October Conclusions

Our new week got off to a bit of a crazy start. I normally get up about 5:15 am., so that I can read my Bible, gather my thoughts, and drink a cup of coffee before the house wakes up. However, I must have been tired this Monday morning as I opened my eyes to see the clock say 6:30! I flew out of bed then! When I came downstairs, all the boys were already up and Chandler announced to me, “ I was wondering if you were going to get up today!” So, it made for a bit of a rushed morning as I teach music on Monday mornings, Emma has school, the boys have afternoon soccer practice, and everything else that happens in the morning. We still arrived plenty early for school as the boys like to play outside for a few minutes before school starts. I didn’t take time to make a cup of coffee, but after I dropped the boys off, I decided to swing by McDonald’s for a cup of coffee. I was very disappointed in my cup of coffee. I don’t drink my coffee very sweet, and they accidentally put lots of sugar in it! Oh well, I didn’t have time to get it made right, and it was time to get ready for my first music class. It made for a bit of a long morning as I really enjoy a morning cup of coffee, but we made it!

Blueberries and Milk! 

I help with lunch duty on Mondays, and Travis told me at lunch time that his head was hurting. I asked if it was from music class and playing the bells. He said no and that his head had started hurting after he ate cucumbers at lunchtime. I thought that was odd as he eats cucumbers often, but he did seem tired. Oh well. He didn’t ask for any medicine and he didn’t ask for me to take him home. After lunch duty, I went to run a few errands. We stopped by Rogers work for a few minutes, and then we headed to Walmart. I had just walked in the door when my phone rang. The school was calling me to say that Travis had thrown up and he was waitng for me to pick him up. Poor Travis. I picked him up from school about 2:15, but I wasn’t sure what to do about the other boys having soccer practice. Thankfully Allison came to my rescue and agreed to take the boys after soccer  practice. They live near the airport so roger could pick them up after work. I should’ve just taken Wyatt when I picked up Travis, but Wyatt has been working hard on perfect attendance. I went and got Travis some sprite, and then came back to school to get Wyatt. Travis acted like he had never even been sick! He said his stomach felt much better. Well, it was short lived! Once we arrived home Travis took  a three hour nap on the couch. When he woke up, the other boys were eating supper. Travis said he felt much better, ate a big bowl of supper, and seemed to be as happy as a clam. He also ate a big bowl of cereal before bed, so I’m thinking that perhaps he just caught a short -lived bug, or maybe it was those cucumbers!

Tuesday was one of Rogers days off from work. Emma was still sleeping when it was time to take the boys to school, so Roger stayed home with her. I decided to send Travis to school today as he was bouncing off the walls and ready to go...perhaps it was just something he ate? I also don’t like to see this particular son miss school as it is so difficult for him already. And today was “color day” in his class. The students were to wear their favorite color and to bring a snack in that color. Travis picked blueberries as his snack. He does enjoy those! One of the men that Roger flies has a blueberry farm and has graciously given us about twenty pounds of blueberries. The boys have been eating them daily!

When I returned home from dropping off the boys, Emma was awake. She seemed a little flushed and not her normal happy self, so we spent a good part of the day reading books and cuddling on the couch. I know I’m going to miss these days, and I already look back on pictures from when the boys were little and think “ where did time go?!”. Tuesday was just a low key day for everyone. It started  raining on Tuesday afternoon, and the rain continued into Wednesday. Emma was supposed to have a field trip on Wednesday morning, but since the field trip was to an alpaca farm, it was canceled. The rescheduled date is for Friday morning, which means that I won’t be able to go with her. However, there will be more events to do with her class. I spent the morning running errands and picking up groceries for hot lunch. The boys were invited to go over to a classmates house after school. Today was an early release day, so everyone was done with school at 11:30. I took the boys over to their friends house. I did feel a little bit bad about dropping off four boys to play with Josiah as it was a rainy day! Annah didn’t seem too bothered by it, and the boys were delighted to play st someone else house. They had a good time and Emma and I were able to get all the blueberry muffins made for hot lunch. Roger was home a bit earlier due to the rain, and Annah brought the boys home a little after five. The boys enjoyed telling us about the fun time they had at Josiah’s house, and it was fun to listen to their excitement.

