Faith---the assurance of things unseen

I was recently ridiculed for stating some things I believe in. Publicly, if comments on another's facebook status can be called publicly. And while it hurt, and caused no small amount of soul searching, I feel like I have come out on the other side victorious.

Because I know the truth and I am not ashamed of it.

The truth that my God is a God of Love, Justice and Grace.

The truth that before sin entered the world, everything was different.

And even the truth that the words spoken written to me were said out of a hurting and confused heart, from someone refusing to let God be God and because of that, I can forgive and pray for the speaker.

.....I just read the "Articles of Faith" from the Mormon community. There's a lot I agree with in there, some stuff I don't. But it got me thinking....what are my articles of faith? What is inherent to my spiritual life? What are the things I believe in absolutely, without a doubt?

1) I believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit, a Trinity, three in one.

2) I believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Holy one. Man and God together. That He was crucified for the sins of all and that on the 3rd day He rose from the grave, and is now sitting at the right hand of God the Father. I believe if we confess with our mouths and believe with our hearts that Jesus is the Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that there is no other way to God but through Him, that we will be saved.

3) I believe that God created the earth in 6 days, rested on the 7th and that everything was good and right and perfect.

4) I believe that sin entered the world through Adam and Eve's disobedience, that death and brokenness and separation from God came with it and that only through Jesus can we return to the relationship with God that He desires to have with us. That through Jesus comes everlasting life.

5) I believe that the Bible is God's message of hope and redemption and instructions for proper living. I also believe it holds examples of how sin has changed humans and the world from perfection to brokenness and is a warning to us lest we wander from the Lord. I believe the Bible is the key God has given us to better understand the past, present and the future.

6) I believe that Jesus' commandment to take the gospel to all the earth should be the goal of every Christian in one way or another.

7) I believe that Jesus will return some day and restore what once was. That there will be a new heaven and a new earth and God will reign over all.

8) I believe that God gave us instructions to rule over the earth and everything on it, and that He meant us to steward the earth and take care of it.

9) I believe that the highest commandment God gave us is to Love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

...there is assuredly more, but I think that is a pretty good list to start with.

Daisy....errrr....Clover Chain

We had fun playing in the sunshine at my parents house yesterday. I made a chain of white clover. It was fun, I haven't made a flower chain in years!
Technically, I made it for David, and he's the one wearing it in this collage, but the rest of us took turns with it too!

fun times + Picmonkey

We've been having some fun times lately. My mom sent me info for another online photo editor, since Picnik is no more, and they recently added the ability to make collages! I am such a happy camper right now! Picmonkey is alot of fun....and free to boot! So, I tried out the collage options and made these pictures of some of our fun times.....

This first one is from when we went to my parents to house sit in April. We had a ton of fun. This is just a little smattering:

And this set is from a trip to the park a couple weeks ago:

I have more pictures to share from more recent things, but haven't got them on the computer yet. Soon.....

MOPS Playdate

I ended up on a table at MOPS with a woman who did an absolutely fabulous job at thinking up some really fun playdates for our table.
This last Tuesday, she invited us all to go on a nature walk with her at a wetland sanctuary, which come to find out is less than 10 minutes from my house, and I had never heard of it before! I was excited to go and check it out, and we will definitely be going again sometime!
Here's some pictures from our outing:

A Desert Scene

In Liam's school (we are using Sonlight 1), one of our science books is an Usbourne book about animals..... which is super cool. Usbourne has also hooked in some geography into it too which is great----multiple subjects, one book.
Anyway, one of the ideas for extra work that Sonlight gives is to do a "scene" based on one of the land areas we've studies the animals in so far---i.e. Jungle, Desert, Plains. We choose Desert. I flipped through some of the old issues of the Your Big Back Yard magazine that Liam gets and found a whole article about the desert and some of the animals who live there. We used that as our main pieces and went to work. The boys had a blast cutting and pasting and making this!

It's so nice when school can be FUN! Thanks, Sonlight for a great idea!

Pierce's Birthday Party

Sorry for two birthday posts in a row. I didn't mean to, but the pictures I wanted to use for a post are on Liam's camera and I can't figure out how to get them onto the computer...the card is different than in mine and doesn't seem to fit in the SD slot on the computer. Erg.

Anyway, this past Sunday was my nephew's birthday and it was a fun afternoon of celebrating!
Our friend Jake knows how to do balloon animals and agreed to do them for the kids at the party! It was great and he did a TON!

He is super good at doing balloons. Check out this cool bike/motorcycle!

There was also "pin the tail on the donkey"

There was alot of good food and eating (and a rice krispie/fruitie pebbles cake!)

There were presents:

There was even a balloon fight towards the end (balloons are a great thing to fight with because they do no harm, even when them pop!)

It was electrifying

Happy 4th Birthday Pierce! Love you buddy!

Liam's Costume Birthday Party!

My sweet first-born turned 7 on Saturday. He's been talking forever about having a costume party for his birthday. I decided that I could NOT expect him to wear one of the same two outfits he's been wearing on halloween for at least three years, so I went to work on making some new costumes.
Originally, the idea was Liam would be the Tin Man and David would be the Cowardly Lion and Heidi be Dorothy.
Then, I found a cute princess dress for Heidi for less than 4 dollars, mentioned to Liam that his Tin Man costume could easily be a Knight instead, and could only find dark colored material for the lion....
Enter creativity:
Liam went as a Knight, David as a Dark Lion and Heidi as a princess. And it was great. So many of the guests dressed up too (I only have a couple pictures because the battery on my camera decided right then to die....grrr) and the party was a great success!

You can see them in a few of the pictures: we had mustache and lip lolly pop favors. I got the idea here.

Anniversary Present

I found this really cool picture done with maps on Pinterest:

(Found here)

And I really, really wanted to make it for Jon for our 10th anniversary...so, I did. Scrap booking paper, a frame from a thrift shop, and my mom's color printer and some cutting&pasting later, I came up with this:

I found the idea for the people online too and just HAD to add them, it was SO cute!

I thought up the captions on my own......and all in all I am super happy with it!

Annie Oakley

Heidi, Mostly

I have not blogged in ages. I have been very busy tearing my house apart, moving things around and trying to make it all fit back together again. We're in the process of getting rid of one of our desk top computers (Jon and I can not share computers, so we've had two for years......time to downsize to lap tops) and trying to make our small apartment feel less crowded and cluttered.
That, and the eventual demise of Picnik.....my favored photo editting site, and really feeling like I have had nothing of real interest to blog about, has led to the absence of blogging for me.
Well, I am here to end this blog fast for you all. And as the title says, it's mostly Heidi.....

 We recently exchanged Heidi's infant car seat for a forward facing one.....Now I have a sweet little row of child-faces watching me from the back seat. It's lovely. (by the way, Heidi's showing the camera that she took off her socks. She always takes them off in the car, usually seconds after getting in)

Heidi asked for my bear one night and has been sleeping with him ever since. I snagged this picture one night to share because it's so cute:

Heidi chose this position for TV watching the other day....so cute:

When Liam saw me with the camera, he jumped down into the same position as Heidi. Of course, David had to strike a pose!