Final Contest Entries March 30, 2007

Today is the last day of our Spring Cleaning Contest – a first for our Mom’s blog.  Our hope is that you have been inspired, as we have, to take on the tasks that we tend to put off.  Make sure you check back on Monday to find out who our winner is.  But first take a look at how Medana Cox took on the challenge by cleaning and organizing her closet.  The results are amazing!  Here’s what she has to say:

Ok, Well this took a long time! I had maternity clothes, chubby clothes, fat clothes, and my "oh one day I will fit back into those" skinny clothes. I had to try on almost everything to see what was going or staying, I got rid of several pairs of shoes, 2 trash bags full of clothes (multiple sizes;) all of our winter sweaters and jackets are   now in the attic, I found a brand new shirt with the receipt in the shopping bag that I have been meaning to take back to the store, $10 in my pocket!

Although my husband would not prefer his shoes in nice plastic bins – I do, so mine are, but his are organized neatly in pairs. My "fit into" clothes are organized in bins according to sizes and items and ready to be worn on the top shelf. I am totally excited about our "new" closet and happy for the incentive of the contest, although if I don’t win I am pleased at the accomplishment.

Here are the results:
   

___________________________________________________

Second, we have Crystal Law who was so motivated she organized four areas in her home.  She says:

I thought I’d start small. Here is our mail holder.  (I’m always missing my hair ties – I guess it’s because I usually just stick them wherever is closest, like here on our key rings…I found 2)  We usually just stick all our mail here, and anything else, including coupons (which I hardly ever use because it takes too much time to find them.)  The orange thing (in the “After” picture) is an organizer that we have to organize coupons according to the month they expire.  I put it here so that I’m reminded that we actually have it and I went through all the coupons that were stuck in here & only kept the one’s we’ll use. Here is the after picture:

Next, Crystal took on a little bigger project.  Here are the before and after pictures from under her stove:

Thirdly, was their baby son, Joshua’s closet.  Crystal says:

Found: An ice pack I didn’t even know I had & the tongs to our ice bowl.

There are other piles of stuff to get rid of that I didn’t attach pictures of including clothes to give away, a trash pile and a Christmas gift that WAS wrapped (I think we knew we had this…we had it for a friend but then they got one before we gave it to them, so we didn’t give it to them and just tucked it away in Joshua’s closet still wrapped.  The sad thing is, this wasn’t even a gift from Christmas 2006, it was still wrapped from 2005!)  NOW WE HAVE ROOM FOR ANOTHER BABY!  Not that there’s one on the way, that we know of…but you just never know.

Lastly, Crystal moved on to her largest project – the dreaded kitchen pantry.  Here’s what she had to say:
We only have 2 – 6 ½ inch drawers in our kitchen and this is our only pantry, so practically everything is here including our silverware, etc.  I guess I just never gave much thought before to how I could best use this space. I bought baskets to individually hold our teas, vitamins, baking supplies, snacks, baby food and glass canisters to organize other goods.  Now instead of digging to the very back of the pantries to find food items that have been hiding back there for a long time, I can just slide out the basket and take a look. After I organized this area, I kept walking in the kitchen just so that I could open up our pantry and take a sigh of relief.

That’s it!  Thanks to all who took part in our contest!  Even if you don’t win, you are each rewarded each time you open that drawer or closet!  That’s the joy of being busy at home, not to mention that your family is blessed as well!  Have a great weekend!!

March 29, 2007

"Part of a parent’s task is to shepherd [their child] as a creature who worships, pointing him to the One who alone is worthy of worship."

This quote by Ted Tripp, author of the excellent parenting book Shepherding Your Child’s Heart, is one we need to ponder.  Our children are indeed creatures.  In fact, I remember thinking when I had 6 children 11 and under that being a "keeper at home" was very descriptive of my life — I sometimes felt like a ZOO keeper with the messes and fights and smells that my little creatures provided.

The scripture teaches us that all creation worships God.  The trees clap their hands.  The rocks sing out in praise.  The heavens declare His glory. 

How much more should we who have been made in His image dance and shout and sing and clap and declare His praise?  Is there anything we should be unwilling to do to express our deep gratefulness and humble worship of our God?  Should trees, rocks and stars outdo us in demonstrating and communicating heartfelt and passionate worship?

