Redeemer Church Retreat 2016

Quick before September runs out, I wanted to post about a sweet weekend getaway we enjoyed this month with our church family.  Every fall, they take a retreat together around the church's anniversary.  This year is Redeemer's 6th year.  We went for the first time two years ago.  Last year we did not go because Lasa was so new in our home.  This year, our friends, the Tuckers, were asking to keep her for a weekend sometime anyway, so we took them up on the offer and took off for Linden Valley Conference Center on the other side of Nashville with our Redeemer peeps.  It was a retreat times two getting away with these dear people AND being toddler free!

This was one of the few times we saw the kiddos besides meals.

 

They had a blast running around the conference center grounds with all their friends and participating in the kids' activities.  It was so nice to enjoy trusting my big kids to manage themselves.  And again, to not be managing a toddler.  :} 

We shared time in prayer,

time in laughter with the annual Talent Show,

time just hanging out,

time wandering outside (this shot just so happens to be our Community Group I spotted across the way praying for a certain friend of Jill's), 

 

and several times for taking in a good word from Jamie, our pastor.

So thankful for him and this community of believers he leads so sincerely and faithfully.

Hard angles, large group, many kids ... this is as good as it gets in terms of group shots of all who could attend that weekend. :}

We seriously, seriously love this family.  I feel for my friends when I hear how they are floundering in their churches, struggling with going at all, talking about trying new churches, not knowing community, not caring for their pastor or his style, not feeling like they are even known among their respective church bodies. We have been there, wanting more in terms of fellowship, faith, leadership, and church doing real life together.  That's how we know to be so very humbled and thankful to have found such an active and healthy family at Redeemer. Good people.  Sinners all - but walking in faith together with our Savior - and being real about it with each other and with those outside the church. 

Such an encouragement!

Word Fix

My latest new words I've come upon.  Faves in bold with definitions. :)

kvell - feeling happy and proud
crackerjack - exceptionally good
licit - lawful
vatic - describing or predicting what will happen in the future
simulacrum
perforce - expressing necessity or inevitability
kith - one's friends, acquaintances, and relations
turgid
presage - sign or warning that something bad will happen
ululate - howl or wail as an expression of strong emotion, usually grief
largesse - generosity in bestowing money or gifts upon others
peripatetic - traveling from place to place (for short periods of time)
hale - strong and healthy
coulee
cannonade - i knew this one/just liked it all over again when reading
adjuvant
dundreary
plebs
stertorous - (of breathing) noisy and labored
trenchant
damnably - extremely bad or unpleasant
vouchsafe - to give or grant something in a gracious or condescending manner

Forever Reign

And, seriously.  This sort of worship.  Just this.   Every single line!

Forever Reign
by Hillsong

You are good, You are good
When there's nothing good in me
You are love, You are love
On display for all to see
You are light, You are light
When the darkness closes in
You are hope, You are hope
You have covered all my sin

You are peace, You are peace
When my fear is crippling
You are true, You are true
Even in my wandering
You are joy, You are joy
You're the reason that I sing
You are life, You are life
In You death has lost its sting

I'm running to Your arms
I'm running to Your arms
The riches of Your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

You are more, You are more
Than my words will ever say
You are Lord, You are Lord
All creation will proclaim
You are here, You are here
In Your presence I'm made whole
You are God, You are God
Of all else I'm letting go

My heart will sing no other name

Jesus, Jesus

May Your Power Rest On Me

This one.  Gets me every time we sing it at church.  Just ... cue the truth, cue the tears.  Ps - I SO WISH you could hear the version we hear/sing at church.  I much prefer it to this one, but you get the idea.

May Your Power Rest on Me

by Sojourn

Let me hear my Savior say
“Your strength shall return.”
Then I’ll rejoice in my weakness
As I lean on your grace.
As I lean on your grace.

Chorus:

May your power rest on me.

You are strong when I am weak.

I can bear all things when temptation springs

For you sustain me all my days.

Let me know my Savior’s face.
Let my hope be secure.
Then I’ll rejoice in my weakness
As I lean on your grace.
As I lean on your grace.

Chorus:

May your power rest on me.

You are strong when I am weak.

I can bear all things when temptation springs

For you sustain me all my days.

