Meg being her silly self. 

Da babies! 

Nate on da scooter. 

Zack in da car. 

The little guy I'm babysitting--good cheesy shot! 

What I'm reading

In response to a request about what my small group is currently reading, here it is. It's called "Intimate Issues--21 Questions Christian Women Ask About Sex", by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus. It's really a great Bible study about intimacy in marriage. I'll give you a brief run down about what we've read thus far:

Chapter 1: What does God think about sex?
Answers: He designed it for us, for a husband in wife, for these reasons:
1. To create life--of course :)
2. Intimate oneness--can be likened to Christ's oneness with the church
3. Knowledge--of one another--can bring depth to the relationship
4. Pleasure--Just read the Song of Solomon!
5. Defense against temptation--Proverbs 5:15 "Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. v18 "...rejoice in the wife of your youth". v 19 "may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love."
6. Comfort--Remember how King David comforted Bathsheba after their first son died? Men especially release tension in sexual release.

Chapter 2: How can I be Godly and sensuous?
Answers: Many parallels are drawn from Solomon's bride, "Shulamith", from the Song of Solomon. The authors give this portrait of her as a godly and sensuous woman.
1. She is responsive.
2. She is adventurous.
3. She is uninhibited.
4. She is expressive.
5. She is sensuous.
God wants us to rejoice and give in to our sensuousness, to hold nothing back, and immerse ourselves in the intimate relationship with our husband. We need to give ourselves permission to be sensuous! Women tend to divide their spiritual and physical selves, living in a "two-story house". The point of this chapter is to encourage us that we can be spiritual while we're ministering to our husbands in bed.
"Eat friends, drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers" SOS 5:1

Chapter 3--How do I shift into sexual gear?
Answers: Very hard sometimes, especially for moms of young kids.
The "mind is our most important sexual organ".
Major premise: We can control our thoughts.
Minor premise: Our feelings come from our thoughts.
Conclusion: We can control our feelings by learning to change the way we think.
Our mind-set will determine the way we view sex. Our mind-set is comprised of past experiences, what we were taught, voices we listen to, and what we choose to embrace or reject.
Romans 12:2-- "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
We can picture our mind as a flower bed. We need to uproot the weeds of wrong thoughts and attitudes, and plant the seeds of scripture.
Good seeds: Proverbs 5:19-- 19 A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.
SOS 5:16--His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
SOS 7:10--I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.
The right sexual thoughts become actions which eventually become habits and new attitudes. Sexual thoughts--->Meditated thoughts--->Decision--->Action--->Continued Action--->Habit--->Attitude

I'm liking it so far. If you have any insights into sexuality in marriage, please respond. Maybe you can buy the book and join in too :)

Finally! Our fourth and fifth days at Florida!

I've posted the pics below. Can't believe I'm this late about it. My next project is making an amateur scrapbook about our adventures. We'll see how long that takes. Probably next year if I'm lucky :)

I will have a new baby by next week. No, I didn't lay an egg. I ordered a new laptop from Dell. They were having a great sale and I got an Inspiron with a duo core processor, great graphics card, and Windows Media Center and saved about $1000 on it with the sale, free shipping, and a few free upgrades. I will be able to post pics on there, and blog from there, and won't have to wait until naptime to run downstairs and do it quickly on the main PC. I'm so excited. And I've already ordered 2 new games too. :D Technology is great!

Wow! That was fun....for THAT guy, I'm sure! We saw him from the beach on our fourth day here. Spent the entire day lounging on the beach....nice! 

Bryan doing his favorite thing--playing in the ocean. I like it too, but I get out when I get wrinkly. Besides, I wanted to read my book in the comfort of my beach lounge! 

Bryan is holding some kind of really cool conch. With the really red conch still inside! Live shelling is illegal here, so every live thing we found we had to put back. Wish I had of gotten a better close up.  

A live sand dollar. I had no idea they were so fuzzy. It's little bristles were scratcy. 

The end of the beach and last day at Lover's Key state park. 

Sunrise over the bay outside our hotel balcony. It was breathtaking! Nice way to start off our last full day here. 

We decided to take a deep sea fishing tour on our last day. This is a big commercial fishing boat we saw while on our way to the fishing grounds. Took about 2 hours to get to the fishing spots. Didn't like the ride so much, but loved the fishing. 

One of the dolphins that followed our boat the entire trip. There was a mom and baby--not sure which this was. We threw fish to them, and they had a feast! 

One of our fellow passengers accidentally caught a sea turtle. They managed to get him cut out of the line though, so he's ok. I think that's the first wild sea turtle I ever saw! 

I LOVED this guy. For the life of me, I can't remember his name, but he was the classic, scruffy old seafarer. I almost expected him to have a peg leg and eye patch! He was one of the staff, had a hunchback, and had a great scratchy voice. He knew a lot about the different fish species however. Wish I could have spent more time talking to him. 

Our fish--I think we caught about 10-12. We donated them to the other folks on the boat. We didn't want to fly home with them, though I bet they would have fried up tasty! 

The only pic we managed to get of us together, but I like it. We wrapped up our last day in Florida with some deep sea fishing, followed by a frenzied rush back to the hotel, and a shower to get the fish stink off--then a trip to the local dinner theater. They were performing "Godspell", which I would recommend if you don't mind a musical, secular version of the book of Matthew. 

Bible school is over.

Our last night went well. The hardest part was dividing up the artwork and getting it to each class. We seemed to have a lot of kids with the same names! Would be a good strategy next time to write which class each child is in, but I probably won't be on board for it next year. Not that it was too hard for me, and it was pretty hard, but we may be expecting number three this time next year, so I'm putting off volunteering for anything for next year.