Thursday....still raining! Today was the other day that roger had off this week, but I had a short meeting in the morning. I took the boys to school and attended the meeting. The parent group is working on planning a fundraising auction in November, and this is a big project! We have secured several great donations but if anyone reading this has anything amazing they’d like to give, we could still use some items. This is our biggest fundraiser as the parent group and the funds go to support field trips, hot lunch, teacher and staff gifts, and many other projects for student enrichment. Roger’s boss graciously donated two certificates for scenic flights, and we have been asking other area businesses also. It’s a big undertaking and I’ll be thankful when it’s behind us. Know why? Because three weeks after the auction is the Christmas program!!

After the meeting, Roger, Emma and I took a quick trip to Augusta. The school needed some things from Sam’s Club, and I needed some of the paper products for hot lunch on Friday. We found everything we needed at Sam’s club, and also went to a craft store down there. As a room parent for the fourth and fifth grade, I needed to get some things for the project that the class is making for the auction. I love how God just directs our steps! I was able to find some of the items that I needed for 75% off! I’m excited about this project, and I’m looking forward to seeing it come together. I will post a few pictures when we are done with the project. We made it back in time to pick up the boys from school, and it was a productive and busy day!

Friday....I have a love/hate relationship with this day. I love the fact that I get to play the piano for chapel, I enjoyed the Ladies Bible study, I am happy to help plan and execute hot lunch, I’m thrilled that the boys are taking piano lessons; but I don’t like how tired I am by Friday afternoon! Oh well! Emma had her field trip today as the weather was beautiful. I actually squeezed in a really quick run after chapel and before the ladies Bible study. I didn’t see anywhere else in the day where I could fit it in, so I took advantage of twenty minutes and did two miles. I was a little hot for Bible study, but oh well. Hot lunch today was Blueberry muffins, bagels, sausage, fruit, hash brown casserole, and yogurt. I think breakfast is one of the favorite lunches for the kids. I’m thankful for the ladies who come to help serve, clean up, and help everything move along smoothly.

After hot lunch, Emma and I went with another mom and her child to see about asking area donations for our auction fundraiser. We successfully managed to acquire absolutely nothing! That was a bit disappointing, but we will keep trying at other businesses.

Two of the boys had piano lessons after school, and then we went to the dollar store to get the stuff to make slime. Some of the kids classmates have been making slime, and the boys have been asking to try to make it. We weren’t very successful at making it, so I guess we will have to have Emma and Naomi over to show us how to make it. We did succeed at making a huge mess and creating a disaster. It took a bit to clean it up, but then we had popcorn and watched a movie together. Roger was home late,  but by the time he arrived home we had the mess cleaned up!

We had a church dinner today after the morning service, so I made several dishes in preparation for that. Our church recently started a woman’s Bible class, and I’ve really been enjoying the lessons in the class. Roger was back in church with us this morning, so it was nice for us to all be together. Roger has worked every Sunday in October, and this week he started helping out in one of the kids Sunday school classes. There wasn’t any one listed in the bulletin as leading in Childrens church this morning, so when Pastor announced that the kids could be dismissed, I didn’t notice any adult get up to follow them out. I grabbed my Bible and told Roger I was going to check on Childrens church. When I arrived in the Childrens church room, I spotted seven eager faces staring back at me. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to announce that I wasn’t prepared or had no idea what to teach! Instead I said a quick prayer for God’s direction and stepped up to greet them. God brought part of the Sunday School lesson to my mind and we discussed “fear”. Imagine the many people in the Bible that might have been fearful...David, Daniel, Jonah, Joseph, and the kids listed many more! We discussed how fear can be controlling, but God is bigger. We need to trust God in whatever circumstances we are in, and rejoice in the fact that God is for us! God gave me the verse from the Sunday School lesson to give to the children. Psalm 56:9 “When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back; this I know; for God is for me.” How awesome is that! God is for us! So I really have no idea if the children learned anything or not, but I’m thankful that God brought Scripture to mind and clarity of thought. I am so blessed!