Moms, as we prepare to be with the church this weekend, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to search our own hearts.  Does our worship of God spring from a heart of joy and passion?  Is our affection for Him visible to our children?  Do we resist the distractions of difficult or discouraging circumstances and command ourselves to "Bless the Lord, O my soul!" when we’re tempted to be self-centered?  Does it take us several songs to "warm up" in worship, or are we prepared to enthusiastically enter in from the first chord of the first song?  Is there anything we are unwilling to do to express our worship?  Does our religious upbringing or self-consciousness hinder us from being willing to clap, raise our hands, dance, shout, kneel or express our worship to God in any ways described (and even commanded) in scripture? 

In short, is our worship of God helping to point our children to "the One who alone is worthy of worship", or do our children see us more energetic and passionate about other things? 

(They DO know what we love…perhaps it’s time to ask them:  "Honey, let’s play a game.  I want you to fill in this blank for me…Mommy loves _______."  I’ll never forget the time one of my little ones quickly said "Going potty alone."  Wow.  I had no idea I had expressed my lack of enthusiasm for the comapny I often received in the bathroom so clearly.)

As we anticipate Sunday morning, let’s ask the Lord to help us to take our worship to a new level.  We certainly don’t worship for others, but for God.  But little eyes and ears are watching and listening.  As we worship God expressively from the heart, they will see and hear.  Consider someone in your life that has been an example of passionate worship that inspires you.  May we be one of those examples for our children.

Posted by Sheree

9:59 AM March 28, 2007

It’s 9:59 AM on Sunday morning and the meeting is about to begin. We’ve only been up for hours…but it feels like days.  We look down at a 6-year-old with his hands stuck deep in his pockets. The 3-year-old is already asking for a snack and some juice.  The just turned one-year-old is jumping up and down on the chairs.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just get them all a snack and a drink, followed by some crayons and books so that they will just sit still?  Maybe it’s so we can worship.  Maybe it’s so we won’t distract those around us.  Maybe it’s just for a break. 

Fast forward 13 years.   A 19-year-old is home sleeping in.  A 16-year-old is chewing on a wad of gum as an excuse not to sing.  And a 14-year-old is being told again to stop texting friends during the meeting.

I make myself think about the future.  It puts a whole different perspective on worshiping with our children. Yes, it is hard work. I may not be able to raise my hands in worship some mornings because I’m training my children to stand and participate. Training them to be respectfully quiet when someone is praying or reading scripture. Training them to listen to what is being said and asking questions about what they are hearing.  This takes time and effort. It takes listening at home to songs that we sing on Sunday morning (my kids do so much better when they know the songs we are singing). It takes talking about worshiping on the way there.  It takes living a life of worship throughout the week that helps to make my children excited about the time we have together on Sundays.

I don’t want to give up.  I know you don’t want to either.  Let’s keep praying for and training our children together.  Let’s all pray that this emphasis on worship over the next few weeks will inspire us to work diligently alongside our husbands to cultivate in our children a heart to worship God.

Posted by Taraleigh

Going to “Worship Jesus” March 27, 2007

 "When is Worship Jesus, Mommy?" 5-year-old Josh asked as we finished up his bath. 

"Actually, it’s tomorrow, honey.  This is Saturday night, so tomorrow is Sunday," I replied.

"YEA!!!" he shouted.  "I get to have a doughnut!"

Benny and I wanted our children to learn at a very early age that
the church wasn’t a building…it’s the people of God coming together
to worship Him through singing, hearing God’s word, giving offerings,
and enjoying one another.  So we didn’t go to church because we were the church.  The Sunday meeting became Worship Jesus. For as long as he could remember, our firstborn had left early for Worship Jesus so
Daddy could look over his message notes and greet people as they
arrived.  And Daddy’s weekly 7-11 coffee stop resulted in Josh having
his Sunday morning doughnut. 

At 5, our son anticipated going to Worship Jesus mostly because it meant no oatmeal or Cheerios.  He got a chocolate doughnut!

Josh is now the father of two.  He stands behind us on Sunday
mornings with his wife and children worshiping Jesus.  During the break
in our meeting he often enjoys a chocolate doughnut with his 2-year-old
son, JJ.  (The tradition now includes my children and grandchildren;
thankfully, there’s a Dunkin Doughnuts near our building where I now buy a dozen each Sunday morning.)  But Josh no
longer looks forward to Sunday mornings because of the doughnuts.  He’s
a passionate worshiper of His Savior and is modeling joyful and
affectionate worship of Him to his son — a son who wants to
copy daddy in everything. 

Right now JJ’s "worship" includes playing air drums and jumping up and down like
Daddy.   But I see the day in faith when his regenerated heart will
explode in worship, his hands will reach heavenward in praise, and
songs filled with sound doctrine will fill God’s ears (and mine) with joy.

