It was the longest labor I’ve ever had-by far. But it was 3 days of complete focus on this new babe that would soon join our family. Our first child after giving complete trust to God to grow our family to the size He desires. We had 4 beautiful little girls that we loved so much. None of them “planned”, but we were thrilled over each one. We had our “large family”. We thought we were “done”. That is until God grabbed a hold of our hearts and we surrendered wholly to Him. Mykayah was to be that first child consecrated solely to Him before she even was.

3 days of labor. Listening to Keith Green music almost non-stop. I didn’t notice the length of time. Those around me surely did. I worshipped with Keith. They probably got tired of the repetition. We decided I was no doubt fully dilated, but nothing was happening. It was time to be checked out. This was to be our first home birth. We’d be in regular contact with our Dr. and keeping a close watch, but it was not to be. It was God’s hand holding Mykayah in until we reached the hospital. We set out for the 36 mile ride in the beginning of a blizzard. A little uncomfortable for this post-transition mama, but we made it.

The ride must have jostled her more, as the Dr. words were, “I feel feet.” Here we go. Breech delivery with uterine exhaustion. Yet, I rejoice over the Dr. and hospital we had. At our local hospital I would have no doubt been knocked out and given a c-section. Our Dr. gave me about 20 minutes to push her out, with that uterine exhaustion, before he’d schedule a C. And it would take a while for the anesthesiologist to get there in the blizzard. Push that baby out I did. Just as sure as He’d held her in, He brought her out.

Beautiful. Another girl. Mykayah (after the bold prophet who spoke truth) Joelle-Who is like Yahweh? Yahweh is God.

Then the cord was cut. No longer was her life physically connected permanently to mine. And it was immediately evident that she would struggle without that connection. She was placed in a tiny bed next to mine, not in my arms, and all focus turned to her. To life saving efforts.

Three hours later those efforts would fail. Congenital heart problem that couldn’t have been known ahead of time. Couldn’t have been prevented or helped. She was in God’s hands, yet our hearts were as broken as our arms were empty. Well, not completely. I held that empty shell, that her spirit had left behind, all day. Our family all came. We wept instead of rejoiced.

Home without her. Funeral preparations. I didn’t even go to funerals. I had no idea what was suppose to be done. I did what I wanted. I was blessed with two pastors who allowed a grieving mama her way, to use death to proclaim life, with a clear presentation of the gospel and call to repentance and belief, along with much worship and praise of our Lord.

The days ahead. The empty nights. So much. Yet God’s peace passed all understanding. Still the empty arms ached. Father God, I’d really like a baby in my arms before her first birthday. Yet His peace passed all understanding.

And His grace blesses beyond our deepest hopes. 9 days before Mykayah’s first birthday, Amariah (Yahweh said) Faith was born.

Happy 21st Birthday, Mykayah- Nov. 6th. Happy 20th Birthday, Amariah – Oct. 6th. His peace still passes all understanding.

I’ve been an Apple girl since the mid-80′s. I’ve owned Apples of about every flavor. Performas, iBooks, MacBooks, iPods – Shuffles, Nanos, Touches, iPad, iPhone. So it was with great sadness that I received the news tonight of the passing of Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and until recently CEO, (and co-founder of Pixar, too.) As a Facebook friend commented, iSad.

As one article* noted, after some fans and analysts were disappointed yesterday when the new iPhone was announced as iPhone 4S instead of 5, “Suddenly, the next version of the iPhone doesn’t seem so important. It’s time to mourn Steve Jobs, the Silicon Valley maestro who always seemed to hit the right note as he transformed Apple Inc. into technology’s greatest hits factory.”

Praying that he found hope for eternity, through repentence and trust in Jesus Christ. He changed so many lives, revolutionizing the way we do things, by making products that just work, tools that truly help us in our work and play, in our daily lives. May his own life have been changed by Jesus, in a much greater way than he changed ours.

Do you have any Apple devices? If so, how have they changed your life? Comment below.

Don’t miss this link, even if you read or watch nothing else here. Probably the best of them all: Justin Taylor’s, article at The Gospel Coalition

Announcement from Apple

And more to read -

Bound for Life’s article – Steve Job’s Death, a Story of LIFE

* Apple Co-founder, Ex-CEO Steve Jobs has Died (AP article)

Tax Day.

11 children.

1 babe buried.

34 years.

Still together.

Happy Anniversary – to us.

So much has happened since my last post here. I’ve had so much to say – and yet didn’t. 2010 has ended with much mixed emotion and activity, several ups and downs. But it has ended. 2011 holds much promise, much hope – much increase to come.

