This Saturday we went to see Bella for my Grandma's birthday. Even though it was kind of slow going it was really nice to sit back and enjoy a quiet "happy" movie :). I think that the pro life theme has become more popular in Hollywood and the group that produced the movie Bella sound like they are going to make lots of really good movies! YAY!

We went to our women's monthly meeting a while ago and I decided to branch out and sit at a table that none of my sisters or Mom were sitting at. Wow, that was brave for me. I usually like to stay in my comfort zone and let someone else start all the conversations. I sat at the table with two people I knew and around four that I didn't. It turned out that I was sitting next to the lady who was going to speak that night and Mom and another lady had met her before I got there and prayed with her. It turned out that she spoke on studying the bible and what it did in her life. It was so amazing and just what I was needing to hear. I have been struggling with how to dig deeper than just the main story line. I told her this and I found out that she leads a women's bible study Wednesday mornings. I was disappointed cause I have school, work, and guitar lessons so I probably would not be able to go. I really enjoyed talking to her though and I got very inspired to start my own in depth study using one of Kay Aurthur's books. On the way home Mom, Hope, and I talked a lot about youth small groups, women's meetings, and our own bible readings. We were all really inspired by the teaching that night and decided to start getting up at 6:30 every school morning and work our way through Daniel. Sadly we haven't gotten far cause we have been staying up to late and cannot gt up early but we started again today and we plan to keep it up every day. We are also going to start going to the Wednesday morning meetings and do school ahead of time. I think God has been speaking to our whole family to really live in the word especially in hard times and to prepare ourselves for the attack. I have just recently decided what my favorite verse is because I have needed it the most in my life so far.

Ephesians 6: 10-12. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

So what happens if you're wierd??

I haven't blogged in a while so this is going to be an update on anything I can think of.

School is going GREAT! I am studying American government and biblical law...Sound boring? Well it's not! I absolutely love it!!! One of the books I'm reading is called Tools Of Dominion. Wen I read the first bit I had to take notes just to understand it, But after a couple weeks I could begin to get it all without writing it down :P. Since then I have really learned a LOT from it.

A couple of days after my 17th birthday I finally got to go and get my drivers licence...Yay!!! So now I can run errands for Mom or go do things I want without having to make sure one of the girls is able to take me.


We went to the North Myrtle Beach with Uncle Kenny and Aunt Lori and had a BLAST!!! It was GREAT hanging out with my cousins on the beach (they live next door but we never get sick of them). We stayed at a beach cottage that had four huge bedrooms and right down the road were three towers that had pools, a game room, and good beach access. A big plus was that I got to play with baby Sarah every day for almost a week :P!!! Aunt Lori took a lot of really good pictures but left her camera at the pool and when they went back to find it, it was gone.



We left the beach a couple days early to go visit Dads family who live in NC while Uncle Kenny and Aunt Lori stayed behind till Sunday. We had a great time visiting with our relatives there. We went shopping with Dads sister and found Mom her mother-of-the-bride dress. Since none of us but Hope like to shop it was nice that we found what Mom wanted right away :) . Finding the dress lessened like all of Moms "wedding stress".



This Sunday we went to church and saw some friends that we hadn't seen in a while cause we have been gone a lot. We went out to eat with some of them and ran into Uncle Kenny, Aunt Lori, and the kids coming home from the beach....Yeah that was weird!!! Now we're home hanging out with all the rest of the family around Shadybrook Acres. So there's the update on the going on's 'roun here.

Later ;D

Good Song

This song has meant a lot to me in the past! I was raised on Twila Paris and I still find so much meaning and encouragement from her music.

Twila Paris
I Am Not Afraid Anymore

I said I belonged to you
But in a secret room, I kept a secret list
I said, "Anything for You"
"Anything but this"
"Anything but this"You knew it all along
You knew it very well
You knew the sturdy walls I hid behind
Were nothing but a prison cell
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I am not afraid anymore
You have opened all the windows
Opened all the doors
I am not afraid anymore
I feel the wind of freedom like
I never did before
The light is filling up the corners
Dancing on the floor
I am not afraid anymore
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You have always been the same
I ran away from You
Every time You called my name
I tried to hide the truth
You knew it all along You knew it verry well
You knwe the more I covered up my heart
The more I didn't know myself
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No room for fear
No room, no room

No room for fear

Perfect love is living here

Thoughts on Harry Potter

About a year ago I read the Harry Potter books because Mom and Dad had realized that they hadn't really looked into what the books contained. First Mom read book 1 and said I was old enough to read them. I read it because I wanted to understand what other kids were reading and I wanted to be able to back up my beliefs.


Now I have read all the books and seen all the movies that are out. I have formed quite different beliefs than I had to start with and I have really tried too look into both sides. I also read two books called What's a Christan To Do With Harry Potter? by Connie Neal and Looking for God in Harry Potter by John Granger. I have learned a lot from them and I highly recommend both books even if you are not considering reading the Harry Potter books or letting your children read them!!! These books will help bring you understanding of why so many people including strong Christan adults love Harry Potter.

"I am convinced that the fundamental reason for the astounding popularity of the Harry Potter novels is their ability to meet a spiritual longing for some experience of the truths of life, love, and death taught by Christianity but denied by secular culture. Human beings are designed for Christ, weather they know it or not. That the Harry Potter stories "sing along" with the great story of Christ is a significant key to understanding there compelling richness."
-Looking for God in Harry Potter


These are some questions most Christan parents ask in concerns about the Harry Potter books.

Might kids be lured unsuspectingly into occult practices?

