Why 9?

God has blessed our lives with nine wonderful children. Most people today would consider this to be exteme. There was a time we would have thought so, too! We used to make all of our decisions in life based on what our culture said we should do – we didn’t know any better – it’s what everyone did.

Enter the Lord in our lives, and the reality that truth is what God says, not what man says. Before we became Christians, “we” were on the throne of our lives. We did what was best in our own eyes, which usually came down to doing what we wanted to do or what society said we should do to be acceptable. After becoming Christians, God began to show us that we needed to take “us” (and the culture) off of the throne and put Him on the throne (where He rightly belongs). This meant that we would follow His will, not our own, and do what is right in God’s eyes, not our own.

How do we know God’s will? First and foremost, by reading and searching out the Bible. He gave His Word to us to show us who He is and what His will is. That is why we have it! Here are some truths that we found upon searching out Scripture:

1. Children are a blessing from the Lord. This is spoken in plain words as well as principle throughout Scripture. Children are always referred to as a blessing in Scripture, never as a curse.

“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.”
Psalm 127: 3-5

Some other verses to check out are Psalm 128, Leviticus 26:9 and Mark 10:13-16. This is just the tip of the iceberg on God’s view of children. I don’t intend to give a full theological thesis here! – just sharing what we’ve found – please check out God’s Word for yourself prayerfully – He has promised to show us truth.

2. God is the creator. He has, in His beautiful plan, allowed us to participate, but He is the One who opens and closes the womb. He is the One who creates new life.

“Know that the Lord Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”
Psalm 100:3

Also look at Job 33:4, Isaiah 43:1, Job 10:8-12, as well as numerous examples of God opening and closing the womb throughout the Bible (read Hannah’s story).

3. God is God. He is in charge. He is sovereign. He is omniscient – He knows better than I do what is best in any given matter. It is His place to decide who He wants to create and when He wants to create them. He is the Potter, I am the clay – it is not my place to dictate to Him what He is to do. He is transcendent – He is so far above man and man’s meager thoughts.

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth, Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.”
I Chronicles 29:11“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9

See also Isaiah 45:9, Daniel 4:34-35 and Jeremiah 18:6.

4. Life isn’t about “me” – it’s about God and His plan and His glory. His love for us is greater than any love we can comprehend, but that does not cause Him to bow to us and worship us – we are to bow to Him and worship Him. This is easier when we understand how much He loves us and wants what is best for us (and He alone knows what is best for us). His love went all the way to the cross for us -

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Galatians 2:20

Life isn’t about “me”. It is about serving, trusting and glorifying God. His will is the one that matters – His will is the one that is perfect. And He is the one who deserves and receives all the glory.

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?
Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
Romans 11:33-36

These days the term “quiverfull” (derived from Psalm 127) has been coined to refer to trusting the Lord for the blessing of children in His time and in His will. It is not about having a large family – it is simply about receiving with gratitude the blessings that the Lord has planned for us – whether that be many, few or none. It is about trusting Him to determine when and how many children will be born in our family, rather than trying to control this ourselves.

I will be posting a Quiverfull Blogroll on my sidebar in the near future. You might want to visit some of these blogs and read about others’ lives and experiences as they trust the Lord for the blessing of children in their lives!

So. . .why 9? Because that is how many children God has blessed us with!

And when we look into the face of each one of them, we are so thankful that they are here – each a wonderful, unique creation of God, for His glory and His purpose.

Blessings,
Nancy

Thankful Thursday

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Today is the first of a regular weekly blog called “Thankful Thursday”. Every Thursday I will be blogging about something(s) that I am thankful for that week. It may be something general or specific to that week, or both! I hope you enjoy these posts and that they will inspire you to thoughts of thankfulness – as is my goal for my own life.

