My tough guy

Just as wrestling was starting a couple months back I was shocked that Jeffrey said he wanted to try it. Now mind you I see a tough boy here at home but he has never been one to show that outside the home. Our dear friend Justin was coaching and they were gracious enough to give us a gift certificate. Mind you I was still just hoping he liked it. I have always stood firm that once the kids committed to something they had to stick with it.

Well, I am happy to stay that J-Man as he likes to call himself LOVED wrestling! I went and sat a couple times watching him but he seemed to like it better if we weren't' sitting there. He would always tell Grace and I to go run errands. lol. But the last night I told him i wanted to come and take pictures. I was so involved in watching it was hard for me to get many. Thank you Shauna for taking these for me.

So thankful to Justin for always being there for my kids. Counseling Cassie, giving her away at her wedding, coaching Grace at softball for oh so many seasons now and now coaching Jeffrey and giving him a love for something new. Mind you this is just a speck of what he and his family have done for us. I am so grateful. Love you Vaughan's!

Saying good bye to 2011

It's been quite a year. Spending time looking back on it makes me tired! lol. It was a busy year but full of great memories, family and dear friends. Here's to 2012! May it be another blessed year full of blessings from our Lord and Savior. When I think of a New Year I can't help but think about Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

Ecclesiastes 3

A Time for Everything

 ¹ There is a time for everything,
   and a season for every activity under the heavens:  ² a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
 ³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
 ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
 ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
 ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
 ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.
 ⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. ¹⁴ I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

 I am not a.. make a list of resolutions kinda of gal but thought this was cute..Pinterest!

Resolution posters

Happy New Year to one and all. May we all draw closer to our Lord and Savior in the coming days ahead.

CHRISTmas

Trying to get these blog posts that I have written late at night posted before the New Year! lol.

The Christmas season brought with it A Not So Silent Night Christmas Musical. The first our church has ever done and it was crazy busy fun! We had 23 children involved and all new costumes for each of them. Grace played a Scribe and Mary and Jeffrey was Palace Staff. We are still signing the songs.

Christmas day itself was quiet..which was good because after all the hustle and bustle of the last month I came down with a cold. It has knocked me on my hiney this past week but in all honesty I have needed to down time.

In a nut shell...

The last few months have been so very busy. We began home schooling this year and LOVE it! With the start of the school year also brings AWANA on a weekly basis. I am pleased to be the T&T director for a second year. Love the kids! We also started watching Silas three days a week. He belongs to our youth pastor and his wonderful wife. Love them so much. They are Cassie and RW's age and I have adopted them as my own. Silas has been good for us as we miss the boys so having a little one in the house brings my heart pure joy. Chelsea has been good for me as well. It's nice to be needed and me being a server..it's in my nature. Love being there for this dear family.

Back to home school really quick. This was a long time coming for me. And purely the Lord calling me to do this. I have to say I have never looked back. Funny when the Lord calls us to do something and we are obedient how wonderful things can be. Hmmm..Ephesians 6:1-3; Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—  “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”. And thus obedience to our Heavenly Father as well. With home schooling through a charter school you are assigned an Education Facilitator (EF) I am happy to say we were Carla's first family and we could not be any happier. She is the niece of our pastor's wife..(small town) and what a blessing she is. We tell everyone "We Love Carla" and we are not kidding. It has been so nice having someone that is a believer, loves kids, loves teaching, funny, kind and all in all so sweet. We are blessed by her. Carla was also Grace's cross country coach. It was Grace's first year and she loves to run!

With home school also brought Grace taking guitar lessons and Jeffrey starting wrestling. I am still shocked about the wrestling ..but have to say a couple weeks off now and I can't wait for him to go back. Raising a boy as a single parent..hard and he needs to be able to expel his energy. I don't have any pictures of wrestling but here is a fun photo shoot we did with Grace and her new guitar.

We have been having fun over the last month getting our home school group together for a craft day. It is much needed and I long for those day as it not only is a great time for the kids to connect with their friends whom they were used to seeing on a daily basis. But, it is a time for me to connect with other Mom's. Not having a hubs around I find I need these day's more often.

Where did the Summer go?

Well, at my last post I mentioned our busy summer and oh my was it busy. Here is a run through.

We finished up school and immediately fell into VBS Son Surf Beach Blast. This was my I believe 5th year running doing crafts and I love it! It combines all my favorite things..My Savior, crafting and children. We had a great week!

