both times it was dinner hour) and return to find out that they never came and weren't going to come. That happened twice and let's just say I was very tempted! That on top of many other last minute calls of Realtor's who would actually come.

Thinking about moving to another house is interesting and revealing because now our three bedrooms is not enough I would want four at least, preferably five, and there has to be at least two sinks in the guest bathroom I'm tired of the three kids sharing one, and now that I think about it I really don't like my laminate counter tops I would want corian or something more upgraded. I start thinking surely we can't have another child in our small three bedroom home and what about homeschooling? Wouldn't life be easier if I had a school room? And before I know it my desires have turn into needs and I've forgotten all about the riches I have in Christ.

Thankfully this is not the state of my heart as I follow my husband in taking our house off the market and waiting a few more years. I am totally content and actually excited about the thought of not stretching ourselves financially. The kids are thrilled, they never really wanted to move in the first place. They had a game of going outside and throwing rocks at the sign to see who could knock it down. At one point Chris reminded me that we could indeed go and get a bigger house for our family. I could go back to work and put the kids in day care, he could leave the ministry for a higher paying job and off we'd go to find our dream home. If that's what we were called to but it's not. That was helpful to remember because I wouldn't trade the call on our lives for ministry and the privilege it is to serve the Lord in such a way, for any home! And let's face it we really aren't sacrificing at all, our house is beautiful, one that we got only by the grace of God. We live a mile from the church and love our neighbors! So it might feel a little small for our growing family but we have hopes that when the time is right the Lord might indeed provide a way for us to move. All the while knowing that no house on earth can truly satisfy us, we will never feel at home until we are with the Lord in heaven, our eternal home.

I had always thought about how fun it would be to post pictures of our new house once we moved... so instead here are some pictures of our house all cleaned up at it's best :-)





Now I'm off to make a mess and not clean it up for a few days :-)

Rylee the Aspiring Musician

All of our kids have taken to music in one way or another. Really what choice did they have :-) Recently it's been Rylee who loves music. Even as a baby, the one thing that would soothe her was by playing music. Now as a toddler she has this high pitched sing song voice that she switches into when a song comes on. It's so cute!

I've been playing the piano a lot more lately working on some memory verse songs for an upcoming project. Occasionally I'll let the kids be in there with me and they get a kick out of playing/banging along with me. Well the other night Rylee was crying and whining for something and I couldn't quite figure out why? I asked, "Rylee what do you want sweetie?" She would reply "dis" and point to the hallway. I said, "Rylee show me what you are talking about" and she went to my closed bedroom door and pointed "dis". I figured she wanted to play in the bathtub or toilet, being that is where I usually find her when I leave my door open, but she had peeked my interest so I opened the door and she ran to my keyboard, climbed up onto the chair and started playing and singing. Ah, a little girl after my own heart!

Taylor The Reader

Today Taylor finished her first full on chapter book. She has been reading some easier chapter books like Frog and Toad etc. for awhile now but I had no idea she was ready for what she's read in the past 24 hrs. We were browsing through her schools scholastic book fair and I told her I'd get her a book if she could pick something that I thought would challenge her. She went right to this Barbie Mariposa book. A total girly, girl book of course. I flipped through it and it definitely appeared hard enough so I told her it would be something we could do together. So that was yesterday morning and this afternoon she finished this ten chapter, 94 paged book in 24 hrs with little to no help from me! She doesn't just read either, she reads with passion and laughter, interacting with the suspense etc. Wow, I was totally blown away! I guess it's time for me to start finding some new books for her to read!

Chris' New Attitude Article

Wanted to let you know that my husband wrote an article for New Attitude's blog and they put it up today. Read his article and more about New Attitude here: Jesus, Meet My Unbelieving Family.

Speaking of New Attitude... Chris & I just bought our tickets. This will be my first year attending and I'm very excited to join Chris and the singles of our church on this trip!

Oh and feel free to leave any encouraging comments for my husband here :-)

Homeschooling Restricted?

I found this news to be very disturbing.

Learning To Ride

Guess who learned to ride a bike today! T-rev! He got a bike for Christmas but up until today he hasn't been able to figure out the whole pushing feet while steering thing. Our next door neighbor was out riding his new bike today. He is in Jr. High and Trevor just thinks he's the coolest guy. So after watching this boy ride for awhile Trevor decided he wanted to go riding with him. Sure enough after a few tries he was off and going. This boy is super sweet and was cheering Trevor on and helping him go.










Trevor is not the only one riding around these days. Rylee loves Trevor's scooter and is always trying to steal it from him. Maybe she'll get to ride it more now that Trevor can ride his bike.

Life As A Mom

This morning we had our first moms to moms meeting at our church. This is a meeting for mom's with children five and under that will be taking place once a month. We began with breakfast, heard a wonderful message on having a devotional life as a mom with young children and then discussed the message in small groups. I had the privilege of helping out with the creative aspect of the meeting. I just love doing things like this!! A few of you asked me for the words to the song we did, so here ya go, just as a side note this was meant to be funny. I don't seriously change 525,000 diapers etc. I really love being a mom and the last verse would more reflect my heart in being a mom to my kids. But hey it's good to laugh at ourselves sometimes :-)


Life As A Mom- lyrics by Kelli & Tara
Sung to melody of Season of Love; Rent Musical

Group
525,600 diapers, 525,000 bottoms to wipe. 525,600 diapers – how many will I change in one life
up all night, with feedings, and crying- I need some coffee
no shower, no makeup, no reading- no time
With 525,600 corrections, how can I get them to obey every time
What about God? (Repeat) Life as a mom, My life as a mom

Solo:
525,600 dishes, 525,000 things to get done, 526,600 messes
How can you measure the life of a wife and a mom

Soloist 2
With truths that you've learned, with God on your side
Live daily in His word with the Gospel in mind.


Group
It's time now to sing out, though the job never ends
let's celebrate and cherish our life as a wife and a mom.
Remember our God! Remember our God!
Life as a mom.


525,600 memories
525,000 tears wiped away
525,600 kisses
I want to cherish every moment every day

And Glorify God…
And Glorify God

Life as a mom

Life has been busy this past week. I spent a good amount of time on finishing details of the above song, Chris left town for four days and I've had a slew of realtor's coming through our house- so basically I've been trying to stay sane :-) I feel like we've recovered from the weekend craziness and now I can't decide if I have really bad allergies or a cold. Nevertheless we've been having fun around here enjoying the beautiful weather and our cute kids. Taylor was able to watch the skit this morning with Chris. She has gone around here all week singing the song with me. She came home today and decided she wanted to write her own. I thought that was funny, a parody from a parody. She titled her song, Life as a Kid. It was more sweet than anything. She'd add in her own lines like "I love my mom and dad... life as a kid" It was very cute!