Gratituesday Archives | Page 17 of 40

Gratituesday: Long Awaited Visits

June 18, 2012 by Laura 16 Comments

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First, let me say that I’m so disappointed that I have no pictures to document what I am about to share. :( I guess I was thinking about that hugs instead of the camera.

There is a big camp, called Soul Quest, hosted by our local Christian college, which took place last week. We always love being a part of this, making a point to go each evening to worship with the hundreds of youth and adults that are on campus. (Asa, our oldest, goes as a camper and loves it!) One of the best parts of Soul Quest is seeing many friends that we rarely get to see. It’s like a big reunion and it’s wonderful. :)

Then on Saturday we picked Asa up from Soul Quest and dropped him off at church camp where he is serving as a counselor this week. (Yes, Asa is just a little bit busy this summer. Ah to have the energy of a 15 year old!)

I had heard that my friend Donna, whom I haven’t seen for way too long, was going to be at camp this week with her boys. Therefore, I hoped that when we dropped Asa off I might have just a small chance to hug her neck and catch up for a little while. Well guess what? Donna was the first person I saw when we arrived at the camp ground. And then guess what else? We actually got to visit for over an hour while as our boys played (and got filthy) together. :) And then guess what else? (Why yes, I am excited about my weekend.) After I had visited with Donna for a while, her mom showed up and I got to hug and visit with her too! Donna’s mom has always been a lovely encouragement to me.

I left camp with my cup overflowing.

(I also left with a few ticks, but let’s definitely not talk about that…) ;)

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Gratituesday: Healthy Marriage

June 11, 2012 by Laura 23 Comments

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You know you’ve been married for almost 18 years when you pull into your driveway and your heart melts at the sight of your husband dripping with sweat, with dirt under his nails, and wearing mis-matched work clothes. Hey, what could possibly be more awesome than the sight of a hard working husband, taking such good care of his family? He could be dressed all spiffy like, bringing me flowers, and I guess I’d be okay with that too. But I’m telling you – give the guy a shovel or a paint brush and my heart starts to thump.

This proves I’m an oldie-wed, but I don’t care. I love how Matt shows his care for me by doing all the “little” things that need to be done around here.

Matt and I feel very strongly that God has called us to encourage others in their marriage. We are so thankful for the marriage God has given us and would love for others to experience the same. (We also pray often for protection in our marriage and for others who are striving for a healthy marriage. Satan would love to destroy strong marriages. We’ve got to fight, friends!)

As a reminder, since we haven’t shared it here for a while, we’ve got a FREE Healthy Marriage From A to Z eBook in our Shop. We’d love for you to go download it (no strings attached!) and read through it. Feel free to share it with anyone you wish. We don’t claim to be experts. We just enjoyed sharing our hearts on the subject and put it into a free resource for you. (We finally put a link to the book on our sidebar too, for easy access!)

Praise God for marriage! He is good.

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Gratituesday: Yard Sale

June 4, 2012 by Laura 18 Comments

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I typically do not enjoy having yard sales. They are a lot of work and take a lot of time. However, for a few years now, we have been accumulating items in our basement we wanted to get rid of. Last weekend, we finally decided to just get it done.

The boys hauled it all out, then we set to organizing it on tables.

This unrecognizable kid showed up sometime while we were getting things out of boxes and setting up. We were pretty sure it was Malachi, but we may never know for sure…

Just for fun, I took a picture of some cooking I did last Thursday in an effort to get ahead for the weekend. I knew Friday and Saturday would be full, so having easy to warm up foods was a real life saver!

I made Calzones, Corn Dog Muffins, Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas, and Giant Breakfast Cookies. What? The giant cookies don’t look very big? Well, that’s what happens when you’re making too many recipes at once and you forget to add eggs to the cookies. Ah well, at least they still tasted good. ;)

But back to the yard sale. Ultimately, we just wanted to get rid of the “junk” and de-clutter our home. Therefore, in the hopes of seeing the stuff walk away, our yard sale prices were crazy low. In fact, we didn’t put a price tag on much of anything. When people asked what we wanted for an item, we just threw out a low number, in hopes they would just take it!

More than once, when asked how much we wanted for a toy or a plate, we’d shrug and say, “How about a quarter?” And would you believe that people would say, “Oh, that doesn’t sound like enough! I’ll give you 50¢. How does that sound?” Ha! It was the opposite of anything I’d experienced at any yard sale. People were requesting to give us MORE money than we were asking for.

By Saturday, we’d sold everything of value to us, so we just told people to take whatever they wanted for free. We found that it was a fun way to bless people and get our house cleaned out at the same time.

It ended up being a great weekend and yay for me, my house is cleaned out!

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Gratituesday: The Cousins

May 28, 2012 by Laura 22 Comments

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We have had a great big cousin filled weekend. The boys are dirty, tired, and basking in the memory of the past few days.