We are looking forward to the start of a new week, and I’m excited to see how God can use us this week,  aren’t you?
Love,
Sarah

Beautiful Weather, Small Struggles, Life!

What a beautiful week of fall weather we enjoyed this week! We spent lots of time outside after school working in the yard, cleaning and playing and getting ready for the colder weather as it will be coming!

Monday was spent teaching music classes, helping to supervise lunch duty, and a few errands in the afternoon. Emma and I went to visit one of the elderly ladies in our church. She doesn’t get out much, and my friend, Allison, had mentioned that this particular lady was lonely. I don’t know her very well, but it was good for Emma and I to visit her. We didn’t stay very long, just about half and hour, but the lady seemed like she certainly enjoyed the visit. Truth be told, I don’t feel like I “have time” to visit with people, but if ministry is about touching people’s lives for eternity than I firmly believe that each believer has a responsibility to “make time” for visiting with others. My dad is one of the best people I know about making time to invest in others so I grew up with a great example of that. It’s also important to me that our children see us make the time to invest in other people’s lives be it by having them over for dinner, visiting them in their home, making a blessings basket, or just simply trying to meet some of the needs of those around us. Hmm...that was a bit of a rabbit trail, but oh well!

The boys also had soccer practice on Monday afternoon, so that made for a bit of a long day.  However, it so nice to be outside just playing with the other children during this week of beautiful weather. Tuesday  morning was spent visiting with another mama and her little ones. Roger was  working so after dropping off the boys at school Emma and I headed to a play date. It was a good   morning spent enjoying Bethany’s company and watching the little ones play. We didn’t stay very  long as I needed to get home. Emma and I puttered around the house the rest of the day working on    laundry and getting out clothes for the colder weather.

The boys were very excited about school on Wednesday, well at least the older two were excited! Their teacher had a field trip planned for Wednesday morning, and the boys were looking forward to it. Roger had the day off today, so he was able to join the boys on their field trip. The class went to a Transportation Museum in our area. The class has been studying about Orville and Wilbur Wright, so one of the volunteers at the museum spent some time discussing them. Then another volunteer showed the class around the museum. I don’t think the volunteers see a whole lot of action/people at the museum, and this particular guide was a bit lengthy with his words. However, the class did a good job of paying attention and trying to participate. This particular guide also seemed to have a very small personal space bubble and he didn’t mind being in other people’s space. It was actual a bit humorous as he would ask the kids a question and be standing about eight inches from their noses. It gave me a laugh and it’s a memory from the field trip. The kids seemed to have a good time, but of course they would, after all it was a morning spent outside the classroom! After returning the boys to School and picking up Emma, we decided to take a walk on one of the local trails. It’s been such unseasonable warm weather that we have been soaking it up as much as possible. We had a good walk together and then returned to the school. We had brought two vehicles into School that morning so that one of us could stay for soccer practice while the other went home. I took Emma and Travis home with me to prepare supper and get ready for the next day, while Roger waited for the boys to finish practice. Travis must’ve had a rough day as he was a basket case on the way home. The day  before he had spent some time after school cleaning out the truck. He had done a great job, and Emma had dropped some trash on the floor by the time Wednesday afternoon came around. I could  not grasp why Travis was having such a meltdown over a few pieces of trash that could be easily fixed, but eventually I realized that this was actually just the straw that broke the camels back. He realized today that he wasn’t getting very good grades in class and that he wasn’t on the same reading pages as the rest of the class. (It’s not something I’ve been hiding from him, I just haven’t felt the    need to remind him that he is struggling in school.) And also he wasn’t chosen to help with anything special for his class chapel on Friday, and he didn’t understand his Bible verse, and the truck was a mess, and he didn’t really like School! Oh dear! That was a long list of struggles for a small boy!  After sorting through many of his struggles and listening, he moved on with his afternoon. He spent much of the afternoon out in the back yard just playing in the sandbox and playing with his farm  stuff. My heart hurts for this little boy, but I know that God understands Travis’s feelings and  emotions far better than I do. I’m just trying to be a mama that encourages him, listens to him, and points him to Jesus.