So we part with 2010 with no great resources for you to enjoy, no helpful tips, no timely news updates, no super sales – just my heart to yours.

The day after my last post here, I headed for a 3 day trip to join my sister in taking our mom out for a special Christmas present, dinner at the Renaissance Mansion. We had a great time together. Those times together come too few and far between with the distance that separates us in miles, but not love.

A couple days after I returned, I awoke to a horrifying phone call. The unexpected death of my father-in-law changed our last two weeks of 2010 profoundly. No intensive writing time to finish my next book, no leisurely time for shopping and decorating and baking and wrapping and caroling and … In the midst of our grief, there was still joy at seeing family members (and friends) that we see too irregularly, the bustle of trying to get preparations complete for our usual Christmas family gatherings, and of course the joy of celebrating the advent of our Lord and Savior, that no earthly sorrow can diminish.

That week between the year end holidays, that seems to get lost every year, left time for reflection, restoring of health, and resting – things that had been thus far crowded out. In more than one sense, it was a bit of a down time.

But the year was not to end thus. We anticipated the arrival of our 9th grandchild – possibly a bit early to crown the old year with a welcome tax deduction for its parents, – as a grand way for 2010 to go out. But God has chosen to allow him or her to be amongst our 2011 increases, as was originally expected.

The year ended rather with the announcement of another new increase to the family. Not like the small bundle that will be coming this month and another like it this summer, but a larger package – yet just as joyful. One, like the others, that we’ve also known for some months would be a soon addition. With just a few short hours left in the old year, Josh asked for the hand of Amariah. With Mark’s and my blessing, he proposed on one knee in the snow and raging, sub-zero temp and wind. Far enough away from the New Year’s partying church crowd, her screams of delight were not heard. Though no public announcement was made, when they returned inside, the news was soon clearly known and rejoiced over.

2010 is gone. Gone are its sorrows, its busyness, its events, its joys. Time marches on. As a fitting farewell to the year, we worshiped the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Creator of all – including time, only Savior of mankind and remembered His priceless gift through His Supper. Thus 2011 was welcomed in Hope, Faith and Love – from the hand of our loving, most merciful and gracious Father, the giver of time – and all.

I pray your 2010 has gone out peacefully – and
May you have a Blessed 2011!

For Me & My House,
Lisa @ Me & My House

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My crazy week and HUGE BLESSING at the end. What kind of crazy person decides to peel old, cheap wallpaper (i.e. not the kind that comes right off, but the kind we’ve been working at getting off for 10 years) off the kitchen walls and patch, paint and wallpaper and border them 2 days before 19 people come to Thanksgiving dinner. Yep, that’d be me.

My Father God and my dh, and many others (my bestie Julie!) BLESS me all the time. But just to give added Thanks this ThanksGiving week, I share this week’s blessings.

This past week I decided I just really didn’t want to go through another holiday with the kitchen as it was. Dh had repainted the cupboards for me sometime in the last year but those walls were continuing to drive me nuts, ripped wallpaper on some walls, wallpaper removed on some, leaving plain white, or painted stripes, or leaf stencils, – in my least favorite color – all randomly scattered.

With 8 of us currently living at home, and 4 grown daughters and their families (8 grandchildren) that come and visit, I and the older children spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It really should be somewhere inviting and cheery to be in. It hasn’t been for the 10 years we’ve been here. It’s been a depressing disaster. It was time to do something. And when I decide it’s time. That means NOW!

So on Tuesday and Wednesday, when we should have been doing on the pre-prep for Thanksgiving dinner – food, cleaning, and setting up – the boys helped me strip the rest of the paper, and I headed out to look for new wallpaper – because I don’t like to paint. I found one pattern in stock that would go with my kitchen – almost the color of the paint we’d bought to put on those walls. Wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do if it didn’t match the border I’d bought 10 years ago (to go with the paint) but thankfully it matched! My bestie, who likes to paint, but not paper, said she’d come help me.

All was going well, until we came to the places that needed primed, as to not show through the paper. Out come the paint brushes and rollers. Then their were the holes to be patched. I did great at the small ones. Then we got to the big one – just about the time dh came home from work. “Please, could you do just one thing for me for this project.” He chipped it out and put about a 16″ square of drywall patch in it. TY! Wednesday evening found us finishing. But with that primer still out, I’m thinking. The rest of the walls (top half) could really use a fresh coat of paint. And away I went. And that antique cupboard, while I’m at it. 1 a.m. I finally finished. And I love it!

The children had gotten things pretty well cleaned around here, but nothing was set up and no food started. Thankfully, I had remembered to ask one of them to get the turkey out of the freezer Tuesday night. But God redeemed my time, – must’ve been the cheery atmosphere I had to work in – and all the food got fixed, and everything got set up and finished before guest began arriving.

