My Light

"For with Thee is the fountain of life:

In Thy light shall we see light."

 

Christmas Eve Ponderings

Today, Christmas Eve Day, I find myself pondering things.

I wonder, what would have happened, so long ago in that Garden of Gethsemane, as Christ Jesus grappled with His Father......

What would have happened if He had said that day....

"No thanks, Dad, I don't think I'll do it.  Those people aren't worth it and I just don't have time to die for them.  It's too hard".

What would have happened?

The ramifications of this thought are too dire and too depressing for me to entertain.

And so....on this day before Christmas, as a silent and peaceful waiting fills my heart, I want to thank You, Jesus, for that willingness to take hold of the Father's plan for You.  Thank You for embracing the Father's very difficult and very scary will for You.  I pray that I would have that strength to follow Your example and not shirk Your will for me in my fear and mistrust of Your perfect plan.

Today I am so grateful that Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, the very Word become Flesh, died that cruel, intense, painfully humiliating death, the death of common criminals, just for me.

I'm filled with such joy and such sadness when I wonder if, when He was born to Mary in that stable, did He know? Did He know when He was young that He would be called on to suffer such a grisly and unbearable fate?

I think He did.  After all, He was God, in flesh...."veiled in flesh, the Godhead see! Hail the incarnate diety!"

I think He knew.  With crystal clear clarity.

And He came anyway.

Do you know this Christ of Whom I speak? If you do not...

Seek Him!
Find Him!
He waits for you.....He was born for you and He died for you!

Will you take Him into your heart today?     

My Life

This is a slice of what my life feels like right now.  For all of you readers out there who've been wondering what my brain looks like, here's a visual for you.
Daughter #6, who happens to be three right now, was having a great time that day.  She loves to do crazy things like this and talk to them and rearrange them....

It made me smile.  The sight of this odd jumble of Polly Pockets, animals, and the angel from our Play Mobile Nativity set, seen here without the hair and halo, gave me a great big belly laugh.

I see the joy in this jar.  I see the chaos.  I bet that cat is NOT liking the mix.  I think Barbecue Man, down on the bottom, is having a hard time breathing.

And that, my friends, is how I feel, by turns, these days.  Joyful.  Chaotic.  BEWILDERED.  STUCK.  Learning in the midst of it all.

How was your day?? 

A Lucie Update

I thought it would be fun to do an update on Lucie, something I've never really done before.

I had in my mind, when I was pregnant with her, to keep you all posted about how things were going and then, after she was born, I would be all cute and relevant and post regular, monthly updates about how she was doing and what she was doing and how cute and adorable she was.  I love to read updates like that on the blogs that I read! And well, after I started posting more regularly again....I stopped posting regularly again!

I am making an effort to remedy that.  I want to post every day and include pictures, which I am determined to have interspersed through my posts, like my favorite bloggers do.

So, here's a Lucie update post!

Lucie is 10 months old now.  I know, I can't believe it either!  to me, the time since she was born has flown a lot quicker  than it has with any of my other children.  It seems as I get older, time's wings get swifter.  I don't like it at all!

Where to start? She really has blossomed this month.  She has four teeth, two on the top and two on the bottom, and yes, her smile is the most adorable thing, especially when she wrinkles up her little noses and squints her eyes! Exactly like this picture below!

She looooooves, I mean Loves her sisters big time.  She never wants for people to hold her.  All she has to do is bat her little eyelashes and at least three little mommies come running to hold her!

She weighs about 18 or so pounds and is about 29 inches long,  I think.  I think she's small for her age, compared to other babies we know who are around her age (not that I'm into comparing or anything).  We hardly ever take our kids to the doctor, so I'm not real sure on those stats, but that's what she feels and looks like to me.

She is wearing a size 3 diaper right now, although I was forced, when I went to my local Safeway, to get her a size 4 in a brand that I did NOT want to buy, since they were 6 dollars more than the Fred Meyer diapers I usually buy! But, beggars can't be choosers, and it was 9 o'clock at night when I discovered that we were out of diapers and so,  I had to buy them.  I hate them and will never use them again, if I can help it.  I bet you're dying to know what brand they were, huh? Well, they were Pampers.  Yuck!

She hasn't started crawling yet.  Wait.  What I mean is, she hasn't started crawling in the conventional way yet.......but she does do "The Baby Frog" scoot, as I like to call it.  She will dig her big toes into the floor and pull herself around by her arms, while on her tummy.  It is sooo cute! She looks just like a frog swimming!

