New Update

GOOD NEWS~
The neurosurgeon says that this one can be controlled (probably) by medication, and surgery can be avoided, at least for now. He will have to keep an eye on it, but it looks like this will be the case right now.The expectation now is for Nathaniel to be discharged Thursday morning.
Praise the Lord!
(Thanks for the info Mr. Bump)
~M~

New cousin!!

On March 15, mom's brother and his wife had their first charming little boy! He weighed 7 lbs. 5 oz. We are so thrilled to have a new cousin ( for mom and dad- a new nephew:)! Every child makes us praise the Lord, and reminds us of Psalm 127:3

Lo, children are an heritage

of the Lord : and the fruit

of the womb is his reward

(we hope to post pictures of him soon, but blogger is not letting me do it right now!)~S

Covenant Family Building

A friend at work asked what ‘covenantal family building’ was and I did not have a solid answer for him. So, I thought I would briefly say something on it and quote from several authors who have said things much better than I could have.

“Our children are God’s gift to us. If we are Christians, they are God’s; and it is our responsibility to hide them in Christ. It is our responsibility to say ‘No’ to the world, which in every subtle way would put its stamp upon their minds and hearts. Our children are given us to raise for God. They are not given to us for our own comfort, our joy – although we get comfort and joy from them; but they are given to us by God to raise for Him. God has set fathers and, under them, mothers to rule over their own families well, having their “children in subjection with all gravity,” with all godliness.” It is only with Gods ownership and our responsibility established that we are able to move forward to consider more of Gods Word.

We, as Christian parents and grandparents must recognize that our children are covenant children and have a spiritual heritage. [A covenant is a solemn bond, sovereignly administered, with attendant blessings and curses.]

• (Deu 7:9-10 KJV) Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

We, as Christian parents and grandparents must teach our children the Word of God, to live by it; and fill their minds and hearts with the facts of the heritage to which they belong.

• 
  (Deu 6:7 KJV) And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
• 
  (Psalm 78:4-8 KJV) We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: 6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
• 
  (ICor. 10:11 KJV) Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
• 
  (Eph. 6:4 KJV) And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

“How much time do you spend talking to your children about the things of God? How much time do you spend telling your children the meaning of today’s world happenings in the light of the Word of God? How much time do you spend warning your children of the danger of rebellion – not only that it will bring trouble to them in this life, but also it will bring them up against the wrath of God in the life to come? How much time do you spend praying that God will change the hearts of your children and bring them to a saving faith in Jesus Christ? How much time do you spend teaching them the deep things of the Word of God? How much time do you spend pleading with them to give their hearts to the Lord Jesus?” As a parent or grandparent these things are your duty according to the Word of God! “We must teach them that they do not belong to this secular world. We have to teach our children that they must resist the infiltrating thoughts of this secular world in order that they might know and live as those who belong to the mighty army of saints of God in the past, which continues unto this very day and will continue to march across the pages of history till the Lord Jesus Christ comes again on the clouds of heaven.”

Covenantal family building! I hope this brief (very brief) look at it has helped. The quoted material is from either Doug Wilson or Lawrence Eyres.

Dad

The UPS truck

This is a unexpected blog post today. We were expecting to leave home early this afternoon to go with Daddy on a business trip, however we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new laptop. It is needed for M. to be able to keep up with her correspondance college work, hence we had to wait for the laptop to arrive. For our family whenever we see the brown ups truck we all squel with delight as we know it means a package of some sorts (almost90% of the time it is books). All of last week the ups truck went by around 9:30 a.m. however it has not gone by even once today! We know that God is in control of all things and has a perfect plan for us, and we need to take joy in whatever circumstance we are in. It has been a blessing because we have been able to get the house in order, run last minute errands and relax before we have to leave. God is very good and gracious. Hurray the sun has just come out! It has been snowing all day, God has given us wonderful weather to travel in! ~K~

Moving, Visiting, and Reading

Moving:
Today we had the sad, surprisingly short and simple task of moving our piano to our Aunt & Uncle's home.
Sad because now my sisters have only their violins to play music on.
Short, relatively speaking, since it only took about 4 hours to move it, including a lunch break and drive time to their home (one hour of the time).
Surprising because this was an old, big, heavy, upright piano.
Simple because Grandma and I "accidentally" skipped both the moving out and moving in of the piano. We had a few errands and got their late enough they had it moved onto (and then off of) the truck already! :) However, we were told that it was easier than they thought it would be to move. Oh, and yes there were only about 6-7 people rolling the piano along.
Visiting:
Since we moved the piano to our Aunt's home we enjoyed a time of refreshment of dessert and coffee (for those that enjoy the hot black drink, for the rest of us, we benefited from the cold clear stuff out of the tap). Our nine year old cousin showed us his first power-point presentation on fencing and our 1 and a half year old cousin entertained us with his piano pounding and pudgy smiles! Both sets of Grandparents came over today. Mom's side to help move out the piano and Dad's side to help eat some tamales!
Reading:
Exhausted from the day, we are finally settling down to some reading and bedtime showers. Our April issue of Real Simple came today in the mail and now K&S are pouring over its contents while I will be finishing chapter 16 in Beric the Briton as soon as I finish this post. Oh and for those of you that had been praying...I finished my research paper yesterday! PTL!!!
Well now I'm going back to my book!
~M~

Camera Batteries

Our digital camera batteries went dead, so I could not download the taste tasting of our tamales.