Once from the Lord withdrawn
I thought that I could live my life alone
Leaving the solid ground
I sank beneath his wisdom
The harder I tried to climb
The closer I was to find
How great is my weakness

Chorus:

May your power rest on me

You are strong when I am weak

I can bear all things when temptation springs

For you sustain me all my days

Though the trial still goes on
Your grace will be my song
For I can bear all things when temptation springs
For you sustain me all my days.

May your power rest on me.

May your power rest on me.

–Written by Joel Gerdis and Neil Robins

Finally Fall

It was like Christmas this morning getting up and knowing the air was finally, finally, finally fall-like.  We took an hour break in our school day today just to go be out in it, we have longed for it so.  These 90 degree temps for all of September have been brutal.  My heart was clawing its way through the weekend as we were told the cold front was commmmmmmmmming.  And sure enough, it did.  Our totally awesome local, but also national, weather station posted a stunning pic of the cool front moving in this morning. 

Are you feeling me?  Goodbye, hot!  Hello, cool!  I have been dyyyyyyyying for you.  We all have!

As it has only JUST gotten slightly cool, all our leaves are still green, green, green.  BUT, I did find a few fall gems on the ground.  Annnnd, you know me and the leaves.  Every year, without fail.  

And also, along these fall-like lines, this wonderful quote I saw on FB on a page of a guy I follow over at Becoming Minimalist.  

I mean, Kimmie loves are colliding in this one - fall leaves and purging.  Winning!! 

It was a hard weekend over here for a number of different reasons, so this fine fall morning greeting me with cool air was a total mood-lifter.  I don't know if you can tell. ;)

True Stories of Anna's Birthday

Baby girl turned a whopping eight years old Sunday.  We celebrated it Saturday.  Truth be told, the girl has been sort-of-celebrating it all month counting down with a calendar of her own creation.  Notice how she doesn't bother to number the days after the 25th. 

She also planned her birthday all out for us as seen above in the corner.  She even made her own birthday card complete with fill-in-the-blank spots for me to do and THEN present it to her. :}  She also made herself a birthday crown again this year.   

More birthday truth - she even decorated her own gifts to her liking after I got them wrapped.  We warned Anna leading up to her day that there were less gifts this year because they were slightly more expensive this year.  She understood the trade-off.  The littlest gift there is Noah's, as we always get one surprise for the non-birthday kiddo because ... well, because it's just more fun that way!  Speaking of Noah, he gifted Anna with a Lego minifig and a dollar - bless his little heart.  I could eat him whole.

I don't know what it is about September, but this is the second year in a row I have wimped out on doing or ordering a cake for Anna's birthday.  True story. Apparently I can take on cake business in May for Noah, I managed it in July for Lasa, but by fall I am spent.  Bless the girl's heart, she does not care.  She was thrilled with the power of getting to go to different places to pick out whatever her little heart wanted.  This year, one birthday first we enjoyed her marking was having an ice cream cake for a change.  Yum!

True story - before this experience, she thought an ice-cream cake just meant a cake with an ice-cream cone picture on top.  Ha!  We scoped out DQ and then hit Publix Bakery.  Then we remembered Carvel ice cream cakes in the plain old freezer section.  That's when Anna spotted an all out Oreo ice cream cake and that was that.  Oreos are her fave, so it was a match made in heaven.  Even more so because this cake was allergen free for her brother.  Then, because I felt guilty about grabbing a store-bought cake the day before doing the birthday, I splurged and let her get some overpriced color-flame candles. :}

More true story - the dreamy-eyed birthday girl was so ready to blow out the candles, she did it before I was ready to take a pic and we made her have to blow them out again.  After we did take two, she then realized she forgot to make a wish.  #Reallife.  Other true story - she revealed to us what her last year's birthday wish was that has now come true ... that Lasa would get to stay. ❤️

Another birthday first Anna was squealing about was a scavenger hunt to her first and biggest gift - too big to wrap.  There were 8 clues to match her 8 years. True story - Josh was NO HELP writing the clues the night before.  He was mystified as to what in the world sort of production this was supposed to be no matter how much I tried to describe how this works.  :}  When I insisted the clues had to rhyme, he gave me all out blank stares.

She and Noah raced all over to follow the clues to the next clues to the surprise at the end - an electric scooter!  That's her frozen on the spot once she looked up and saw it. 

Love her scrawny arms in the air to celebrate once the surprise has been processed.

