Perhaps I'll make it a habit of starting off my posts with...well I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted!
Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Literally. Like next week. It's very exciting to be able to plan our family trip to get together with family. I certainly enjoy letting everyone see Collin as he grows so much in our time apart. It thrills my heart when people "ooh and ahh" over him!
Collin is now about 28 months old. Almost halfway through the "terrible twos". I don't necessarily believe in calling this stage "terrible" mostly because I want to avoid labeling my son that. He is NOT TERRIBLE. He has his moments of breaking down (at the most inconvenient times)and the strong will that he probably inherited from his mommy, but it's not terrible. Not even close. It's wonderful! It's joyous! It's our baby going through that transition from baby to boyhood. It's so exciting to see him grow up both physically, mentally and emotionally. What a treasure this time is for our family. We will never have these days again with him. All he can do is grow. Some of his favorite things are watching Veggie Tales (he is particularly fond of 'Moe and the Big Exit' which he likes to call "wone stwanger" (trans:LONE STRANGER); playing "huk.huk.hike!" with Daddy; coloring; going to the pond to feed the ducks; and getting to see the "am-als" at the zoo!
Chris has been super busy with hail jobs, but it's finally getting to a point where he can breathe. It's nice to have him home at lunch so we can eat as a family. He has changed positions at church from leading the children's ministry to heading up the evangelism ministry on Sundays. This is his true heartbeat. His "calling" you might say. It's in his blood. He loves sharing his faith and he has been so blessed to find people who not only want to hear about it, but that want that faith too!
I (Hope) am relishing the stay-at-home life! I am determined to be as involved in our little one's life as possible. The newest endeavor in my life at the moment is leading the Ladies Bible study here in our home. This is a humbling experience, but so rewarding! The accountability that is on me is so refreshing. I enjoy the sweet personal quiet time I have while Collin is napping. It really prepares me for the lesson the Lord gives me. It's teaching me how to be transparent with people. I'm learning that I can be quite funny...go figure! Mostly, God is showing me...excuse me, teaching me...how to let him lead me where he wants me to go!
So, there it is, our update for the month. I don't know that it is particularly "Thanksgiving blog" material, but I guess it's not the point. I want to thank God for the things I've told you, b/c the 'good' that's been happening in our lives is only by his grace and I am very thankful for that!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
What a RUSH!
It's hard to believe how quickly time flies. If I remember correctly, it's been about 6 months since my last update. Let's see if I can do a quick recap:
April - Rusty was scheduled to deploy sometime in May so we planned a trip to Georgia to see him before he headed overseas. Unfortunately, Rusty was unable to get the leave he had requested, but we were still able to see my family and stay in Mom and Dad's new house.
May - A month of graduation ceremonies and parties...enough said.
June - Happy Anniversary to the love of my life! Chris and I celebrated our 5 years of wedded bliss.
July - This was a very busy month for the Slegers family. I had the honor of decorating for our Mary Kay awards banquet.
This was also our church mission trip month. We got to drive to Yakima, WA and work at the Union Gospel Mission. It was amazing to see how "un-homeless" the homeless looked. I think we have this picture of what homeless means, but when you meet these people it's like the Lord says, "See what judging does?" and you realize that these are just people. NORMAL people who don't "look" homeless. Anyway, it was an amazing opportunity to meet some amazing families and staff members who pour their lives into this ministry day-in and day-out. Even the people in the program were so welcoming of our group while we invaded their territory! (I think a couple of them would have kept Collin with them, if I would've let them!) We spent 5 days working at the mission and then headed home, but first we got to stop in Colorado for a little time to wind down.
Right smack dab in the middle of our trip, we could have missed a very important day. COLLIN's birthday!!! We did get to sing Happy Birthday, and Collin got his first pinata. We decided to wait to celebrate his birthday until we got home.
August - This past month has been a time to wind down and start to get back into the groove of things, but not before getting to have a couple of celebrations! Collin had his BIRTHDAY BASH on Sunday, Aug. 8 and everyone was there...seriously, I didn't know if we could fit any more people in our house. It might have been a fire hazard or something. The following Wednesday our church put on a baby shower for an expectant family in our congregation. What made this a unique party was that the mommy-to-be didn't speak English! I think the only words I was able to communicate with were "hola, bueno!, and de'nada" (clearly, my Spanish speaking skills are highly lacking along with my spelling skills.) We got to rest for about a week and a half and during that time I was able to transform our home into a magical baby wonder land! I totally went to town to prepare for a long awaited baby celebration for my dear friend Amy! Then I decided the decor was not enough and set my mind on tackling The Cake. I think you get a picture in your mind of what this masterpiece is going to look like and then...you get what you get. It was a cake. It was tasty. It turned out completely different then what I had hoped, but Amy loved it anyway! That was pretty much August for us...except Pat started her school year again so Collin is without his Gramma during the days. Something we BOTH miss!
