Snow!

This has been an interesting week. Sunday started off with a very chilly 3 degrees and a houseful of people. We had the Burkina Faso team and their famiies and some guests over for lunch after church. The lady from Acts Ministries and her husband were in town. We had a wonderful time hearing more about what it is like over there and about the work they are doing. They are an amazing couple with a heart of service. We are definitely going to the poorest of poor. What a privilege to be bringing the Word of Truth to them and helping them get out of the cycle of poverty. Please pray for wisdom for our team to know what God wants us to do. The needs are so great that it can be overwhelming. We want to know what God is doing and to do that.

Monday we woke up and got Javin ready to catch the bus only to find out that school was cancelled. It was too cold. I don't remember having that rule when I was in school. Well that led right into Tuesday's big snow storm. It snowed and snowed and then rained and snowed some more. Obviously school was cancelled. By Wednseday I had high hopes of school being back in session, but no it was still closed! So what did we do during all this free time...played outside in the snow (for only a short time), improved our SSX Tricky characters, watched Spy Kids (many thanks Mimi), and lots of laundry.

We love the snow. Kailyn and I went out while it was raining and the snow was prefect for packing and built a little snowman. The problem was that it was raining and we got soaked and our snowman fell over right after we got back inside. Now that was a short life!

Thursday was my day to lead the Valentine's party at Javin's class. He was so excited that his mom was in charge and got to tell everyone what to do. I guess that is cool! The party went well and everyone had fun. I don't have the pictures yet from the other mom to post. My pictures may be few these days. My camera had a fatal accident yesterday so I am shopping for a new one. Does anyone have a recomendation for a good digital camera?

Angie's List

It's winter in Ohio and what's there to do? Not much besides watch movies, scrapbook, clean and read books. My scrapbooks are all unorganized right now so I am not very motivated to work on them. Cleaning, yuck! So it's movies and books. Thought I would let you in on my latest picks.

Movies:
The Ultimate Gift
The Star Wars series (Javin is watching for them for the first time. I have realized that I am not knowledgeable enough to answer all his questions concerning these movies. I have to send him to Uncle Eugene.)
SuperNanny Season 1
Hitch

Books:
on Parenting
Be A Great Parent by H. Norman Wright
Respectful Kids by Todd Cartmell (All time favorite)
Raising children on purpose : helping your children find their God-given calling by Wesley H. Fleming
Parenting With Kingdom Purpose by Ken Hemphill

on teaching my kids
Big truths for little kids : teaching your children to live for God by Susan Hunt
My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God's Word in Little Hearts By Susan Hunt
Sign & say : Bible verses for children by Daphna Flegal
52 Family Time Ideas by Timothy Smith

Fun Reference
Kids Love Ohio by George and Michele Zavatsky (Great ideas of fun stuff to do with your kids)

Devotional reading
Your Best Life Now for Moms by Joel Osteen
Your Scars are Beautiful to God by Sharon Jaynes (haven't started yet, but hopefully I will get to it soon.)

Fictional jaunts
Hood by Stephen Lawhead
Scarlet by Stephen Lawhead

Story time with the kids
Epossumondas Saves the Day by Coleen Salley
The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst (She's smarter than her brother)
Pennsylvania Dutch Night before Christmas by Chet Williamson (Hillarious book if you are from Holmes County)

Power Parenting Prayer!

I picked up a book about parenting (Be a Great Parent by H. Norman Wright) that began with a chapter on praying for your kids. I loved this prayer.

Dear God,

I am powerless and my life is unmanageable without your love and
guidance. I come to you today because I believe that you can restore and renew
me to meet my needs tomorrow and to help me meet the needs of my children.

Since I cannot manage my life or affairs, I have decided to give them to
you. I put my life, my will, my thoughts, my desires and ambitions in your
hands.

I give you each of my children. I know that you will work them
out in accordance with your plan. Such as I am, take and use me in your service.

Guide and direct my ways and show me what to do for you. I cannot
control or change my children, other family members, or friends, so I release
them into your care for your loving hands to do with as you will.

Just keep me loving and free from judging them. If they need changing, God, you'll
have to do it; I can't.

Just make me willing and ready to be of service to you, to have my shortcomings removed, and to do my best.

I am seeking to know you better, to love you more. I am seeking the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry it out.

Amen.

Kailyn's Princess Party

Kailyn celebrated her 4th birthday yesterday! We started out the day with breakfast in bed for the birthday princess.

She was so excited for her party with her friends. Kailyn loves her friends and is a very social person. She loves to be around people.

There were 3 beautiful princesses and a handsome prince in attendance.

