Wow, I cannot believe that it  has been a whole  year since my last posting.  Time flies.  Much has changed during this laps in time.  One  of the biggest things in our family is that we are now a homeschooling family.  Being able to proclaim such a title, brings me great joy.  I had had homeschooling in my heart for many years but due to many reasons it never happened.  In God's ever perfect timing, I know that I was not ready to take on such an important challenge until now.  I don't think that I was as committed as I thought I was.  I am not going to sugar coat the decision and say that we are always gazing in each others eyes and singing hymns of praise for homeschooling.  There are times of real challenge.  I admit that I have threatened them with sending them back to school.  But if I'm honest, I will say that I stopped doing that because I wondered if I was going to concede to that urge someday.  But the beauty of God's graciousness is that he gives me the strength to carry on.  The moments of frustration are paled in comparison to the moments of shear gratitude for the ability to pour into my children with all my heart.  I feel such passion to teach them everything that I feel is important for them to learn.   Number one is the love of Christ.  In this life we will all face troubles.  I want my kids to have the strength of God as their number one tool to get them through life's uncertainty.  I already see that they are becoming mighty warriors for God.  My strength is restored by the moments when I see them quietly praying and reading their bibles.  There is no greater gift.  Our lives have changes, especially mine.  But I know that I am truly living in a moment in time when I will look back and be ever so glad that I was able to let go of my free time to embrace the small window of time that my kids are young and still enjoy spending time with me.  I hope that they will also look back at this time as being the best times of their lives.  Some day they will look back, when they are all grown up and have children of their own, and realize that the sacrifices we made today are because of the love that we have for them.  And just maybe, they will pick a wife that would be willing to love and embrace my grandchildren in the same way.  Blessings to you all.

Here are a few pictures I never posted:

Before the walls of the house were painted, we wrote scripture in every room of the home.  Dylan especially enjoyed this activity.  For the first time ever it was okay to write on the walls.  Here he is writing on the front door:

I love his misspellings 

Here is Stan writing the scripture he picked for his office.

Here is my brother-in-law, Anthony, who wrote scripture in the boys' rooms.

Me, writing in our master bedroom.

More pictures to come....