September - We come to now. The time where I feel like I have to get my house back in some kind of order. Personally, I am asking God for help in being...content. Content with what he's abundantly blessed me with. We have more "stuff" than we could ever want or need. Our living situation is ideal. We have a wonderful (BIG) home to live in and we have the ones we love right under our roof...with room to spare! Personal challenges that have come up, just seem so small when I let them go and let God handle it, er, them.
Still life is amazing. I am forever blessed and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us next! Hopefully I will be able to do at least a monthly update...hopefully.
April - Rusty was scheduled to deploy sometime in May so we planned a trip to Georgia to see him before he headed overseas. Unfortunately, Rusty was unable to get the leave he had requested, but we were still able to see my family and stay in Mom and Dad's new house.
May - A month of graduation ceremonies and parties...enough said.
June - Happy Anniversary to the love of my life! Chris and I celebrated our 5 years of wedded bliss.
July - This was a very busy month for the Slegers family. I had the honor of decorating for our Mary Kay awards banquet.
This was also our church mission trip month. We got to drive to Yakima, WA and work at the Union Gospel Mission. It was amazing to see how "un-homeless" the homeless looked. I think we have this picture of what homeless means, but when you meet these people it's like the Lord says, "See what judging does?" and you realize that these are just people. NORMAL people who don't "look" homeless. Anyway, it was an amazing opportunity to meet some amazing families and staff members who pour their lives into this ministry day-in and day-out. Even the people in the program were so welcoming of our group while we invaded their territory! (I think a couple of them would have kept Collin with them, if I would've let them!) We spent 5 days working at the mission and then headed home, but first we got to stop in Colorado for a little time to wind down.
Right smack dab in the middle of our trip, we could have missed a very important day. COLLIN's birthday!!! We did get to sing Happy Birthday, and Collin got his first pinata. We decided to wait to celebrate his birthday until we got home.
August - This past month has been a time to wind down and start to get back into the groove of things, but not before getting to have a couple of celebrations! Collin had his BIRTHDAY BASH on Sunday, Aug. 8 and everyone was there...seriously, I didn't know if we could fit any more people in our house. It might have been a fire hazard or something. The following Wednesday our church put on a baby shower for an expectant family in our congregation. What made this a unique party was that the mommy-to-be didn't speak English! I think the only words I was able to communicate with were "hola, bueno!, and de'nada" (clearly, my Spanish speaking skills are highly lacking along with my spelling skills.) We got to rest for about a week and a half and during that time I was able to transform our home into a magical baby wonder land! I totally went to town to prepare for a long awaited baby celebration for my dear friend Amy! Then I decided the decor was not enough and set my mind on tackling The Cake. I think you get a picture in your mind of what this masterpiece is going to look like and then...you get what you get. It was a cake. It was tasty. It turned out completely different then what I had hoped, but Amy loved it anyway! That was pretty much August for us...except Pat started her school year again so Collin is without his Gramma during the days. Something we BOTH miss!
September - We come to now. The time where I feel like I have to get my house back in some kind of order. Personally, I am asking God for help in being...content. Content with what he's abundantly blessed me with. We have more "stuff" than we could ever want or need. Our living situation is ideal. We have a wonderful (BIG) home to live in and we have the ones we love right under our roof...with room to spare! Personal challenges that have come up, just seem so small when I let them go and let God handle it, er, them.
Still life is amazing. I am forever blessed and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us next! Hopefully I will be able to do at least a monthly update...hopefully.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Anger Management
I realize that as I get older, I become wiser. I see that the perfect little world I was brought up in does not always just exist - it has to be created. My mom and dad did a wonderful job of protecting and guarding our hearts as we grew up at home. I have taken many parenting lessons from them and have applied them in my own home. Now this post isn't about my parenting skills or even my parents' parenting skills (however great they may be). Here is where it all begins....
Our church does a youth camp every spring break called "Heart Attack". It is one of our most fruitful ministries and I hope that it continues for years to come. We camp, of course, and play games and have team events...all the usual "camp stuff". Now anyone who has ever heard of church camps or even attended them realize there is a cost to pull these off. Our church has done a wonderful job of footing the bill to make the cost for each camper as minimal as possible. (I hear the average cost of camp per day is around $100 A DAY and our camp costs only a fraction of that FOR THE WHOLE 4 day CAMP.) Now any church you attend probably has what they like to call camp scholarships where an un-named donor sponsors a camper who may not be able to afford the camp. These people are angels in my opinion b/c most of the time, these donors no longer have children at home or may not even have children, but they know the impact that these events can have on the young lives that are attending.