The girls got to have their nails painted at the party. That was a special treat! Everyone had a good time playing with toys, a few party games and lots of cake and ice cream.

Thanks to everyone who showered her with birthday presents. It seemed like she opened presents all day long.

She is growing up so fast. It is hard to believe that she is really 4 now! My baby is growing up!

My Secret Side Job

I am pretty sure that most of you out there don't know that I have a little photography business on the side. The whole thing just makes me laugh. Me, of all people, getting paid to take pictures. Who would have thought? The reason I find this so funny is that Kevin was so into photography and read all these books and experimented with this and that to create such awesome photographs. Just another of his many hobbies. And now here I am, the one who does not grasp anything about f-stops or shutter speed whatsoever; the one who uses the green automatic mode on my camera most of the time, taking pictures for an Amish guy's harness catalog. So there ya have it, I am Angie, the photographer that only an Amish guy could love.

My Amish guy calls me every now and then to take pictures for him. I burn them on a CD or email them to his printer. His printer does wonders with them and turns them into nice catalog prints. Amazing! Well, last week the dear fellow calls and needs some pictures taken. He has very little light inside his shop so all the pictures are taken outside. In case you are not from Ohio right now, let me tell you it is very cold here right now. So there I was, trying to take pictures of a brown harness that was on a brown 3-year old skittish horse. First mistake was leaving my gloves in the car. Second, was trying to get a good picture on a brown horse, it just doesn't show up well enough. Believe me, this one was the best out of all of them and this is after I doctored it up quite a bit. After 45 minutes in the freezing cold my hands were red and numb but they were finally done bringing out stuff. Boy, was I disappointed when I got home and realized that I will be going back out in the cold to do these over because they just didn't turn out good enough.

I was back at it Monday and I think the inventory must have doubled since the first time, but lucky for me they decided to ditch the live horse and just hung the items up on a post. It's a wonder, but posts are so much easier to take pictures of then a horse who is prancing around and moving his head and ears this way and that. This time I came prepared with thin gloves that I could wear while taking pictures. Needless to say, it was still VERY cold. I was thinking that maybe I should charge double for winter time photo shoots, what do you think? Anyway this money will go toward my trip to Burkina Faso in 5 WEEKS!! So it's worth it all in the end!

Women's conference run down

I just have to praise the Lord. God is doing such great things in my life. We had our annual Women's Conference put on by our church ladies this past weekend. Each year is always so inspiring and uplifting. This year turned out to be just as great! We had a lovely meal including the largest piece of double decker chocolate cake and tons of icing I have ever seen. I couldn't even eat all of it. Friday night was devoted to worship and it was awesome. Our women's worship team was wonderful. We have such talent at our church. This was followed by ministry time of personal prayer. Good words and and powerful prayers! I think the best part is being there with your friends. I had such a fun time catching up with friends and building deeper relationships. Just some time away from my wonderful kids does the heart good. Later that night the line dancing began - country style. I didn't just say that, did I? I am having a flash back. Okay my deep dark secret....I listened to country music for a short period in my life. Now the truth is out! Thank goodness that phase didn't last long. Anyway it was fun, falling all over each other and trying to keep up with all the turns and moves. Yee haw! From there we headed to socializing game time until way too late in the night!!

Saturday morning came way too quickly and I think I downed 3 cup of coffee by lunch time. We had some awesome speakers and break out sessions. I was very encouraged and challenged and inspired. The prophetic and prayer breakout was so fun. It was a time of being prayed over individually. I just have to laugh and cry at the same time. God's words to me are so exciting and fun and I am not surprised at all. It must be written all over me. I guess I can actually say, I felt joy in my life this weekend. True joy like I haven't felt for a long time. Thanks to all the ladies who prayed for the conference and made it happen. I have been so blessed.

New Year's Eve Fun

Okay so, my internet connection has been less than stable the last few weeks. So I am a bit behind on posting! Let's see, where to start...

We had a fun New Year's Eve celebration at the Elliott household. And yes, the kids stayed up until midnight! Kailyn's hyperness grew and grew as the hours went on. The more tired she is the more wound up she gets! The boys ruled the video games and the girls played well. The adults even got to play several rounds of Speed Scrabble and Boggle.

Good times!!

Nathan and Kailyn had matching jammies!!

We are blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful friends and to be making new friends! We were blessed to host a Ukrainian couple, Stepan and Oxana, and their 18 month old, Elliana for a few days. Poor Elliana came down with croup and was not feeling well while they were here. I enjoyed getting to know them and drinking lots of tea. The tea kettle was heating on the stove the whole time! So now when we visit Ukraine we will have quite a few friends to see!

Happy New Year's to all of you!