New Year, New Word, New Adventure

Hello.  Yes, I do realize it's been nearly 4 months since my last post.  Not even my sister's annoying friendly texts to blog more could get me to sit down and document our life. Ha!  It's been a BUSY 4 months!  We had Halloween, had an amazing family vacation to Disney, celebrated Thanksgiving, kept up with all of our traditional advent activities, celebrated a 40th birthday (and a 38th), had a cozy Christmas, survived the flu (Logan), rang in the new year, and started a new adventure!  I am going to go back and document some of that--especially our Disney trip.  Not because I think you all want to hear about our 3 month old vacation, but because I want to remember the details. But for now, I'm going to start with my word for the year... which leads to the new adventure I mentioned. 😀

The story starts back sometime last year.  Working at Target got to the point of absolute ridiculousness.  I could elaborate for days, but to keep it short and sweet, it got to the point where I just needed to be done.  Every time I went into work there was a new rule, a new threat of a write up, and new job requirements.  There were many times where I wished I could just throw my hands up and say, "I quit".  But we all know that the responsible rule follower in me would never go for that.  One night in mid November, I stood in the candle aisle, with tears in my eyes asking myself "what in the world are you doing here? Why haven't you quit?".  I immediately heard in my spirit, "fear".  Wow.  Way to cut deep, God.  But it was true.  Ultimately, I was staying out of fear.

 I chose Target as a side job to bring in extra money to pay off debt.  I chose it to have the discount work for me.  I chose it because it meant I could stay home with my children (as opposed to using my degree and teaching, and sending them to daycare).  I chose it because the pay was decent, and the hours worked for me. When it came to quitting, I really didn't want to trade in one "dumb job for another dumb job".  So I stayed.  I often looked for alternatives, but never did anything about it.  Until that night in November.  I knew exactly what I had to do.

I have often struggled/argued/battled with God.  Why did He put the calling on my life to be a teacher, but also put a strong conviction to be a stay at home mom?  Why not make me one of those mom's who wants to go to work?? There are plenty of those.  I know.  They are my friends!  Or why not make my calling something I could do while staying at home?  Or why not magically just make me rich? 😉  I could not reconcile the two...

Until now!  I went home and the very next day applied for an online teaching position.  I had seen it advertised many times over the last few months.  Whenever I looked into it, it overwhelmed me.  The application process was like 5 steps.  The pay seemed too good to be true.  There had to be a catch...  But after being miserable for months at Target, and hearing God tell me I was living out of fear, I just went ahead and went for it.  The process was a little crazy, but I pushed through with confidence.

I was hired within an hour of my online interview!  I've been teaching English to little kids in China since the beginning of December.

The curriculum is provided for me, the pay is significantly more than I was making at Target, I can set my own hours and work as little or as much as I want, I can wear my pajama pants, and it is FUN!

There is a time difference (obviously), so the best times for me to teach are early mornings.  That is their evening.  My goal is to teach from 5 AM to 7 AM Monday through Friday.  I also teach a few classes on Friday nights, because that is their Saturday.  I am an independent contractor, so they have to choose me.  So my schedule isn't completely full yet, but it's getting there!

I get fun feedback like this--Bob is a 5 year old little boy who is in love with me! 😍  And I've never been called patient so much in my life! ha ha!

Not only do I get to teach AND be home with my kids, but I miss out on less family time.  Instead of leaving after dinner a few nights a week, I will be up and done with work before they even wake up.

It's been a little rough these last few months, though.  I've gotten home from Target at midnight, only to wake up at 4:30 to teach.  I knew it was for a season, though.  So I pushed through.  I put in my two week at Target last night, and I couldn't be happier.

My word for 2018...

It's going to be a good year! 😁

Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we headed to Pumpkins on the Prairie.  We've gone the past few years.  We already did the farm when we did touch a truck, so I think this is going to be it for pumpkin patches this year.  We're going to hit up Aldi for $3 pumpkins after this. ;)

We got there after lunch and had most of the place to ourselves!

We were the only ones on the hay ride too!

The kids ran through the hay maze.  See them?

Michael was hiding out at one of the windows.  They found him. :)

Logan likes to remind us that he's the leader. ha!

The kids both decided that they would like a white pumpkin, because it would look better painted.

And since it's Texas, it was SO DANG HOT that we ended up getting sno cones.  Needless to say,we are ALL ready for fall--a real fall!

