this week

Some fun things to report from the last week or two:

:: Shane won this awesome pellet grill from Coastal Farm & Ranch! He has been wanting a pellet BBQ for many, many years and finally he actually wins one better than he had imagined. I love it too because now I'm off the hook from making dinner for a good while. He's been making pizza, burgers and all sorts of things on it.

:: Our little foster girl (almost 5) also won this month. She entered a coloring contest at the Willamette Valley Fruit Company coffee shop to draw a picture of your mom and her drawing of her mom won! She won a pie which she took to her weekly visit to share with her mom.

:: On Monday Shane and I (oh, and Silas) went back up to Portland for a fun date afternoon. We wandered around the Pearl District, got coffee, browsed books at Powell's and shopped for a graduation gift for his sister. We also had dinner at PF Chang's with a gift card we had and of course dessert from Whole Foods.

:: We're on week two of Bible Bee and are on verse 12 that we're memorizing. It's been hard and challenge to find the hour++ time every day to work on it but it has been so rewarding and already having those scriptures memorized is bearing fruit as they encourage us "to deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily and follow him" (Luke 9:23 - one of the verses we're learning). This is something I think a lot about because as a mother of five little ones and a homeschooling mama I deny myself of much that I would like to do and could do in order to serve Christ through raising these children and teaching them as he has called us to do. What a pleasure and joy it is to know that my work and my sacrifice is bearing eternal fruit.

::We're reading through Heaven for Kids by Randy Alcorn for our morning devotions and we've been talking and thinking a lot about Heaven. Like the book reminds us, isn't it amazing that people spend so much time planning vacations and trips here on earth but few people take time to research and prepare for what the biggest trip of our lives will be? This book is great for kids and there is also an adult version called just Heaven which also is a must read for adults. We also checked our the sweet kids book called Heaven is for Real and the longer paperback version of the same book from the library. This book is about a little boy who died and came back and tells about his visit to Heaven with amazing insight.

::Tomorrow we're heading to Central Oregon for a couple days to stay with Shane's dad and stepmom. We're excited for Shane's sister's college graduation party and to see their horses. I'm excited about having four hours to knit in the car! I'm currently finishing up another Milo sweater for Silas and getting ready to cast on a new fall sweater for West.