We were blessed to go to Kansas for an extended weekend where we had two different reunions. I come from a very large extended family. My grandfather was the youngest of twelve children, and my dad was the youngest of nine children. So when I say large extended family, I mean large extended family.

And oh the cousins!

I’m thankful for the blessing of family. I’m thankful for the blessing of a Christian heritage. And I’m thankful that I was able to celebrate both of those this weekend.

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Gratituesday: My Gift

May 14, 2012 by Laura 42 Comments

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Ever since I lost my mom to ALS in July of 2004, Mother’s Day has been difficult for me. I miss her every day, but Mother’s Day is always harder.

Matt has always been so considerate each Mother’s Day – spoiling me and making the day special, yet acknowledging and understanding that it is a day that I tend to feel sad. I love his strength and compassion.

We don’t tend to give each other gifts on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. We’ve never felt much need, and instead, fixing special food has always been our fun tradition. That is why I was so surprised to be presented with this on our way to church Sunday morning:

Receiving a gift at all was surprise enough. Seeing that he picked out a Bible with a cover described as “Pink and Chocolate” – well, does that tell you how well he knows me or what? And did you see what he had engraved on my new Bible?

Isn’t he the sweetest?

My husband shows me great honor in how he continually treats me like his queen. He had all of our boys sign the inside of the Bible, letting it be a gift from all of them.

I feel empowered to rise to the occasion and be the kind of Heavenly Homemaker they deserve and desire. I am honored to be the one God has chosen to make our family’s home more heavenly.

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Gratituesday: Wrapping It Up

May 7, 2012 by Laura 33 Comments

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Every year is my favorite school year. This year was no exception.

I love home schooling my kids. I love all the time we get to spend together every day. I love reading piles of incredible books with them. I love having a flexible schedule. I love learning beside them. Seriously, did you know that we have 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies? That’s enough to go around the entire earth almost three times! Yes, I learned that today. I am getting so smart. (It is an added benefit to home schooling that the kids are getting smarter as well.) ;)

We’ll be continuing to read all summer, but we do usually take a break from “regular school work” for a couple of months. This week, we’re wrapping up our last few math lessons and finishing the final chapters of a few books…

And then? Well, it would appear that we started a new tradition last year on our final “official” school day: Ice Cream Cones for Breakfast.

And not the healthy, homemade ice cream either. I know. I don’t know how that even came about. But apparently I did it last year, so that’s all the boys have been talking about for the past few days. Hey, why not? We can have broccoli for lunch that day.

I am so thankful for the gift of another great school year with my kids. And…I am amazed at a God who could arrange 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels in my body with such perfection. What an amazing Creator!

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Gratituesday: May Day Preparations

April 30, 2012 by Laura 31 Comments

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Because they are growing boys with “big boy” interests, I figured they wouldn’t even give May Day a second thought this year. This morning, they proved me wrong when one of them said, “Mom, tomorrow is May Day. We need to get baskets ready so we can surprise people tomorrow!” Everyone agreed that delivering May Day Baskets was necessary. Who am I to argue?

It is possible that the adventure of surprising people is what draws them in. And yes, it’s very likely that the food going into the baskets is what excites them even more. Quality control is done thoroughly around here to be sure. ;)

But they all chose a family they wanted to deliver a basket to, and plans were made for how we should fill them. Tonight, baking supplies are out and ready so we can start putting goodies into the oven in the morning. (Because yes, I over-ruled the idea that we should buy lots of candy to fill the baskets…)

I’m glad my boys still enjoy these simple, fun little holiday traditions. And as a side note – today I got to have a lunch date with our 10 year old, Elias. Here we are as we were heading out the door to his favorite restaurant…

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Gratituesday: Date Time

April 23, 2012 by Laura 41 Comments

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Since it has been several months since I’ve taken any of my boys on a date, I decided it was time to start another round. When I mentioned it to Matt, he asked if he could please be included in the rotation. I can’t say I would mind that one little bit. Five dates for me with all five of my favorite men? Let me get my calendar!

Today, Malachi and I headed out for a little one-on-one.

We started our date at Pizza Hut – his choice. He’s been planning this for weeks actually. In his mind, there was no other option besides Pizza Hut for his time out with Mom. We headed there nice and early to beat the lunch crowd, which was a brilliant idea if I do say so myself. Or at least I thought it was brilliant until we got there and saw a huge chartered bus had arrived there ahead of us. And what do you suppose we found inside the restaurant? Table after table was full. And it wasn’t just any kind of full. It was the full of hungry college age boys kind of full.

I warned Malachi that the buffet might not have any pizza on it for quite a while since there were so many big eaters there. He was willing to wait. We got seated, got our water, talked about important subjects like Legos and ninjas, and we waited some more. Each time pizza would be delivered to the buffet, swarms of college boys would devour it within seconds. And so, we continued to wait. My little man was the picture of patience. Hey, when you’ve got Mom’s ear all to yourself, who needs pizza?