Thursday was spent working on a variety of projects with Roger. He had the day off so we spent some time clearing out stuff that needs to be taken to the dump. It was a productive day of hard work, but we both felt like we accomplished some much needed chores. We took several trips to the dump, and got rid of a lot more stuff than we would’ve had the kids been around. And so far, none of them have mentioned that anything is missing. In the afternoon, before picking up the boys, Emma and I went to visit Mrs. Welch. She is a local pastors wife, and a friend of ours. I try to visit at least once a month, but sometimes time gets away from me. We enjoyed a good afternoon talking about many topics. After school we took the boys on a hike. One of the big cruise ships was in the bay today, so we hiked out to one of the lighthouse perches to see if we could get a better glimpse. We didn’t get to see the cruise ship...we could not see it at all actually. However we had a good time hiking, finding sea glass, and enjoy8ng a beautiful afternoon. When we returned to the truck, we realized that although Roger had locked the vehicle, one of the doors as left wide open! Thankfully, nothing was missing, but it was certainly  a reminder to be a bit more careful! Thursday was also the day that I prepped for hot lunch and made haddock chowder. Roger was given haddock at work, so I made a chowder with it. It must’ve been good because everyone had two helpings. I didn’t bother to mention that the broth was puréed cauliflower and cottage cheese, and those “potatoes” were actually radishes! No need to mention anything about the nutritional value to them, but I certainly took great delight in their lavish reviews of the chowder!

  

 

Friday is always a long day. No matter how prepared I try to be, or how much I try to plan out the days it’s still just a long day. Hot lunch today was meatballs, garlic bread, noodles and sauce, salad, and cookies. I brought my nesco for the meatballs, and my crockpot for the sauce. Pastor Mark has been lighting the stove for me on Fridays as I’ve become a bit intimidated by it since I almost lit my  hair on fire a few weeks ago. Overall hot lunch has been going very smoothly this year. We are staying in budget, the kids and staff are enjoying it, and it’s becoming part of the Friday routine. After cleaning up from lunch, Emma and I took lunch out to Roger, picked up another gallon of milk (something we do often!) and returned to the school. I spent some time in the afternoon working with the older class on some of the music for the Christmas program. That thing (the Christmas program) lurks in the back of my mind on a daily basis, and I find myself thinking about it often. I’m glad for the opportunity, but I’ll breathe a sigh of relief after December 8th! After school, two of the boys had piano lessons so the rest of us just waited and played outside in the beautiful sunshine. We do need some rain though, so that is a prayer request also. It was a long day, but a good day. We were all thankful for come home, eat supper, and watch a movie together. Well, Roger and Emma fell asleep during the movie, and I ended up working on a grocery list, but it’s nice to be home all together without any plans.

Saturday dawned as another beautiful day here in Maine. Roger and the boys gathered up things in the yard to put away, and then Garett and Roger had the opportunity to go fly together for a bit. Flying is Garett’s all-time favorite thing to do, and I’m thankful that the opportunity presented itself. After their flying adventures, we met up at a fall fastival at one of the local churches. How things have changed in a year! A year ago, we were still adapting and adjusting and trying to make friends, and this year we attended the fall festival at another church with the opportunity to see many of our  friends from School. We didn’t stay real long as Saturday’s tend to fly by. Roger took the kids home, while I went now grocery shopping...by myself! Hooray! I certainly don’t mind taking them with me, but it’s soemthing that I can think better about when I go by myself. This week the kids will be having plenty of yogurt in their lunch boxes as that was on sale!

We spent Saturday evening taking a hike up Beech Hill. The Philbrook’s invited us to climb up the hill with them. So we both packed up sandwiches and kids, and we enjoyed a beautiful hike in this gorgeous fall weather. The evening was a good mix of fun, exercise, fellowship, and enjoying God’s creation. I’m thankful for these opportunities and we need to make these informal outings happen more often...but life is busy!

