How Great is our God?

I have been singing this particular Chris Tomlin song a lot this week, I just really enjoy it and it is good to remember even when we don't feel like praising God that we should, because He is a GREAT God and He is our God :)

Life here has been busy, M has started speech therapy in the last month. He attends a speech class from 1-3pm on a Thurs. He is talking a lot but it is often hard for others to understand and even mom and dad too, he has some issues with letter sounds and articulation. He is in a class with 7 other little ones his age and he LOVES it :) It is more like a preschool but is set up for them to engage in lots of conversation as they play, sing etc with their peers and teachers. I drive him there, which is only 5 mins from our house and he rides the bus home! Something he has longed to do for a very long time, esp. since big brother gets to ride his bus everyday! Since M has started speech, we have seen improvement and he also has been singing much more :) How Great is our God?

E is going through a "good season" as S and I like to call it! I am not sure if we would have understood this expression a few years ago but anyway we are thankful for this season right now! His transition to 1st grade was difficult for him and seemed to bring  with it some other challenges, a lot of which were due to his social development possibly and maybe just feeling overwhelmed with his school schedule?! On Thurs. I had his annual IEP ( Individual Education Plan) I usually go to these meetings a little nervous but this particular one went really well. Along with his IEP they were also reviewing Ethan's history for eligibility to continue receiving Special education services! He still qualifies, I know most people wouldn't find that exciting or be even thankful that their child receives special ed. but for us it is a huge blessing and without it we would not be able to have Ethan in the classroom situation he is in right now which he defnitely needs! Also we have come to terms a long time ago that we have been blessed with a little boy who learns differently and sees the world around him differently!  " How Great is our God?".
I watched a small part of a movie recently about a young lady called  "Temple Grandin" some of you may be familiar with her, the movie is about her childhood with Autism. She is very famous within the autism community. In the movie when someone calls her daughter different the mom says " Different isn't less" I love that! For some reason when it comes to children with sp. needs we feel like we have been given something less, but I have to say even in the midst of our struggles and challenges we feel like God has given us more! We are learning and growing in ways we never knew or thought we could.......How Great is our God?

In the Fall S & M actually planted some bulbs on Sat. we got to see some of them bloom it was so beautiful to see this new life i nour yard " How Great is our God?"

Well as I finish with my thoughts I will leave you with some pictures of the last few weeks with the G Family!

 

Yes this is Mud :) 

Who is madder the Hatter or the Irishman?

  

New life in our yard, E is very excited about the beautiful crocus

 Hotdog roast in our backyard, one of our newest fun things to do!

How Great is our God, Sing with me How Great is our God and all willl we see how great, how great is our God :)

So what have we been up to since I last blogged. Here are a few things:

 

This is one of our favorite parks, as you can see there were some friendly visitors too :) The boys love to play here and the peacocks are an added attraction!

 

We had fun sensory play time with water and cornstarch, messy but very fun, so glad I have laminated floors.............phew!!

  

Play time in the mud :) I know this doesn't come as a surprise to most of you!

As you can see our family likes to have fun and we also love to spend time together. I honestly can't think of a better way to spend my time than with the people I love the most! 

The Lord has blessed us with 2 very active boys, with that activity also comes some individual challenges. I have often been told " boy do you have your hands full". At first i used to get kind of offended with this comment not quite knowing how to respond, wondering if people were making a comment about my parenting or my kids? Now I say  "yes I do" but I also respond with  "yes and a full heart" :) No matter the challenges, I know that I don't do this on my own.

Yesterday we went on a family walk up to a waterfall in our area ( sorry no pictures, forgot camera) It was sucha beautiful day, it was also so refreshing to spend time with my family outside. As I was walking I was thinking on the hymn " How great thou Art" . We don't always take the time to think of God's greatness, but out in His creation, it made me think about this and how thankful and grateful that I am that He is a  "Great " God! No matter the challenges we face, I have to say that time outdoors and with my family and God made me forget about my momentary troubles and just enjoy the blessings in life.

A bad case of Stripes!

On Wed. E gets to go to the school library, he just loves it. I always wait in anticipation to see what he may  bring home, in the past we have had  quite a variety! We have had history of trains, Sea creatures, famous landmarks of America, now that one was cool, and the most interesting of all was one week we had the "yucky book" which was a very detailed book on bugs and dustmites that lurk in our homes, yes makes for very interesting bedtime reading. Today he brought home a book called " A bad case of Stripes". After shower time  the boys and I sat down with excitement to read this book! It was about a  young girl called Camilla Cream who loved Lima beans but because her friends didn't like them she wouldn't eat them because she was scared  of what her friends would think. She was always worried about what others thought of her, so in the story she started to turn into whatever people would say about her or the advice they would give her !
In the end she realized that it was ok for her to eat Lima beans if she liked them,  it really didn't matter if people thought she was weird!

I of course got thinking about this story and how it can be applied to our lives. I think of how much time and energy I put into worrying about what others think about me. Often fretting and worrying over silly things!  When I do this it robs my joy and steals away precious time and energy that I could be putting into other things! It also can make me miss out on things because my fear of what others may think holds me back!
At the end of the day we should be concerned about what does God think? Does our decisions, actions line up with His word? Are the things we are doing, saying,  the thoughts we are thinking are they glorifying to Him?
I think for a lot of  us  women especially we are often concerned about  what people think of our lives, our marriages, how we parent, how our children are acting, how we look physically! We compare ourselves so much that it often can take away from really enjoying good friendships with each other! So what if our pants don't match our shirt, our hair isn't the current style, we aren't driving the best car. We need to be using our time wisely, being the person God has intended us to be and enjoying the people and things in our lives he has blessed us with!

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Case-Stripes-David-Shannon/dp/0590929976

Blogging again!

Just wanted to say I am back blogging again, can hardly believe it has been well over a year. Thank you Belinda for encouraging me to do this again and other friends :) It is fun to read over my posts and see what I was thinking, feeling doing over a year ago!

Since then we have moved into our home, it is still a wonderful blessing. I just love my home and feel very thankful for it everyday! I never thought we could ever own our own house! So we should never think things are impossible! Yes we had to work hard for it, but I have to say I have kind of forgotten what it felt like during that time, I just remember it was a lot of hard work and sacrifice!

Well that is my little intro. for now I hope to be back again soon. Hopefully I can figure out how to make it a little more pretty and interesting. I had dial up way back when I first started blogging and so it took forever to upload anything!

Be back soon............Jayne