Brother Love

What fun it is to watch Stacia interact with Josiah. When he gets home from work she starts squirming and smiling and reaching and nothing will do but for Josiah to pick her up. She really does seem to notice when he is not around.



He'll be working 30 hours this week because it is the "stock show and rodeo" week around here. I guess Chick-fil-A has a booth on the grounds so they need to run both spots. They did make sure he has Saturday a.m. off so if it is NICE we can have the paint ball party.

ZANDER

I finally found some REAL training pants for Zander to try. We gave them to him last night after Jamin opened his gifts. He isn’t quite sure of the new “pull ups”. We aren’t making big progress yet on the goal to accurate toilet usage.

Ah…sure…here he is dancing on the table again. Furniture is so very boring when used for simple sitting and such….

Jamin’s Birthday

Jamin chose Chinese for “dinner”. He suggested one spot but Mike directed us to a brand ne Chinese Buffet in town that was much better and cheaper than the one that we had gone to before. Lins for any local folks gets our vote of approval. Since Cy had to work 4 – 8 p.m. and Mike was off for most of the day yesterday we opted for lunch. Yum. Stacia even ate Chinese today (see story below).

Here are some shots of gifts!

Paper? Confirmation of gifts ordered that we can’t get locally – Hogan’s Heroes season 3 (to be released next month) from Cy, Jared, Arielle and Nolan and Imagine If (a board game he wanted) from Zander and Stacia.



Jamin requested a Paint Ball Gun and an Athletic watch. I’d never heard of such a thing. This will keep track of his heart rate, work outs, countdowns etc. He can program in his target rate and it will alert him when he is below or above it…Mike figured he’d use this every day and so chose it over the gun. We did buy him a few paint ball accessories that he can use when they play at the Base paintball field. Zander promptly got his arm stuck in the “quick loader” (for paintballs).
Jamin chose ice-cream rather than a cake. A month later…and pay back is SOOOO fun!
We’re going to have a Paint Ball Party bash on Saturday to celebrate he and Josiah’s birthdays…..if it doesn’t SNOW again. {g

A Star

What must life be like when every minute is eagerly observed and recorded???? (We certainly aren’t finding that we take less pictures of the youngest ones ). We all watch as Stacia tries rice for the first time.  So far so good.
 This stuff is really pretty good – Stacia attacks the spoon.  OK Dad….ENOUGH PICTURES – Let a girl EAT!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMIN!!!

15 years old! Jamin is the son that taught me to pray “God make me a bit stronger-willed than he is for just one more day!” It’s a prayer I am once again using daily as we disciple his youngest brother.

Jamin is an encouragement to all who have ever heard that their child is “too rowdy, too strong-willed, or too out-of-control”. He is an amazing gentleman these days. He’s quick to jump in and help with chores he sees need to be done. He’s always on hand to carry heavy things for me, now that my wrists won’t allow me to. He has a giving heart and is one to organize “work days” to earn money to give to others.

He is a perfectionist. I USED to be. We are working on a new goal for him…excellence rather than perfection.

Jamin tends to be a loner. We’ve laughed with him over the fact that God placed him in the MIDDLE of a large family to help him learn to interact with a variety of personalities…because he would not go out of his way to meet various personalities otherwise. Living in a Chaplain’s family that is constantly moving is a challenge for Jamin, who doesn’t enjoy change, but He’s learning to take it in stride. He’s a favorite with the younger boys at homeschool park day. I’ve even heard rumor that one is planning on buying him a light saber for his birthday.

When I tell Jamin’s story to mom’s who are struggling they are always so encouraged. Just this week at chapel one was moved when hearing that I was told “He’ll never be able to learn how to read if you don’t get him on Ritalin”. He’s the one who recently completed writing a 139 page book. We prayed about it and were led with this child not to put him on any sort of drugs. We worked with diet, and lots and lots of one on one discipling and mentoring (good ole’ fashioned hands-on parenting).

I’m so thrilled to see his heart for God and his heart for FAMILY…God has certainly done a maturing and growing work in his life. He is a young man any mother would be proud of (and father too – but this is MY perspective).

When I share Jamin’s story people want to know what “books” or what “parenting philosophy” we use. First, I’m leery of self-help books, including Christian self-help books. I found the most helpful thing to be to do topical studies on parenting/children and discipline. Doing Topical studies caused me to STUDY the words and contexts of those passages, rather than interpreting them the way I’ve “heard them all my life”. If pressed for books others could read I would say that parts of these books made an impact on our parenting philosophy. Only PARTS – because I’ve yet to find a book that I totally agree with, except the Bible. There are a lot of books here; we’ve been parenting nearly 21 years now. {G} *Making Your Child Mind without Loosing Yours* by Dr. Kevin Leman explains reality discipline. This is big for us. We want our children to learn, while under our care, HOW to make good choices and how to LIVE with the consequences of their choices. *Shepherding a Child’s Heart* by Tedd Tripp – unless we win the heart of our child for God, we’ve only created a generation of Pharisees. *Age of Opportunity* by Paul David Tripp, focuses on parenting youth. It’s great at pointing out how often OUR insecurities interfere with mentoring our children during this time of their lives. We have found the “teen years” to be wonderful years of reaping the benefits of the younger years of training. It truly is an AGE of OPPORTUNITY. Of course, and I’ve posted this before, but the article “The Myth of the Teenager” by Michael Platt also shaped our parenting. We have found Josh’ McDowell’s Right from Wrong materials to be great for using with our youth.



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FASTING

As promised, I’m going to try to answer most common questions here.

Last week I posted the link to Mr. Bill Bright’s booklet on fasting. If you’ve spent time there you have Scriptural background for fasting.

As women are praying about joining this fast, I’m receiving many questions.

A common question is “I have low blood-sugar; I’m nursing – can I fast?”.

I think it will help to know that there are different types of fasts. This is not a 40 day-water-only fast that we’re praying about. Some people can NOT fast for even 24 hours. Those people can still consider a partial fast. Can you fast one meal (nursing maybe – low blood sugar not recommended)? Can you fast a food type? Determine before God that you will eat only fruits and vegetables for that day (this is called a Daniel fast after Daniel’s request that he not be made to eat the King’s food).

Fasting is NOT always food. Maybe you are in a situation where you CANNOT skip food (company, traveling, health reasons). You can fast from anything. You could determine before God to not fast from the TV, radio, books, computer…..Interestingly enough many in the high church tradition and the Catholic tradition do this every year during the Lent season. We have members of SHS (Support4HomeSchool – email list) who leave us every Lent because God leads them to spend the time they normally spend on the list in prayer.

I would be remiss not to send another reminder that no one should fast unless they are being prompted by God to do so. We are not going to slide into legalism. {G}

Later today or tomorrow I hope to post about motivations for fasting.

As a reminder: if you send my original email on to your friends, please let them know it is coming FROM YOU…add a personal note. Otherwise they think I’ve sent out a bulk email and am spamming them. Email etiquette also dictates that you send out all “forwarded” emails or emails going to many people “blind copy”. This means that no one else can glean your friends’ email address. It’s polite to remove all other email addresses before forwarding on an email. Tip for security of the day. {bg}

Zander's Choice

This is Zander's all-time favorite book. I must have done this one 20 times this week! I'm not sure if it's the rhyming or the way he can anticipate the next word...but suddenly this is bigger than the Duanne Gish Dinosaur book. {g}