Are you speaking life or death?

Man, did these words step all over my toes today. After a rough Monday, and losing my temper more than once with my children, I prayed for a better day today. The words first on my mind this morning were from Proverbs 18:21. So this was my Facebook status: "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit" Proverbs 18:21. If you are speaking negativity, you will surely bring about negativity. Start out the day with some positive words and enjoy the fruits of those words throughout the day!! 
I write these things for accountability, and also I know if God is speaking to me, chances are, he's got a message for someone else too. So I'm sharing here as well. Later today Proverbs 31 ministry posted this blog and this was the post with the blog: “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.” -Proverbs 18:21

Follow link for "9 Ways to Speak Life Over Kids This School Year"

So...here's the link. It has some great tips to speak life over your children this school year. I'm so thankful for a little guidance as I go along this journey!!
http://nickikoziarz.com/2012/08/9-ways-to-speak-life-over-kids-this-school-year/

The firsts of fall...

Noah started 1st grade last Thursday. It was the first time he's been gone away for that long, a full day. But, thank Jesus, he loves it!!

Yay for 1st grade!

No tears this year for Noah or Mommy!

Sunday was promotion sunday which means we got a brand new class for our 4 year old Sunday school class. We sure will miss our old class and those sweet boys and girls that grew on us over the year. But this year we have a small class. We only had 3 on Sunday compared to the 12-15 we would have last year. The best part of our small new class is that we have Nathan this year!! Yay! We love getting to have a chance to teach our own kids in sunday school.

Sweet 4 year olds! Nathan threatened me if I didn't have play doh he would run away to the old 3 year old class!

Nathan started homeschool today! It was a little rough for the first day. But when Noah got home, Nathan couldn't stop talking about it and even showed his brother some of his newly learned skills!! So thankful when there's some positive.

Heading to the basement!

His class

Doing some coloring

Pitching a fit :/

Character trait movie

Snack time

I'm excited about all our fall firsts, and looking forward to what God is going to do in the lives of these children, and me and the upcoming year!!

What's Heaven like?

My original plan for this week was to start homeschooling Nathan today. However, Noah doesn't start first grade until Thurs. and I wasn't sure how this would all work out. So I prayed for direction and this is what I felt led to do...a 4 session curriculum kit by Anne Graham Lotz titled Heaven: God's promise for Me. We started last night so we could be done by Wed. It has been so fun to talk about Heaven, to read scripture about what Heaven will be like and just let the boys' imaginations go crazy about what it will be like. I have enjoyed this little mini bible study so much and we have only done one day of it. And, how perfect that God would lead me to such a short lesson just do do something really special and fun right before back to school!! God is so good! Have you thought about what heaven will be like? I don't know the specifics, but I do know that the very best things we have, on the very best day of life, with everything going absolutely perfect, will not compare to the glory of being in God's presence. If you're reading this, and don't know Jesus as your personal savior, I want to tell you more about it. I want you to be able to experience what God has in store for you here on earth, and especially in heaven. Send me a personal message at 4ogies@gmail.com if you have questions. Jesus is my favorite subject to talk about! And if you have children ages 4-8, this is a great mini- study that I would be happy to share with you once we are through, so feel free to send me a message about that! Happy Monday! I wrote this on facebook, but I'll share this here too:
Encouraging verse for the day: "the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exalt over you with loud singing" Zephaniah 3:17 ...Have a happy Monday, keep in mind someone is over you singing and encouraging you to start this day with gladness!

Summer's almost over...

 These 2 facts hit me today....summer is almost over, and I've done a horrible job blogging this summer! So sorry!! Here's a little recap (pictures below in random order)...

No big vacations after the Lighthouse trip. Lots of family time...lots of fun friend time. Lots and lots of brother time!!

8 years later, he's still the man of my dreams

Eric and I celebrated 8 years of marriage this week. We were blessed to find a sitter so we can celebrate tomorrow night for a long overdue date night!

Our Honeymoon bliss

We had a week of surgeries. Noah got tubes in  (for some conductive hearing loss and lots of ear infections) and adenoids out. I got my gallbladder out after lots of gallbladder attacks. I am so very thankful my mom came that week to help us and to watch Nathan. I'm happy to report that Noah and I are both better than before....Noah regained all his hearing back and I haven't been sick anymore!!

Cuddle time with Nonna

Post surgery, his color looks awful but he did GREAT!

pre surgery

presurgery

 

 

 

 

merry go round at the mall, fun brother day