In our ministry we try to include everyone and so we have our children's camp and then the youth camp. There is always a little flexibility in our age group for the youth (usually around 12 yrs and up). If there are kids who are younger - all we require is that they have a parent who attends with them, as we are not staffed to babysit young children. This seems reasonable to me. Here is where my anger management comes in. As I was so gracious (said with all the sarcasm in my heart) to offer to be the register-er for camp, I get to collect money, notarize medical release forms and ANSWER QUESTIONS honestly, etc. Well, there is a young camper - under the youth camp age - who sent a text message asking if their parent could do a payment plan to pay for camp. I informed said person that we don't really have a payment plan, but they need to make sure their parent came to camp with them. I did not receive an immediate reply, but about an hour later, I got a text message from the parent like this:
'[my child] has already worked something out with [a staff member] and they said you could work something out. But since you won't, [my child] just won't come to church anymore.'
(Big sigh...along with an 'well that is fine by me' thought...then an AHHHHHHHHH!)
I had to pray about how to respond with tact and understanding. Knowing full well that apparently this child's salvation and future in being a part of our church lies solely in my hands. (I know, again with the sarcasm.) After cooling off, I texted back, 'Well if you've already worked something out, that's fine. I just didn't know about it.'
I called my husband to let him know that we may have lost a child because I answered a question they had already worked out with someone else. I also informed him that I did not feel I was wrong and would not apologize for it. Let's get something straight. I HATE MANIPULATION! If you want to anger me - try it. You'll see.
"Well if my kid (who is under-age) can't go to camp (without a parent) under my terms (they say payment plan - and it means for free) then they will no longer go to church (and it will be your fault)!"
Honestly, I wanted to say okay, don't let this kid come anymore. But I didn't. All I know is that this parent is training their child to become a manipulator. I'll do this - if you do that. I suppose we should all raise our children to DEMAND what they want and if they don't get it, that's okay, just throw a fit and threaten with all you have until they do it! AHHHHHH!
Our church does a youth camp every spring break called "Heart Attack". It is one of our most fruitful ministries and I hope that it continues for years to come. We camp, of course, and play games and have team events...all the usual "camp stuff". Now anyone who has ever heard of church camps or even attended them realize there is a cost to pull these off. Our church has done a wonderful job of footing the bill to make the cost for each camper as minimal as possible. (I hear the average cost of camp per day is around $100 A DAY and our camp costs only a fraction of that FOR THE WHOLE 4 day CAMP.) Now any church you attend probably has what they like to call camp scholarships where an un-named donor sponsors a camper who may not be able to afford the camp. These people are angels in my opinion b/c most of the time, these donors no longer have children at home or may not even have children, but they know the impact that these events can have on the young lives that are attending.
In our ministry we try to include everyone and so we have our children's camp and then the youth camp. There is always a little flexibility in our age group for the youth (usually around 12 yrs and up). If there are kids who are younger - all we require is that they have a parent who attends with them, as we are not staffed to babysit young children. This seems reasonable to me. Here is where my anger management comes in. As I was so gracious (said with all the sarcasm in my heart) to offer to be the register-er for camp, I get to collect money, notarize medical release forms and ANSWER QUESTIONS honestly, etc. Well, there is a young camper - under the youth camp age - who sent a text message asking if their parent could do a payment plan to pay for camp. I informed said person that we don't really have a payment plan, but they need to make sure their parent came to camp with them. I did not receive an immediate reply, but about an hour later, I got a text message from the parent like this:
'[my child] has already worked something out with [a staff member] and they said you could work something out. But since you won't, [my child] just won't come to church anymore.'
(Big sigh...along with an 'well that is fine by me' thought...then an AHHHHHHHHH!)
I had to pray about how to respond with tact and understanding. Knowing full well that apparently this child's salvation and future in being a part of our church lies solely in my hands. (I know, again with the sarcasm.) After cooling off, I texted back, 'Well if you've already worked something out, that's fine. I just didn't know about it.'
I called my husband to let him know that we may have lost a child because I answered a question they had already worked out with someone else. I also informed him that I did not feel I was wrong and would not apologize for it. Let's get something straight. I HATE MANIPULATION! If you want to anger me - try it. You'll see.
"Well if my kid (who is under-age) can't go to camp (without a parent) under my terms (they say payment plan - and it means for free) then they will no longer go to church (and it will be your fault)!"
Honestly, I wanted to say okay, don't let this kid come anymore. But I didn't. All I know is that this parent is training their child to become a manipulator. I'll do this - if you do that. I suppose we should all raise our children to DEMAND what they want and if they don't get it, that's okay, just throw a fit and threaten with all you have until they do it! AHHHHHH!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Life As It Happens
For the most part, I would say I'm a pretty laid back person. I try to avoid conflict, but am willing to stand up for righteousness. During the times when people around me want to bombard our peace and quiet with childishness, it can be quite disheartening. As I considered my feelings at the moment, an old song came to mind and I thought I would share it to remind myself and those interested in reading our blog about the power of prayer.
