Saturday, January 31, 2009

Abiding

Here's the dealio: R.C. and I are taking the month of February as a jumping off point for abiding more deeply in Jesus. We are going to do some fasting while we seek Him. One of the things I feel led to fast is the computer. I do not plan on getting on the computer at all. However, YOU can follow our Immersion by checking out Kingdom Crossing instead of this blog. The Holy Spirit is not leading RC to fast the computer and he plans to journal some of our experiences. I will not be checking email, facebook, or writing anything on here for the whole month. I will be checking things today (Sat, Jan 31) but as soon as the clock strikes 12:00 midnight I turn into a pumpkin and they don't have fingers so I couldn't type even if I wanted to. Bummer.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from Me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. I have said these things to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. John 15:5-11

We are trusting Jesus to draw us into deeper abiding intimacy with Him. I am really quite excited.

I'll see you in a month!
Bridget

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Have you seen the way she eats a snicker?

Kanye West and Jamie Foxx have a song titled "Gold Digger". I wouldn't recommend checking out that song, but RC and I found this parody a few years back that we think is hilarious. Listening to some new ring tones (thanks Park) tonight reminded us of it so we went hunting it down. Enjoy.



If we remember the story correctly, these were some students from UCLA that did this. It looks like they had fun.

R.C. and Bridget

Umm...Umm...Good!

This is the documentation of something few people ever thought they would see. NO, it's not me cooking something without burning it. I've done that many times!
This is actual photo evidence of my husband eating ONIONS, TOMATOES, ZUCCHINI, BELL PEPPERS and GARLIC! Here's the Pizza Casserole. The kids were so excited about this new recipe mainly because of the name. But they were really good sports when they saw it on their plates and all of them ate most of it.
It truly was a wonderful casserole. My kind of food for sure. Just look at all those colors. And it really did taste similar to pizza. It also has chicken sausage, Italian spices, and lots of mozzarella and Parmesan cheese in it and bread sticks on top of it. YUMMY!

Hubs being silly. The kids loved it. Then they all wanted their picture taken too. However, after downloading the pictures I see I somehow forgot Bear's but it's already almost nine and I'm a tired girl. So just picture him with a mouth full of food and a smile. I straightened Princess' hair for Walking With Dinosaurs and then didn't wash it for another day, hence straight hair in this pic. Popeye is doing much better eating. He pretty much takes ten good bites at every meal and we're good with that.
Bobo ate two zucchini and then declared that he 'loved' them. However, he left the rest of them on his plate. =) Oh, and you can kinda see Bear in this picture.
Hubs eating his last bite. He actually liked the veggies more than the sausage! Who would have thought? For those who don't know us well, this is the first time in almost eleven years of marriage I have ever seen my husband eat tomatoes that weren't in sauce, salsa, or paste form. I really am amazed!
Bridget

Is T-Rex gonna eat that man, Mama?

That is the precious question I heard my cousin Whitney's three year old son ask her Saturday afternoon while we were watching Walking With Dinosaurs in The City. He wasn't the least bit worried about it, he was just wondering. And, no, T-Rex didn't eat the man, or any dinosaur either.
So this is one of those pictures where you hold the camera in front of yourself and hope you get a good picture. Obviously, this one isn't good, but family members will find it funny because I'm the one taking the picture and I'm the one in the majority of it. "Not surprisingly" they'd say!
This is the arena. The dinosaurs are life size and very real looking. As with all shows now though, they ask that you not take any pictures during the show so I snapped this one quickly before it began.
The big boys waiting for the show to start. We brought Jenni's oldest son who is very in to dinosaurs. Him and Bear are best friends.
Popeye and Princess sat between Hubs and I. We had been told by a previous attender that T-Rex was REALLY loud so we wanted to be prepared for any children who needed to jump into a safe lap. They both did great and just waved at Rex when she roared. (she had a baby, that's how we know it was a she)
Me and my beautiful cousin Whitney. We were so glad that her, her son, and her son's buddy were able to come. It was TONS of fun! (pun totally intended) While we don't believe all of their 'facts' about how things happened it was a great show. There was the narrator who was always on the arena floor with the dinosaurs which was very cool because it gave a great reference to how big these creatures really were. If you have kids or just love dinosaurs yourself I highly recommend it!
In the words of Princess as we were walking back to the car, "I watch again!?!"
Bridget

