If Home Is Where Your Heart Is. . . .

I was driving to town to get the kids donuts this morning (we have a house-full this weekend) and I started thinking about this Easter Weekend and how yesterday being Good Friday is a very big deal day and tomorrow being Easter Sunday is a very big deal day, but today is just in the middle.  Then I started thinking about the people who loved Jesus as son and brother and friend.  Today must have been a strange day with the rip-you-heart-out sadness of loosing a loved one mixed with the hope of what if what He said was true and he will rise.  So I was thinking about this Saturday.  Loss is painful.  And hope is exciting and even a little unnerving at times because it is unknown. I was thinking about the "longest Saturday" in my life. . . a time filled with sadness and mourning and yet very hopeful.  I think we all have these longest Saturdays.  Whether it be the sadness of something heartbreaking happening in my marriage but being hopeful that the bes...

This is what the counter top looked like. . . twelve items to taste test. So, I conducted a wheat-free snack test today and it was a much bigger success than I ever imagined. I had visions of Dax hating everything and Tiki liking most, but deciding to not like it to be like Dax. Well, it was such a smashing hit that all five kids wanted to be involved.  I'm so excited--excited because it was fun and because they have some self-proclaimed "yummy" options!!!  This round was simply snack food and lunch box items--not cereal and pasta and bread yet. I put each item in a baggie because I knew if they (mostly Dax) saw that package, his taste buds would be swayed! Below are the twelve items we taste tested.  The number on the package was my "secret number for the clear baggies.  The initials on the bags/boxes are who thought that snack was a "yes."  I'll keep you all posted on how the bread, tortillas and pasta test goes when we do that one! ...

So, we are taking a trial week of wheat free for the "twins."  Why?  Well, for a few reasons. . .  where to begin? First of all, wheat isn't great for us.  It just isn't.  When I stay away from it, I feel so much better.  That is one thing I've realized on these products and with this new healthy lifestyle.  When I stay away from the things that aren't good for me (like wheat), I just feel better.  Do I still eat wheat?  Some.  I'm not really the die hard type when it comes to food.  But I feel awful when I eat it. Secondly, I have read and heard that taking wheat out of his diet could be great for Tiki.  I've heard it from other adoptive parents.  I've heard it from other parents of children with some issues.  I've read about it.  I actually tried to be wheat free for Tiki, but that only lasted about 6 hours.  I just didn't have the motivation.  There was a will, but it wasn't strong enough and ...

Andy and Hays had the best time in Israel and Palestine last week.  As they've gotten over jet lag, more details have come out and both sets of eyes light up when they talk about it!  The trip was SO MUCH MORE than just a steps of Jesus time.  Andy really used the trip to show the Kivu kids and parents the steps of Jesus and then how to actually love the way Jesus told us to love as they crossed the border into Palestine and saw what the news never shows in terms of what is truly happening over there.  One of Hays's many highlights was spending time with his friends from Bethlehem.  They went caving together and had a surprise birthday party for one of the girls together and ate together.  How fun to get to visit your Palestinian friends as a fifteen year old?!?!?  Hays literally is on cloud nine and is hoping to do an exchange program next school year.  I'm all for it for him!!!

So, one of Andy's best friends in college is staying in Southwest Colorado with his family for several weeks and they headed our way today (we are SO thankful that they will be "heading our way" several times over the next three weeks).  His family sold just about everything and bought an RV and they are touring America with their 4 kids.  Their travels and adventures are unbelievable!  You can see their journeys HERE .  So fun!!! Anyway, they came over today and we headed to Molas for some sledding.  It was cold and snowy and weather you'd only go out in if you were from out of town!  We hit the mountain anyway!!!  It was a blast!  No one noticed the cold and we stayed up for hours!  Then we headed home for dinner and playing.  The kids got along so well and it was so refreshing to be with old friends! There will be many more posts to follow about our adventures with the Hall family, I'm sure!!! Mike and his wonderful wife, Heat...

I keep getting behind in my blogging this year.  I have so much to say about so many things.  I love my family and my life and I am so busy loving them that I forget to update. . . but I for sure need to keep up because this week I deleted ALL of the pictures off of my computer and my blog is my only back up, so I realized this week how thankful I am for this space!!! Spring Dance Maggie's Middle School Spring Dance was last night and she looked so beautiful and so happy!  She and her best friend, Lexy (who just moved here this year and we are so thankful that she and her whole family are here) got ready together at our house.  I love Maggie.  She's so down to earth and so fun and sweet and compassionate.  She's great.  Lexy is wonderful, too--always one to tell me that she loves me and to give me a big hug.  They were so fun to watch and to help!  Seventh grade is almost over for her and I can't believe that my baby girl is getting so ol...

Honey Maid had a commercial a few days ago showing all different kinds of families.  They had multi-racial families and families with gay parents and families with one parent and "traditional" families.  It really was a great (and accurate) picture of America today. When I was watching it, I thought to myself "I wonder how long before people lash out at them like they did at Cheerios and Coke during the Super Bowl. . . ." Of course, it didn't take long because people are so hateful and people are so phobic of whatever and people are so quick to take to social media with their piety (picking the speck out of the eye of another while their own log is blinding them).  Its so stupid and I am so sick of people being so ugly and hateful.  So many people being the furthest thing from LOVE. I'm posting this video, though, because Honey Maid responded to that ugly hate the way that people should respond.  They are responding with love and not with hate and n...