He is Faithful, Even in the "Little" Things

I have always felt silly praying for the "little" things in my life when I know that God has much bigger things He is working on. I just felt like, short of major illnesses, nothing I could present to God was really worth wasting His time. But over the last 3 years, I have seen how He takes great joy in giving us, His children, the desires of our heart. Maybe becoming a parent myself has allowed me to see this better. I can look back now and see how He was answering and giving me the desires of my heart even when I wasn't formally asking Him for these things. He is such a great God. But I have been really humbled these last few months by some really "little" things I have asked Him for and He has granted beyond words. I keep a prayer journal which allows me to see how long I've been praying for something and when it's been answered. On 4/20 I prayed (and have continued to pray) that we as a family would be able to visit family. At one time we all lived so close to one another and now we are pretty spread out. We had a couple of times when we had planned to visit family in Hawaii and for many reasons it did not work out and it seemed like we weren't seeing a possibility in sight. Since that prayer, Todd's grandparents have been out to visit (who just recently moved to AZ), Todd's brother and family came to LA (from Hawaii), and we just got back from a weekend in Denver to see Russ and LouAnn and the Walling side of the family. All of these visits were unexpected and last minute, but I take as an answer to my prayers. And I know that getting on those 3 flights to and from Denver were absolutely His handiwork. Something else I am reminded about is how every once in awhile He gives us the most perfect gift. And that was Guatemala for us. Todd and I really needed some time away just the two of us and we also needed a spiritual retreat, something outside of ourselves. And Guatemala was that perfect gift for us. Other than the gift of Todd, Blynn and Rusty, I don't think I have received a more perfect gift. Thank you Lord for knowing just what we need. This was a step of faith in many ways for Todd and I, but also financially as we did not have the money for a trip like this. But the day after we got home, we went in to sign our tax papers, and our tax returns were for the exact amount of our Guatemala trip. God is good. All the time. Here are some pictures of our recent trip to Denver.

This is the only acceptable way to ride the tram at the Denver airport. I would like to say that my children came up with this one, but one very late night about 7 years ago traveling with some college friends, we discovered the delight of this trick. Thanks Warts and Vieve!

This is our new nephew, Bear. He is small but fierce! Another one of God's perfect gifts.


The Russell's

We got to go to a Rockies game which was a lot of fun. This was Rusty's first baseball game and the usher gave him a ball. Look how proud he is of it. This was also Rusty's first plane rides.

We also got to see some of our Guatemala team members. I love those people!

Digital Short

I have the privilege of coordinating the Sunday School classes at our church, but one of my biggest challenges (as in most churches) is to find volunteers. So I'm constantly trying fun and exciting presentations. But one of my good friends who is extremely talented did a digital short and presented it in front of the church. It is so hilarious and loosely based after the Peyton Manning SNL digital short which is one of my favorites. Please enjoy, and be inspired to teach Sunday School at your own church. I know you have your excuses, and if you have the confidence to say that excuse to Jesus' face than you are off the hook.

Memorial Weekend

My sister's boys, Luke and Sam

We had a great weekend. My whole family went to the coast. The new favorite movie of the kids is Karate Kid, so you will see by the pictures that there is a lot of references to the movie. Most of the time at the beach, I could hear Travis yelling, "Balance Danielson, Balance" of course in his best Japanese accent. Luke took this serious and was frequently practicing his moves. It is very comical to see the kids interacting with one another and how they approach things so differently. We also broke all rules of reason this morning and went to the beach in our pajamas. That's crazy!

Avila Beach has this great farm that the kids can feed the animals, and it's FREE!

San Luis Obispo has a great Children's Museum with all sorts of make believe interactive play areas. It was awesome.

Overall, it was a much needed break for us and fun fellowship with the whole family.

Girly Skirt

I have done minimal sewing in the past but this is my first time sewing something for Blynn to wear. I had heard about this easy skirt and I decided to try it. It's by Pink Fig and it's called the Girly Skirt. It is really easy and it has the great feature of being a great spinning skirt which is priority number one to any 4 year old girl.

This is the little flower I made to make the shirt match the skirt.

Look at those spinning capabilities. Look at the air that skirt gets.

Small town library

When we first moved back here, I was slightly disappointed by the library. But I have grown to love the library we visit because it's the same one I went to as a little girl. I love that some of these books could be the exact ones I read when I was a child, now coming home with me once again. So far, if I'm patient, I can get any book I want for the kids and myself. It usually ends up coming from the Fresno County libraries, but I enjoy this feature. I can just go online to my libraries website and request whatever NYTimes bestseller I've been wanting to read, and depending how many other people have also requested it, I get to read it for FREE (well actually it's 50 cents). I love that about libraries and I have read some really good ones lately. But as for the kids, I just recently read this book.
Any of you with children or grandchildren need to read this book on the importance of reading and reading aloud to your kids. I had no idea that I should be transitioning Blynn to chapter books by now, so we have been doing that with these Raggedy Ann books that my Grandma had here in the house. You know when your child brings you a book and there are way more words on the page than pictures and you talk your child out of reading that one. Well, at least that's what I did.

The Raggedy Ann doll is Sherri's. Blynn was so impressed that she had the exact doll that was in her book.

I always had an example of readers in the house I grew up in. My parents were always reading for pleasure and my mom used to try to get Stac and I to read for pleasure during summers, but that didn't happen regularly. And in school/college the last thing you want to do is read for pleasure when you are already reading so much for school. But I must say that the "Harry Potter" series really increased my confidence in reading long books and ignited my love for reading. What book started your love of reading for pleasure?

Buzz and Belle: Meet You At The Pole

I'm not sure there are any words to describe this picture.

Privileged

I had a great Mother's Day today! I still can't believe that God has entrusted these two lives to us, making me a MOM. I was awoken this morning by both of them running into the room and Rusty saying very clearly, "Happy Mother's Day, get up Mommy!" I love these two kids and am so grateful for being their Mommy.

Cousin visit

Our family came to visit us from Hawaii. We rendezvous'd in Lancaster which is where everyone coming from Hawaii likes to rendezvous. It was a great weekend. Our road trip down went well as you can see from the above picture; and despite a detour on the way home, our trip home went well too.

Here are all the cousins enjoying each other.

This was a birthday party for Kai, but he didn't manage to get into the picture.

Addy could not be talked into wearing her haku for church this morning so Blynn got to wear it and was amazed that Auntie Aiko flew all the way from Hawaii with that lei just for her.

The best part of the weekend was soaking up one of Gabe's sermons. I'm good for a couple of months and then I'll need another!

One of these things .....

... is not like the others.

We have several little pantry areas and this is the breakfast/cracker pantry. I cleaned it out the other day and was very proud of myself, adding some cereal storage containers. About three days later I opened the cabinet to find this defiance. There is clearly a box out of place and to add to it, the bin just to the left of it is EMPTY. Not acceptable and the culprit has already been notified and he didn't seem to care as much as I did.

Back in the day (whatever that means), I would have taught him an object lesson by pouring the rest of this cereal in his bed, but since I share this bed with him I decided against it.

Spring Strawberries

Now it's really starting to get ridiculous because I just think of food I want to revolve a learning activity around. I'm sure C-chocolate will be next. Anyway, we did S yesterday and ate strawberries too. They are sooooo good right now!

My nephews Luke and Sam were over to help with this activity.