This week I am thankful for bedtime stories with little ones. Every night I dress Anna and David in their pajamas (and myself, too) and then we snuggle up in my bed and read bedtime stories. Right now I have flannel sheets on the bed which makes it extra cozy. Some nights they pick the stories, and some nights I do, but usually we read about 4-6 books. I love children’s books, and have them lining many bookshelves in my home, so there is always an abundance to choose from. After we finish reading, the little ones drift off to sleep (many times, me too!). This is a special, relaxing time of day for us and I’m thankful that it is a part of each evening in my life right now.

If you’d like to read what some other people are thankful for, click the link below to find other blogs participating in Thankful Thursday!

Blessings,
Nancy

Quilling

We (the girls) learned a wonderful new craft last night! It was our monthly Keepers of the Faith meeting at church and the girls group learned to quill. In case you’re unfamiliar with quilling, it is a paper craft that is simple and inexpensive, and you can create some really beautiful pictures for cards, scrapbooks, or decoration. It basically consists of rolling and shaping thin strips of paper to create a design. The girls all made a sample card first of various shapes.

Then they made the little tags you see at the beginning of this post. They will need to complete 3 more projects to earn the badge, but Sarah was already working on one right away when we got home. It was a little tedious for Anna, but she and I worked together on it until she got tired. We brought home patterns to make a kitty, an artist’s palette (sp?), an Easter basket, a picket fence with flowers and a scrolly heart, so we will have some fun ahead of us! This is a very simple craft with lovely results!

Blessings,
Nancy

Lattice Top Cherry Pie

I made cherry pies last Friday (George Washington’s birthday). It was very simple, but I did try something new, so I thought I’d share it with you.

I basically just put a refrigerated pie shell in a pie plate, smoothed it out really nice and then dumped canned pie cherries into the shell. I was supposed to use 2 cans of cherries per pie, but one of my cans was expired, so I ended up using 1 1/2 cans per pie. (I was making 2 pies.)

Now we come to the “something new” – for me anyway. I decided to make lattice tops for my pies. Some of you are laughing right now, having made lattice tops more times than you can even count, but for me it was a first – so bear with me!

I thought I could probably figure out how to do it, but because I’m the perfectionist type, I wanted to be sure I did it right. . .so, I pulled out my Martha Stewart baking cookbook to see what she had to say about it. Lo and behold, she had a photo demonstration in there of how to make a lattice crust – Bingo! It turns out that I was glad I looked it up, because she offered a tip that made the difference between total frustration and relative ease in weaving my crusts. But, I get ahead of myself. . .here’s how to make the lattice crust:

1. Slice a prepared pie crust into strips.

2. Lay every other strip on the pie in the same direction, leaving spaces between them and placing them with the short strips on the ends and the longer strips in the middle.

3. Now for the wonderful tip! – gently fold back every other strip on the
top of the pie, so that you can lay a strip across it without having to
actually weave it under.

4. Lay the first strips back down where they go, and gently fold the
alternating strips back. Lay the next strip down.

5. Keep alternating folding back the strips and laying a strip across until you have used up all of the strips and your pie is nicely lattice weaved.

6. Tuck the ends of the strips under the bottom pie crust edge to seal.

7. I sprinkled sugar over the top before baking (another tip from Martha).

I cooked the pies at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then turned the temperature down to 325 degrees and baked them for about 45 minutes (the recipe on my cherry can said 30 min., but I had 2 pies and they were in stone pie plates, so I think that accounts for the extra time.) Just bake them until the top is golden.

Now, this might be easier to understand if I had pictures, but I didn’t think to take any until the pies were out of the oven. Hopefully, you can understand my directions. Please ask if you need clarification. Of course, most of you probably already knew this, so you can just smile and add any tips you might have!

I’m sure Martha would be much prouder of me if I actually made my pie crust from scratch, but that is too ambitious for me right now – I was doing good to get them done this way! Oh, by the way, here is how they turned out –

My filling erupted through the top, maybe because I didn’t have enough filling to hold the strips up higher. Anyway, they were delicious just the same! I will certainly try it again, maybe with a peach pie…ummm!