Well, would you believe that after about thirty minutes and the third round of pizza getting snatched up before we could even get out of our seats, one of those nice young college boys came over and introduced himself to Malachi? He told him that he’d noticed how long he’d been waiting for food and he said, “As soon as more pizza comes out, you and I will go up there and get you some.” Sure enough, as soon as some fresh cheesy bread sticks came out, the guy hoisted Malachi up, butted in line in front of this friends and said, “Hey, let’s let this fella get some of those bread sticks, okay?”

Malachi was in such shock, he almost forgot to say “thank you”. But wow, did he devour those bread sticks. He was even nice enough to share one of them with his hungry date. :)

I was able to take another moment to thank that young man for showing my boy such kindness. I hope Malachi remembers this and shows the same kind of love to someone else someday.

It wasn’t much longer until the place cleared out and we were able to enjoy the “all you can eat” part of the buffet. Malachi decided that posing for some pictures was a great idea:

I think that in the following picture, he’s trying to show us that he finally got enough pizza and he’s thoroughly stuffed. Four bread sticks and three pieces of pizza will do that to a seven year old boy.

Next, we headed out to Wal-mart where I promised that he could have several, unhurried minutes to gaze at Lego sets. You would have thought I had offered to take him to Legoland. No need to buy Legos. Just having the time to look at them for a long, long time was gift enough.

He’s been running up to me for hugs all day since we’ve been home. I’d say round one of five dates was a success, wouldn’t you? :)

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Gratituesday: Stretching

April 16, 2012 by Laura 29 Comments

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I like hiding behind my computer. I feel safe there. I can write freely – which I love to do. And then I can edit if I don’t like how I wrote something. Yes, my computer is very safe.

This is why, the past few months as I’ve been invited to speak to a few different groups of women, I’ve really hesitated. I haven’t felt sure that I had what it took to get up in front of people and speak. I don’t care what size the crowd – public speaking has been intimidating to me.

God knows best, however, and He decided to stretch me in ways that He apparently felt I needed stretching. He’s wise and fun like that.

Here is what I have learned through the past few months. First and foremost: I must always have a big bottle of water with me because, wow, my mouth always gets super dry when speaking to a crowd. Next: I may be the one up there doing the talking, but if I can remember to let go of myself (and my nerves), and embrace the fact that the Spirit can take over and do the talking – then we’re really onto something.

Several months ago when I was sharing my desire to simply stay behind my comfortable computer screen and avoid public speaking, my friend Emily said something very empowering to me. “Laura,” she said, “what you do on your blog is wonderful. You have been able to encourage women in so many ways. But just think how much more you can bless them when talking with them face to face.”

Well, shucks. I hadn’t thought of that before. She knew that I had what it took, and I’ve carried that vote of confidence with me ever since.

Satan has still been working to wear me down – just ask those who have had to live with me. I’ve had many moments of being a bit of a basket case leading up to each event, and have, unfortunately, done my fair share of completely freaking out. It has not been pretty, but somehow, my family and friends still love me anyway. God bless ’em.

What I have appreciated most recently is the army of prayer warriors I’ve had behind me. Matt and I took a trip to South Dakota last weekend so that I could speak to a lovely group of ladies there. The week leading up to this event was challenging in many ways, but God continued putting women in my path each day who were happy for me to share my angst. They all pumped me up with encouragement, and more importantly, they promised they would pray.

I wasn’t doing this alone. This has never been about me. God knows what He’s doing every time.

For this, I am thankful.

And as a selfish little aside, I am also thankful that I’ve checked all of my speaking engagements off my calendar for now. Yep, here I am, waving from behind my safe little computer screen. Stretching has been nice, but relaxing again back in my comfort zone is awfully nice too. ;)

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Gratituesday: God is Faithful

April 9, 2012 by Laura 32 Comments

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I have so much to be thankful for and truly, when I look at the big picture that is my life – all is well. Life is good. I have Jesus in my life, I have the best husband in the world, my children are incredible, healthy, and happy. I am so blessed that I can hardly see straight through the beauty and gifts around me.

But today has been a challenge for me. I am emotionally exhausted. Even though doing the right thing is the right thing to do, it can also be very hard. (I’m pretty sure you’ll need to read that sentence three times for it to make sense.)

God is faithful. He never asks us to do something difficult, and then shoves us away to muddle through it on our own. Never.

God is faithful. When we pray for something, and the answer is “no” – He is waiting to comfort us, because truly, our Father knows what is best for our lives.

I mess up. Life doesn’t always go the way we think it should or wish it would. But God is faithful. And because of that hope, I can sleep peacefully tonight.

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