Just like Daddy.

Posted by Sheree

P.S. Be sure to keep reading below for our latest Spring Cleaning Contest entry…you still have time to enter.  The deadline is this Friday!

The
Miracle on Shumard Oak Ct. (Allura’s Garage)

The
biggest clue that our garage needed to be cleaned out was that there
wasn’t even a 12 inch path to walk through anywhere!  It’s
been so cluttered with boxes of Christmas stuff that still hadn’t made it
up the ladder into the attic (we knew the ladder was there somewhere, but
couldn’t see it!) and old scooters and bikes that the boys hadn’t
ridden since they were 10.  Add to that the ton of things I like to keep
handy for when I’m babysitting.  Brian usually keeps the garage
fairly clean, : ) but because of added responsibilities at work, things piled
up.  And before we knew it, we were waist deep in clutter.  We had
set aside this past weekend to work on it, but were
dreading the task until our daughter mentioned the cleaning
contest!  Suddenly, we had a reason to do
the hard work ahead of us! It took five of us about seven hours, and
there were so many trash bags we lost count.  Everything we want to sell
in our Mission X garage sale was placed in a pile, and Jenn told us we have
one month to get rid of it or she’s calling the Salvation Army! (And if
you know her, you know she means it!) : ) We were thrilled to finally be able
to park a car in our garage!

Lost
and Found:

In
2002 Brian and I went to Hilton Head with his job for the World Com Golf
Classic.  It was a lot of fun and very romantic. : )

A few
years later I finally got around to putting together an album of pictures and
souvenirs, but I had misplaced the official World Com luggage tag (and who
knows? It could be a collector’s item since World Com doesn’t exist
anymore!).  So you can imagine my surprise when we found it under one of
the shelving units in the corner of the garage! 

Training Little Ones to Worship Jesus March 26, 2007

I was raised in a denominational setting where worship involved congregational singing of rich hymns led by a song leader, choir and organ.  The words to these hymns still come to my mind and I’m often surprised by how easily I remember them, even if it’s been decades since I last sung them.  By God’s grace, from my toddler years He placed in me a love for worship.  My father used to warmly and humorously talk about the night at age 5 I decided to spontaneously join the song leader on the stage in our little church building to lead the people in worship — with director’s hands waving and singing to the top of my voice.  I’m grateful to have had parents who loved God’s church and who encouraged my childlike affection for worship.

My children and grandchildren are experiencing a different style of worship.  A band leads the worship while people clap, raise their hands, dance and typically sing songs that were written last year, not in past centuries.  (Although I still enjoy singing those old hymns sometimes.)   In fact, when our children were young we called our Sunday morning meeting "Worship Jesus."  (More about that tomorrow.) The style is different but the heart is the same.  Whether you worship God with organ and hymnal or with a contemporary band and words flashed on a projection screen, the question is the same:  Are we passing to a new generation a passion for worshiping the One who took the wrath we deserve?

For the next two (or more?) weeks we are going to talk about worship.  Some questions we want to consider are:

• Are we modeling passion for worshiping God for our little ones?
• Do our children view Sunday mornings primarily as a time to do crafts during children’s ministry and run around with friends, or as a time when God’s people come together to worship Him?
• Does our mandate to "train" our children include training them to worship?  If so, how do we do that without teaching them to simply imitate our or others behavior? 
• How can we inspire them from a young age to cultivate the heart of a worshiper?

Please join us for this discussion as we look into our own hearts for areas of possible needed change and explore the joys of raising future worshipers! And, as always, please post anything that will help others as we seek to influence our little ones to love their Savior affectionately.  (And, as a granma, I’m back into thinking of this topic regularly as I stand alongside my little grandchildren while they learn to become worshipers of Jesus.)

Posted by Sheree

Favorite Refrigerator Reminders March 23, 2007

Where do you post things so that you remember them?  I usually stick them to the side of a filing cabinet in my laundry room.  But, sometimes there are so many things happening that it could take an hour to find what it was that was supposed to remind you to do something that you’ve forgotten?  Are you tracking with me?  Here’s a comic that perfectly illustrates my point:

If you need help in ways to organize your reminders check out the FridgeMate Organizer!

Two Entries Today! March 22, 2007

TRACY’S OFFICE CLOSET

I finally took on my office closet.