Blessings,
Nancy

Mindful Monday

Aside from the normal everyday tasks that await me this week, here is a list of some things that I need or want to accomplish:

1. Send a thank you note to friends who had us all over for lunch and the afternoon yesterday.

2. Declutter different areas around the house. I am trying to do this on an ongoing basis – usually working on the areas that bother me the most at the time. This week will probably be toys and my bedroom/bathroom.

3. Review with the children their progress on their goals for badges in their Keepers of the Faith program – meeting is this Wednesday evening.

4. Make plans for Leap Day – I want to do something special, but so far I only have Leap Frog on the list.

5. Finish my February “Be Attitudes” quilt block. Pick up the March block at the quilt store on Saturday.

6. Write my first “Thankful Thursday” post – where I will be sharing thankful thoughts each week, as well as a post about why we have 9 chikdren – in case any of you have ever wondered!

This should be enough to keep me busy – but, of course. there will be many other things that will pop up, so we’ll see what gets done! The Lord is teaching me to be content with this reality, though, so I will not be too concerned when it happens.

“The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

                                                        -Proverbs 16: 9

Blessings,

Nancy

Our Dinosaur Outing

We had a fun field trip yesterday visiting a robotic dinosaur exhibit. It was set up outdoors at our local natural science museum. It proved to be a wonderful outing – the weather was crisp, but sunny, the dinosaurs were fun and interesting, and we had the whole trail to ourselves since we arrived around 3 pm when all of the school groups had left.

First we toured the indoor portion of the museum, full of great hands-on educational fun, including live snakes (that part wasn’t hands-on!), real dinosaur skulls and bones, and a literal trip inside the body of a Kronosaurus. We could have spent much more time in this portion, but decided to move on to the outside exhibit, and save some indoor fun for the next visit.

The robotic dinosaurs were set up along a walking trail which led us through a wooded area. They were spread out all along the path. All of the dinosaurs moved in some way (including their eyes – creepy!), and made noises. Anna covered her ears every time one made a noise, although they weren’t really loud – she felt safer that way, I think – I kept reminding her that they weren’t really alive, but she wasn’t too sure! (She didn’t really act scared – covering her ears seemed to make everything okay.)

Here are some of the pictures of our visit -

This was the first stop on the tour – notice Anna’s covered ears.

Laura with her favorite dinosaur – she was really into dinosaurs a while back and read everything she could find about them for months.

There was a small log cabin along the trail. We examined the log construction and talked about chinking – this was very interesting to Tommy and Sarah, as they are reading Farmer Boy and Little House on the Prairie in school right now.

Michael and a blue stegosaurus.

Sarah and a baby brontosaurus – the “mama bronto” was across the sidewalk from them.

This brachiosaurus was tall enough to eat from the treetops!

This guy looked like a small T-Rex, and seemed quite ferocious!

And here is the giant T-Rex! He was very impressive – notice his size compared to the kids!

The last one actually spit water out of it’s mouth, which, of course, the kids thought was really cool!

No, this one is not a dinosaur, but he has been known to roar from time to time…

It was a great field trip, enjoyed by all. We want to go back when things are green and blooming and explore the other nature trails. Of course, it was especially nice to top off the afternoon with a trip to Braum’s for ice cream cones. And then, there were those cherry pies… but I’ll save that for another post.

Blessings,
Nancy

Field Trip Friday (and other fun stuff)

Jeff is home from work today – we are all going on a field trip to a Dinosaur Exhibit. These are robotic dinosaurs and should be quite fun and interesting. I will post pictures later on.

Tonight is our weekly late night crew cookout – we will be grilling chicken. Usually we don’t end up eating until around 11, as we don’t start cooking until the younger kids go to bed. The littles and middles will have frozen pizza for dinner. It is Dad’s movie night, so he gets to pick the movie for late night – many times that means an old war movie (he loves to threaten us with the marathon “Midway” movie!)

