Happy Late Thanksgiving!

We've had sick little ones in our house this week so I didn't get to post on Thanksgiving.

We had out Thanksgiving meal on Tuesday this year and it was a nice and quiet time with our family. My husband and I and the girls enjoyed a cozy meal together and then spent some time just hanging out and enjoying each other's company.

I pray everyone had a wonderful and blessed day!

Getting Ready

My husband always works Thanksgiving Day so we always have our meal ahead of time or the day after. This year it will be either Monday or Tuesday so I am gearing up to cook this weekend. I've already made dough for rolls and put that in the freezer and also made my pie crusts which are in the fridge. It will be a simple meal this year but as always, full of good things and love.

Tonight I made homemade pizzas so the kids are happily watching "Kung Fu Panda" and eating right now.

We're going to take next week off to de-clutter the toys and papers around here. Our town just started a new recycling program so the kids are really anxious to fill up the big blue dumpster that was delivered to us. So since they are in "toss out mode" I thought I had better take advantage of it!

School is coming along slowly for us this year... I am thinking of going through all the texts and seeing if we might just skip ahead on some things. My 8 year old seems bored with her math sometimes and spelling too so I am going to quiz her on some things to make sure we are not holding her back too much. Both 8 yo and 6 yo have read way ahead on the readers they have for this year so I will most likely be doing some major book shopping at the start of the year. It's often hard for us to keep up with their veracious bibliophilic tendencies :0)

Well, I better head off for now. 1 yo just came in holding her diaper sand saying "Ewww!" so I know what that means. :0) Have a blessed weekend y'all!

Bible Study: Romans (Part 6)

(If you missed the previous posts in this study click here to catch up. Sorry for the delay, we've been without Internet for a few days due a problem with our ISP.)

One of the outward signs that the Jews had to show their faith in God was circumcision. Paul is speaking about the significance of that outward sign. Circumcision was a sign that they were God's chosen people. It had nothing to do with their own faith in Him. (Romans 3:3)

God will judge us according to His standards, not ours. We can only be justified if we speak according to His Word. We can't assume we are more righteous than God nor can we continue on in sin "knowing that good will prevail". God wants us to do good in all things no matter what, our liberty in Christ doesn't allow us to freely sin. God will still judge all sinners. We have no room to judge others as we are all sinners. God is our only judge. (Romans 3:4 - 10).

Romans 3 : 11 - 18 really show what the world's attitude is towards God. How the "average" person thinks and acts. Really, all of us, Christians alike can have these attitudes at times because as we know there is not one person that is perfect in this world. Only God is true perfection.

"The law" as spoken of in the Bible refers to God's law (Levitical law) that was written in the Holy Scriptures before Christ was born... God's word spoken through the prophets. As we know, Jesus came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17), therefore Christians are not "under the law" so to speak, we are to follow the teaching of Christ as he taught when her was here on earth to fulfill prophesy and establish Himself as God's Son on earth. The law speaks of God's judgement of people on the earth. There are many works people were required to do in order to avoid God's holy wrath. No one had been justified as of yet because Jesus hadn't been born yet. The law teaches what sin is. By knowing the law, people would know what things were sin in God's eyes. (Romans 3: 19-20)

We are all sinners and fall short of God's glory. As believers, however, we are righteous in God's eyes and justified by our faith in Christ who came to fulfill the law. God freely gave His son and justified us because He wished to (by His infinite grace). (Romans 3:21-24)

God has shown His righteousness to us through Christ, by forgiving our sins that have YET to happen, through Jesus' shed blood. He shows us His justice and He justifies us. (Romans 3:25-26).

We need not seek glory for our works. It is not by works that we are glorified nor justified, it is by our faith in Christ. Whether we are Jew or Gentile, we are justified by our faith and not some outward act such as by the law. However, we aren't to abandon the law, we are to hold up the law and stand by it. (Romans 3:27- 31).

Long Week...

Wow, it sure has been a long week here, I am just blessed to have some time tonight to sit and blog and enjoy a few quiet moments.

Our oldest daughter has been sick all week. It's a bit of a long story but the main point is she suffers from some digestion issues that cause her stomach pain and she also feels weak and tired a lot. She was on a medication that was supposed to help her problems (it did while she was on it) but the doctor has weaned her off and the withdrawal symptoms from getting off are seeming worse than the initial problem itself. She has been having flu like symptoms along with stomach pain for almost a week now. She is getting better slowly, but she is still not well enough to do her school work or to play like normal with her sisters. We are praying for healing and that by the end of this week she will be past this withdrawal period and feeling better. Please join us in that prayer.

It's amazing now much we can take for granted with our kids. I honestly didn't realize how much of a help my daughter was to me until she was sick. I mean, I appreciate her so much and I honestly do realize that she helps me a lot, but the extent to which she helps is amazing and I am so blessed to have her. She is a wonderful, sweet and helpful girl!

Our one year old also chose this week to start "acting two". That is what we call it when our children get into a phase where they are around two years old and show signs of what people call "the terrible twos". Basically, she has spent the week being very demanding and crying for me all the time (when she normally would not) and just being generally challenging in all areas.

So, sitting down right now with a cup of hot tea, a bag of my favorite chips and a bowl of salsa and spending a little time on-line is wonderful. The girls are all nicely tucked into bed and my wonderful husband is enjoying a karate movie that he's been wanting to watch all week but has been to tired to enjoy.

I'm going to work on the next installment of the Romans Bible study, so if you've been reading along, look for the post tomorrow.

Praying you're all having a blessed Sunday and that you will enjoy a blessed week as well.

Vegetable Gardening - Planning

I tend to plan things WELL in advance... that's just the kind of person I am :0) So today I was in the mood to think of next years garden. This year was my second attempt at an indoor herb garden. We did *ok* with it... a very nice basil plant and a reasonable sized cilantro plant were the fruit of our efforts and both were well cared for and well used as well. Next year we plan to go a little larger scale.

Seeing as we are in the desert southwest (a.k.a., the HOTTEST and DRIEST part of the country), it can be a bit challenging to plant a garden. We can't really afford to re-do our entire backyard with potting mix to plant an in-ground garden.

That being said, I have been looking into "box" (or container) gardening. I'm planning to buy 3 Garden Patch boxes and several bags of soil in preparation for our new garden venture.

We have several seed packages we have been saving so we are planning to plant tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, okra, cucumbers, squash and herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley, chives and mint).

My next step is going to be researching organic fertilizers. It may be really dry here but we sure do get lots of bugs!