I guess I move a lot slower than everyone
else because this took me about 4 hours.  =)  We do not have a garage
so a lot of Seth’s tools and other things that would go in the garage are
stored in our office closet.  As well as all of my teaching supplies and
paperwork.  I had the idea to buy little clear bins and put a label on the
outside listing all of the contents of the bin, keeping the contents organized
in similar groups. That way Seth doesn’t have to go digging through boxes
and shelves to find what he is looking for…he can simply read what is in each
bin and go right to it!  Hopefully this will cut down on the "Honey
where is…" This is probably the reason why it took so long to get the
closet organized.  But it was worth it!  I also bought this cool
hanging file to store all of our different kinds of paper.  It is really
nice because it gives me shelf room and keeps the papers from getting all
mushed.  In the end I managed to fill 2 1/2 trash bags of junk.  The
most unusual (and embarrassing to admit) thing I found in this adventure was an
old rotten banana (unpeeled). If you look closely you can see it in the before
picture.  I have no idea how it go there – and I really wish my daughter was
born so I could say it was her!  =)  Here’s my after picture:

JULIA’S BROTHER’S CLOSET:

She found:

• A “Star Wars Episode 1” pencil of Jake’s that has been lost for 6 years.
• 5 nasty socks that didn’t have matches and had been there for only the Lord knows how long.
• A chess piece of Jesse’s that had obviously been there since it was his room over 2 years ago.

She also did this on her own without anyone asking.
For a 12-year-old younger sister there has to be points for THAT!  Here’s her after pictures:

Tammy’s Homeschool Cabinet March 21, 2007

    Mission Project:  Homeschool Cabinet

                              Mission Accomplished:  One bag of garbage, homeschool curriculum to sell, and                                      contents for my daughter’s MissionX garage sale!   

Jaime’s Garage March 20, 2007

Jaime took advantage of having her little sister stay with her while her parents were away.  Julia helped Jaime clean out the garage.  It took the two of them only 45 minutes from start to finish!  She found a toy that her daughter, Kayla, had been looking for for over a year, and she threw away a box full of stuff that she hadn’t opened since they moved in (a year and a half ago!)  The amazing thing is that she didn’t even look to see what was in it!!! 

She said, "I figured we had not used it in almost two years so it couldn’t have been that important!
(I think it may have had old computer junk, but again, I am not sure and will probably never know)."

Wow!  I don’t think I would have been that willing to let something go without at least LOOKING at it!  That’s definitely bonus material!  How about it ladies?  If we haven’t received your contest entry yet, there’s still time!  Need more motivation?  Check out The Clutter Diet Blog!

Jaime’s Garage Before:

Jaime’s Garage After:                                                      
                                                                                                        

It Only Takes A Spark March 19, 2007

My husband and I were finally motivated to clean out our disastrous garage.  After planning 5 weddings in a year and a half, the garage had become "the dumping place", literally, for every kind of clutter you can imagine.  One LARGE box in particular had been moved from side to side since the early ’90′s.  The reason?  It was full of payroll records from our company that dated back to the 70′s, if you can believe it.  It included very sensitive information that we just couldn’t throw away.  This job had been put off because we really didn’t know what to do with it.  There was too much paper in spiral bound notebooks to consider shredding it all, so I had an idea!  I suggested that we burn it piece by piece in our outdoor fireplace.  Tom agreed, so we moved our pit to the center of the driveway, moved the cars far away, and set a starter log on fire. 

After three hours all that was left of this paper trail was a pile of hot ashes.  I was elated to be rid of it!  Tom took the water hose and sprayed the ashes until there was no more smoke, and then, set the fire pit to the side of our house.  The following evening, we thought it would nice to shovel out all the ashes and place them in the garbage for the next day’s pickup. Tom was surprised to find that under all the ash there were still a few hot embers.  He took the hose once again to it, watering down each shovel full that appeared hot.  He took the box of ashes and set it on top of our garbage cans for the next morning.

A couple of hours later…while we were watching an episode of Extreme Home Makeover, where ironically a family’s home had burned down…a friend came running up to our front door exclaiming that our garbage was on fire!!!  What did we do?  Tom ran to get the water hose, and I ran to get the camera!!!  Yes, given the right circumstances this fire ignited once again, only feet away from our son’s car.  It was a miracle that the flames didn’t affect it.  But our plastic garbage cans were ruined. After hosing down the fire again, we surveyed the damage.  The plastic of both cans had melted all over the garbage inside.  Our garbage collectors took the whole kit and kaboodle the next day! 

The moral of the story?  A hot spot, no  matter how small, whether in a firepit or in our sinful hearts, given the right circumstances, can ignite into a huge fire once again.  Keep a short record of wrongs suffered and by all means, shred important papers as you get them!