Gifts of Spring

Lifting My Eyes

Psalms 121: 1-8....I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

² My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Prayer Board

My very talented and inspiring sister-in-law, Talisha, recently created a beautiful prayer board (not sure that is what she is calling it, but that is what it is) where she posts the things she is praying about. I loved it and felt inspired to make one of my own, using my Creative Memories Memory Board.

Last night I shared with my family how they can also use it to post the prayer needs they have. We do have so much that we are praying about, but we are anticipating BIG answers from our God...who does exceedingly more that we can imagine!!

I thought I would blog about this, hoping that it encourages some of you to do likewise. It is a great way to have a visual reminder that God is not sleeping!! He is alive and working miracles all around us!

Where we will post our prayer needs:

Where we will post the answers to our prayers and how God is working in our lives:

This little pocket has empty prayer cards and a pen, for everyone in our family to use.

Re-run

I posted this song on my blog a few months ago, so please forgive me as I re-run it. But this morning, God put this song back on my heart, with a peaceful reminder that every part of my life is an open book for Him....and He is going to walk with me, and sometimes carry me, all the way through it!

Chores Around Our House

Every year as school nears it end and Summer starts to loom on the horizon, this mom tries to come up with fun creative simple ways to keep our house running smoothly, when everyone would rather be soaking in the sun!
I am finding that all the members of our home seem happier and life flows fairly well, when things stay picked up and clean. Is it always perfect? Hardly!!! We are a normal family with crazy schedules and frequent interruptions. But all the more reason for us to keep things where they belong.

This year is no different. I have tried so many different methods to assign chores, and it is always frustrating for me to find something that works for all the different ages and capabilities of the my children. I think this year will be easier (knock on wood) since the baby of the family is now capable of doing just as much as her older brother and sister. She may need help lugging the vacuum upstairs sometimes, but she can keep up with most everything now.

I saw this idea in a magazine and thought maybe it would be something that would work. It seems to have very little management (on my part) and is simple. At least in my book, it is.

We are going to try a Choose-a-Chore Jar.

There are 18 popsicle sticks with a chore written on each one. Each child will pick six sticks a week, one for each day, except Sunday.




After picking their sticks for the week, they will put them in this bucket, in the space marked with their name.
Then as they do their chore, they will move them to the back spaces.

In addition to these weekly chores, my children have daily chores that are now a habit for them.

If this works...great. If it does not...we can try something different.

Bowtie Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

This is what our family enjoyed for dinner tonight! It was delicious and will stay in our menu!!
You may go here for the recipe.

Celebrating Easter!

My charming, beautiful girls!

Our children, Alex, Nikki and Ashley

Our family

The Taylor Family BG (before girls)

and then the girls showed up!

Talisha laughing her head off!

The Men

The Brothers...Duane, Brian, Terry and Marc

The Ten Taylor Grands

Grandma Margaret and Alex

Nikki on the hunt!

Duane and Alex

Our beautiful girl, Nikki!

Egg hunt at Grandpa Bob and Grandma Sue's on Saturday

Nikki looking for money!

Sisters!! (Talisha, Jamie, me and Steph)

Passing On My Love For Scrabble!

I LOVE Scrabble!! Playing Scrabble with friends or family is one of my favorite past-times in life...seriously! The one person that understands this the most, is my man! For 18 years, we have played many games together. The game even got me through 12 weeks of bedrest in '96, when I was trying to keep Alex from arriving too early!
I think I got my love for word games, like Scrabble and Boggle from my Grandpa Aman. He was the best in the west!! He wasn't all that much fun to play with when I was a little girl, because, well, he used foreign languages, and I didn't know any.

Today, Nikki and I have been in bed very sick in bed. As the day has gone on, we are starting to feel much better, and then Nikki asked me this: "Mommy, can you play Scrabble with me?"
I asked her if she knew how, and she said, "well, kinda, but you could teach me."

So we got the board out and played our very first Scrabble game together!!! I hope it is the first of many. We didn't keep score, so that it was a level playing field, and she did very well!! Her biggest word was CHARM...I thought it was a good one!