Welcome to 2010!

Hi all and Happy New Year! First of all, I hope that everyone had a blessed Christmas! As always, the start of a New Year has been a time of reflection for me on what I can do better, and what I can change altogether. I like to make goals for myself every year. I generally put them into categories. Spiritual Goals, Personal Goals, Physical Goals, Parenting Goals, Homeschool Goals. I won't tell you every single one of my goals or "resolutions" as many call them...but I will share some of them.

Spiritual Goals

1) Be closer to God through more regular quiet time with him!

2) Seek to share Christ with more people this year than I did last.

3) Use Philippians 4:8 as a guide to what I do, watch, listen to, etc..

4) Seek to have a meek and quiet spirit.

Personal Goals

1) Look for more ways to serve others this year.

2) Spend time blogging at least 4 times a week.

3) Spend a little time weekly working on relearning my violin.

4) Take a picture every day for my 365 project

5) Look for a way every day to show Rob that I appreciate him.

6) Find a time to do something no matter how little every day one on one with each of my kids.

7) Get and stay organized

Physical Goals

1) Lose at least 25 pounds before I get pregnant again ;-) through exercising at least 5 days a week, and watching my calories more closely.

2) drink more water daily.

3) Be in shape so that I have energy to keep up with everything I need to do.

4) Try to keep myself looking nice daily for my husband instead of looking sloppy.

Parenting Goals/Homeschool Goals (to save a little time I will put these together)

1) Speak more quietly and gently to my older children (no sarcasm)

2) Be consistent with my little ones (stop what I'm doing to correct..even when I don't feel like it)

3) Be consistent with grading and recording their school work (giving them daily feedback on their work)

4) Make sure they see me working and learning as well on a daily basis (don't sit on Facebook while expecting them to be working hard!)

5) Make sure I have everything planned and ready for them to go in the mornings so as not to waste time.

6) NEVER skip time in the Word for the sake of academics...keep priorities straight!

These are the things that I will be working on this New Year. I have verses written out for many of these, to memorize and help me stay on track, but for now as I get ready to go to bed....if you haven't yet thought about what you want to work on this year..let me encourage you that it is never too late! As a Christian I am called to do everything heartily as unto the Lord, and each new year that God gives us is an opportunity to start fresh, to recognize our sins of the previous year, repent and move forward with His Holy Spirit to guide us! If we aim at nothing...we will hit it every time! I hope to be able to come back to you this time next year and tell you that I mastered at least a couple of these goals...for the glory of my Lord! Blessed New Year to all of you, and if you get a chance I would love to hear about what you all are working on for the upcoming year.

In His Word Wednesday- Renewing your Mind!

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

This verse has taken new meaning to me here recently, as our family is sort of on a mission of revival and renewing all our minds. I recently did a word study on the word renew, to gain a better understanding of what it means to renew our minds. Some interesting ideas came of it. Some of the words that are main ideas included in the meaning of the word renew are to rebuild, to repeat, to revive, to repair, to confirm, to renovate! If you then take these words and break them down by their meanings, it really gives you a picture of what God is telling us when He says He wants our minds to be renewed! I won't go into all the different meanings here (although I may share them on my homeschool blog), but let me tell you...I had pages worth of info on what it means to renew your mind! God wants our minds to be filled with Him. He wants to revive us back to Him, to rebuild our minds with thoughts that are pleasing and Holy. He wants to renovate our thinking into what will be useful for His Glory. We all know that what we think in our mind...comes out in our actions and attitudes. I don't know about you, but for me it is easy to overlook my mind, and focus only on the outward behavior. Well, as long as what I think doesn't come out in my actions, I'm ok. But, Christ gave us a different picture. He told us that when we look at a woman to lust, it is adultery, when we have hatred in our hearts, it is murder! Our thoughts and our actions are one in the same to the Lord. When you think about it, we really need to recognize our thoughts as sin, and repent of them the same we would for the action itself. God wants us to take our thoughts captive, and allow Him to fill them up with Him! This has been a very convicting study for me, and yet, very refreshing, in knowing that with God all things are possible. We can capture our thoughts, and allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds!

Please join Megan today for more In His Word Wednesday....and if you have never done a word study in your study of the Bible...I highly recommend trying it! If you have any questions about it, I would be happy to pass on how I go about it! It will really help you to meditate further on what God is communicating to us in His word!!

New Business!!

Yesterday as an exciting day for us! I wanted to go yesterday and get our official DBA (officializing our new business!) because yesterday was the one year anniversary of the day that our little foster daughter left us! I wanted what was a very sad anniversary for our family to become a happy day for us. We know that God works all things out for good to those who love Him, and I wanted this sad day to be overshadowed by something good! So....we are now an official photography business recognized by our state and Uncle Sam!

If you had asked me several years ago if I would be a small photography business owner...I would have laughed my head off! This whole process was entirely a God thing! Our goals are different than many photography businesses in that we want to make some profit off of it, but more importantly we want to be a blessing to others through the talent that God has given us! We are being uncovential in our discounts for pastors, military, missionary, and homeschool families for photoshoots. We are also keeping our overall prices generally lower than those of many who do the same kind of photography. I've been warned not to do that, by professionals who want me to value my work. Although I do generally want to be paid for my time away from family during photoshoots, and for the time spent editing images, I don't want the prices to be so cumbersome that the average family could never conceive of hiring me. If this was a make or break income for our family, I would likely reconsider the pricing, but in my mind, God has given me this gift of photography, and I don't want to be steeped in pride about what I have done! I know many people will call us crazy when we choose to give freebies, or discounts on our work, but we feel that if we are not being a blessing to others through this business, then we are not doing it for the Lord...we are only doing it for ourselves!