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

OK Senate vs. Home Schooling

A few weeks ago, in the dark of night, I heard, "You're house will be under attack." I didn't feel the need to jump out of bed swinging, but I also had no clue what it really meant. While I believe there are many aspects to that statement, I think the following can be one of them.

There are two new bills to be proposed in the OK senate on Monday, February 2. I first saw this story here. It intrigued me as I felt our home schooling rights were being stepped on a little bit. So I started doing a little research. First, I found this. I felt a little better considering the Chairman of the Senate Educational Committee, State Senator John Ford said,

“Our home school community is a vital asset to this state. The way home schooling parents currently educate their children is a process that has worked fine, and I feel it is important for them to have the freedom in determining what will best serve their children’s needs.”
So, he, at least, is opposed to these two bills. Upon further research, I discovered the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) was in action on these two bills. See here for Bill 472 and here for Bill 308.

So, how does this relate to the house under attack thing? We home school our children. My wife has prayed about it since we started having children, and we pray about it before every school year. We didn't home school Bobo or Bear until we moved to Altus. We have absolutely nothing against Altus schools, we just felt the Lord was telling us it was time to teach our children at home. Again, we pray about it before every school year, because we don't want to be disobedient to God. We will put them in the public school system as soon as God doesn't want us to home school anymore. This is the Lord's will for our life in this season, so we do it.

We believe it is a parent's right and God-given duty to teach his or her child(ren). See Proverbs 22:6 and Ephesians 6:4 among others. The fact that society has created public (and even private) school systems to teach children en mass, does not change this truth. In fact, it endangers it. Read Matthew 18:6, 7 and 14. Does a worldly school system not have the potential to put major stumbling blocks in front of our children?

Both of my parents were school teachers, and Bridget's mother still is. They taught/teach with integrity and respect for the children, their parents, and God. I have nothing against the teachers. They are doing their job. We, as parents, are doing ours. If the government feels the need to control that, then we are headed for a sad day indeed. I encourage you to pray about this issue and then act as God would direct you. We are sending an email to our state senators. Read up on it yourself, and make up your own mind. Don't just take my word for it.

Be encouraged, God is in control.
R.C.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Sunday, January 18, 2009

It's In The Little Things

The past few months our children have become aware of 'The Force'. Star Wars is all over our house. Don't misunderstand, our children have been aware of Star Wars for years now, but over the past few months they have witnessed all six episodes in The Saga and are now all padawan learners.

So, it came as no surprise that one of the things on the Christmas list this year was light sabers.

They already have three. However, they aren't this guy's or that guy's and there's not one for everyone or friends when they come over.

Luckily, R.C. remembered that we still had a light saber or two in storage and it became his mission to retrieve said light sabers, clean said light sabers, and replace batteries in said light sabers. He was successful in his mission.

The surprise was that there were six light sabers in storage. SIX. How in the world did we ever become the owners of NINE light sabers?

Anywho, Christmas morning we set the light sabers out under the tree, without wrapping them, so the kids could play with them while we got out of bed. And I'm not kidding you when I say that the joy over those old light sabers was so crazy that they could have been the only presents under the tree and it would have been 'The Best Christmas Ever!'. The kicker is that they knew the light sabers were old. Things like, "My Annikan light saber!" and "My old Dooku light saber!" could be heard in our house Christmas morning.

R.C. and I have now decided to take some of their other toys and put them in storage again till Christmas. Hopefully we'll get the same reaction.

