Celebrating family

 This week holds several special events for our family. TODAY is my dear husband Charlie's  birthday. He got bogged down in work crisis  and had no weekend off for us to celebrate, he is stuck out of town tonight for his actual birthday so no celebrating today...who knows what tomorrow will look like!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my HONEY!!

Pappa Charlie and his Little Charlie, August 2010

Gift from Sopheak ...for our hay bale out back...

My honey and me at Malachi's wedding

and it is Grandbaby Charlie's  FIRST  birthday!  How fast this year has flown!!

 A few weeks  PRE-Charlie

Labor day  morning. Of course, a cell phone and a popsicle

Early evening on Septmeber 14 Charlie David arrived. Hannah was  a

pretty happy Mamma!

                                                  Two weeks later

Three months old  Our favorite Christmas Elf!

September 11, 2010 First Fund Raiser: helping his Mommy

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This week we will have a birthday party for he and his big sister  Madyson whose 6th brithday is later in September.
 IF the weather holds, we'll have a BBQ and pool party at none other than G-Ma and Pappa Charlie's CALICO ACRES  FARM. If it too cool the lauau will be a bon fire and horse back riding event!!

Here's Mady this spring when she and Naomi went berry picking in our back yard.
Such a pretty Grand daughter!


 And then there are Engagements and wedding plans  ...

Emily this June at her high school graduation

Emily with Dad Joshua and
 Mom Diana

MY oldest Granddaugther is
ENGAGED
TO BE MARRIED!!!!!!!!!

And of course, wonderful daughter Esther  and Casey are  busily preparing for THEIR  November 6 wedding

OH  Blast from the past!!!!  The day after I graduated from Nursing School, Charlie and I had our wedding rehearsal and were maried the next day, Saturday  September 18 in a late moring ceremony.  The year?  1982. Twenty eight years ago!
We're holding up pretty well, judging form the photo of us from Malachi's wedding in August, Ya think!!!?

ALWAYS  an event to celebrate or to plan for around here!  How I praise God for all of the blessings which bind this family together  and  for all the answers to prayer we have experienced over the years as we have grown from a  divorced single mom  -Nursing student and a Forestry-turned- Geology student who married over a free weekend to start married life that following Monday, to the couple and family that God has been growing and cultivating ever since!!! My favorite verse for our family is in the header of this blog....."And all your children shall be taught of the Lord and great will be the peace of your children" Its my challenge with every new day and its often the answer to my prayers at the end of the day. Truly I can say that "The joy of the Lord  IS  my strength!" I know it is not me.  One  translation of Colossians 1:29 says... "And this is my work . I can do it only because of God's mighty power at work within me." I love that verse too!! It is a reminder to me that IT IS  only God's mighty power, at work within me that accomplishes anything, and then ,  only when I allow my Heavenly Father  free reign, and stay in a right , loving relationship with Him. Those things I launch out and attempt on my own may look "great" for a while, but .... When they are NOT  the steps ordered ( not as in BOSSED AROUND)  by God  for me to be taking, it is not until my awareness of self,  my repentance, and restoration -after- forgivness,   when I  open my heart again for God to direct and for me to follow.,  THEN  those things can be made right, be re-directed or  scrapped.  We've made plenty of" those decisions " along the way in 28 years!!! God is always so gracious and merciful ( a number of times I have KNOWN  very very  well, it was only mercy that sustained us ) as He showers us with His love  and continues to call us the "apple of His eye"  and to sing over us. How can I not be totally in love with God my Heavenly Father? How can I not want to serve Him and follow Him EVERYWHERE, ANY WHERE? How can I not want to know Him better and better, more and more closely? And yet  there have been, there are:  days, weeks ,  that I don't.   I get lazy, self-sufficicent, too busy to commune with my God, and zap, slip slide boom..............I've fussed at a child too harshly, not recognized my husband's needs anywhere close to adequately, wasted way too much time, not loved on my children or taught them as they need me to!  My favorite Scripture verses are not "pats on my back"  by any stretch. They are reminders to me of who I am called to be, and WHO  calls me.  Thirty  six years of being a mom, 28 years of mariage and I KNOW that I know that I KNOW that I  know I still have a LOT to learn!  I do  have a lot to share,  and I am so aware of that too. . We are all people, in need of a Savior, not a pedestal or a perpetual critic. We all need encouraging, teaching, correction, fellowship; .we all need Jesus. We need the Word.  John  said,  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God. The same was in the beginning with God." God is  and is  IN  His Word. We all need Him desperately!!
I want to encourage you, I want to be encouraged  too.
Its great to celebrate family, but so much greater still to share what God has taught through the blessings of  a family life being  lived,  learning how to know God better!