If we stand her up against the couch, she cruises along it one way, but she won't come back! If I'm sitting at one end and I stand her up next to me, she'll cruise to the other end of the couch, alllll the way to the end, then she'll look at me as if to say "What now?" It's the funniest thing!

She's eating lots of foods now and is really good at putting stuff in her mouth! She's a human vacuum cleaner! She loves cooked carrots, green beans, noodles, fried potatoes, bananas, peaches, avocados, yogurt, chicken, stew meat...and lots of other stuff too! She will not let me put mashed potatoes or rice of any kind in her mouth.  She won't eat baby food peaches either.  

She takes two naps or so a day.  Her morning nap is her longest and I'm blessed that she sleeps for 3 to 4 hours.  She'll take another nap around 4 or 5 and sleep for about 2 hours.

She is still nursing regularly, about four times a day or so.

She sleeps through the night most nights.  She goes down at about 10 and most nights she sleeps till 4:30 am, then she'll go back to sleep till around 9.  A couple of nights she may wake up at 2:30 and that's when I struggle to be a true Christian!!

She has the bluest eyes I've seen!

She's wearing 12-18 mth clothes, although they're a bit big on her right now, but she has grow room!

She is very, very attached to Mama.  She follows me with her eyes whenever I put her down and walk away or around the room.  Now that she's mobile, she can find me and that's so happy for her! I've never had a baby who's so attached to me.  It's fulfilling and disconcerting at the same time!

I think that's it.  I love her so much.  She fills our lives in ways I never imagined she would.  Everyone loves her around here.  All of the girls are getting really good "babysitting" experience while I do the things I need to do each day.

Thanks for reading!

 

Sisters

My oldest daughter took this picture.

I love it.

It was an unexpected image that she was not trying to catch on film.  She was trying to take a picture of Lucie by the window when Sofia walked in front of the camera just as she pressed the button.

And this is what it turned out like.

These are my two littlest babies.  And this image tears my heart.  One is almost not in that "baby" stage anymore, and thankfully, the other still is!

I'm so glad God has allowed me to have all of these children, and I'm so glad He's blessed me with these

Sisters.

A Question for You

Question:

How do you link to your blog on Facebook? I see my friends linking to their blogs, and when I tried to investigate doing it myself, I didn't get anywhere.

So, all of you techie gals out there, please tell me how to do it in your comment, but in English, if you please!

Thanks!

Bread

I'm breaking down and posting my bread recipe.

I was terrified of yeast breads for many, many a year.  I had never come across a recipe that took less than three hours for good bread.

Until about a year and a half ago.  I found a recipe on accident and thought it sounded pretty easy.  I adapted it and embellished it a bit.......

It was SO easy!  It blew me away with how easy it was and how few ingredients it called for.  Not only was it easy and cheap, but it was so quick!

So, because I love you all so much, and because I want to spread the loooove to ya'll......

Here's the recipe!

Easy Bread

2 1/2 cups hot water (I just use the hot faucet water; let it get really hot!)
1 TBSP plus 1/2 tsp yeast
2 C whole wheat flour

Place the water in a large bowl.  Sprinkle yeast on top of the water.  Add the two cups of flour and gently stir until the flour is wet.  Don't stir it to death!  Let this sit for 20 minutes.  It will foam up and bubble.  While it sits, grease two loaf pans and get the next ingredients ready......

1/3 C brown sugar or honey
1/3 C olive oil
2 tsp salt
5-6 C wheat flour

 Preheat oven to 200 degrees.  Add the sugar or honey, oil and salt to the bubbly flour mixture.  Gradually add the flour, one cup at a time and stir gently.  Keep adding the flour and stirring until the dough looks a bit dry and comes away from the sides of the bowl.  On the surface where you will knead the flour, generously sprinkle extra flour. I knead my bread on a large cutting board surface.  Any surface will work, as long as you have a cup of flour next to you that you can sprinkle on your surface as you knead.  Dump the dough out on your floured surface.  Sprinkle more flour onto the dough.  Knead dough for about 6-10 minutes, until the dough is soft and smooth, making sure to sprinkle flour onto your surface so that the dough does not stick.  Cut dough in half.  Shape into two loaves.  Place dough into your greased loaf pans.  Place in preheated oven.  Let rise for about 15 minutes, or until dough is about an inch above the top of your pans.  Turn oven up to 350 degrees.  Bake loaves for 25 minutes.

That's IT!!!

Easy cheesy!

Try it and let me know how you like it.  You can combine white flour and wheat flour too.  This makes beautiful mini loaves too, to give as gifts.  You can brush your crusts with butter after they come out of the oven to give it a nice shiny look and make the crust really soft.  Believe me when I say that if I can make this bread, anybody can!