Pixiemom

We’ve been attending this church since the beginning of January. The last few weeks, we’ve been taking a New Members Class to learn about the church, it’s doctrine, ministries, and… well, all those kinds of things. We put in for membership today. I look forward to being a part of this church and finding where I can serve in it.

In other news, I have now updated this blog with the missing posts. I still need to find a new theme for it.

I want to ask for your prayers for me for my health. I have been… off for the last two months. It’s like a lot of little things, but all of them together made me head to the dr. I’ve had some tests done and have to go back in April for more. It might be a while before we know exactly what is going on, but that’s life and most of the time I think I can handle it.

Oh, Noelle and AnnaBeth ask for prayers for their friend’s mom who is having a baby today. This is another homeschool from our church. This little boy really likes both of my little ones, especially AnnaBeth, and they love him. He missed church today because him mom is having the baby (their fourth child) and the girls are asking for prayers.

I think I’ll stop there for now. I’m sure I have more news to say, but I’ll do another post soon… I hope.

For those who read this on my actual blog and not on Facebook, I need to bring a few of my posts back in that got lost and redo my theme, so please hang in there.

To all of you who have been praying for us, I want to thank you so much. It’s been a rough and stressful time. I can finally tell you a little bit of what was going on.

As you know, I’ve been asking for prayer since the summer about church. Jeremy and I have left the church we have attended since moving up here. I felt like I wasn’t able to do the job God wanted me to do. I had tried to talk to the person I was having trouble with, but felt like I was rejected, so Jeremy and I met with him with Pastor and though things improved for about a month, it kept going back and forth. I was insulted many times and it hurt badly. What I do is for God and for God alone and I put my heart into it. To be told that I’m lazy or insensitive really made me depressed. It got really bad near the end and I was dreading going to church. No one should feel like that. We should want to go to church and worship and fellowship. No matter what, when I was up there praising God, I forgot everything and enjoyed worshiping the One who created this world and who made me who I am. I have many friends at that church and I miss them a lot. I know it was a surprise when we announced that we were leaving and it was really hard for us to keep it a secret, but we felt like it was best that way.

Tomorrow will be the second Sunday we’re visiting this one new church. We’ve had two Wednesdays there. The kids seem to love the programs they have for them. There are a good amount of kids there. Not too many, but enough. They have different adult home study groups during the week. We have gone the last two weeks to the one that takes place at the same time as the children’s program on Wednesdays. I’m still not sure what I think of the books they use for that, but I do enjoy the people, especially the older couple… they are hilarious.

We are now praying on whether or not to stay here for a little longer or to find another church to try. As part of our way of deciding (other than lots and lots of prayer) we like to have the Pastor come over to talk, so if we enjoy it again this week, I think Jeremy is going to see about asking the Pastor if we can set up a time to talk. Then, finding where we can serve in this church. I think Jeremy needs a break from teaching and sound system right now, but I really want to sing. Not really lead… just sing. I need to know where I can fit into this church if we are going to stay. They don’t have a choir, but they do have a praise and worship team. I wonder if they have some kind of drama team. I know that I’d enjoy that as well.

So, there you are… up to date on what is going on with our church situation and you now know what you were praying for.

For our immediate family, AnnaBeth starts the birthday season on September 8th and James ends it on January 14.

Yesterday was James birthday. He decided to take the $20 and go to Walmart. We’ll be doing that this weekend. For his birthday dinner, we had tacos. It was very, very yummy. For dessert, we had dark chocolate brownies with chocolate chips in them and ice cream. It is nice that with living up here, it is easy to find soy ice cream for my sweet boy who is allergic to milk. We didn’t have very much ice cream before we moved up here to Chicago-land because of the lack of an acceptable substitute for him.

Anyway, my son is now 11 years old. He’s having a fun time learning dancing. He has two classes that he’s having to take. The first one is jazz stage techniques. For the recital, they are doing a medley, and I don’t know what they are. The second one is Musical Theater dancing. For the recital, they are doing the Broadway version of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins. I don’t know which one, but in one of them he will have to lift one of the girls. The only thing he is concerned about is not being strong enough and maybe dropping her. I think he’ll do fine.

So, that is that. My wonderful favorite son is now 11 years old. Wow… It’s amazing how fast time goes by.

It’s a new year and there are going to be more changes happening that I know of and probably some I don’t know of as well. I’ve gotten closer to some of my friends and farther from others. I don’t like having more distance with my friends. I like having friends and I don’t like when they seem to pull away. Maybe to them, I seem to be pulling away, but I’m not meaning to.

Things around here are so active and busy that time seems to pass by without me noticing it. I have had a hard time lately trying to get things done and feeling like I’m unable to do what I’m supposed to do… in many different areas of my life.

