Well, like I said yesterday, I.'s first loose tooth was not going to last long. He has now officially lost his first tooth! Congratulations, I.!!! Guess the tooth fairy will have to check her pockets tonight!
Struggling again
I have really been struggling lately. There are so many things up in the air right now, and I don't do well with no knowing what is going to happen, or how things are going to be, so I think that is why I have been extra-emotional, not to mention being pregnant! 
Those pregnancy hormones can really wreak havoc on one!
I was reading another blog today (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Titus2woman) and she mentioned a singer, Sara Groves. I went to her website, and was perusing her songs when I found one called First Song That I Sing. Here are the lyrics:
First Song That I Sing
In the morning when I rise Help me to prioritize All the thoughts that fill my day Before my schedule Tells me that my day is full Before I'm off and on my way I want to praise you I need to praise you Let the first song that I sing Be praises to my God and king Before the curtains part Before my day is starting Before I make up the bed Before the snooze alarm Reminds me that it's morning Before the dreams have left my head I want to praise you I need to praise you Let the first song that I sing Be praises to my God and king (Praise the Lord, Praise Him – repeat) Before my feet hit the floor I'll praise you Lord, I'll praise you Lord Before I fill my cup I'll lift you up, I'll lift you up Before I start my day I'll sing your praise, I'll sing your praise Before I start my car Before I get too far I want to praise you I need to praise you Lord Let the first song that I sing Be praise to my God and king (Praise the Lord, Praise Him) Let the first song that I sing Be praises (repeat) (Praise the Lord, Praise Him) Let the first song that I sing Be praises to my God and king (repeat) Before my feet hit the floor I am gonna praise you Lord First song that I sing (repeat)
I have by my bed a framed print-out of Psalm 5:3 which reads:
My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up.
I heard in a sermon recently that when it says “And I will look up” that it meant we should look up and expect the prayer to be answered. He will hear our cries and prayers when they are for things according to His will. I *know* that He does not want me to fret or to be angry. The Bible tells me this. I know that when I ask these things in His Son's name, they will be answered. Why do we not make that the most important thing of our day? Why do we have to rush headlong right into the day without obeying the Scriptures and offering our voice to Him in the morning?
Also, I have found Psalm 37 to be of comfort when I am fretting.
3 Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.
7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
Do not fretit only causes harm.
That's pretty pointed, eh?! I think I need to memorize verse 8, and repeat it to myself every hour. I will pray for these things every day, and I will look for His answers.
Going away for a weekend!
by myself even! I am going to go to a photography seminar in April! It is for two full days, a Saturday and Sunday, the weekend after Resurrection Day. The Rocky Mountain School of Photography is coming to Alaska for the first time, and I get to attend! http://www.rmsp.com/
If you can't tell, I am really excited! I have always loved photography, and *someday* wanted to persue it, but when this opportunity came, dh insisted that I go. I wasn't about to say no! I get two nights by myself in the hotel where the seminar is being taught.
Also, on the last day, they have a critique session, where you can bring in three of your own pictures, and they will go over them. I am really excited about that. I just have to figure out how to put my digital pictures on slides. Hmm. Otherwise, I can take an 8×10, but they prefer slides so they can project them in front of everyone. It is all anonymous though. 
Here are some of the sessions I think I will take:
Photography Basics
Understanding Your Digital SLR
Macro Photography
Photgraphing Kids
and either
Low Light and Night Photography OR Sunrises, Sunsets and Flowing Water
I can't decide which one of the last session I want to take. At least they will supply me with the notes for all of the sessions. I just hope they come to Alaska again soon!
Teeth coming and going!
M is finally adding to his collection of teeth! He has had just four on top and two on the bottom for so long. For the last month, he has been having three nasty diapers a day, been really fussy, not sleeping well, started biting and drooling excessively, among other things. I kept checking for a tooth to no avail. It finally all made sense when I saw a little tooth peeking through the gums on the bottom. It looks like there might be one on the other side trying to come in as well.
I, on the other hand, has his first loose tooth! I remember him lamenting the fact that he hadn't had a loose tooth yet last fall, but now, you would think he would be excited. Not so…he says it hurts, and makes it hard for him to eat. He is learning to eat with the side of his mouth though. It is really loose though, and when I wiggle it, I can hear it scraping on the tooth underneath, so I don't think it is long for this world!
House update
We have met with the bank, and they were more than happy with our financial outlook. She told C that most people come in with half the salary and asking for twice as much, so our proposal shouldn't be a problem. That was nice to hear! Now hopefully we can find someone to build us the house for not more than we want to spend…that's going to be the hard part.
We had one builder come back to us with a bid for $263K, for just the upstairs finished! And the well, septic, and foundation are already finished and paid for! How can 1600sf finished cost that much!?!? Geesh! Our realtor warned us that they would come in high, so we will see what the other bids come in as. Hopefully the first bid was as outrageous as it seems! We are expecting another bid today, and really like this guy whom we talked to on Monday.
