bro getting married!!!

So my little bro is getting married this coming Sat. It is crazy! We ( the weaver group) is super excited to fly home to be apart of the festivities. We are hoping to see Kathy (Greg's mom ) on thursday at some point since it will be her birthday. Then Sarah K has a birthday on Friday, then we all get to party on Saturday, then Sunday we get to go to Cypress Church and give some needed hugs, later hang out with family and friends, then sadly we load up on the plan on Monday and head back to reality.


I (Jen, the only one who really blogs on this thing) is now apart of a book club. We are reading The Love Languages of God. More on that another time. My awesome husband blessed me with a time out w/ my friend Liz. It was so great to hang out. She took me to a place called The Pied Cows. Which sells the BEST Chai tea ever! We were able to hang out on the patio and sit under a perfect cool night w/ a full moon. We then headed out to another spot called Bagdad and chatted it up until it closed. Wow, it is so great to have a friend to talk about life with. I enjoy Liz and her heart. Though it makes me miss some of my cali friends. There is something so intimate and special when we allow ourselves to be vuonerable and honest with each other. What a gem it is that God has allowed me to have a few of these people in my life.

Well hopefully I will be deligent to get the wedding and event photos up to share with the world. I am so proud of my brother.

Start asking questions

Our neighbors down the way, Sam and Trevor, are trying to teach their 7 yr. old son and 5 yr. old daughter to pray as if they were talking straight to Jesus' face and try to get away from repetitive prayer. That means just say whatever is on your mind. Letting them know they can ask questions. Well, the little prayers from their 5 yr. old is so genuine and sweet that it is actually convicting. She ask questions- to God while praying--such as "God, do you eat?"

Though at first it is tempting to smile and even give a little chuckle it somewhat pierces the heart. If I stop and think and be honest with myself, I realize that I come to ask request with an attitude of command. For example I would normally say something like, God I lift such and such to you. I ask that you do such and such.And of course I'll throw in some big flowery sentences and keep saying God's name during the prayer ( I guess, just in case He forget whom I was praying to?) But really what I'm saying is God do this. It usually does not sound like God, what is it that you have for this person? How would you like me to act today or when I met with this other person? How humbling a child's conversation is. How rude I must sound compared to the innocent child who simply ask God if He eats.

Crazy kids

Well I tried to upload some cool videos of the kids tonight... but after an hour of not being able to get it to work and wanting to throw our computer against a wall... I have calmly decided to not be so dramatic and just put up some photos of the kids and their new buds. I have not captured photos from all their buds but here is an introduction to some of their newest buds.




More pic's to come!

Day of the Nasty's

Well... cold season has already hit here in Portland. Kids in the community have been hit with the snots and coughs. However, Mak today was a little off. When she went down for her nap she told me that her stomach hurt (If you are a parent you know where I'm going with this). Well after nap she came outside where I was gardening and let me know she was awake then she went and laid down on the couch. The next thing we heard was the scream that lets a parent know that something is not right. I got in there and she had thrown up all over our couch and the blanket she had cuddled up with. Poor little thing. By the time we got her to the doorway to finish throwing up outside , she was already done. So we got her cleaned up and pulled the couch covers off two of the cushions and started a wash. She did throw up one other time in the bathroom later. But thankfully she made it to where we had put a pot. Oh, but it gets better.

Her brother will not be out done by his older sister. It was getting time for bath and we smelled an all too familar smell from Zeke's diaper. Greg, Mak, and myself went upstairs to get the bath ready. When we called for Zeke he came upstairs with his hands in the air. He had his poop all over BOTH hands and we look at him closer. He had finger painted his manuer all over his shirt. To say the least, the other 3 of us started gagging and got him changed. I threw away that shirt. I didn't even want to deal with it! It will be remembered as the Day of the Nastys.


YUCK!!!!

Saved to Serve

The following is a Tozer devotional I receive via email once a day. This one I thought was worth retelling, but then changed my mind and thought it safer to have it copied into the blog. That way I can't butcher it.

Hope you enjoy it but more importantly hope it challenges you!


"August 29

Evangelism: Salvation Apart from Obedience

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
--Ephesians 2:10

Therefore, I must be frank in my feeling that a notable heresy has
come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circles--the
widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ
only because we need Him as Savior and we have the right to postpone
our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to!...