I am going to see what I can do to better my ministry this year. I really need to show a lot more growth in my Christian walk than I did this previous year. I am not happy with how I’ve felt with my spiritual growth lately. It’s not made as much growth as I’d like.

I am hoping maybe this year will be the one where I might find part of my dream of singing more, even outside of the churc

I want to be a better wife to Jeremy and also a mom and find out what it will need to help my kids learn what they need to learn.

No, these aren’t resolutions. These are things that I want to do all the time. I don’t always accomplish what I’d like to accomplish and it bugs me sometimes, but I can’t let it get to me too much. I need to find a way through it and either give up what can’t be or find a way that it can be. If I dwell too much on what I think are my failings, I will become too depressed and I need to stay positive and continue life praising and living for Jesus.

Speaking of Jesus… I had some one on one time with Noelle on New Years Eve. I took her out for our little date time. We got her some new pajamas from Target as half of what she has is way too small and then she got a chocolate ice cream sundae while I drank a chocolate marshmallow latte from Oberweis. (My Christmas gift to my kids was to give them each time out with me every other month.) We were talking about Jesus and His sacrifice and gift to us and she was applying it to her own life. I am thinking that I may see something come about from this child faith of hers this year. I have 3 children who have confessed their faith in Jesus, who have given their lives to Him, and who have been baptized. I am praying for both AnnaBeth and Noelle for them both to see how their lives can be affected by Jesus and what they need to do to live in Him and for Him. I would love to have my prayer warrior friends join me in praying for the two of them as they learn more this year and open up to the choice that will come about living for Jesus.

Hmmm, this also brings to mind the fact that I need to update my testimony. I should do that soon.

I love you all. Many prayers and blessings go out to you, my friends. May this year bring much joy to you, no matter what you may go through.

Noelle, my littlest pixie, had her birthday. For me, the hardest birthdays each year are Amie’s and Noelle’s. Amie’s because she’s my oldest and I have a hard time realizing I have a child as old as she is and Noelle because I don’t like having my youngest one grow up so quickly.

We haven’t had our family celebration for her yet. She has to wait a day for that because Wednesdays are full in the evenings and Jeremy works during the day. She was a bit impatient about celebrating and wanted Daddy to come home as soon as the cake was done so she could have her birthday dinner… at 10 am. *laugh* I got her to settle down and explained why I didn’t think we would have the actual celebration on her birthday and by the time it was time to have dinner, she was ok with it. She has the meal picked out for her birthday celebration dinner which will be served on penguin plates. I made chocolate cake and bought some vanilla ice cream (including some soy ice cream for James) and her presents are waiting patiently in my closet for the time of revealing. We also have some cookies we made for her to give to the other kids in the Children’s choir at church and to her dance and tumbling class. I can’t wait to see how she reacts to her presents. I got her a Tinkerbell doll, a Tinkerbell book, and a cooking apron which has nothing to do with Tinkerbell, but I think she’ll like to use it when she helps me bake goodies. Yes, I’ll try and make sure to take pictures.

Now… for a few other things…

Today was the last Wednesday that I will be doing Children’s choir. They have a special they are doing on Sunday for our Christmas church program. They have a puppet performance to “Light of the Stable” by Selah. The teens crowded into the doorway while we were trying to practice today to watch the younger kids. Then I overheard them when they went upstairs telling the adults how fun the little kids’ choir is and that the adults will love what the young ones have prepared for church. I hope I made the choir fun, but also taught them a lot about performing for God in the process as well. I always stressed that if we are going to do something for God’s glory than we ought to give our best and if we don’t give our best in practice than we won’t be able to give our best when we do the actual performance. Do they think that God is pleased if we don’t give Him our best? Whenever I asked that, I got a few kids who would grumble a little, but they always did better afterwards. We had our bad days where practices didn’t go well even when we tried our best, but that is part of life and we were able to shrug off those days and come back determined to do better next time. I’m proud of those kids. Now, it’s time for me to take a break though. I need it badly.

I would like my prayer warriors to join me for one of Jeremy’s co-workers and her husband. They are in need of prayer for health issues… for both of them. I have met them and they are a very sweet young Christian couple. I appreciate the prayers you all have for all of the requests I put up. I don’t know how many warriors I have praying out there, but I know there are enough strong faithful ones. You all are awesome.

I gave my resignation to my boss at church. I am stepping down from my jobs there at the end of this month. I don’t think they will have a hard time finding an Assistant Director for the adult choir or someone to lead Praise and Worship, but I’m not sure about the Children’s Choir Director position. I took it two years ago as a temporary position until they could find someone else to take over, but no one else came forward. Because of that and the fact that the children’s choir has only 7 members, 5 of which are my own children and the other 2 only come about half of the time… I get no real break from my kids except during Sunday School, a half hour on Sunday morning. I need that hour long break on Wednesday night when I can either work with a different group or go to an adult Bible study time. Anyway, there are other reasons why I am stepping down from my positions, but those I do not think are public blog material.