My answer is no. I think being afraid of occult involvement is a valid fear and the Bible warns about tampering with spirits and getting involved in sorcery but the Harry Potter books do not encourage "sorcery" or invocational magic. The magic in the Harry Potter books is incantational magic. The difference is?? Well invocational means "to call in" this kind of magic is usually referred to as sorcery and the bible is very against this!!! Incantational magic is magic that shows in a -story form- the human desire for magic beyond the real world we live in. Like wands, trolls, giants, unicorns, invisibility cloaks, talking hats, and other objects that are fictional.

Might kids learn disrespect for Adults and Authority?

Harry has many different authoritie's in his life and some he resents at first but towards the end of the books Harry realizes the importance of all those adults and sees how it would have been detrimental if he had not obeyed them (which he did).

Might kids come to think that Wizards and Witches are cool while non magical people are not?

On the contrary the evil characters are the ones who hate non-magical people. Harry and his friends acknowledge that non-magical people are just as important and interesting as they are. That is the main thing the whole fight is over. The dark Lord Voldemort wants to take over and make non-magical people slaves.

"Perhaps you're wondering if you should allow your children to read or watch the movies. In order to make responsible decisions, you need to know what is really in the stories." -What's a Christan to Do With Harry Potter?

Of Kids and Snakes

This week Pris, Hope and I have been teaching a dance track at church for Camp kidstuff. We are teaching twelve k-5th grade girls a dance to Steven Curtis Chapman's The Great Adventure and it has been really fun!! It's really cool how we've gotten to know all the girls pretty well just this week and they've learned the dance really fast. Yesterday we went a few hours early to hang out with some of the teenage girls and go see a movie.

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Friday morning Abel came in my room to wake me up and as soon as I sat up he bombarded me with a story about how a vicious thing attacked him and gave him a very swollen hand and arm. By the time I could open my eyes I was pretty impressed with the size of his arm. He was excitedly telling me that he thought it was probably a copperhead bite. I wondered if this was what he wanted it to be. After further questioning he told me that he was in the woods, had shot an arrow and went to retrieve it. As he was searching he felt his hand sting and instead of looking at what had hurt him he looked at his hand and thus did not see his attacker. Dad was at work so Mom took him to the doctor who said he should go to the emergency room where we spent four hours there just to find out that it was a copperhead bite and it had injected poison but Abel's arm would get better on it's own. Easy end to an interesting day.

Ok I'll do a new post!!!

Yeah, I figure I should put a new post up here. I've been kinda' busy lately and I've been losing heart with the whole bloggin' thing but I'll try to snap out of it :). We went to MO recently to go to an H2O meet... We had a blast!!!! It's always nice to hang around a bunch of kids who love the Lord and will support each others standards! After we played games like Frisbee, whiffle ball, and watter balloons we all went down to the fire and all sat around in chairs. We sang some worship songs and then they took some time for testimonies and prayer requests. Wow! I couldn't help but be encouraged!!

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It's hard here at home not having a supportive group of friends. I think I would rather have no friends than friends who drag me down though. Please pray for me in this aria because I've been getting very discouraged.

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I think things are going to get better though! When we got home we had a big home school picnic and 12 families showed up!!! We had a great time even though all the kids were quite a bit younger than me I still had fun! When it was around time to eat it started to pour so everybody brought their blankets and food inside and laid them out on the floor and we had an inside picnic :P. Then later the sky decided to clear up so we all went outside and each made his own ice cream in a bag that turned out to taste very good!

Here's the recipe.

1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup half & half
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
6 tablespoons rock salt
1 pint-size Ziploc plastic bag
1 gallon-size Ziploc plastic bag
Ice cubes

How to make it:
Fill the large bag half full of ice, and add the rock salt. Seal the bag.
Put half & half, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag, and seal it.
Place the small bag inside the large one and seal again carefully.
Shake until mixture is ice cream, about 5 minutes.
Wipe off top of small bag, then open carefully and enjoy!

food and good company...I think?

OK, well I haven't blogged in a long time cause getting the computer has been murder around here. Our main computer broke down so all we have is Moms laptop between all nine of us. Yeah... don't try to picture that!! So I've got about five minutes before someone comes barging in saying they need to do something really important. I have my doubts about the important part. Wow, as I was typing Hope just came in with Dad on the phone asking me to look up some website. How predictable. For Father's Day we went to a lake about an hour away from where we live. Dad brought our canoe and Grandpa brought his fishing boat and, as usual, Grandma brought a boatload of food (we tried to tell her to go easy on us this time but she couldn't resist). I thought it would be a fun challenge to swim across the lake and I made it there and back. I don't know how far it was across but it's three miles around.We had a lot of fun and ate till we all were sick.

Yesterday we were sitting in our living room, mom was trying to read to the younger kids while I made breakfast. When we saw about six boys come running down our hill. Luke and Abel stood up and began to stare with longing out the window and Mom rolled her eyes. "Sit down and ignore them!" was the first thing Mom said, knowing this was not possible. Luke immediately said, "I think Pal (our dog) just went in the chicken house." Again Mom rolled her eyes, "Whatever." she closed the book for now. Aunt Lori was babysitting eight extra kids (our other cousins). With school canceled until afternoon we all went out to say hi.
Candace and I went over to Loris to help out with the kids and had a ball. The kids were pretty good but very energetic. Some of the younger kids went out and cleaned Lori's two foot deep baby pool and filled it up and all of the kids had a blast jumping in it. Then we went inside and played a really fun game called Apples to Apples which was highly entertaining. Then I ran home to get Mad Libs and after playing that our stomachs were all sore from laughing. Then we went and had a ball outside. As you can see.
Poor Aunt Lori ...all those kids!!

Candace asked her to pose for the camera.