During VBS week I got a visit from my dear friend who drove out from Colorado. Robyn Jones..Love her! We met when Cassie and her Wesley were 14 and sweet on each other. We attended the same church, the kids attended the church school, we did a bible study together, and just all in all our families enjoyed each others company. This friendship is one from when Jeff was here and is precious to me. Robyn's husband Jeff was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma about a year after my Jeff was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Jeff Jones is still hanging on..the Lord is still using this old cowboy!

So let's see..June 17th after VBS closing the kids and I raced home to get ready for our week at Mount Hermon. We literally packed up and headed to Sacramento to spend the night with my Folk's before making our way to the Santa Cruz area on Saturday. I cannot begin to tell you how excited we were about being gifted a week at this amazing camp. We were meeting up with 4 other widows and their children. Between us we had a total of 13 kiddos. I will be posting more on this later. But suffice to say the week was incredible. Since Jeff went home to our Lord. I have not had a more mentally relaxing time. This time with my sister's sharing our stories, concerns, hopes and dreams. I well up with tears just thinking about it. Craving it again! We had trying moments..like when my car seemed to have an explosion under the hood. a small fortune later all was okay. Overall the week meant so much to me and the kids. I think it says a lot that we are in October and they are still talking about camp and going back again. And if you as them what their favorite part of summer was Mount Hermon and having Cassie and the boys home top the list.

Right after we left camp we headed back to Sacramento to pick up my nieces and bring them home for a week. Love these girls and love having them with me. We of course crafted and just all in all had great family time. Before we knew it we were headed back to Sacramento for a day of fun with Grandma which included getting ready for Grace's 12th birthday party and my nieces getting their first Bible's!

July 2nd we celebrate Gracie's 12th Birthday. She gets her own blog post for this. But, we were also celebrating the arrival of the Roley family! Having all my kids together makes life all better for this Momma. After losing Jeff my heart is not whole unless they are all together. It may sound corny but it's true.With the kids home we went to visit Jeff's Grandpa who is 93 years old! I love Grandpa Fraizer. He is an incredible God fearing, silly, loves to tease, loving man.

 My loves with Grandpa

 David with Grandpa

And this is Cassie with Grandpa about David's age

Let's see..so Cassie and RW headed to Mount Hermon for their week and we brought the boys  home and had a blast! Before we knew it the week was over and Cassie and RW were home and we got to enjoy sometime with RW and I was ever grateful for him helping me get a few things done around here. We also did some fun things like hike McCloud Falls. He was here about a week and then had to get back to work but Cassie and the boys stayed the summer! Yes the SUMMER! So blessed to have had them home for nearly 2 MONTHS! By the time we sent them off to Colorado it was time for to start school.

The Countdown!

We are counting down at our house..Many things are on the horizon.

Just 4 more days of school!

 

10 till Vacation Bible School

 

16 till Family Camp at Mount Hermon

And then....just 29 days till The Roley's are here I can love on these sweet grand-babies of mine!

Memorial Day 2011

Human history has proven time and again that freedom is not free. Freedom demands a price, and that price is blood. Blood has been, and always will be the price of a free people. Today, I am thankful to the warriors, past and present, who have paid that price. However, I bow my heart, my knee, my mind, in worship and gratitude to Christ who has set me free from the penalty of law and sin.

 Today Is a day we set aside to remember those who have served this great land. I can honestly say that as a former Army wife..there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the men and women on our armed services. I am proud to be an American and I am a proud to have held the title Army wife.  

Today I think fondly on the men I know and have known who have served this great land. My Grandfather's Everett Pilkington (Army) & William Porter (Navy), My husband Sgt. Jeffrey L Chrisman (Army), Sgt. Jerry C***(Army), SFC Mike C*****(Army retired) & Sgt Robert G***** (Army). My son in love and another dear young man who are both still on active duty so I won't mention their names. But these are just a handful of the men I am proud to know. 

God Bless our Veterans and God Bless the U.S.A!

Ever wish you could help someone with adoption?

Here's your chance! There are some of you that may call people that adopt amazing, special, wonderful or any number of other adjectives. We call ourselves called by God and very blessed. Maybe you are not called to adopt but we are all called as Christians in James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

A blog that I follow has an amazing post today about just that...bringing these children to their forever families. And how we can help. You can read it HERE . The Vaughan family who is very precious to our family just brought home another new treasure by the name of Daniel. You can read about their journey to Daniel HERE and they have great give-a-way going on HERE. You can join the give-a-way by making a PayPal gift towards the adoption of Daniel to help them complete their adoption. We will be throwing a Baby Shower for Shauna but we will be showering them with donations please feel free to link up to PayPal and let's hit that $10,000 mark!