In honor of George Washington’s birthday today, I plan to make cherry pies. This won’t be anything complicated – just refrigerated pie crusts and canned cherry pie filling.

I’m hoping to have some time later today to do a little quilting. I’m working on a a quilt called “Be Attitudes” by Nancy Halvorsen. I signed up for the Block of the Month program at a local quilt store. On the first of each month, they give me all of the fabrics I need to make each month’s block. I’m trying to get each block done that month – it helps to have the deadline for myself, and a month is ample time to get it done, so it’s fun and not stressful. I’ll post a picture soon.

Blessings,
Nancy

Looky here!

Not only are my daffodils starting to come up, but this one is already getting ready to bloom! It must be as anxious as we are for spring!

Birdfeeders tour

Well, I did make it to Wal-mart and found several bird feeders to hang in the yard. I thought I’d take you on a tour of them, so here goes:

This one is the smallest and is hanging on a Crepe Myrtle outside the kitchen window.

This larger one is on a different Crepe Myrtle outside the kitchen window. It has cages on the sides to hold suet and is my favorite because it is shaped like a barn.

This one is a squirrel proof feeder. It is on a spring and when something heavier than a bird perches on it, it slides down and the holes close up. I like the metal leaves on this one. It is located in the front yard, so I will watch this one from the front porch.

This is our old squirrel feeder. It is really fun to watch a squirrel open it up and eat out of it. It is also in the front yard. It hasn’t been filled in so long, it may take the squirrels awhile to realize that it’s open for business again!

So far, we have seen birds coming to the feeders outside the kitchen window, mostly in the mornings. There is a cardinal family that we’ve seen alot – Dad, Mom and babies – as well as some chickadees. Laura saw a robin this morning also. I haven’t noticed any birds on the metal feeder yet, but I have to look out front for that one, so I may have missed them. I also haven’t seen a squirrel on their feeder yet, but there was evidence that something has visited there.

We are keeping a list of the birds we see and hope to see a good variety once the word gets out that there are fresh feeders out!

Blessings,
Nancy

Birdhouses

My birdhouse situation is sad. We used to have 4 or 5 birdhouses around that were usually very busy, but one by one, they have broken and gone away. We are now down to 2, which really is only 1, because as I was examining one yesterday, I determined that it was beyond repair. And really the 1 that remains is not very functional (which is probably why it is still around) – the plastic side panels are always sliding down so that no food can come out to keep the tray filled.

My kitchen window looks out on a row of Crepe Myrtle trees, which is where I love to watch the birds while at the sink. This is where the robin family (of about 50!) has been visiting every afternoon while I am cooking dinner. I don’t know where they go during the day, but every afternoon, they arrive outside my window like clockwork. It has been so much fun to watch them, as they hop around the ground looking for dinner.

I am starting to see many other birds out and about, as the weather begins to warm up, and heads toward spring. This has made me want to get my birdfeeders back up and going. I know, I know. . .most people would have wanted them up during the winter to help feed the birds throughout the cold months – but really, it doesn’t get very cold here and we haven’t had one drop of snow all winter (boo hoo!), so the birds have been fine here.

All of this to say that I may make a trip to Wal-Mart today and see what they have in stock. I would like to hang several in the Crepe Myrtles and maybe one on the kitchen window. When it gets warm enough daily to be porch weather, I will probably put some out in the yard, where I can watch them from the porch.

I may hang a chart close to the kitchen window, so that we can record the different birds we see, and place our bird book in close reach, to look up those we are unfamiliar with. I need to sort through our “about birds” books to find some to read to Michael (and anyone else who wants to listen!), as he is working on a badge for Keepers Club on birds.

I’ll post some pictures of what I come up with, but for now, I’m off to start school and begin this day.

Blessings,
Nancy