And then this morning:

Two things you must know to appreciate the story I am telling. One is that we have a sock basket in our house. Instead of pairing up the socks and having people put them in their drawers I just throw them into the sock basket and let people dig them out when needed. During the summer this wasn't a big deal because who wears socks in the summer, right? But since winter is upon us it has become somewhat of a hassle.

Second, while I prefer to keep my house picked up, I am rarely in the mood to actually pick it up. So when the cleaning mood hits me I jump on it. This morning the cleaning mood hit. I could tell before I was even out of bed. We had a big day yesterday with one half the family going one way and one half going another and when we were all home yesterday evening I didn't feel like picking up or making anyone else do it. So our house was messy.

Not only was I in the mood to clean, but I really hate coming home from church to a messy house so this morning I got to it. And one of the things I felt compelled to attack was the sock basket. Every one's socks were paired and placed on my bed next to their folded pile of clothes.

When I told the boys to get their shoes and socks on they asked if there were new clean socks in the basket and when I told them that their socks were on the bed I was surprised by their reaction.

From the living room I hear, "Yeah! Mom folded the socks!" "Now we can have socks in our drawers!" and even a "WOOHOO!"

It really is in the little things.

Bridget

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

God Is (Live)

Here it is, folks! This is the video you've all been waiting for! (well, at least a couple of you, anyway) Bridge wrote this song using the curriculum for the children's ministry at ACF. While there are some "big" words in there, Bobo and Bear do a fine job with them.

Bridge, the elder two boys, and I did this song this past Sunday (the one between my birthday on Saturday and Popeye's on Monday). The "studio version" of the song, along with the words, can be found on Sounds From the Batcave. Also, the song can be found on our MySpace music page. We had a lot of fun working on this with the boys, and we're talking about shooting an official video for it. Let us know what you think! Be encouraged!

And be sure to watch for Princess in her pink shirt. She snuck up on stage with us.=)

Monday, January 12, 2009

Bad, Bad Bridget

Well, frankly, I've blown it.

I've been an awful blogger lately.

With the challenge of getting back into a routine and certain changing circumstances I just haven't felt like blogging. Oh, I have stories to tell, but I'm just not in the mood to tell them.

Then, our pastor preached yesterday on how unreliable our feelings are (so knew this) and how they should never be a determining factor in our choices (a confirming factor sometimes and a factor to ignore sometimes) but never the motivating force. So, I totally felt convicted and determined to get on here despite how I felt and share something with you all.

And I had big plans to. A video and everything.

But I can't remember how to download videos from my new camera and my husband is at band practice and I DON'T FEEL LIKE HUNTING DOWN THE INSTRUCTION MANUEL AND READING IT.

Baby steps.

Then I realized that in all my not blogging I totally forgot to share with you all two VERY important days in our family.

LIKE:

Saturday was hub's 33rd birthday and today is Bear's 8th birthday.

Heavens.

We went bowling on Saturday. Just a family party. It was lots of fun with Star Wars cupcakes and lots of birthday money. And all the pics are on my MIL's camera so you'll just have to hold your britches till she sends them to me.

So feel free to leave them belated birthday wishes in the comments and I will take all the blame for their lateness.

Bridget

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Sunday Delights

R.C.'s Sunday Delights for 01/11/09

1. my 33rd birthday yesterday
2. Bear's 8th birthday tomorrow
3. sleeping in on a Saturday
4. fresh, honest, real friends
5. working on music with my family

Sunday Delights, my attempt to purposefully "count my blessings" at least once a week, is seeing its final regular publishing in its current form. Thanks to all who have read and shared your blessings, and please feel free to do so one more time. I shall continue to think on what God is doing in my life, and be grateful for his presence and goodness, and I pray that you will, too.

Thanks,
R.C.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Parent's office redo

This year for Christmas we redecorated my parent's office. We are big O-State fans. My father graduated from OSU and my parent's have had football season tickets for as long as I can remember.