Our First Camping Trip

Someone in our house is turning 40 in a few short months... So the time for adventure is NOW (if you get what I'm saying 😉).  Actually, we have been talking about going camping for years.  And when we were out on a hike a few weeks ago, Olivia mentioned again that she wished we could go.  So on a whim we decided to go for it.  We bought as little as possible.  A tent, a tarp, a lantern, and 2 new camping chairs because ours had fallen apart.  We used what we had and made the bet of it!

Since it was our first trip and we weren't wanting to invest much more, we just went to one of our local parks.  You can stay the night for $12.50.

Examining a butterfly that had just landed.

We ended up with the best spot!  This was the area right behind our site!

We went exploring and looking for fire wood.

He cracks me up!

Remember when we went on our hike and someone had drawn on the trees? Olivia made sure we were bringing supplies for her to do the same.

Chalk on the trees

After unloading, exploring, and coloring on trees, we took a break for some popcorn and water!

Kicking around the soccer ball

We had these bird houses waiting to be painted since this summer.  It was one of the things on our summer bucket list that we never got to.  At the last minute I threw them in the bag.

After painting the bird houses, they painted the trees.

Can you see those lanterns in the trees?  Olivia spotted them and decided that those, coupled with the painted tree, was the perfect spot for a party.  She brought over the chairs, and used the wagon as a table, and invited us to her game party. 😁😁

Bubbles!

and more bubbles!

A boy digging in dirt as a boy should do...

I told Olivia to bring along a notebook to nature journal in.  She thought it was a fantastic idea, and had all sorts of brilliant drawings!

Oh, we did buy one more thing...

The tent and airbeds were finally up. We had some very dirty, but very happy kids!

The view of our campsite from the road.

It was a full moon, or very close, so we brought the telescope to use.  And that toilet... it was multipurpose. 

We roasted hot dogs for dinner and then it was on to the highly anticipated s'mores.

After dinner, and dessert, and hanging out by the fire, we went for a little walk.  We came across this GIANT spider.  I know you can't tell from the picture, but it was at least the size of a fifty cent piece.

The kids were practically begging to go to bed.  That never happens!  Don't be fooled, though.  It wasn't because they were tired.   It was just because they wanted in the tent.  We got in bed a little after 9.  It wasn't the most comfortable sleep (for me!), but we made it through the night.

Breakfast!

After breakfast we ended up just packing up and heading home.  We unpacked, showered, and actually made it to church for the late service!

The kids had a great time!  Another family adventure is in the books!

A Heart of Gold

There has been a lot of discussion in our house recently about how fortunate we are and to be thankful for the blessings we have.  It's hard to raise grateful kids in a material world!

Olivia was able to participate in our church's serve day this summer, so that was a start.  But she's constantly talking about how she wants to help out.  How she would invite people to her house, or how it's "just not fair" that she lives in this beautiful house (ha!) while others don't even have a home.

Of course we want to encourage her and help her live out being the hands and feet of Jesus instead of just talking about it.  It's hard, though, because a lot of normal volunteer places have age requirements on who can help.  So we decided to take a more immediate and age appropriate approach.

There was a piece of art we were studying, and Olivia's take was that the people were very poor and hungry.  She wished she could give them food.  So this week we headed to the store before art class.

We walked through the aisles and picked out food that would be good to share.

She was SO excited!

She talked non stop about how she hoped they liked what she picked out for them.  She also chose things like strawberry oatmeal, because "oatmeal fills you and Boppa up! and I like strawberry!"

Each week she has to learn a new Proverbs as part of our first grade curriculum.  As we were walking to the register to check out, she said, "He who refreshes others, will he himself be refreshed!" (part of Proverbs 11:25, which was her verse a few weeks ago).  Y'all, I'm not going to lie, I might have teared up a bit.  When the work of homeschooling, plus church, plus all the heart work you hope you are doing comes full circle and your child preaches to you... there are no words.

Right outside the art house is this little "red door food pantry".  We see it every week.  Last week it was empty, and as I was waiting to pick Olivia up, I saw a lady walk by looking for food.  So this seemed like the perfect opportunity for Olivia.  It's part of her life.

There was some food in there this week, but even by the time class was over, some of the food we had donated was already gone.  That made Olivia really happy!

We don't always do everything right as parents, and this one can be super sassy, but she also has a heart of gold.  I hope we can always teach and encourage her to be a generous giver!