My heart is heavy as I send my Officer to work this evening. There have been at least 15 officers injured in the riots in Baltimore. There has been a nation wide letter sent to police stations warning of multiple groups of gang members out for cop blood. I ask that you pray for the city of Baltimore, pray for the police officers, the first responders and those loosing property and businesses.
When I was just 13 years old I was sitting on the teen center steps at my church, a friend was visibly upset so I sat down next to him and asked him what was wrong, he told me he didn’t want to talk about it so I told him I would pray for him. He looked me in the eye and asked me not to say that if I didn’t mean it. I was quite shocked. I had heard “I’ll pray for you” my whole life and until that moment it just seemed like the thing you said to make people feel better. I literally bowed my head and prayed for him right then and there. Since that day if I tell someone I will pray for them I do it in that moment.
I’ll pray for you… If you attend a church on a regular basis or if you have ever posted on Facebook about a tragedy or having a hard time you have probably been told this before. You may have also said it to a friend or family member who was going through a hard time. I know we all have the best of intentions when we tell someone that we will pray for them, but if we are honest with ourselves we often forget to pray for that person until we see them again or hear their name. I would challenge you to start praying for them as soon as you hear of the need for prayer.
Another great way to be sure you remember to pray for people is by keeping a prayer journal. For the last 6 months I have been keeping a prayer journal, in it I write down the prayers of my friends and loved ones so I can pray for them on a daily basis. It also gives me the opportunity to follow up with the people I am praying for to see how they are doing or if the prayer request has changed at all. I have really enjoyed following up with friends about their prayer requests and I it also gives them a nice feeling that I have not forgotten about them. Here is a picture of my prayer journal. As you can see it doesn’t have to be fancy. 🙂
It’s here… baseball season!! In our house this season is pretty exciting. From the Boston Red Sox to our Bear and Monkey playing their first year of t-ball, we simply love baseball season!
I will admit it is also a crazy time as we now learn to juggle Monster’s baseball schedule along with Bear and Monkey’s t-ball schedule all while making it to all of Butterfly’s track meets and trying to continue making it to church on Sundays, Bible study on Wednesdays and fitting in any amount of “family time” we can. Ha…. wish us luck!
Thankfully we have a great support system so even if there is a practice for two teams on the same night I can always count on my in-laws to step in and help out and if I can’t make it to a week of Bible study I know my mom is doing a good job of keeping the ladies of the church in line. 🙂 I also try to make sure that I am prepared for dinners on those busy nights and that homework gets done AS SOON as they walk in the door from school so we don’t have to scramble before bed or in the morning.
I would love to hear how you prepare for busy seasons. Also, if you have a delicious “busy night” recipe I would love to hear it.
Tonight I want to tell you a little bit about my oldest daughter Butterfly. She is 13 (will be 14 in July) and in 7th grade. I am so proud to be her mom. I found out I was pregnant with her when I was only 15 and I knew from the moment I found out I was pregnant that she was going to be amazing. I gave birth to her just after turning 16. It was the summer between my sophomore and Junior year and I lived with my parents, they were both very supportive.
She was always very bright, she could speak in full, understandable sentences at 18 months and she could do Sudoku at just 4 years old (I still can’t understand Sudoku lol). Today she is in honors algebra and getting a 3.95 GPA. She wants to go to college and become an engineer and I have no doubt she will succeed if she pursues that road.
She is also very involved in our church and her youth group. She has gone out of her comfort zone and tried out for many sports this year, cross county, dance team, basketball, and track. Her favorites are cross country and dance team and she is quite good at both of them. She also babysits quite a lot and has a lot of fun doing it. She loves the kids and they really love her too!
I think if we could all learn one thing from Butterfly it would be to spread your wings and try new things and no matter what…be yourself!
Today I want to share with you my favorite flowers…tulips!
I have always felt like they were put on Earth to remind me of God’s love for me.They are so beautiful yet so simple.
Where I live tulips only last about 3 weeks, this has always made me realize that life is short and we need to enjoy it. Also, the fact that they come back every year without needing replanted makes reminds that even when I get knocked down, God will build me back up even when I don’t feel good enough or worthy. I hope that you are able to get out this weekend and enjoy some of God’s beauty.
Here are a few of my favorite tulip pictures
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You can see see more of my photography at www.seibellaphotography.com
Oh man… the dreaded question…”What’s for dinner?”
Whether its your spouse or kids, getting asked that question can be frustrating. Especially if you don’t know yet. I used to have that problem almost everyday. I would only go shopping for 1 or 2 days worth of food at a time and usually it was at 4pm for that nights dinner. I realized something needed to change so I started doing weekly menus and shopping trips. That worked (sort of) for about a year but quickly noticed that I would be late in writing the menu or I would stall on going to the grocery store so I was back to shopping for dinner at 4pm.
I finally decided to try something different. Something BIGGER. I now plan my meals monthly. I still do the grocery shopping once a week but with the menu planned I am not starting from scratch every week. I can get all of my cookbooks/recipes/past menus out all at one time and plan whole month instead of trying to do it 4 times a month. I write in the dinner meals and then I am able to quickly write my grocery shopping list and hit the store.