 

Pumpkin Races, and More!

This week was a bit slower paced, so that was a much needed reprieve after last week’s craziness! I’m just going to cap on a few highlights and include some pictures from the week. Simple and easy!

On Monday the boys had off of school due to Columbus Day and so did Roger. We spent the morning working in various projects, but then decided to take a trip to one of the local towns and watch the pumpkins races. I will say that these Mainers are very good at capitalizing on the resources near them. In this particular town they gather up these ginormous pumpkins, people carve them out and equip them with either paddles or a small outboard motor. Then they have pumpkins races in the bay and basically you win if you can get back to the start without sinking! The weather was rainy and damp, but there were still a good number of people out for the event. We enjoyed watching some of the races as well as looking st the pumpkins carvings on Maine street. Even though we ended up soaked, we had a good time together.

   

I taught music classes on Wednesday since we had a holiday on Monday. The Christmas program is  progressing nicely but I am a bit worried about it coming together in eight weeks! But we will keep working on it!

Thursday provided the opportunity to take a walk with Allison, which is something we haven’t  managed to find time to do for a few weeks! It was good to catch up and spend a few minutes reflecting in the past week and looking at future events. We had a good discussion on holiness versus grace. These are two topics that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, and I’ve had discussions with several close friends about holiness and grace. Both are a very important part of the believers lives, but I wonder in our Christian society if we haven’t become so focused on grace that we forget about God’s holiness?! I want to give my kids grace (I probably err on the side of too much grace) but I also want to point them to the holiness of God. God is SO holy and if I can teach my children to grasp onto the holiness of God their lives will reflect that, right? Sometimes it seems that as believers we want to focus so much on God’s grace and His love, but we don’t spend the same amount of time proclaiming that we serve a Holy God! Don’t get me wrong...I love grace and love. I also want to make sure that my children are aware of how Holy God is and how much we need to respect that holiness. Both of my friends, Allison and Jenna, had to endure my thoughts on these topics. I so appreciate Godly friends that will engage in these spiritual discussions with me! I need that!

 

Anyways, Friday was filled with chapel, a quick date with Roger, hot lunch, piano lessons, and going home! Hooray for the weekend!

May your weekend be blessed by the fellowship of believers on Sunday, and time spent worshiping our holy, gracious, and loving God!
Love, Sarah

Prizes! (And a few long days!)

It’s been an exciting few days around here...although I can’t remember the last time we have not had some type of excitement!

The boys had their first soccer game/scrimmage on Monday. They had two practices last week, and then their first game this week. Chandler and Garett were so excited about playing on the team, and I’m glad that God brought them this opportunity. Not everything is roses, but there are many things that I can appreciate about this experience. Roger was able to sneak away from work for a little bit so he could watch the game, and I know the boys were thrilled to have their daddy there for the game. Our school team played another local school team, and although it was a rather informal game, the boys team did win! They were so excited, and we were happy for them too! It did make for a short evening as we had to go to the game directly after school, played the game, and then came home for supper, showers, Bible time, and bed! Whew! I’m thankful for crockpots and easy meals!

I also taught music class on Monday. It’s hard to believe but I’ve been teaching for a month now. The kids are progressing both on the music for the Christmas program and the handbells. I’ve been a bit challenged by the handbells groups, and I’m having to find some different ways to communicate what I’m looking for. I want them to learn to read notes, but for now we are working on following my lead, playing the bells together, watching for your specific color on the music, and did I mention...following my lead? We are making progress though as I can now recognize the song we are  playing, or else I’m just really optimistic about it! We only have about nine weeks until the actual Christmas program, so I have a lot to pour into these young minds in a short amount of time. However, I’m pleased with their hard  efforts and willingness to try what I ask them to do. It’s been a fun and tiring experience for me.


