little princes

Last night I finished the book Little Princes by Conor Grennan. It was wonderful! The cover says "One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal."

It's about a man who does a 3 month volunteer stint at an orphanage in Nepal before vacationing around the world for a year. While he's there he finds out that these children are not orphaned, but have been taken from their homes by a child trafficker and then dumped in the city's capital. The children's parents had paid this man huge sums of money to take their children and provide and educate them and mostly to keep them safe from the rebel army who is taking children as young as five for their army. Of course this trafficker does no such thing and takes the kids and the money and then dumps them. The author, Grennan, then decides to make it his mission to, if possible, reunite the children with their families.

Excellent read! I couldn't put it down!

The Highlight of my Vacation!

Yes, we actually got to meet him! I have never met a "famous" person before and it was so cool! I told Matt, I think it's because he actually helps people. There's a point to him being famous, he's not just some tough guy star athlete or self-absorbed movie star. Had we talked to him much more I would have started crying. Now just Beth Moore and Angie Smith to go...and I will cry if I ever meet them!

Make sure to read the quote Matt is standing by. I had to get a picture of him with it.

We were so impressed with the place. We were personally greeted when we arrived and the lady told us Dave would be out in a few minutes. Exciting! They had seats out where you could sit and watch/listen to him do his radio show. And you could see when the callers would come in. There was also a book store/coffee shop across from his show where everything was complementary and delicious. They had fancy coffees, water, pop, different kinds of homemade cookies, muffins, desserts and huge chocolate covered strawberries. The lady that does the baking was so sweet. I had talked to her on the phone a week or two ago and she makes you feel like they really are glad you came to visit. Bonus for us...it was only about 15 minutes from Jake and Kate's!

Luke's First Baseball Game

Matt, Luke, my dad and I went to a Nashville Sounds baseball game while we were on vacation last week. As you can see the stands weren't to full, but we had a fun time. This was Luke's first baseball game and since it was vacation we introduced him to all the stadium food you could possibly eat. Yay for vacation!

Don't they look so cute!

And Grampy couldn't resist buying Luke his new "Baseball Monkey" which has made quite nice friends with his "Monkey Monkey".

It was a fun time spent with Luke and a nice break away from Chloe. We don't imagine she would have been as entertained as he was. :)

Some Of My Thoughts This Morning

This morning I was reading Matthew 21:22 "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

So, I have a really hard time with this verse. I know it's God's Word, I know it's Jesus speaking. So it has to be true. It just sounds so "genie in a bottleish". And people pray for people to be healed and they die. And they pray for marriages to be put back together and they divorce. And they pray for relatives to accept Christ and they never believe.

So, back to what I know is true. I know it is God's Word, I know it is Jesus speaking, and I know that everything he says is truer than anything I think or anything this world says. Even if I don't understand it. So there must be more to it.

Some of the notes at the bottom of my bible say:
-"To be fulfilled, our requests must be in harmony with the principles of God's kingdom." Yes, I would agree.
-"The stronger our belief, the more likely our prayers will be in line with God's will..." Sounds too basic at first, but not if you think about. The stronger my belief in God (that He is who He says He is, that He can do what He says He can do, that I am who He says I am, that I can do all things through Him who gives me strength, and that God's Word is alive and active in me (thank you Beth Moore)) the more likely our prayers will be in line with God's will. Totally agree.
-"...and then God will be happy to grant them." Doesn't that sound like my idea of "genie in a bottle"? But then the following were my thoughts I had wrote somewhere else this morning.

"The LORD, I am sure answers more often in the affirmative than I notice. Most likely I am just not paying enough attention to see, or my prayers are trivial that a yes or no doesn't really matter, or (unknowingly) I don't really expect him to answer. So if he does, great. If he doesn't, I probably wouldn't notice anyhow. But when I do look back and think of certain prayers: contentment in my house, taking away the house hunt that was consuming me, helping us pay off our mortgage, making it financially without my job, insecurity issues, a protected and calm mind with baby #2,...also wisdom and guidance on teaching my little ones his ways. All those requests were in line with His Word, His principles, His ways, His desires. Not that I am perfect or even close to it at that, but from being scared because I had no idea how to teach Luke an Chloe your Word Lord, to sometimes being amazed at your goodness in how yo have hidden your word in little Lukey's heart. How he knows some of your Word already. How he knows many, many of your stories. How he loves them. How he sings praises to you. How his little high voice says his prayers, and he suggests praying for people and for things to happen. Lord, what a blessing from you. What an answer to prayer. Help me be patient and persistent when I don't see answers right away, like answers to...(big things)...Help me to see that these are big things. And, I am sure Lord, you are working in them. Behind the scenes. Preparing, training, softening hearts. Big things like this take time and work and details. Help me see that you didn't just ignore these prayers, but that you are working on answering them in the positive. But they do involve people, and people do have free will and people do choose their own ways. Oh, Lord, help me understand all this more..."

Side Note on Mother's Day Post

I did not write the below post. Matt wrote it as though it were me. He didn't do too bad, huh? And all those things really did happen. :)

Happy Mothers Day!

I had a wonderful Mothers day weekend with my two (three) kids and husband. Saturday night we went as a family to Findlay to run errands and get supper at Chipotle. YUM! it was super good that night. We then went shopping so Luke could pick out a pair of shoes. He was SO cute during this. He took them to the checkout counter at JCPenny's him self with a huge grin. He then carried "his new shoes" to the car, where he "needed" to put them in the trunk because "thats where that stuff goes when you go shopping." We then went to Meijers where Luke (and Chloe) helped their mom pick out some mothers day flowers. On our way home Matt asked if I wanted to stop at Dietches for IceCream...and we did after I thought long and hard about it for maybe a second. So we all shared a pepermint stick milkshake for the ride home. Then that night I felt our new baby kick for the first time!

Mothers Day was beautiful outside so we went for a family walk up town to get our chicken BBQ meals for dinner, which I love doing! We took them back home and ate at the picnic table on our NEW almost finished patio! It was wonderful except for the fact Chloe was sick.

I really, really, really enjoy being a mommy! I love it, love it, love it!!

And Still More....

Chloe and her eggs went tumbling.