The cutest!

After trying it out a bit, it was time to unwrap the rest of her gifts.  Paper flew, cheers were cheered, toddler danced upon the wrapping paper shreds like it was going out of style. 

She got a bow and arrow set and a target to go with.

And finally, she got a sewing machine that created all sorts of bouncing and blurry pic memories.  She was ecstatic.  I do believe this was her favorite.

Noah got a set of magnetic building blocks which were a big hit with everyone.  Love these sorts of toys!

After some target practice in the last hot weekend of the year...

Anna was back inside to write a quick thank you note on the back of some wrapping paper. :}  She's the cutest.

She picked pizza for dinner and we obliged.  True story/Confession, I insisted we try a new pizza place in town and that ended up being a total dud of an experience for us, so I promised the girl we could go to the pizza place she wanted to go to to begin with - Pie 5 - later in the week.  So I guess we technically have some birthday business still to attend to.  Perfect!  Buys me a little more time to crank out my yearly letter to/about the birthday kiddo. 

In the meantime, birthday girl is rocking out on her new sewing machine and has already earned a $1 by repairing a curtain I made yearsssssssssss ago for her nursery WHEN SHE WAS A BABY.  Whaaaaat???  True/Sad story - I StitchWitched the seams back then (aka - taped and ironed) as I have no sewing skills and they have recently come undone.  Anna did the fine job of actualllllly stitching the seams shut and we are both so tickled to see the curtain come full circle.  

The baby girl has grown up and taken my sewing lack into her own hands. Proud momma! Today I pulled out scraps of fabrics for her as she was on the hunt for something - anything - to sew.  Now she has made pockets, started coasters, sized Lasa for an apron-turned-crown, and even sewn a little heart with her initial stitched in the middle.  There is no stopping her now.  

I am not joking.  She is at Hobby Lobby right this very minute with her Daddy spending her birthday money from Memaw and Papa John on more sewing supplies.  I am in love with how this machine gives her a whole new exciting outlet for her creativity.  Best present ever!

And that concludes the true story of Anna's 8th birthday.

School Stuff

I am really enjoying this school year with the kids. 

We just wrapped up a whole Columbus unit.  This was a fun model ship we made.  It is complete with a rudder and all. :}

Comparing sailing with and without sails.

Kiddos are still rocking it in the spanish class they take on Wednesdays.  They are learning some verbs and conversational phrases and enjoying it so much.

Attending a homeschool class at the zoo.  They were learning about being animal trainers.

On a field trip to tour a local news station with the actual news anchor as our host.  Was really cool!

In this shot he was showing them what all tricks you can do in an editing room.  He recorded them all singing Happy Birthday to Anna. :)

Check out invisible Anna.

 

After reading up a little on one of Columbus' contemporaries, the kiddos were tasked to try their hand at some art upside down just like Michealangelo did while working on the Sistine Chapel.  They were aching in the arms after 4 mins. 

 

So they cannot believe he did this for four years!  Anna made a birthday cake pic for herself.  Noah made a zombie.  #Reallife

And I cannot close out a post about school stuff without tooting Noah's horn.  He is killing it in math this year.  Perhaps I am slightly eeking out too because it is new to me as well.  Remember that I am current up to my third grade classroom experience.  Noah is now in 4th, so I am so impressed watching him just breeze into concepts that I think are pretty challenging.  Also, our math curriculum is AmAzInG in how it prepares Noah on the sly ahead of time. I sing its praises to everyone who will hear.  Anyway, Noah Brown is rocking out on fractions - converting fractions, unlike denominators, improper fractions, and now percentages.  Percentages!  He is converting fractions into percentages like a boss.  Like, down to 12 1/2% and 66 2/3%.  Proud and impressed momma over here!  Also, I had to confess to him that I am learning these fraction/percentage equivalents right along with him.  He thinks that's kinda awesome.

Anna, for her part, is rocking 2-3 math lessons a day because subtraction strategies are her jam.  She can't wait to start multiplication.  And she is in LOVE with learning cursive.  She grew impatient with practicing pages of single letters at a time and finally, finally got to the point that she could put those letters together.  Hence, the till, hi, hit you saw doodled at the bottom of her birthday survey yesterday.  It is Saturday morning here and she just asked me if she could do another page in her cursive book. Being the coolest teacher ever, I gave in.  HA!