in christ or in sin

i was just listening to a message by Ken Ortize (definitely my favorite pastor to listen to) he has been going through 1 John and although it has been a month or maybe even a little more since i last listened to a message not even 10 minutes into it and i was struck by something he said. I don't think i can exactly quote what he said but this is the jist of it.
We only become significant when we are in the will of God for our lives. He used examples of Moses and Abraham where the bible doesn't record huge chunks of time in there lives but only the times when they were doing, acting, in God's specific will for their lives.
Anyways, there were a few other things that stuck out but that was the main one and i need to go work out and then off to bed, i have to get up and take Josiah to the bus in the morning...it's been a lazy week of vacation with many days of sleeping in so I am praying i get up in time tomorrow.

Yesterday Judah let me buy a jogging stroller off of craigslist. It's a Schwinn double jogger with the swivel wheel in front. WooHoo I am so excited to have it. Compared to the the joovy sit and stand i had this stroller handles so much better, so easy to push and both Jaelle and Enoch can sit (and nap!) So we took it out for a test run I was able to walk around for about a hour and a half without the kids whining or fighting about sitting in the front seat it was great. Enoch slept for most of the time then he woke up crabby super crabby so we ended the walk and went home. But I am so very thankful for the new stroller!

On a different note, the kids are finally started to feel a little better today. Josiah I noticed being extra tired and a little listless, last Thursday and Friday and then on Saturday is when he came down with the fever. So he has been ill for about 5 days and today I got an email from his teacher (sent to all the parents) saying that in his class 13 kids (out of 24) were home sick on Monday and today there were 11 home sick. All with the same thing, fevers with stomach aches and/or a cough. But he hasn't had a fever today so long as he is feeling okay in the morning I am going to let him go to school.

Josiah read to me a book called My "K" book all on his own and as his reward he got a new nerf sword. (all his other swords are in pieces or already thrown away) I also found this big book of poetry at the thrift store the other day which i am enjoying a lot it is a treasury of poetry, selected and commentary-ed by Louis Untermeyer from 1959. It's great!

And the last bit of news with us is Enoch has officially been weaned from his nuk! It has been about three weeks or so that he has gone without it! He still asks for it on occasion when he's really crabby or tired and is chewing on other not as badly as I thought he would. After the first two days without it he had woken up the middle of the night screaming and crying a little bit very mad because he didn't have his nuk but wanted it But thankfully it only happened once and hasn't happened since then. Now if only I could get the other two to stop sucking their thumbs!

Tears

Coming home from the thrift store tonight Jaelle was whining about Josiah not sharing some candy he got. As we came into the house she went over to the couch and sat down next thing I hear her say, "uhhh, grrrr...I can't cry, I can't make any tears..." I then asked her "what? did you just say you can't cry? Why do you want to cry?" Then she told me, "Well, cause Josiah wouldn't share his gummies! I can't make the tears come out."

I then started laughing at what she said and she then moved to the dinning room floor where she sat down crossed her arms leaning against the wall and tried looking grumpy and cross till we tickled her and got her to smile and laugh!

ahh, i remember trying so hard to make myself cry when I was upset at something Chad did and I wanted to be angry at him! HaHa!

Chicken Pox

I just got an email from Josiah's teacher saying they sent home a little girl in his class with a confirmed case of Chicken Pox. She has had the Varicella Vaccine (so has Josiah) and the nurse said she didn't feel sick because of that until now that she broke out with the pox this morning.
Interesting, I have wondered about this I remember when I was younger that is was such a big deal to make sure your kids got the chicken pox, (chicken pox parties, expose siblings if they hadn't gotten it yet, etc.) now a days because of the vaccines I hardly ever hear of kids getting chicken pox.
I know i've had it twice and when Luke was younger is when it started changing, when the vaccine was becoming more popular. According to Wikipedia the vaccines started to be given in 1995. We have entered a period where the effectiveness of the vaccine can be gauged. If you are interested in this check out Varicella Vaccine in Wikipedia. Well, hopefully Josiah won't get chicken pox!

Vegetate

The dictionary's definition of vegetate is
1 live or spend a period of time in a dull, inactive, unchallenging way : if she left him there alone, he'd sit in front of the television set and vegetate.

2 dated (of a plant or seed) grow; sprout.
• [ trans. ] cause plants to grow in or cover (a place).

3 Medicine (of an abnormal growth) increase in size.

ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin vegetat- ‘enlivened,’ from the verb vegetare, from vegetus ‘active,’ from vegere ‘be active.’

