a day in the life.

I finally figured out why it was EXCRUSIATINGLY hard to get ANYTHING done this week!...it's the weather! Cloudy and chilly. I'm starting to wonder if I'm a true daughter of Minnesota. Perhaps California put me up for adoption.

After a stressful day of grocery shopping with two toddlers and panicing to get a heavily anticipated by the husband trout supper cooked only to not have to done on time which caused a wonderful fight... the kids wouldn't eat their steamed brocoli and baked potatoes. So we ended up eating bowls of Cap'n Crunch. (Which I haven't had in YEARS.. this is not a usually affair. Don't call social services.) The trout is packed away for reheating at a later hour. And now I have a disaster of a kitchen. Kids that won't stop whining...okay.. they just stopped whining.. they are so hopped up on sugar that they are terrorizing the upstairs...is that water running I hear?... And the cat snuck out of the house and is playing with the wild neighborhood rabbits. There's a dirty diaper to change. And I can't even run away because I don't have a car.

Atleast the sun is shining as it sets.

Now they're back to whining.

I kept forgetting that I had to make a cheesecake tonight. So it didn't get started until... after nine pm. crust is in the oven and I remember... NO SUGAR!! Rush out to my local Kwik Trip. Find the four pound bag on the bottom shelf amoung the other "shoot we're out of..." items. I reach for the bag and notice... "$4.88" WHAT!?! Do I take the extra time and energy to head over to my local grocer? The crust is almost done. I contemplate it.. do the math... I have to.. this isn't a small village in the middle of a third world country... I can NOT pay five dollars for a bag of off brand sugar. Ten minutes later I am the newest owner of a $1.88 bag of sugar. That's more like it.

Fear not... for I am with you.

Last night I put Zachariah to bed... for a second time. He claimed that he had a bad dream about a monster. I knew that he hadn't even fallen asleep yet.. he had been playing. But I suspect that he didn't try to sleep because of an early "scary monster" dream.

So I told him that mommy couldn't take the monster dreams away... only Jesus
could..and that we needed to pray.

So I did.

The first thing he says when he wakes up this morning...


"I didn't have a monster dream! Jesus took the monster away!! I won't be afraid in my room anymore!"

Then we talked about how faithful and good Jesus is.

“Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

I have a meeting with a few ladies from my church this afternoon about some things we'd like to start at our church. I'm so excited.. I know they are too. I pray the Lord will work in awesome ways.

And on a non-God note. I am thinking about changing Kate's name to "olive"... I can't help that she looks like an "olive".

Do you know what I just made? No I'm not going all flowers in the attic. I made enough laundry detergent for 64 loads of laundry for like... a dollar... if that. I'm jazzed.

And a few weeks ago... a sea of homemade fruit leather.

With all the money I'm saving the family we're going to buy a new van... or ice cream...

The Lord's Will will come to pass. We can be willing to listen to his Spirit and let Him use us. Or we can be silent and pass up the opportunities he gives us. He will just give them to somebody else. Because His Will will come to pass.

I realized this morning that the Lord had put a few different people in my life the last few years. NonChristians. The Spirit had prompted me to share Him with them. Of course there were always excuses. I would put most of them on that person-- "if they wanted to go to church they would be going already" "they're not interested in God.. they just want to party" etc etc. This morning the Lord showed me some of those people... giving their testimonies of the Lord.

The Lord had work to do... and was more than willing to use me. And I let it pass.

I repent.

easter egg hunt. check. -- waited longer than the whole thing took. parents of three and four year olds do NOT need to be beside their children during an egg hunt.

color eggs. check. -- redied all of impatient three year old's eggs. Eggs dipped in die for 15 seconds are not very pretty. Waiting for the surprise egg to be discovered.

make cheesecake. check. --forgot to take out cream cheese to soften so hopefully is blended well enough.

decorate easter cookies. check. -- what? you've never written "new covenant" on a butterfly cookie before? strange.

put easter baskets together.

celebrating the Risen Savior is hard work!

Zachariah's big thing is playing pretend... he calls it "play puppet show". He gave me a Ronald McDonald toy to talk and he was the snake. He always starts out with the question...
"What's your name?"
I replied,"Ronald McDonald... what's your name?"
"...Barack Obama."

I don't know if it's funny just because that name was the first he came up with or that he was insightful enough to name the snake that.