There are days when I feel the best of me is ready to begin
Then there are days when I feel I'm letting go and soaring on the wind
'Cause I've learned in laughter or in pain how to survive!
I get on my knees! I get on my knees!
There I am before the Love that changes me
See I don't know how but there's power
When I'm on my knees
I can be in a crowd or by myself - almost anywhere
When I feel there's a need to talk with God
He is Emmanuel
When I close my eyes, no darkness there. There's only light!
I get on my knees! I get on my knees!
There I am before the Love that changes me
See I don't know how, but there's power
In the blue skies, in the midnight
When I'm on my knees
I get on my knees
There I am before the Love
That changes me
See I don't know how, but there's power
When I'm on my, oh, when I'm on my
When I'm on my knees
Then there are days when I feel I'm letting go and soaring on the wind
'Cause I've learned in laughter or in pain how to survive!
I get on my knees! I get on my knees!
There I am before the Love that changes me
See I don't know how but there's power
When I'm on my knees
I can be in a crowd or by myself - almost anywhere
When I feel there's a need to talk with God
He is Emmanuel
When I close my eyes, no darkness there. There's only light!
I get on my knees! I get on my knees!
There I am before the Love that changes me
See I don't know how, but there's power
In the blue skies, in the midnight
When I'm on my knees
I get on my knees
There I am before the Love
That changes me
See I don't know how, but there's power
When I'm on my, oh, when I'm on my
When I'm on my knees
This song just reminds me to get on my knees, and trust in the power of prayer. I works you know!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
30 Day Sprint
I actually got this idea from my Mary Kay Director, who has challenged our unit to a 30 Day Sprint. It can be for your business, health, emotions, spiritual or pretty much anything you want to set for a goal.
My "frustration": physical activity. I am not at my ideal weight...actually it's more ideal SIZE. I want to fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. Comfortably, fit into my jeans that is.
30 Day Goal: This month I have decided to do a strenuous work-out 2-3 days a week. On my off days, I will do 30 min. of walking/running/playing/housework...you get the picture.
My current day is Day 2. I was planning on working out Day 1 and taking today off. However, my dear friend Amy called and wanted to work out with me today, so I couldn't pass up the offer. (Working out with a friend is so much more motivating.)
I have been asked to set a "goal weight", but I think I'm going to have to pick a size I am hoping to hit instead. This is good for two reasons. 1. I hear that when you begin working out, you actually GAIN some weight as you build muscle, and 2. I don't want to step onto another scale until I am a little more pleased with the reflection in the mirror.
I will try to keep you updated on my progress! See you at the "finish line"!
My "frustration": physical activity. I am not at my ideal weight...actually it's more ideal SIZE. I want to fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. Comfortably, fit into my jeans that is.
30 Day Goal: This month I have decided to do a strenuous work-out 2-3 days a week. On my off days, I will do 30 min. of walking/running/playing/housework...you get the picture.
My current day is Day 2. I was planning on working out Day 1 and taking today off. However, my dear friend Amy called and wanted to work out with me today, so I couldn't pass up the offer. (Working out with a friend is so much more motivating.)
I have been asked to set a "goal weight", but I think I'm going to have to pick a size I am hoping to hit instead. This is good for two reasons. 1. I hear that when you begin working out, you actually GAIN some weight as you build muscle, and 2. I don't want to step onto another scale until I am a little more pleased with the reflection in the mirror.
I will try to keep you updated on my progress! See you at the "finish line"!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Happy 2010!
It has been quite a while since we have updated the blog, so hang in there!
The past couple of months have been a blur. This past year has been such a blessing, especially for me as I was able to visit my parents and sister several times. I went to San Antonio in January. Chris, Collin and I went to GA for my parents 25th Anniversary in July. I was able to take Collin on his first plane ride to GA at the end of Aug/beginning of September...lets just say for my Dad's 50th birthday. AND THEN Collin and I drove to south GA in October to welcome my sister's 4th baby, Caleb into the family! What a blessing to see them so much!
Our Christmas with Collin has been so exciting. We love to watch him as he learns new things and starts to figure things out. Each day is so exciting and scary and challenging and wonderful as we can look at the world through Collin's eyes. All you need to know as a child is how much someone loves you and will take care of everything and there need be no worries.
Our prayer for 2010 is to continue to grow closer to one another, closer to friends and most importantly, closer to our Savior. We are extremely blessed to have the freedom to share our hearts desire for the time being. I pray our nation will turn around and look at God's great riches he has and the purpose he has for our nation if we just welcome him back. We would love to learn to manage time, efforts, money and just life in general - better. We pray for health, strength and wisdom for YOU this new year.
Just keep walking the walk and enjoy your journey this new year for we will always be forever blessed!
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