The other option we have discussed recently is going ahead and moving the house down there, and paying my brother to help me be a general contractor, and arrange the finish work ourselves. One thing C told me was that we would hire someone to move the furniture from the upstairs to the downstairs when it comes time to finish the upstairs. That was a blessing!
I just have to keep remembering that God is in control, and until last spring, I never thought we would be leaving here and moving closer to town…it is just taking a little longer than we thought it would to do it. 
N asked me this morning, “Why is this house so small?” I told her it was because that's what size we built it. It sure didn't seem this small 4 years ago, when she was only 7 months old, and the boys were only 2, 5, and 6!
On a lighter note…
On the way in *TO* church, we saw a fox cross the road! We didn't see him this closely, but it was really neat to see one in the wild. The little kids were sleeping, and B was at the cabin with his grandparents, but A was really excited! “That was cool!” he said.
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Last summer on our way to church, we saw a grizzly cross the road. That was REALLY neat too!
Praises for His providence today.
On our way home from church yesterday, the roads started getting pretty bad about a half an hour from home, and it was snowing. As we passed one car accident with a trooper already there, we were following a larger SUV. All of a sudden, that car lost control of the vehicle, spun sideways on the road right in front of us, and proceeded to roll over into the ditch. What a scary thing to watch! We pulled right over and dh and I started to walk up to the vehicle. The passenger got out with her cell phone and told us that they were ok. I praised God and Dh offered to drive back to the trooper behind us, as she called 911 on her phone.
As we were looking for a place to turn around, another trooper came along and we flashed him down. We turned around and made sure we didn't need to be witnesses, and proceeded on our way home. The driver was a young girl and it looked like she was driving with her mother. Both appeared to have had their seatbelts on.
I am so thankful to God that we weren't following too closely to the vehicle, that no one in their vehicle was hurt, we didn't have to witness anything too horrific, and that the trooper was right there to take care of things. I pray that the young girl will learn from her relatively cheap lesson. I think her only problem was that she overcorrected, which is an easy thing to do in that kind of situation. I could hear the mom (or passenger) consoling her. I am sure the driver just kept saying, “I'm sorry!” I felt so badly for her.
Anyway, enough rambling, but that kind of thing really sobers one up. Drive safely, everyone!
The first week of dh being gone…
Since I am trying to make this my journal, I thought I would post a series of emails I sent to my favorite group of online ladies concerning my week so far. Only one week from now, and I will be back in the arms of my sweet dh! Oh, I can't wait!
———-Monday morning——–
Of course, dh just left for two weeks on Sunday morning.
We were making our way through the day today and as I was rinsing the breakfast dishes, the water started trickling…must be frozen I thought. To make a long story short, I am now trying to locate an electrician because in the course of thawing the pipes, the well wires started melting! We aren't sure what happened, if it was the well pump that caused a short, or something else, but we still have no water, and
all of the brakers are turned off except for the heaters until we can get an electrician in there to figure things out.
The kids and I are staying at my in-laws house, around the corner. My throat still burns from the smoke, and the house smells awful.
Praise God that I smelled the smoke when I did (thank goodness for hyper-sensitive pregnancy nose!) and alerted the man who was thawing the pipes! And, that we are all safe and our house is still standing. We have no insurance because the house is not on a permanent foundation. I dread the thought of what could have happened.
———-Tuesday morning———–
The electrician said that we were very, very lucky that the house didn't burn. I gave God all the glory, but I don't think Jack was impressed…lol! I told him that luck had nothing to do with it, but that God had protected us. A few minutes later, after he had found more melted wires, he reiterated how lucky we were. I am sure he knew what *I* was thinking again!
Jack, the electrician came first thing yesterday morning, and spent two hours replacing wiring. $178 later, and we were back where we started Monday morning…still no water, but the pump tested fine so it was just a freak accident. We stayed at my inlaws again last night, which was kind of nice anyway, so I could put the kids to bed and watch the Olympics!
We are supposed to be attempting to thaw the lines again today. It is still too cold out (0 degrees) so we are waiting for it to warm up a bit. Please pray about it, as I am *REALLY* nervous! We are going to have walkie talkies and one person in each place, and one by the welder to shut it off, but I am *SO* nervous about it. I am really trusting in God, but you just never know what He has planned!
Oh, and only the pantry stinks now…I have my work cut out in there!
———Thursday afternoon————
We are now home with electricity AND running water! I can hear it trickling out the bathtub faucet at a constant reassuring rate!
After the electrician had fixed ALL of the wiring that had melted (much more than we first originally thought!) and had told me how extremely lucky we were that the house hadn't burned, I called our neighbor to see if he would come try thawing the pipes again. He said he would be over at 9am. I slept pretty well that night, but at 8am the next morning, he said that it was too cold, and we would wait for it to
warm up. By lunchtime, it had warmed up, but I still hadn't heard from him, so I called, and his response to me was that he didn't think his welder would work unless it was above freezing! I know it wasn't above freezing on Monday when we attempted to burn down my house! Besides, this is Alaska! We could wait another month before it gets above freezing!
