A little trip

We made a little trip last week and we stayed the night in Amarillo, TX. We were heading out and had been driving for about 40 minutes when we saw a huge billboard that said, “Biggest Cross in the Western Hemisphere up ahead”. We could already see it in the distance. I was driving and Eric was asleep. I wasn’t planning on stopping; I just wanted to point it out to the boys. As we were driving by the cross I noticed three crosses on a hill with Jesus and the two thieves on them. That is when I knew we had to stop. So I took an exit and ended up going on these back roads to get back to it. Eric woke up wondering where the heck we were. :)

The big cross was 190 feet tall. Around the cross it had the Stations of the Cross (I guess that is a catholic thing), and it was incredible.


This is one of my favorite pictures. The first thing the boys did was run up the steps to go see Jesus.

My other favorite part was the abortion memorial. It was very powerful. This is where I shed the most tears.

We didn’t take the boys around the stations, but the one they noticed was the one below. We explained to them that this is how much Jesus loved us that He would go through this pain and sacrifice for us. We love Him because He first loved us. This had so much impact to them. They still talk about it.

Here are the Stations of the Cross that were around the big cross:

As you went into the gift shop there was this beautiful fountain

Apparently, they want to build these all over the nation. What a great rest stop! Here is their website: http://www.crossministries.net/

So if you are ever around Groom, Texas this stop is worth it! It made our whole trip spectacular.

boys room and new church

We had an exciting thing happen this weekend. We got new (to us) beds for the boys and their room is perfect. We haven’t hung anything on their wall yet, but we will this weekend. The boys love their room. They said it is their most favorite room ever!


This is a picture from the door of the room looking at the beds.

This is a picture looking at the opposite wall with their dresser and toy box.
This is taken from the toy box wall.

Here is our favorite part: underneath Grant’s bed is a little hideout and play area. We have rope lights and they love that. They have already been building forts and want to have a sleepover underneath.

This was my dresser, but it matched their beds so perfectly that I decided to give it to them.
Bunk bed
Loft bed
I put some of their toys in the closet where their Rubbermaid containers were holding the clothes that are now in the dresser. It is a small closet so I had to color coordinate their hangers. Grant has big plastic hangers, Eli has blue hangers and Sawyer has red hangers.

We have some other good news! We found a church home! We visited it the week before Eric’s grandmother died and then we didn’t go back for two weeks. It was full of families. I think they have about 100 families. The children stay in the service for worship and then they go to their classes during the sermon. Eli and Grant are in the same class and it is all about training their ears to hear God. I love it! Everyone was so friendly and one mom even gave me her phone number to have a playdate. There are a lot of homeschooling families there and they even have a little homeschool group that gets together twice a month.

When we came back a couple of weeks later the people remembered us and were so friendly again. It is sad to say that out of the churches we have visited this is the first time that this has happened since we moved. They had VBS last week and our boys really go to know the children’s director and teachers and a lot of the kids so now our boys LOVE the church. We went yesterday and it was amazing. Before we moved to NM we were praying specifically for the type of church we wanted and God answered our prayers. Everything we prayed for, this church has:

Lots of families
Children in worship
Children’s classes that actually teach the children and not just entertain/babysit them
Fellowship time after the service (not everyone just booking it out of the church to get home)
Solid/godly leadership
Genuine people that love God and are not just there because it is Sunday
Spirit-filled

We feel so blessed to be in this body of believers!

We didn't die!

We went to a local amusement park over memorial day weekend and the first ride we went on was Rocky Mountain Rapids which is basically just a log ride that goes up a steep climb and then zooms down. My boys LOVE roller coasters so we thought this was going to be cake for them and when we were finished Grant was physically shaking and he said he had never been so scared in his life and Eli said, "Whew, I didn't die!" Go figure, they are not scared of roller coasters at all, but they were terrified of this ride! I don't like roller coasters and I loved the log ride. LOL

I am going to a used homeschool curriculum fair today. I am not really looking for anything in particular I just want to go and see if anything stands out to me.

We have a new addition to our family. One of my friends is moving to Hawaii and she has 5 cats so we took one of them. Her name is Tigger and she is a sweetheart. Moses (our other cat) and Tigger aren't friends yet, but everyone says that it just takes time. Here is a picture of her:

And here is a pic of Moses (don't mind the mess on the floor--we do clean our house every day, but with three boys it gets messy fast!)
We had ordered a collage from the photographer that took our pictures and we got it this past week. It is AWESOME!

fashion

Eli came out the other morning and said, "Look Mommy, I matched all the reds!" We had a lot of errands to run that day and I let him go like that because he was so proud of himself. At one point during the day I tried to convince him to take off the tie, but he didn't because that was his favorite part. :)

Wisdom

We were doing our bible study with our boys this morning and we were reading Proverbs 1. We told the boys to draw a picture of one of the verses. Grant chose to draw the verse about "a wise man will hear and increase learning". He is your typical type A personality and he was going crazy that Eli wasn't drawing a verse. It appeared to him that Eli was just drawing a bad guy. Here is Grant's picture.



Then Eli said his picture is a guy that has no wisdom! He was paying attention!

Eric was talking about our God being a just God and Grant said, "I get it! Like when I got beat up at Burger King that kid was adjusting me!" We had to laugh, but then we explained the difference between justice and being adjusted! LOL

Mother's Day Story

I got the stomach flu this weekend after a week of strep throat. I pretty much stayed in bed and my boys brought their lovely creations to me that they had worked on all week. I was just about to fall asleep and Eli (5yo) comes in and says,

"Mommy, when Moses (our cat) is a grown up let's get a girl cat and then they can have a baby and we can name her Trippy because we will take her on trips. Her mother and dader (it took me a minute to figure out he meant father) will be worried when we go camping that she will get lost in the woods so we will keep her in the tent unless we buy a pop-up camper."

Then he walked out of the room. LOL I love the stories that children come up with.

So here I was beating myself up.....

and all I needed to do was change curriculums. The school that we were looking into for the boys uses the ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) curriculum. I started researching it and I saw that it really fit with our learning styles better. The cost of the curriculum for the whole year is the price that I would pay for two of the boys for one month. SO..............we are going to continue homeschooling. We are at a much better place in NM. The house is running more efficiently and we have more of a functioning routine. They had an online diagnostic test and I had Grant take it and he tested at a 3rd grade level. I have had him in "kindergarten" this year. I am not going to tell him that he tested at that level, I am just going to tell him that he is going into 1st grade still. Eli has one more test and it looks like he is going to be in 1st grade next year, but I am going to tell him he is in Kindergarten. It is just easier that way. They would get confused if I told them any different. My homeschool friends that have done it long term always said the first year is the hardest and it isn't until year 3 that everything really comes together. So we are going into year 2 of our official homeschool journey. The thing that is the most valuable and precious of all is the relationship that my boys have with each other. That is one of the best reasons to homeschool.