Tuesday was one of Roger's days off of work. It’s interesting to me that we are already in our
sixth-week of school, but Roger has yet to be off on a day when Emma is in school and we can have a  REAL date. Surely, it will happen sometime this year, right? Not that I mind having Emma around as she is growing up so quickly. She learned a song about creation at school, and she has enjoyed singing it for us...a lot. The boys finally told her “We know that song! Did you learn anything else at school?” She replied, “No, I like this song.” (And perhaps she gets great delight out of annoying her brothers!)

 

Last Saturday I was able to spend the day with Hannah,  my sister. She came down to our house for the day, and it was so good to see her and spend time with her. Time gets away from us as we are both busy, but I do treasure the memories that I have with her. Of course, I also forgot to take any pictures from the day! Oh well.

Last Sunday Roger had to work which makes the day a bit longer and harder for me. I also taught Childrens church on Sunday, and worked in the kids program on Sunday evening. It was a lot for one day; but I don’t teach Children’s church that often, so it was doable. I’ve been working with the  preschool age group during our Sunday night kids program along with my friend, Allison. We have a good time with it, but it is definitely a lot of work. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that it is much better to be over prepared than underprepared!

Wednesday brought about a meeting with the parent group, grocery shopping for hot lunch, and another soccer game for the boys. It was a bit of a crazy day with a meeting in the morning, taking Roger lunch, picking up Emma, grocery shopping for hot lunch, picking up the boys, running home, browning ten pounds of meat for hot lunch, participating in the soccer game for the boys, and then  our evening habits to prepare for the next day. It was a bit of insanity, but it was only in preparation for a very crazy day that was to happen on Friday! The boys did win their soccer game so that was fun, and I was thankful that I was able to get the meat browned for Friday’s hot lunch which was tacos.

On Thursday Roger had a day off...hooray! I took the boys to school and helped with a mailing that we are doing in preparation for our fall auction. Roger took Emma to get her hair cut. She enjoys this daddy/daughter date very much, and I love coming back to hear her talk about all he adventures with daddy. After finishing up the mailing, I headed home to get chili ready for Friday night. Our parent group has been planning a harvest dinner for Friday night. It’s an informal event, but an opportunity to mix and mingle as well as take up a love offering for the school board’s expenses. I knew that Friday would be a really crazy day with chapel, school pictures, ladies Bible study, hot lunch, decorating for the dinner, and helping the dinner to run smoothly. There would be no time for chili making on Friday! I had also planned to make an apple dessert for the harvest dinner, but Chandler said that he wanted to make one after school. So I agreed to help him with his recipe after school. After school we picked up the boys and went to visit an older couple from our church. It’s good for the kids to visit people, and I’m happy to have the opportunities to visit on the days that Roger has off  of work. I’m glad we did it, but it did make for a bit of a longer afternoon. By the time we got home, I needed to finish putting the rest of the white chicken chili together, Chandler wanted to make his apple desert and it was about time for supper. I’m so thankful that Roger is willing to listen to reading, help with spelling words, and always thankful for simple meals like soup and sandwiches  even if it’s twice in one week! Chandler worked hard on his apple recipe, and although it was a simple recipe, it was a new one, I rarely make recipes as they are written, so we did some tweaking to this recipe too. It looked and smelled delicious after it was done baking. Roger offered to take my huge nesco of chili over to the church since it wasn’t going to fit in the fridge. Since he was going to church already, I sent him with my crockpot full of taco meat, and a bunch of other stuff that we would need for Friday. He drove very smoothly because none of the chili spilled out of the nesco...thank the Lord!

And then there was Friday....I have been both looking forward and dreading this day all week! I told my friend, Allison, on Sunday night that it was going to be a crazy week and maybe we should skip this week all together. Of course, that’s not possible, and thankfully Allison and I managed to get through the whole week! Roger was working on Friday, which meant that the day would present more challenges than usual. I started off my day as I usually do with a cup of coffee, prayer and my  Bible. The devil brought many disctractions along this morning, but I’m thankful for a moment to quiet my heart before the craziness.