In the meantime, the younger children had been working on preparing a play to present the story of the Mayflower and the ThanksGiving feast of the Pilgrims and Indians. The play was a hit, and dinner with 19 of us, (12 were unable to make it,) was a wonderful family feast. We were blessed indeed to all be together. Thankful of so many blessings – including 2 little ones, yet to come next year.

I think it strange, after spending a day giving Thanks for the bountiful provision of the Lord, we go shop till we drop buying more, more more! Yes, I understand getting gifts and winter needs when prices are super cheap, but it still seems strange. I don’t think whoever dreamed up Black Friday was a great Thanks Giving person.

Anyhow, after preparing and cleaning up from all of Thur. I slept in on Fri. while grown dd’s hit the early morning Door Busters. They are great about picking up whatever I want from the super sales for me. Then I go out later in the morning for the “common” things that are worth buying at the great prices, but not things that fly off the shelves – like kid’s boots and coats, and dh’s jeans – and a new stove!

Yep, after 2-3 years of looking, the stove that has all the features I want was on Door Buster Sale (and since our Sears is not a full one – very small, tools and appliances only – and has never stocked this one, nobody else had taken the 2 allotted per store and they were able to order it in for me at Door Buster price! They said it’ll take a while to get it in, like 2 weeks. I said, “I’ve waited 2 years, I can wait 2 more weeks.” It will be nice to not have to deal with fickle burners, uneven heating oven, and broken pan drawer. And to have GAS burners, YEA!!, FIVE of them – with oval griddle burner.

Just blessed beyond measure. New kitchen walls, family time, and now a new stove coming.

This is a week of many milestones for Me & My House. If we lived in days of old, we would no doubt set up pillars of remembrance. I guess we have digital cameras instead.

Saturday we celebrated the 13th birthday of ds#2. He chose to celebrate with an afternoon at the river with family (including extended) and a friend, and wanted as a gift a BMX trick bike. Yes, it’s that son.

Yesterday marked my half-century birthday. I had a great day, beginning with emails and Facebook congratulations, (gotta love FB-more birthday wishes than I’ve ever gotten before) and “gifts” from various e-mailing lists I’m on. Then a trip to DMV for my driver’s license renewal. Not sure how that got postponed until yesterday (in all the crazy busyness of the past few months here.) But it was uneventful and quick – which is not much short of a miracle with our DMV. Got home and received a birthday call from my mom.

The next event of the day was lunch with 3 of our grown dd’s, at Gracie Mae’s. Good lunch, good fellowship. But, the restaurant brought me the wrong sandwich. When they brought the right one, they brought a whole instead of a half. So I had 2 halves left over, which our oldest 2 boys were blessed with when I got home. (Boys love my birthday blessings.)

After doing a bit of cleaning and laundry when I got home again, I realized I best get to the store for more “milestones” supplies, before supper time. Another near miracle to get out of there in just over an hour at rush time, especially when 20 minutes of that was waiting to get checked out.

Dinner out with dh proved a blessing too. Waitress forgot the cherry for my drink, so brought me a small cupful of them. (It’s the little things in life.) After dinner, she offered me a free ice cream (dh told her.) Since I was already taking half my dinner home, and going home to dessert, I told her I couldn’t eat anything more there now. She offered any of their desserts to go. Mmm, tiramisu. Then she asked if I wanted a refill of my specialty drink to go. Mmm, tropical sunrise – mango, pineapple, and orange juice with grenadine syrup. (Supper was a great veggie salad and black bean and rice burgers.)

Then home for my party, with 30 of our closest relatives and dd’s young adult friends that are staying with us for the next event. Dd made cherry cheesecakes, my faves, for dessert. And one of her friends made me some caramel roses. 2 of our grown dd’s gave me an awesome meaningful gift of a candle and olive vines in a basket with these Scriptures – Levi 25:10, Prov. 31:28, Ps. 128:3.

Tomorrow will wrap up our week of milestones with dd#5′s graduation party. It’s been a very busy 3 weeks putting that together. Today we will be dipping 250 strawberries and putting together a slideshow. Then I think we’re about ready. She has chosen my dad’s backyard, with his beautiful gardens and landscaping, for her party. That has kept our boys busy for a couple of weeks, helpful papa get planting, and weeding, and mowing and such done. (He, of course, feels bad that everything won’t be in full bloom then. We, of course, are praying for good weather after all that work, so we don’t have to move to our church annex.)

Saturday brings the returning of the friends. Hopefully it won’t be as eventful as the getting of the friends (read previous post.)