I finally talked to dh on messenger and we decided to try to find someone else while we waited for the neighbor. A friend had had to have someone come up from town, and it cost $350! I tried to call them first, but couldn't get through, so I looked in the yellow pages. I found one a little closer, so thought I would try them. After I told them what had happened, she was still not really helpful, so I said,
“Listen, my husband is gone for two weeks, I have 5 children, and I am pregnant! I need water!” I was on the verge of tears.
She said, give me 20 minutes to call their thawing guy, and she would get right back to me! Love the power of the sob story! They said it would be between $210-250, depending on how long it took to thaw. Also she said that he wanted me to know that he had a special meter that would show him exactly where the electricity was going! Also, that he would put me at the top of the list in the morning, and he would be here between 8-11am! The price and the fact that he had a meter to monitor the electricity sounded better, so I gave them directions to the house.
I felt SO much better about it!
I decided to go home to get supplies for dinner, since it seems easier to get things together when I know right where they are at home, instead of scrounging around my MIL's pantry and fridge looking for things. I got out to the van, turned the key, and heard…click, click, click. The battery was dead for some reason! Oh, come on! My dear sweet BIL jumped it for me…my hero for the day!
Anyway, he showed up at 9am, and after checking everything 3x's he started thawing. It turns out, that the neighbor had hooked up on the wrong side of the dielectric union, which keeps the power from going the wrong direction! No wonder it fried my wires! It had no where else to go!
It only took about 10 minutes to thaw them, and then he only charged me $174! I was SO thankful to him! He was SO nice too! He showed me exactly what he was doing, how his meter worked, etc. I told him I would only have him do my pipes from now on!
I went back over to my in-laws to pick up our stuff and the kids. As we were packing the car, the van was inadvertantly locked, while it was running! This isn't funny anymore!! Praise God that I had seen dh's keys by the front door. One of my older sons rode his bike over to the house and retrieved the keys. Praise the Lord that dh had left his keys, and in plain sight too!
So, I am home now, and glad to be so. I'm scared to go anywhere or do anything! Thank you for your prayers. God definitely saw me through my trials this week. I am praying for a respite now.
Secure by BLM
I am secure in my God's might;
Satan flees from His mere sight.
I am secure from the devil's wrath,
For I tread the narrow path.
All Christians should be quite secure,
We are safe from Satan's lure.
None who oppose God are sure,
Whether it be a him or a her,
That they aren't headed for the lake of fire.
We know the answer it's that they're all,
Going to the fires of Hell.
But we are all secure in the fact,
That we are going to Heaven as God's mercy act.
Finis.
BLM, 2/15/06, 10:31pm
Thursday and Friday
Well, I was able to get them to bed at 8pm, and the three of them promptly fell asleep. I let the older boys read on the couch until 9pm, at which time A practically begged to go to bed. B went to bed at 9:30, but was still up at 10:30, and explained that he just had to write this poem down. I will post it next.
N woke up the next morning and her fever was a little higher, and got up to 102 in the afternoon. We went over to my MIL's last night and watched some of the Winter Olympics. The boys were really excited about the snowboarding! I was disappointed by the men's figure skating. They are all nasty-looking nowadays. pierced ears, long hair, ugly costumes…yuck! I miss seeing Scott Hamilton!
We are having tostadas tonight, by dh's request. I may try my hand at homemade tortillas. They sound really easy and good! The other thing I am working on is laundry. I have to get it all caught up for dh's trip. I am almost caught up with his, mine, N's, and M's, and then I have to tackle the boys overflowing hamper.
How do you get your kids to wear clothes for more than one day? Their pants and pj's are usually still perfectly clean enough to wear a second day, but they don't use them again unless I tell them to. I think they have finally gotten the idea that if they run out, they have to get some out of the hamper, but it would be so much more efficient if they would just put them back in their drawers after they took them off.
I guess I don't have any room to talk though. I suppose I have to be the first example. I give myself the excuse that my dresser is in a different room, so I lay my clothes on the end of my bed, or the rocker, and wear them the next day, but they just leave them on the floor unless I tell them to pick up their clothes. I have tried discipling them for leaving them on the floor, but that doesn't seem to work. Putting their pj's under their pillow doesn't seem to work either. They forget they are there and get more out.
N's fever was down this morning. She said her throat still hurts though, so I have her gargling with salt water. She likes doing it and says it helps, so I think she is on the mend.
Well, M is getting cups out from under the cabinet, and N is leaning against me telling me she is hungry, so I am off the computer for the day now, and off to make lunch and try my hand at tortillas….I'll let you know how they go!
Oh, and I will post B's poem before I get off.