A reflection of time

Today I saw a picture of my Dad without his beard. I knew that he shaved it off recently but I have not yet seen him in person. He has had this beard since I was a young teenager so I realized that I have known him longer with a beard than without!!

Then I got to thinking about age. I remember as a young child asking my mom how old she was and when she really had to think about it I thought she was joking. At the time she probably was in her late 30's. Today I commented to someone that my birthday was coming fairly soon and I seriously had to think about how old I was!!! It must be something about being in your late 30's that makes you forget your exact age.

Today I also held a 5 month old baby. As I held him and snuggled him I realized that my little niece is over 2 months old already. I still have not seen her and probably will not until she is at least 10 months old. Sam was walking at 10 months!! This really made me sad that I would miss seeing her as a little baby.

Then I remembered when Sam was only a couple months old I was visiting a friend who had a baby a year or so earlier. As she held Sam she commented that she could not remember her child being so small. At the time I thought that was so silly and how could she possibly not remember! Well as I held that 5 month old baby today I had a hard time remembering what my kids were like that young!!

I don't know why all of these things came into my mind today, but as I reflect on them I am so grateful for all of those moments - even the ones I don't remember right now.

As I think back to all the times people say how quickly babies grow it really is true, I just wish they would also tell us how to preserve memories. I have tried to do it by taking lots of pictures and even some video and that has helped. I have my photos randomly pop up as a screen saver. Sometimes we just sit and watch the random photos. There is always something that comes up that makes us smile or laugh at a funny situation.

So I guess this post can be labelled in the Kid Tips category. My tip is to take lots of photos. I use Snapfish to print the best of the snapshots. Even though I have no idea when I will find the time to actually organize them into photo albums I do know that someday I will have the time. The most important thing is that I have taken the time to take the photos and preserve at least some of the memories.

One of the best things that I do is to make sure I take a photo of each of my kids every month. I used Snapfish to make up little booklets of these photos for each child's first year. Seeing one photo per month really shows how quickly they change! Now I make sure I still have one usable photo per child as well as one of all three of them together. This is not always an easy task! I use them to make photobooks in snapfish, one page per month. If I keep up with it and try to set up a page every month it really does not take that long to do.

Psalm 27

Scripture

Psalm 27


Observation

I saw a progession in this Psalm
Verses 1-3 is about the fear that we all feel. Even though we have faith in God and know we are protected it is difficult to not be afraid.

Verses 4-6 speaks about God's presense. We are with Him and He is with us, protecting us. For this we praise Him.

Verses 7-12 is David's prayer. In verse 8 "My heart has heard you say, "Come and talk with me." And my heart responds, "Lord, I am coming." . How often do we hear God asking for us to come talk with Him and we don't respond!

Verses 13-14 We have confidence as we wait patiently.


Application

It amazes me how God speaks to us in many ways. As I read through this Psalm I immediately saw the progression from fear to God's Presence to Prayer and finally to Confidence. But when I got to verse 8 and read it for probably the 3rd or 4th time today it all of a sudden jumped off the page.

We need to open our hearts and our minds to be able to hear God calling us. He wants us to talk to Him and to invite Him into our daily lives, to be a part of everything we do.

The application of this Psalm is simply to talk to God more.


Prayer

Lord, thank you for so many blessings and for the wonderful ways you speak to me. I pray today that all of us can be more aware of just how much we need you in our lives and how often you try to reach us. Help us to hear you more clearly and respond to you with praise.

My computer is back!

Finally after nearly a week I have my computer back and it seems to be working fine. I have only had time to check my email and change the name of this blog. Hope to be back to normal routine tommorrow - well I really am not sure what the normal routine actually is. I hope I figure it out soon! Either way, I should be posting more now.

Welcome to my newly updated blog, with a new name and a new look. I am not completely sold on the template yet but for now it works. Let me know what you think and as always leave comments even just to say hi! I love to hear from you and know that you were here, it truly makes it more fun when I know that people are enjoying what I am writing and sharing.

Happy New Year and may you all be richly blessed with the peace of God's love!

New blog name

I originally started this blog to keep a record of my new hobby of baking bread from freshly ground wheat. And although I am still doing that, I have found a recipe I like and have not found the time to experiment with much else lately.

And so this blog has evolved into more of a journal of our family life. When one of the photos I entered into a photo contest at 5minutesformom.com became a finalist I decided to let friends and family know about my little blog. Of course we still didn't have nearly enough votes to win, but the point is that now practically everyone who knows me knows about this blog. The focus of the blog has shifted from our "preps" plans to posting pictures and stories of the kids. More importantly, it has also become the place for my bible study notes, I pray that there are those that read this that will learn about the Word of God through my learning.

I also made a decision to stop sending friends and family emails with pictures and instead send them here. Nobody really knows what "purplepreps" is all about but many have heard me use the term Our Blessed Chaos to describe our life. I thought it was a more appropriate blog site name and matches the heading title I have had for a while anyways!

I hope you enjoy this little slice of our lives and will come back often to see what we are up to.

out with a virus

I am away yet again!!! This time is so frustrating - my computer managed to pick up a nasty virus, even with full virus protection!!! I think I must have picked it up when I was looking for a new blog template.

Anyway, I am typing this on my hubby's laptop and I do not have alot of time left on here. My computer is gone to get fixed and hopefully will be back tomorrow.

I told the kids that I had to take the computer to the computer doctor because it was sick and needed to get fixed. Sam was so cute and very sincerely asked if there was anything he could do to fix it. He is so sweet. Ben ran and got his hammer haha, I think he had the better idea!

And so just to keep you updated, here is a summary of my new year....

-a minor flood
-rearranging of bookcases, shelves, and cabinets
-clear out porch - rest of house filled with porch items causing numerous stubbed toes
-new flooring in the porch (not quite finished yet, maybe by Easter???)
-computer crashes
-meanwhile I am having a raging PMS week and have nearly lost my mind - Happy New Year?? Not exactly....I hope the rest of 2009 is better than the first few days!!

I hope yours is better and I look forward to getting back into blogging routine soon.

Psalm 26

Scripture

Psalm 26

Verse 12 "I have taken a stand, and I will publicly praise the Lord."

Observation

How often does God come up in your everyday conversations? As I pondered this I recalled conversations I had with family and friends over Christmas. Most of my conversations tend to focus on the kids and what they are doing or what funny things they have said. I quickly realized how little I discuss my faith and beliefs with anyone outside of my church bible study.


Application

To be an effective witness, I not only need to live a godly life but I need to tell others how God is working in my life. I am so blessed and I need to spend more time praising God for those blessings - and I need to do it more publicly!

Verse 7 says "singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of all your miracles." As I am slowly teaching myself how to play the piano better I can easily be learning hymns! What a wonderful way to praise God and also to help my children learn to praise Him too.


Prayer

Thank you Lord for giving me such a blessed life. Please guide me through my days and show me opportunities to spread your word and praise you.

updates

I have added several backdated posts to update everyone on the last couple months. Be sure to go back to the posts from the beginning of November to see all the updates. Most of them have lots of pictures! I will no longer be sending email updates to family and friends so I hope that they will now come here to find out what is going on in our lives. My hope is that you all enjoy this blog, we are so far away from all our family that it is a small way to share our family with you.

Enjoy and please leave comments, even just to say Hi. We love to hear from you and know that you are enjoying the pictures and stories.