Life is good. Life is full. Because God is great. God is good.

For Me & My House,
Lisa
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Mostly running! Well, not running to fast, it’s been frigidly cold here until this past week. We’re just starting to thaw out – and now this week is getting colder again.

Sorry I’ve been so absent here the last couple weeks. I’ve been posting a ton of new info over at the Good for You-Naturally!™ for Life Course & Community, and just don’t have enough online time to write material for several places at once. Join us for the Course & Community today and find a New You in the New Year! Weight Loss – Better Health – do it for your Family, for Life!

But  as for an update here, so far the New Year has brought:

• Out of town trip with 10yodd – birthday shopping and post Christmas returns.
• Back to our studies – finished up Creation to Abraham, studying Job this week, then on to the Patriarchs, Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.
• Broken arm – son #2, basketball mishap. Even though league was ending that day, he’s bummed. Travel team is just starting.
• Lights down, Nativities packed away.
• New hard drive and upgraded RAM installed – lightning fat Mac now.

Well, that’s about all the events for the last couple of weeks. Time to hit the hay, that food truck will be here early tomorrow morning.

I’ll try to do better at updating, but probably not with many articles before the Good for You-Naturally!™ for Life Course & Community is over.

For Me & My House,
Lisa

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints…

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Chris Klicka achieved his homecoming at about 11 MT this morning. He is now rejoicing in Jesus face to face, after a 15 year challenge with MS. Though we rejoice with the angels (and Chris and Jesus,) we also mourn with his family and all the home educating families blessed by his ministry. Please continue to pray for his family.

Read his wife, Tracy’s, post on Caring Bridge and these tributes from Home School Legal Defense Association and Israel Wayne, and the video tribute given from HSLDA leaders at the HSLDA National Leaders Conference on Sept. 26th when Chris was hospitalized.

Yes, it’s not only soup weather. We’ve also hit tea weather. The hot tea started here when a couple dc had scratchy throats and wanted to nip it in the bud before it got worse. Throat Coat did the trick – along with some EOs.

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But with the chilly, rainy, dreary weather, the tea spree was on. I decided to pull out my new tea pot with warming base I got from Let’s Do Tea this summer. (Cool, ain’t it?)

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Chamomile tea is a favorite around here – Sweet Apple Chamomile, Sleepy Time, and plain ol’ straight Chamomile. Nice that it’s a relaxing herb, but it also relaxes enough to make you sleepy. Not something we needed to drink all day! English Toffee is a new blend I got from Celestial Seasonings. It is an herbal coffee-sub, made with chicory root and such. I also like Teeccino. But our tea is usually just my own herbal combinations or Celestial.

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Never “real” tea. Many reasons I’ll get into on another day. But good enough reasons you should consider. For today, just go have a cup – or pot – of herb tea instead of one of the caffeine containing alternatives. It will be helpful instead of harmful to your health – and will taste GREAT! See my pregnancy herb blends here. Watch for more herb tea recipes for the whole family in Good for You-Naturally!™~ Simply Beverages.

The 3rd death on our property in about 2 weeks happened today. Plus…

Beginning at the beginning -

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Death #1 – our last guinea pig. The boys said she committed suicide. She kept going under her water bottle and pushing up on it, getting wet. They’d move her out. She’d go back and do it again. She died a couple hours later. Interrupted one of our first days back at lessons with an unexpected funeral and burial.

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Death #2 – even more traumatic. A few days later, I turned on the car and started to back out. Heard a horrible clunking in the engine, and turned the car off. Thought dh or the boys had left a tool under the hood or something. Got the boys to come look. Opened the hood. Fur went flying. A stray kitten had tried to find a warm place. It was taking its last breaths when we found it. Couldn’t throw it in the trash, the garbage men had just come that day. Didn’t want to dig a deep enough hole. Called the pound to come get it.

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Death #3 – today. Young squirrel coming down the tree. Black lab jumping up the tree. Dh running for them and calling dog. Dh not quick enough. Squirrel in dog’s mouth. Dh intercepts – too late. Dog chained. Squirrel suffering. Boys and pellet gun mercifully end its misery.

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Just as I was ready to type up our latest death sagas, dh calls. He, 2 sons, and son-in-law coming home from hunting. “Bring the little boys to daughter’s house, so they can watch.” 30 doves to clean. (Guess they didn’t want to bring them here around the dog.) Just what I did NOT want to watch. Boys tearing wings off dead birds and …

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I’ve seen about all the dead things I care to in a while.

Thanks be to God that though I’m surrounded by death in this fallen, decaying world, He has come to give us LIFE and that abundantly and eternally! “Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?”