When I plan the meals I take into consideration what we will be doing in that month. For instance I go to Bible study on Wednesdays and the kids go to my mother-in-laws, so I don’t need to plan a meal for those days. Also, we all pretty much love breakfast for dinner so we plan that for every Sunday. Another thing that we do is let our kids help plan the menu. I ask them for one meal that they want to help plan and make. They love it! I also try to do easy, quick meals for nights that we have track or baseball. I am sharing an example of my April menu at the end of this post. If you see something you would like the recipe to don’t hesitate to ask. Also, I would love to hear your time saving tips on meal planning. Please share them in the comments!
My Friday Favorite this week is my favorite Bible verse, The Jesus Creed: Mark 12:29-31… “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.
I first learned this verse as the Jesus creed about 4 1/2 years ago and it has really stuck with me. We did a church wide study on the Book “40 Days living the Jesus Creed” by Scot Mcknight. I bought the book in my Kindle app and every morning before I got out of bed I would read the daily devotion. I am not kidding you, it changed my life.
I had always been taught the “golden rule” do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but this was different, somehow in my mind the use of the word love hit me like a ton of bricks. {Back story: when I was growing up I was taught to never say the word hate, it was seriously worse than most 4 letter words in my house. Basically, my mom explained to us that hate was the opposite of love. She told us that as much as we love her, hate was the opposite feeling. WOW… I love my mom a lot so in my mind hating someone was basically wanting them to die. Yikes!} Think about it, the verse does NOT say, love your neighbor when he loves you first or love your neighbor when he does something nice for you. It simply says “LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR as your self.” Holy cow… can you imagine if everyone loved each other as they love themselves?
As this Good Friday comes to a close I ask you to think about how much Jesus loved you to die on the cross for YOU. It’s ALL about love!
In the {almost} 7 years that Hubby has been a police officer he has never needed to use his badge outside of his uniform. Well that 7 year streak ended today, we took the kids to the toy store and on the way home we decided to stop at a small grocery store to get some frozen pizza for lunch. Apparently, while I was in the store, deciding between rising crust or regular, an argument broke out in the parking lot between a belligerent “customer” and the store owner. When I came out of the store I noticed that Hubby’s door was open, and I could hear yelling coming from the other side of the parking lot. I walked quickly to the car and asked Hubby what was going on. He wasn’t sure what the argument was about but wanted to wait around to be sure it didn’t escalate.
We sat there for a few moments listening to the argument and when it was obvious the customer wasn’t leaving, after being asked to leave multiple times, I called non-emergency dispatch and let them know about the situation. They informed me that they already had an officer on their way, took my information and hung up. As soon as I hung up the phone the customer attempted to push his way past the store owner and the owner had to physically stop him. At that moment I got to see Hubby “cop” for the first time outside of work. He walked up to the customer and presented his badge and told him to leave. Of course he didn’t leave and we waited for our local police department to arrive, Hubby gave his statement and we left.
In the past I have done a couple ride-alongs with Hubby. I have seen him arrest people and write tickets before but he has never needed to use his badge when we were simply being a “normal family.” Ha… Normal…what does that mean anyway?
I will admit, I was a little nervous because our three youngest kids were with us as well and while Hubby was out of the car dealing with the customer I made sure to lock the car and keep myself staged between the altercation and the car so if things got too crazy I would be the first one to my babies. I wish I had gotten a picture of Monster’s face as we got back into the car. The pure pride for his dad was evident by his huge smile. We came home and ate our pizza like the normal family we were pretending to be…
From the title of this blog post you would probably assume that my hubby and I got to go out tonight, together, alone…. NOPE. My date tonight was my handsome 8 year old son Monster and Hubby’s dates were our 6 year old twin girls Bear and Monkey. We try to do a date night once a month. My hubby takes the girls on their dates and I take our son on dates. We let the whole evening be about the kid we are out with. It usually includes dinner, an art activity, a trip to a store, playing sports etc.
Tonight, Monster decided he wanted to go to the batting cages and to Olive Garden for dinner. What he didn’t know was that Hubby and I made plans to meet up at some point during the date. So Monster and I went to the batting cages (our first time. It was fun!) then we went to Olive Garden for dinner. After dinner we stopped at Toys R Us. He insisted we look at ALL of the boy stuff. He picked out some baseball cards and much to his surprise the there were 2 Red Sox players… that made his whole night 🙂 . Then we went to the pottery painting place in the mall and met up with Hubby, Monkey, and Bear. They were all very excited to be reunited, both with each other and with both parents. After pottery we decided on Baskin Robbins for dessert. Then Butterfly needed picked up from her Bible Study and we all came home. It was a lovely night and I truly cherish our date nights.
I would recommend everyone start doing date nights with your kids on a regular basis. Not only is it wonderful bonding time, it is also a great way to show them how to treat a date and how to have one on one conversation without it being weird. If you are looking for something to talk to your kids about on a date Google… fun questions to ask your kids. The options are endless. Again, I can’t express enough how great I think it is to have the opportunity to spend one on one time with your kids. I hope you are able to give it a try.
I am sharing some pictures of our dates tonight and Hubby’s latest date with Butterfly too.
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Happiness Unfolding 