For those of you who have prayed for us when I asked for prayer about the decisions we needed to make about church, I thank you. I still need them as we go through the next few weeks.

Two years ago, I took Amie to see “The Nutcracker”. I was planning on doing something with James last year, but we weren’t able to. So, this year, I had my special big date with him. In his musical theater dance class, his teacher gives out papers telling auditions that are happening and when plays and musicals are showing. He came home last month with a paper telling about the musical “Willy Wonka”. This weekend was the closing shows and so the two of us made a date for Saturday matinee. He has been looking forward to this for two weeks. They don’t have online ticket purchasing for this small town theatre, so I didn’t secure the tickets beforehand. We left about two and a half hours before the show started and headed down there. Being extremely delayed by Christmas shopping traffic, we finally got to the theatre that was about 30 miles away about an hour before the show started… if you do the math, that was an hour and a half drive. Unfortunately, by that time, that show was sold out. I was able to buy tickets for the evening show that night. We then had about 5 hours to wait. We headed to the nearest town with a mall and walked around checking out different things, James was thinking about his birthday next month while I was thinking Christmas presents. After doing foot traveling through the building, we stopped at the Borders bookstore there and got something to drink while we talked. Since he really wants to do plays and musicals, we discussed what he will need for the auditions, pictures for his portfolio, a song from a musical along with sheet music, and a fresh haircut beforehand. When we left, we realized we still had an hour to kill. We stopped at a Walmart and walked around there. That’s where James found what he wants for his birthday. Nerf, anyone?? So, we finally headed back to the theatre. It’s in a converted old church, very nice place. We got there early to make sure to take care of bathroom stuff. They opened up the theater and we took our seats… in the front row. The stage was only about two feet high, so they were still good seats and the actors had some small interaction with the kids in the front row a bit, making eye contact, pointing, and waving. They had a small cast production. Some of the actors and actresses had to take double roles, but they did a great job and I don’t think the kids realized it. My favorite character in the whole show was Grandma Georgina. The actor who played her was so expressive and she stole the show. The people playing the children were adults, 18 years or older, and it was so fun watching them pretend to be kids. The boy playing Charlie Bucket did an awesome job and his voice was very good. Willy Wonka was played by a man with a strong singing voice. He had a lisp, but it added to his character. James has a bit of a lisp when he talks and during intermission, we discussed how inspiring it was for him to see someone with a speech impediment like him in a main role. It gave him more hope. After the show was over, I saw James speechless. We had the opportunity to meet the actors and actresses and he had nothing to say. I have never, ever seen him unable to talk before. I got a hug from Grandma Georgina and took a picture of James with the actor who played Willy Wonka. Those of you who know me now, know that I am NOT shy and I enjoyed talking to some of the different actors and actresses.

And that is my date with my son… and somehow this blog also turned into a review of the musical “Willy Wonka” done by the Chicago Street Theatre in Valparaiso, IN.

One thing this made me realize… I miss the stage a lot. Maybe one of these days, I might be able to audition for something, but not right now… we don’t have the ability to do it.

Houses are being decorated. I love seeing the nice tastefully decorated ones. They are lovely to see, but more and more often, I am finding so many houses that are decorated tacky or look like they put up whatever lights they found wherever they could find room. It looks horrible. I don’t like driving up our street at night right now. One of the houses up the street has that slapped on the lights look to it. They have 3 strands layered on their roof and each strand is a different color with no pattern and they flash with no distinct rhythm between them which drives me absolutely nuts. It looks sloppy. They have a star plastered on the top of the fireplace too that flashes with short times of being lit and very long times of being dark. I almost couldn’t tell what it was. I told Jeremy that I am thankful that I don’t live near that house (it is about 4 blocks away) because it would drive me totally insane. Don’t get me wrong. I love lights on a house and I usually don’t mind them flashing. I do have this thing about stuff being in rhythm together so some bother me, but none as much as this one house. I can put up with most of them. The other thing that bugs me are those huge blow-up yard decorations. Here in Chicagoland, we have small yards. One of them is good. Two is starting to look a bit crowded. Any more than that and it looks like you are trying to make sure ALL the grass in your front yard is hidden. Don’t get me started on too many of the other yard decorations. Reindeer and Santa in his sleigh plus a full manger scene plus little red and green elves stuck running willy-nilly through out the yard makes me shudder. When we lived out where there were big yards and people would made specific spots on their yards for each Christmas scene showed me how creative those people were. These small yards have no room for that. Having Santa and his sleigh and reindeer usually takes up most of the yard. The same goes for a full manger scene.