Something on my heart

To say I have been moved after reading a post about a children's prison in Uganda. Well, I tear up at the thought of it. It is something that is taring at my heart. My dear friend just came home from mission trip to Uganda to love on and serve the people over there. The blog post from their visit to "M" made this gal sob. Why are they imprisoning children? how are we letting this happen? How are we as Christians letting there be orphans in this world? How are we letting one person anywhere go hungry, cold, sick and alone?

Please take the time to read about "M" here

And you can read about the ladies mission trip here

Ski Club!

This year Grace has joined the ski club at school. And today was her second trip up and I chaperoned! I had a great group of kids to include Ashton, Chase and Hunter. I love all these kids know them since they were pretty little. The trip up we listened to Christian tunes and the excitement was building the closer we got to Mt. Shasta Board & Ski Park. This being only Grace and Hunter's second trip they were both surprised to find out they has been moved up to a level 2 and so excited after their lessons to be moved up to a 3!

Our school has a total of 51 snow boarders and/or skiers this year. I had such a great time visiting with other great parents and shooting pictures!

The trip back home filled the car with stories of tricks and crashes! I can't wait to go again!

AWANA Games

This year I have taken the role as T&T director. It has been fun and with the AWAWA games in Redding we ended up having three teams quizzing! They all did great coming in 2, 3 and 4th places. We also came in 2nd place in the games with both our Sparky and T&T teams. Great day with some of our church family!

2010 in Subway Art form

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for! Just yesterday Jeffrey had a dentist appointment and dental bills can be expensive with insurance but without Yikes! So I get to the counter to check out and someone had paid the bill in full! I was so blown away! I couldn't bring myself to speak it at first because I just cried. Thank you Lord for special angels you place in our life!

This past Sunday one of our pastors had challenged our congregation to make a list of 50 things that we are thankful for. We will be making our list as we travel down the road to Grandma's house. We want to encourage you to do the same.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Prayer Request

Please pray for this family as they head to court tomorrow to hopefully finalize their adoption.

Seeing Stars!

I have been very busy crocheting lately. I think it's the Fall air that put me in the mood. That and all the babies that we have coming. Here are a few projects...

This one is for a little guy that is coming home from Africa very soon with his forever Mommy and Daddy.

This one I did a couple of years ago for David..but it needed to be bigger so I have added a few rows..like the one above it's 36" ..nice size!

And this camo blanket..sadly I started too long ago and just finished for a sweet brown eyed Hunter V..it finished out about 3x5..nice size. At that time I would have had only one other blanket to make for the kids..since then Isaiah has joined their family. So two more to go! Unless the Lord knows something I don't..better get to it!

Punk Rock Day

Moo!

Blessings

So this weekend I got to spend time with the Vaughan 5 while Shauna and Justin were on their way home from the Together for Adoption conference in Texas. And then they blessed the kids and I with these treasures! Anyone who knows me ..knows I love Christmas and love love ornaments! And have you ever seen such big jelly beans? The were a hit with the kids! Thank you Vaughan's! We love you!!

Fun Weekend!

Jeffrey was invited by The Horne's to spend the weekend with them out at the R-Ranch for a time of camping and fishing. Well, he made it one night and day and even though we were going to be out there on Sunday he wanted to come home Saturday night. So of course this mama went and got her boy! The high note for him is that he caught his first fish! Thank you Greg for spending time with my sweet boy. He is at the age where is has such a need for that now. And thank you for the new fishing pole. I believe we will be hanging it up in his room..he love it! Christie thank you for all the great pictures! Here is a collage of those!

So while Jeffrey was enjoying some much needed male bonding. Grace and I enjoyed some time just the two of us! We slept in on Saturday morning and then headed to Medford and had a great time making free bookmarks and pendants at the craft store. After spending nearly three hours in the craft store..Grace was determined to win the contest they were having...we finally gave up and headed to Red Robin for great lunch and then saw the movie You Again. Not often you can find a PG movie and it was cute to boot! It was then we got the call that Bub wanted to come home so we picked him up on the way home.

Sunday we headed back to the R-Ranch and had a great time with our dear friends The Horne's, Peacemaker's, and Williams. The kids were nearly non existent as they entertained themselves with the great outdoors!

Blog catch up..September 22, 2010

While Christie, Kari and I prepped for our first Crafty Chatter the kids needed to craft also! Here are Lucy and Lily making necklaces..one of their favorite things to do when they are here.

Lily, Isaiah, and Lucy girl having lunch and watching Ice Age! Love these three...3 year olds!