Catching Up

Our new chicks.

Our first dozen eggs from our chickens!

The chicken coop that Jeremy built (didn't he do a good job?).

Our new puppy, Daisy.

Annalee standing tall. She can pull herself up on things now.

I can't believe that I haven't blogged since July 2. Lots of things have happened since then, and I guess I'll have to share them all with you now. My heart is heavy tonight, because I lost my temper with the boys tonight - several times throughout the day, actually. I apologized for my anger, and told the boys that even when I lose my temper I still love them, but I still get angry at myself. On days like today, sometimes my mind even starts wondering why God has given my children and allowed me to be a mother. I feel like all I'm going to do is ruin them. So I try to remember to rest in the Lord (once I have asked forgiveness for my temper and bad attitude), knowing that He is in charge, and my kids will turn out to be what He wants them to be. I don't know if anyone can relate with me on this or not.

On to brighter subjects...I think I last shared that we had been given two chickens. Since we knew that two chickens (even if they were both hens) would not provide us with enough eggs, we picked up 11 more. We now have 4 laying hens, 7 older chicks, and two that we believe are roosters. We are really enjoying them. The boys are, too. They enjoy checking for eggs. Not so much the helping to feed and water them, but they help anyways. We have been advised by several people in our church and community that we need to have a dog to help protect our children from the cougars in our area. So after thinking and praying about this for some time, we started researching which would be the best breed, etc. We also didn't want to spend a small fortune for one. But the Lord provided. We were given a puppy last week from someone in the community. They had had a litter, and at 5 weeks, the mama dried up. So they started giving away the puppies. We got the last one. It's a girl, and we named her Daisy. She is such a cutie, and is so tiny right now! Her mama had yellow lab, black lab, red nose pit and blue nose pit in her. The daddy was a mix of Chihuahua, Pomeranian and Jack Russell terrier. So she has the genes to be big or small. It will be interesting to see.

Our church had VBS last week. Our biggest day was around 57 kids. We were excited with the turnout. Jeremy helped with the daily skit, and we both chaperoned a preschool field trip to the helicopter base across the street on Thursday. They took the kids to see the helicopters that are used in helping to put out the forest fires down here. It was really fun.

Next week, we are heading up north for a little bit of vacation. We are going to Cannon Beach to see family, and then over to Baker City, OR to see more family. We will get to see a brand new niece, and a nephew back from a military tour overseas. We are also looking forward to a visit from my parents in September. They are coming right around Silas' birthday, and he is excited about that. We have told him that maybe we'll have his birthday party at Bounce-a-palooza. It is a place in the mall in Eureka that has lots of blow up bouncy castle things. They want to go every time we go to the mall, but at $6 per child, we have to say "no". We thought maybe it would be okay for a birthday party.

I think I forgot to mention that the church has a temporary youth/associate pastor. The man that was here as an interim before we got here stayed to finish off the school year (he was teaching at the Christian school). The board decided to hire him on during the summer to see if the church could afford his salary, and also to see if they think the church needs a second pastor. Whatever happens, we are enjoying having him here. He used to confuse my mom when she would call, because his name is Josh - and she didn't remember our Josh sounding like that!

I think I will close for now. I feel much better now than I did when I started. I guess I get to see everything that the Lord is doing right now, and that I still have so much to be thankful for!

Of Hamsters and Such

The boys trying to keep cool in the sprinklers.

Our family - taken in front of our house in May.

We have lost our hamsters. Josh's hamster, Obadiah escaped out of his cage on a few days ago. We looked high and low for that hamster (he did this about a month ago, also, on a Sunday morning. But after looking for a while, we finally found him). All to no avail. But we found him early yesterday morning. We had a big box fan in front of our room trying to keep cool while sleeping. At 5 am, Jeremy and I woke up with a start. We had heard a loud thump. We finally found the cause of the sound. Obadiah had found a hole in the fan into which he climbed in, and was hit by the fan and knocked to the side of it. Poor Obadiah is no more. Josh was so sad, but we told him that next time we go into town, we will buy him another one. Then later yesterday morning, Robby tells me that his hamster, Ginger, is also missing now, too. We haven't found her yet either. But Jeremy was smart enough to cover up the hole in the fan so that she wouldn't meet the same fate as Obadiah.

We are planning on getting a dog soon. A woman in our church told Jeremy about a week ago that she thought we should have a dog. She made us aware of the cougars in the area, and thought that it would be better to have a dog to help protect our kids when they go out to play. So we thought that maybe that was a smart idea. However, now we are trying to figure out what kind of dog would be best for our family. We found a border collie puppy on Craig's list, but now hear that maybe they're not the best with kids. So I thought if anyone out there can tell me what they think of particular breeds as far as kids go, that would be wonderful. Does anyone have a preference about what kinds are better than others?