I was contemplating this as i was attempting to overcome the feeling to "vegetate" How did
veg, vegetable, vegetate words that sound like they should define being healthy, active end up being used to mean be lazy, dull, inactive?

So next time i am tempted to ("veg", as in be lazy and do nothing productive) i shall remind myself that it comes from a word meaning enlivened, active and BE ACTIVE!!

It's another rainy day and the sparrows are chirping like crazy right outside, beautiful morning!
I have set a few goals for my self this week, month actually. I am trying to get in shape (and lose weight) and also to finish reading all the way through the bible. I've come to realize that my walk with the Lord and more specifically how well i am doing in it is very closely connected with the other disciplines in my life. Example, if my house is a mess and I haven't done a workout in more then a few days most likely I have not been spending time reading my word either.
But if and when i am faithful with my job, my responsibilities, as a wife and mother in regards to keeping up on house work, reading to the kids and spending time with them playing or just doing stuff with them that doesn't involve having a movie on and also when i have been consistent with exercise then it's that much easier to be consistent and faithful with reading my word and spending time in prayer. My "calling" is to be a wife and a mother so it makes sense to me that when i am being faithful to that calling when i am being obedient in the little things then i will be faithful and obedient with the bigger things.
Just ramblings anyway my goals right now are to lose 5lbs and finish reading through the bible (I am just finishing 1 Corinthians) before I start watching any more tv shows on the computer, (with a few exceptions in moderation) and the second thing is to try and do a work out 20 min or more six or seven days a week for 30 days and I started this challenge/goal on the Oct. 13th. (I've got about 25lbs to lose)
Anyhow that's where I am at! Now I am going to go read my bible and enjoy the rest of this cloudy and rainy morning!

Another note about the zoo

Just another quick note about our adventures at the zoo. . .

during the zoomazium's creature feature for the toddlers out of about 35 kids or so Jaelle was the most out spoken answering all the questions and in her enthusiasm to answer she said pretty cute things. The lady leading the show was asking the kids what the names of different stuffed animals were that she was showing them, a duck, a lizard, a chicken, a snake, a frog and so on, so when she pulled out a ostrich Jaelle yelled "it's a sparrow!" and the flamingo was a penguin and then again a little later when asking the names of the birds again the ostrich was called a "gooseling" (half goose half duckling?) ha ha guess next time we visit the African Savannah at the zoo we will have to work on identifying the Ostriches!

So today I took Jaelle and Enoch to the zoo after dropping Judah off at school.
It was pour down rain most of the time we were there but still a lot of fun. I am really enjoying the membership we've gotten for the zoo. It a pretty decent sized zoo and it took us four trips before we actually saw everything in the zoo. But today was neat we got there just in time for the creature feature at the zoomazium (an indoor climbing/exploring place for kids) the kids got to pet Roberta the hen :-)
Then we went to see the gorillas and because it was pouring outside they were all right up to the windows out of the rain all the older gorilla's were napping but the almost 2yr old Uzumma ( a little girl gorilla) and one of her sister's (Ngozi or Calaya don't know which one it was though) were up playing with each other. Uzumma was walking up to the glass looking out at us and then she would kind of jump back and pat her head and rub her tummy. Then she was pestering her sister, (reminded me very much of our kids) at one point Uzumma's sister got up from her spot in the corner and went to the bathroom and while she was taking care of business Uzumma ran up and started rolling around in her sister's spot then as soon as she was done she charged at Uzumma chasing her out of her spot then looked at us and started spinning on one foot before she plopped back down in her spot. Just like Jaelle and Josiah when they are fighting over their favorite spot on the couch.
Anyway we watched them for about a half an hour and then went back to the play place for a while before heading home!

Okay so it took me a little longer to get frequent this blog site again. It seems to have turned out to be a very busy week. Thursday I went to Women's Bible study which has just started. It's a beth moore study which i haven't decided yet how well i like it yet but i go to women's more for the fellowship then the studies. Friday Josiah had the day off of school so we invited some friends from Kent to come up and go to the zoo with us and they did. It was a fun but a little on the crowded side so not quite as enjoyable as when it's just me and the kids or judah, me and the kids ;-) And all the kids have a touch of a cold. The week has gone by really fast. ;-)

Well, it has been awhile (again) since i've written anything and a lot has happened since we moved. I am not going to write a lot now but I do intend to write a little more frequently. This week is Judah's second week of school and Josiah is doing really well in Kindergarten. Tomorrow is his first field trip to a Pumpkin Farm. (however, he is coming down with a cold so if he's really sick in the morning he won't be able to go ;-( I am praying he is well enough to go)
That's all for now.