Sorry if I sounded too complainy in yesterday's post. I was just a bit overwhelmed with all the childcare and activity. Kids all day long from 6:30 am until 9:30 or so was tiring, but I'm glad Bible school went so well. I have fond memories of going to Bible school when I was a kid. Lots of popsicle stick crafts and volleyball, hot dogs, and "If you're happy and you know it".

I failed to get pics of our crafts, because I kept forgetting my camera. Had enough to pack in and out anyway. Just take my word for it, they were cute. Now, my next biggest project for the summer is swimming lessons for Meg. 5 days, 5-6 pm at the city pool. Hopefully, she'll do well and we'll have a little swimmer on our hands. We want our kids to know how to swim early. Bryan can't swim a lick and I'm not much better, so we want our kids to be able to at least save themselves if they fall in water--or get us if we fall in! :)

When I get back downstairs, I'll post more vacation pics. I think we have two days left. And I'm searching for a new laptop. Looking at the Dell XPS M1710--found some on the Dell Outlet, and they're good for gaming too :) This poor old laptop is on it's last leg, so anything will be better at this point!

Ehhhhh, I'm bored.....

Oh, man, last night of Bible School. It's kicked my behind this week. The kids have seemed to enjoy the projects, but 5 nights in a row with groups of children, and having 3 of them at home all day has just gotten me down. Zoe and I have both caught little colds with terrible runny noses this week from those little petri dishes, I mean precious children. I'm feeling so anti-child-caring right now. Totally unsure why I end up doing these things. I have little patience, though some keep telling me, "You're so patient with them". I'm like, "What?! Who are you comparing me to?!" Ok, so I don't bonk them in the head or choke them or throw things at them, but it's not like I haven't thought about it. Honestly, does anybody really enjoy working with little ones all day? They cry, they whine, they break the crayons, they won't participate, they hit each other over the head with their crafts--they're little monsters! Ok, ok, I do love them, and I know they must be raised and taught with love, but dog-gone it, I am hoarse from yelling over them to get them to hear. I'm tired--tired of teaching, tired of mothering, tired of GLUE!!!
"Lord, I pray that what I'm doing and all the other workers at VBS and the work of all the mothers I know will pay off--that the kids will come away with some deeper longing to know more of you, to keep asking, learning, leaning toward a relationship with their heavenly father. And I ask for utmost patience for us all and unconditional love all around. Amen."

And I want a new laptop, and a new computer game, and another vacation.... :)

Surviving Bible School!

Yay! 2 nights down, and no craft shortages, and everyone is doing well. The kids seemed to enjoy last night's crafts a lot, though they were a little more complicated. We made kayak paddles for the 2/3's and 4's and king's scepter's for the 5's and Kindergardeners. I failed to anticipate that the kiddos would use these objects for "swords" and kept whacking each other with them, but no one lost an eye, and I was even able to remind them of their Bible stories and verses. I'll try to get a pic or two on here when the week is over.

You can guess which class was the rowdiest---my child's class, of course. The 4 year olds, and they're the smallest class ths year too. Something about that age, I guess. I think they are learning a bigger vocabulary and have more dexterity, but just don't quite know how to control either one yet. But I love em. Tonight--"Jesus loves people" murals for the little ones, and arctic "flowers" for the bigger ones.

You can see our theme, the "Arctic Edge", at http://www.lifeway.com.

I'm kinda bummed...

Just need some prayer over a few issues going on.

Bible school--never have been the preschool craft director before, and I'm responsible for getting all the supplies and preparing them. It's stressed me out a bit, because what if we end up with more kids than I've bought for? I'm already a bit over budget, which the pastor said was fine, but if we--God be praised--have an overflow of kids? I've bought some extra, but is it enough? Anyway, so I'm stressin, hoping I have enough, hoping I'll have time to prepare it all.

I have a dear friend too, who is going through some serious stress right now. She has a physical challenge too, and now two jobs, and trying for a child...not really sure about the specifics, but she needs some prayer to pull her along.

And, a stranger request, but one that's bothered me this week a lot. I used to frequent a parenting message board last year, and haven't been on there for several months, but the other day, I got the urge to check it out, see any updates on babies, etc, and i found that one of the mothers on there just lost her husband a month ago in a car accident. She has a daughter my Zoe's age and is expecting their son next month. She's not working, and not financially stable and wondering how they will make it. Now the kicker--she's an ex porn star and an athiest. Not real sure what her husband's beliefs were, but nonethe less, the news bothered me. I didn't know her personally, but she was just one of the other moms on the boards, sharing baby pics and news, and just like that, her world is turned upside down in an instant, and she doesn't even have the Lord to fall back on. So, just sad, and praying that God will reveal himself to her in a miraculous way through this.

That's all for now. More vacation pics soon!

Our third day of vacation

Lots of pics here, and they're kinda self-explanatory, so no use adding more detail here. Enjoy!

Our first outing of the third day here--Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs. A family run park since the 60's, it smelled strongly of the sulfur water that permeated the exhibits. But, lots of variety in wildlife and a natural history museum too. Worth a quick visit. 

This is "Big Joe", the largest American crocodile. Unfortunately, he died back in 2003 of stomach cancer, so we only saw him stuffed. The advertisements didn't mention that... 

Our less than enthusiastic tour gude showing us a baby alligator. She must have been doing this tour a long time--she sounded like a robot. 

A beautiful banyan tree, native to India, I believe, here in the Wonder Gardens. 

A little river otter--I think his name was Oscar, doing a slide trick. 

A cute little lizard just hanging out. 

The swinging bridge over the alligators--a little nervewracking to walk across. 

Feeding time!! Look at those chompers!