What happened to making sure your house looked pretty for Christmas? This is a time to celebrate and enjoy the season. Remember Christ who came down to earth as a little baby so later on in His life He could teach us what true love was. Not a time to show everyone how much money you can spend on decorations and showing off how many lights you can shove onto your house or decorations you can crowd onto your yard. It’s a time to get creative with your house and yard, but not overly so.

I know, this is a silly rant, but I had to say it. I know the true meaning of Christmas and this is nothing compared to that. In the meantime, I have a birthday to prepare for. Anyone know where I can find candy apples at this time of year? The birthday girl has requested those.

Some of these will be superficial and some will be a bit deeper, but I want to think about all the things I am thankful for. I’ll start with the obvious.

Family: My husband is my rock. He is kind and gentle. He’s the one I rely on during so many times. (Yes, I rely on God first and foremost, but I believe I was given Jeremy to help me through a lot of life and so I am able to rely on my husband second only to God.) My kids are a source of laughter and strength. They can stress me out some days, but I wouldn’t ever want to live without them. They know when I need rest and most of the time will let me have it. They are forever challenging me, strengthening me, and making me take deep breaths and learn patience and for that, I am thankful. Our extended family is always there for support.

Friends: I have many friends. Some I am close to and some I am more of an acquaintance and some are inbetween, but I love them all. I can talk and goof off and be my completely crazy self with my close friends and they laugh and are crazy with me. We don’t care about the stares we get as long as the people in the bowling lane next to us don’t touch us. These are the people that no matter how long we are apart or haven’t talked, we can get together and it’s as if no time has passed by. I have only a few of these, but I’m sure you all know who you are. I have those that are inbetween. This makes up the majority of my friends. Some of them I have never actually met and some I have. I have made many friends online whom I place in this category. Some I met through my blog, some through chat, and a few through facebook. When I am feeling vulnerable, they have uplifted me. When I am upset or mad, they’ve settled me down. When I am bouncing off the walls crazy, they have laughed at me. I have enjoyed getting to know each one of them and letting myself be shown to them.

Music: This is something I enjoy doing, each and every day. If I am unable to sing, it makes that day a little bit harder. Making music, through my voice, on my keyboard, through my flute, or any of my other instruments is a talent that God has given me and I want to enjoy it and use it to it’s fullest. I am still praying that God will show me a way to go farther with it than I have so far. I still want to live out my dream.

Worship: The worship of God is something that always strengthens me. It sometimes has to break me down to do that strengthening, but God is always helping me grow in one way or another through the process of worship. I enjoy it so much that even though I am stressed with my job of worship leader, I forget about it during our service and just focus on God. Without that focus, worship is nothing.

Cell phones: Being able to talk to my mom and sister often is such a blessing and with us all having cell phones, it makes it much easier. I still keep in touch with some of the youth girls I worked with before moving up to Chicago through text and pix messaging. (Hint, hint: I want some new pics of babies!!) Friends can call me up or text me if they need to and vice versa. Now, I need to remember to charge it when it gets low on battery… like it is at this moment.

Dr Pepper and Chocolate: These are two things that I used to have a lot and I have really, really cut down on. I still enjoy having them, maybe even more now that it is less often, and will continue to be thankful that they were made.

Hulu: I don’t have TV and don’t watch a lot of shows, but for the few that I do enjoy, I am glad that I can watch most of them on Hulu. Now, if only Numb3rs could be on there, I’d be a happy girl. Also, it has some of the old cartoons that I don’t mind the kids watching.

My Camera: Taking pictures isn’t just a hobby for me. It is a way of relaxing. I enjoy finding things to photograph. My favorite things to take pictures of are my kids and flowers… as if that wasn’t obvious to those who have seen my pictures. I would love to do more landscapes, but not city ones. I miss the country and the mountains. I want to head down to my parents’ house in NC sometime and do some photography with the camera I bought this summer. I want to go out west and take pictures of the Rocky Mountains. I want to go to the Atlantic, the Gulf, the Pacific. I want to go to Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier National Parks. Maybe even the Grand Canyon, though I would be extremely scared with my fear of heights. I want to go to Austin, TX and hike with Phisch and her family and get some pictures there (as well as some of her adorable sons.) I want to go to Arizona. I want to go all over these United States and then… head outside of them. Yes, another big dream of mine and one of which I’m not sure will come true, but if I can at least get to some of these places, I will be happy.

My Computers: I am able to do so much through my little laptop and on our desktop. I can write on my blog. I can chat with friends. I can play games. I can edit and share my photographs. I can keep in touch with friends through Facebook and Twitter. I can e-mail family. I can do shopping. I love living in the age of computers… and having my own computer engineer in my house. (I love my computer geek!)

and last, but definitely, NOT least… GOD: He is my everything. He has given me all that I am thankful for. I have eternal life promised me because of sending His Son, Jesus, to die for me and for all of you and I have said YES to having Him in my life.

and though I have so much more to be thankful for… these are the ones I can think of at the moment.