;-)

Moved!

Yeah Praise the Lord we are all moved in! It does seem a little unreal still like we are only here temporarily not like this is our new home now. We love the new place aside from bathrooms and kitchen being very old and not updated (and the slug under the kitchen sink). The ceilings are about 2 or 3 feet higher, the kitchen/living room/dining room are very open nice big windows take up one whole wall and a third of another. And we are not in a neighborhood where there are cop cars blocking off the street in our apartment complex at least once a week. :-) We have been very blessed by the Lord in his provision for us!

So last night the kids were in the van while Judah and I were putting in the last of the boxes to take back to our new place and Jaelle saw our neighbor walk by and she didn't remember her name so she said to me, "Mom, is that Otis's, um Otis's... Otis's pretty pretty princess!?" and all I could do is laugh and say "Yes, that's Cynthia, Otis's wife, His pretty pretty princess!" (Cynthia and Otis our are neighbors who live below us, an older black couple, Otis is a black version of my Italian Nonno!)
Jaelle was saying all sorts of silly things the whole day it was quite entertaining and it was nice to have her in such a good mood, singing and saying sweet things. :-)

Anyway, that's all for now...
if any one wants our new address just send me an email and I will give it!

Strollers, tired kids and the sun...

Well, we got a new stroller today (2nd hand) its a joovy caboose tandem stroller. I've been looking at them for a while and finally found one at a decent price on craigslist and judah so lovingly went this morning after work and bought it for me! :-)
So after lunch, i took the kids for a stroll over to our local Cutter's Point Coffee (in the Fred Meyer Shopping Center area) and got a coffee and a smoothie for the kids to share. (This week they are having 50% off all their drinks to celebrate summer, yeah cheap coffee for me~!) Josiah very much enjoyed running and it was nice because I could let him with out having to worry about the other two trying to follow suit. He told me "it's fun being all full of energy and running and jumping!"
It was nice cause it was air conditioned in the coffee shop. I've come to realize I don't like the Hot very much at all. I used to back in the teen years pride myself in how much I loved the HOT and hated the cold and while I still hate the COLD cold, like the Minnesota winter cold. I do not like, i even could say I hate the HOT now, anything above 75 (80 if there is a cooler breeze) is too hot for me.
As Judah likes to point out I am a creature of comfort, I like to be comfortable (and who doesn't??) and i can get very irritable if I am not very comfortable.

SO, today on my nice little stroll the sun was hot and the air stagnant and it's a balmy 82 degrees needless to say i was slightly uncomfortable (and slightly irritable) and we are home now and the kids have been sent to bed for naps.

The Apartment!

Judah just called and told me we got approved for the apartment in magnolia and we can sign the lease this weekend and then we will be able to move in sometime this next week or two! Thanks Jesus for the open door!

ha ha...well, i am still trying to figure this thing out and judah reminded me the other day that i still haven't written anything new. so while the kids are in their room (i put them down 3 hours ago and aside from enoch they have yet to fall asleep), the dishwasher is loaded and running and i haven't yet decided where to start next, i will write something now.

We applied for an apartment in Queen Anne (a neighborhood in Seattle), only to find out yesterday that the guy renting it has to much on his plate and doesn't want to rent it out any more right now. So, we decided to apply for the second apartment place on our list which is in Magnolia (another neighborhood of Seattle). I've had to stop myself often from getting annoyed at the guy from the first apartment place or think he just used that as an excuse because he didn't want to rent the place to a young family with kids...but we prayed for God to close the door on this apartment, make it fall through for "whatever" reason if we were not supposed to be there. And he did so i've got no reason to be annoyed but joyful that God answered our prayers and that if we get approved for this next apartment then God has a reason for us being there instead of the first place! So (I hope) by monday we should hear back from the managers if we got approved.

I am really looking forward to moving up by SPU, everything we do will be much more central and a lot easier for us to build relationships, invite people over and whatever else the Lord has for us up there and no more commute for judah!

Well, that's all for now, i need to take advantage of the kids napping Enoch's been out for almost 4 hours!! Jaelle and Josiah just fell asleep... so i doubt my quiet will last for much longer.

The Ivy's

Well, Judah(my husband) has setup a blog for me. . . so i shall soon start to blog and hopefully help people keep up with our family going ons!

Brandy Ivy