After we arrived at school, I headed to the kitchen to plug in the crockpot with taco meat and figure out what needed to be done by lunch time. Did I mention how thankful I am for crockpots?! I headed up to the sanctuary to practice the piano for the chapel songs. Today was a day where I truly was grateful and thankful for the opportunity to play the piano. I always enjoy it, but sometimes the music seems to flow out from within me, and this morning was such an experience. It gave me another  moment to meditate and think on the Scriptures, and to ask God to use me today. I did sneak out of chapel before it was over to head to school pictures. As the music teacher this year, I needed to have a picture for the year book. I arrived early to pictures so that I could be one for the first to be done with that. I then left school to pick up a few items I had forgotten for the event for tonight. Allison reminded me that the Patriots had won the football game the night before so it was “cheap coffee” day st Dunkin’ Donuts. Awesome! I really needed coffee today. I did the errands I needed to do, and made it back to school in time to catch some of the ladies Bible study. I was actually excited about  going to the Bible study as I Knew the day would be busy, but I can also recognize that sometimes we can get a great blessing out of things we don’t want to do. And what a blessing it was to sit, read, and discuss The Word of God. I had to sneak out early so that we could be ready for hot lunch. The kids really seem to enjoy taco day, so I knew that most of the students and staff would be eating hot lunch. The mom that works with me for hot lunch is great at seeing things to do, pitching in wherever needed, and helping hot lunch run like a well oiled train. We also have a lady from church who comes faithfully every Friday to help with the lunch. Generally, I do a lot of the prep work at home, we heat it at school, serve it and clean up. Lunch is at 11:30 and we are usually cleaned up and ready to walk out the door by 12:20...it’s a very smooth production!

Lunch time was done and cleaned up by 12:20, and it was time to work in getting ready for the harvest dinner. The lady from church, Sharon, watched Emma while I took tacos to Roger for lunch. When I got back from that we finished setting up for the evening. The decorations were simple,but festive. It all came together very nicely, and I’m so thankful for all the moms that helped decorate, make food, prepare apple desserts, and work together.

Since the boys have piano lessons on Friday, I knew that it wouldn’t be worth our time to go home. They had piano lessons while I finished up some last minute projects for the harvest dinner. We went up seating for about 85 people, and God brought people to fill those seats. It was truly a blessing to see families, church members, and people from the community come together to visit, share a meal,   and perhaps give a donation to the School. We had about twelve different apple desserts in our apple bake off contest. Each person was given the opportunity to sample three of four that looked appealing and then place their ticket in the basket for the one they liked the best. It actually worked out smoothly, but I did have a moment of panic as I wasn’t sure it was going to come together. However, every one really seemed to enjoy themselves, and Chandler won the dessert contest! That was one excited boy! He won a basket with an apple peeler, a gift card, a Taste of Home magazine, a pie dish, and some dish towels. I mentioned to him that the mother of one of his friends was looking for an apple peeler, and Chandler decided he would give the apple peeler that he had won to her. We already have one at home, and it was nice to see him be so generous with his gift. The funny thing is that the  basket and the magazine had already come from our house, but as Chandler was examining his treasures at home, he remarked, “Mom, this is a really neat basket. I like this!” I didn’t tell him that it had come from our house to start with!

 

The event started at 5:30 pm, and we were on our way home by 7:30! People stayed to help clean up and many hands made light work. I was thrilled to be home so early, and I was actually quite tired! Roger made it to the harvest dinner a bit late, but he was able to come. We had plenty of food, but not an exorbitant amount of leftovers. The planning and preparation paid off, and I’m thankful for all those that worked to make this event happen. (I’m also glad it’s behind me!)

Travis’s Bible verse this week was the following: James 4:6 “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but he giveth grace unto the humble.” It’s been a good reminder for me  this week to as I interact with my children, try to point them to Jesus, and practice the verse with  Travis. I’m thankful for God’s everlasting love, abundant mercy, and never failing grace. We are so blessed!


I apologize that the days are a little out of order, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix it quickly!
Love, Sarah