My sister, Andrea, graduated from O-State in 07 and my littlest sister, Kara is currently attending there. Andrea was and Kara is a cheerleader on the O-State small coed squad.

Suffice it to say my parent's have lots of OSU stuff. Like a small Christmas Tree decorated in all OSU ornaments and lights that never comes down. But my mom doesn't decorate. Doesn't have time and it's not really her thing. So, since it is my thing I couldn't help myself.

And, of course, I forgot to take the before pic until I had already made some changes. However, I don't think it matters. The change is still quite stunning.

Before #1 Before #2
And the afters. We bought them bookshelves, curtains, a tablecloth, and a new office chair. The rest was stuff they already had.
I forgot, I brought the mirror, but I didn't buy it. It was one at my house that wasn't being used. You can actually see the reflection of the OSU Christmas Tree in it.
I hung fabric panels over the bottom two shelves of the bookshelves so they could hide all the stuff you need in an office but that isn't very pretty to see.
That was their desk but mom has one at school that she plans on bringing home and having me paint black that will really make that room sing once it's in there.
The OSU snowman who lives in the house all year. He is very cute. And we didn't have money in the budget to frame the posters so I hung them up where I thought they should go and recommended that mom and dad go buy poster frames asap.
Here is the tree and the tablecloth. Bought a black one and sewed OSU fabric onto it to make it long enough so they could store stuff under the table. I just sprayed mom's chairs black to match.
The curtains are white with little orange dots on them. I think they are so cute.
It was great fun and mom and dad really seem to like it.
Bridget

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Sunday Delights

The first Sunday of the new year, and there's lots for which to be thankful! So, without further ado, my Sunday Delights:

1. New Beginnings in '09 (out with the old and in with the new - new horizons, new adventures, new discoveries, new etc.)
2. having my prayer language interpreted to answer the prayer of someone else ("Praise be to God!")
3. making progress on our information packet (check out Praise the King here)
4. helping Bobo find a Nintendo DS (praise God for pawn shops and wheelin and dealin - he was quite excited)
5. awesome friends and family with which to journey through life (so cool living next door to grandparents, having the other grandparents just an hour and half away, and having hardcore, fun-loving spiritual brothers and sisters)

Now, it's your turn! Try to think of 5 things that delight you about your life right now, and please comment on them. It helps you to "count your blessings" and it encourages those of us who read them! Thanks!

R.C.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Hello 2009

and hello folks!

How are you? It's been awhile.

Our Christmas was wonderful. Grandma and Granddad gave the kids a Wii and they haven't stopped playing it yet. Except for yesterday when hubs and I played it. And I'm not bragging or anything, but I ROCK at bowling. However, my right shoulder is in quite a bit of pain today.

Anywho...

I am ready for 09.

God has placed some circumstances in our lives right now that are bringing about change. Not only in our daily happenings but also in ourselves.

I've mentioned before how I seek God at the end of each year about the new year ahead. Last year I felt God telling me to focus on homeschooling the children and running my home. Through that focus God revealed alot about me to me, revealed alot about Him to me, and grew my relationship with Him in ways I could have never imagined.

Now, this year I hear Him saying: "Do it now."

While I can't tell you what "it" is yet, I can tell you that I'm excited and scared. RC and I have been talking about this for years now. It never felt right and we never felt confident in God's guidance in this direction.

Until now.

But before God changed our circumstances He changed our hearts. And this change of direction for 2009 was not born out of circumstances, but an assurance that the desires of our hearts are the desires of God's heart.

And while thinking about these changes gives me that nervous feeling in my stomach I know it is going to be so very worth it. So we head into 2009 with an expectation to see God's hand move, faith to step out in obedience, and a willingness to serve our King with everything we have.

I pray the same for all of you.

Bridget

But the Lord still waits for you to come to Him so He can show you His love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for Him to help them. Isaiah 30:18