I think the following is a fair statement of what I was taught in
my early Christian experience and it certainly needs a lot of
modifying and a great many qualifiers to save us from being in
error.

"We are saved by accepting Christ as our Savior; we are sanctified
by accepting Christ as our Lord; we may do the first without doing
the second!"

The truth is that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the
sacred Scriptures. Peter makes it plain that we are "chosen
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the
sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience" (1 Peter 1:2).
I Call It Heresy, 1-2.

"Lord, as I rejoice in the free gift of salvation, by grace through
faith, remind me regularly that it is a salvation unto good works,
that we're saved to serve. Amen." "

Yeah, Jen has a friend...actually friends!

I know. Lame long title name. But I think I actually skipped, or maybe that's hopped up my stairs tonight. I knows it only been over 3 weeks since moving to the PNW, however when I get locked in an area with no other outlet for relationships other than my wonderful husband and fantastic kids and their books that I've read a MILLION times... I start to hit my head against the wall. I had all of these wonderful notions that I was going to hibernate in my house for the next 6 months and sew and scrapbook and read. Yep, I've done some of that and you know what I realized. I'm way too relational to sit by myself day after day after day. Oh, don't get me wrong. I love my quiet time at night. I just like to break it up after a while. Okay, so where am I going with this? Well... I have 3 new friends and working on developing some more. There is Jamie (who has a daughter named Sarah 18 months old), then Jodi ( has a son named Aiden that is 14 months old) and then there is Liz ( who has a daughter named Sarah 3 yrs, Justice 2 yr, and Ruthie 9 month old). Then there is Sam who has two kids. Their daughter is Vanessa who Mak has befriended. Last night Greg and I went out on a double date! Yeah, for PTO (parent time out)! We went to Edgefield with Aaron and Liz. They were so much fun. It was great to talk about God, kids, church, school, family, future, missions w/ another couple. I came home jabbering from the excitement. Then today with more interactions from the moms, I had the thought "Thank you God, that you know me better than I know myself. You knew that I needed these women". I've been praying for my kids to make friends and that they feel like they are home. But It hasn't been a real sincere prayer for myself to have that. Not sure why. But God thankfully gives us beyond what we ask for, He gives us what we need. So often we talk about God giving us what we need and not just what we ask for, we almost have this negative spin on it. Like God has then denied us something that is pleasurable. Which I would say,that might be the case in some matters. But it also is taken that God knows what we need even if we are clueless. He doesn't always wait for use to clue in and then ask for something. He also gives graciously and meeting all of our needs. Thank God He does that. Other wise I would be walking around the house ripping into my loved ones not knowing what was wrong with me! I simply needed other women to bond with.

So Yeah for friends! Yeah for future possibilities! And the biggest Yeah is that God actually gets Me!

Ask... and Celebrate

So we have offically been living in Portland for two weeks today. And guess what? Mak is at her first sleepover in the PNW. I don't know why that surprises me. God has graciously given Makayla a little girl named Vanessa, who is 5 years old, to befriend. Vanessa loves to play rough outside and yet loves to play dress up and be fancy. Mak told me tonight, after I said I worked out the details with the mom, that she was so happy that God gave her a friend to have fun with up here...because she missed Eli and Vivi. Which of course put tears in my eyes. I'm a little emotional these days. I've been going through the book study of Daniel by Beth Moore. The focus today was how Daniel prayed desperately for the Lord to reveal the Kings' dream. And when the Lord did, Daniel immediately responded to God that the insight and answers came from God alone. That God grates us wisdom and power. He gives and takes away. God answers our prayers. Daniel remembered that and celebrated in the fact that God chose to reveal the answer to Daniel. (His neck WAS on the line-- literally). But the thought from Moore was how often we pray intently for God to reveal/answer us and then when He does, we have almost lost interest in the subject because we have already gone onto another desire to pray for. We don't take time to celebrate in His answers. I was convicted today. And then later convicted again when my child recognized that it was God who gave her a new friend. And that it was God who knew she was missing her best buds back in Cali. And when she realized that she had something special she did not wait to thank Him and to acknowledge Him. Oh, how children put me on my knees. I am humbled by their faith and their trust in the Lord. Just to note, I'm the first to acknowledge that my children are not perfect-- I mean look at their mom! But those moments when you see God's grace in their life and His work molding their character--- it causes me to celebrate God.

So take some time to celebrate today!!!