We are excited about this new crossroads in the life of our family, and look forward to getting the kids involved in it as they grow older (they are already great photography students, and my Ethan loves to help me edit!). This is what we love about being a homeschool family, in that we can enjoy these adventures in what God is doing in our lives with our children!

So...if you have not already seen or been a part of our new business, you can find out more about what we are doing in several different places. You can fan our Facebook page, which you can see to the right of this post. Or you can visit our Smugmug site here: Smug Mug Or...you can start following our blog here: Blog Or....you can visit our still a work in progress website here: Website. If you follow our other blogs already you will see this same post in all places. I apologize for the redundancy, but it will be easier for me to share this all at once.

We are not only selling nature and scripture prints through Smugmug now, but we are also set up to start doing family photoshoots, senior pictures, engagement pictures, and special outdoor events whenever the weather is warm enough here in Southwest Michigan, Northern Indiana!

I hope that we can find a way to bless all of you in the coming years through this gift that God has blessed our family with!!

I Miss my Blogging, and exciting news!

Hi all. I basically was just wanting to pop in and say hi, because my poor blogs have been so horribly neglected ever since the school year started! The big excitement around here has been that we are very close to opening up our own official photography business. This has been entirely a God thing, and we feel very blessed (and sometimes terrified), that He has brought this opportunity into our lives.

We have been selling scripture prints, and are finally preparing to expand into a family photography business as well! We have set up a Facebook fan page, and have acquired a smugmug account, which I am excited about. You can find that here: http://blessingsphotography.smugmug.com/.

I really hope that I find the time to get back into some of my blogging, as I still enjoy doing it very much. I hope that all my friends here in blogworld are well, and that God is remaining in the center of all of your lives! I am thankful for all of you, and I thank you also for all the prayers for my Dad, as he is doing really well!!

Loving Your Husband Friday- What a Great Hubby!

Today is another Friday to focus on loving our hubbys. I love how flexible my husband is about watching our 7 children, when I need or want to do something. Last night he rushed home so I could go to a monthly girls night out that some of the ladies of our church have. We've been really busy lately, and haven't seen a whole lot of each other recently, but instead of insisting that I stay home because he's tired....he let me go, and took care of getting all the kids into bed! I'm very blessed to have him!

Join Shannon over at the Peer Review for more Loving Your Husband Fridays!

In HIs Word Wednesday- Greater Love

Today being Veterans Day, I can't help but think of a particular verse.

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.

Not only does it astound me that so many men and women are willing to give up their very lives (and their families) so that we can have freedom, but I am also impressed with the sacrifice that the families of these men and women make. We should all take the time to be grateful for the men and women who are willing to give up their lives for us. Most importantly, I am remembering the savior that gave up His life for me!

I have also been thinking today about that verse, and although giving up your life can sometimes mean actually dying for someone else, it can also mean something else. What can we do to sacrifice our time, our money, our talents and our efforts for someone else today. When you do something to help someone else when you could be doing something for yourself, that is laying down your life also. There are many ways to lay down your life for others, and make others more important then yourselves. Whether that be the others inside your own household, or the others in your neighborhood, church, city, or another country....we can all find ways to lay down our lives for others! This is what Jesus called us to do! It's not always an easy calling, but if we take the time daily to think about how we can lay down our own lives for someone else, it will eventually become a habit!

Join Megan for more In His Word Wednesday!

Updates, a new look, and At The Well

Good Monday morning to all my blogging friends. I know that I have neglected my blogs horribly, but I wanted to pop in a give an update on what our family has been up to, and show off my new look for the season :-).

I have been very busy in recent weeks. Some of you know that I aspire to have our own family photography business. I would ideally love to do family photography (taking pictures of families, babies, seniors etc.), but I am not quite ready yet to venture out into that realm yet. A little more practice perhaps, and a portfolio will help. If anyone who's a local friend of mine would like to let me practice on your family and include the pictures in my portfolio, I would be happy to do that, and you could only pay for prints that you would like to have.

Although I am not ready to branch out that far yet, we have started our own small business on Etsy. I have taken many of the pictures that we have and turned them into scripture prints! I've really enjoyed doing this, and now we have started our own little business, that I hope will supplement our income, but also be a blessing to others while spreading the Word of God! If you want to check it out you can find it here.

This is exciting, but there are many other things going on in our lives too. Audrey has been practicing twice a week now for her role as a little mouse in the Nutcracker. She has been in the clouds with excitement over this. She is such a little performer, and social butterfly. We are looking forward to seeing her perform on December 11th and 12th. Of course I have volunteered to be a chaperone for long rehearsals, and that is fun!

Our family has also been going through a spiritual revival of sorts here in recent weeks. We are purging things from our lives that are not profitable, or not honoring to God. We are getting back to more Bible Study, and we are even changing our homeschool curriculum to fit these goals. It's really going back to our original goals for our family, that we seem to have wandered away from amidst all the trials in our lives over the past couple of years. We are glad to be getting back to the old paths. I will talk more about this on my homeschool blog, along with sharing more about our new curriculum, and what I'm learning.

We enjoyed a different kind of Halloween this year. We have never celebrated Halloween, but this year we decided to take the kids out during trick or treat time, not dressed up, and collect canned goods for our local food pantry. It was a blessed time, and a way for us to use a day that is characterized by things of darkness, and bring some light to it!

So, those are some things going on in our family. I really want to do a Monday post on At The Well, as they are discussing hospitality today, which I think is important. I am out of time for today, but let me just say....I often feel like I can't be hospitable because of the state of my house, and my somewhat anti-social husband. But, I believe in it, and it is something Rob and I both hope to change in the future! Have a read by clicking on At the Well. It's a great article, and I hope you all do a better job of this then our family does!

Have a great day!