Can Turkeys get Bronchitis??

Life during the holiday season can become so hectic that I feel like we celebrate the day and  move on. This year is no different. We flew through Halloween, I mean I was making C's costume the morning of his schools vocabulary parade! As Thanksgiving was fast approaching I realized that the kids have no idea why we celebrate Thanksgiving day at all. So what does one do when they want to teach their 5 and 2 year old the meaning of Thanksgiving...go to Amazon, Pinterest and Target of course!

I found so many cute ideas and books that were simple enough lil C would take something away from it and yet interesting enough to catch big C's attention. This is a huge problem with several things right now.

I found this book when searching on Amazon. Michelle Medlock Adams writes a whole series of board books that explain holidays to little ones with from a biblical perspective. Lil C loves it and we have read it every night since she opened it.

                                           

Big C is reading now so I wanted a "chapter book". I struggled to find a level one reader but I think this one will last us a few years! He has read most of it a little at a time each night this week. And I was so impressed at how much he already knew as we read. Apparently he is learning at school :)

 

 

I found this really cute worksheet on Pinterest.

 

 

I have been working on colors pretty hard core with lil C lately so she really had fun with this...and I'm sure she ate a few along the way!

 

I'm really not sure who had more fun with this Little People set, me or the kids. I may have played with it more than they did! I also got a great deal on it so that's a bonus.

                                         

                                                        

Clayton's class invited parents to school to see the cutest play ever!! My little man played the pilgrim minister in search of freedom. After the play we helped the class make a special snack of cute little turkeys.

          

                                           

                                           

Thanksgiving dinner would not be complete without handprint placemats!

And unfortunately that's where our Thanksgiving celebration week ended. The kids and I went down to South Georgia to celebrate with my in laws but the Friday before Thanksgiving Clayton started feeling bad. By the time Thanksgiving came around the whole family, North and South Georgia, were horribly sick with some type of respiratory infection. Fever, chills, coughing, nausea etc. I took one bite of Turkey and went back to bed :( Hopefully December holds much better health!   

Where to next...Page 23 visions

Our church (Bethlehem Church) is reading Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick in small groups for the fall semester. The book focuses on the prayer Joshua called out to the Lord to let the sun stand still over Gibeon. He asked The Lord to make the day longer so that he could lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. As the sun went down the battle was unfinished, the remaining enemy was to slip away unless he had more day light. (Joshua 10:12)

The author Steven Furtick talks about a book which he says was the first Christian book he willfully read, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. On page 23 of  Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Steven reads "I despaired at the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf" . That quote lead to the idea of having a Page 23 vision, a mission or vision that makes you ask Lord to make your sun stand still, the quote lead to reading out with audacious faith. Asking outside of the day to day prayers, God wants us to ask for the big things. He finds it insulting if we do not ask for help in reaching what WE believe is the impossible...He can make the sun stand still, we just have to ask.

Throughout the course of my small group J and I had been in the process of selection for our next assignment in the Army. There are always so many variables that go into making that decision. Yes there are times the Army just says this is where you are going and that's that. This time we were given a preference list and asked to rank them in order. Before "the list" came out I had offered up a thought to my small group that I might want to placed in a position that I could offer some guidance to the girlfriends/new wives of incoming soldiers. I wrote this idea on page 35 of my copy of Sun Stand Still. The thing is, I had ladies I looked up to as I came into this life and I could not have done it without them but when J was still in college there were not very many wives that were currently in today's Army. They had not been in the deployment cycles like we are in now and they had not experienced life in a war time Army. My point is I would love to be that wife to offer up the nitty gritty of this crazy life. I announced that I might have found my "page 23 vision".

The day I said this out loud to my group J called and said the preference list had come out. The list was full of ACRC slots (meaning an active duty personnel working with the reserves) and ROTC positions at random non-military schools. Neither option was appealing to us but we listed them and returned it. We both wanted an ROTC position but for different reasons, my page 23 vision and it's just something J has wanted to do, but we wanted a big name military school not Boise State! No offense to anyone reading that went to Boise :)  We were looking at it all wrong. Sometimes the unexpected places, the not so obvious places, are the places that need people who want what you have. But the list had gone in and our top choice was Ft. Jackson, SC chosen because it was close to home.

After meeting with my small group again and continuing this study it became more and more obvious to me that I really desired to be stationed at a college. I was making lists of ways to help these cadets and events we could host. I reached out to other spouses that were in cadet command. I can honestly say I was a little sad thinking about getting an ACRC slot.

Fast forward a few weeks...2 hours before J was scheduled to return to Kuwait he received his assignment. Ft Jackson, SC but with duty in Camp Atterbury, IN...um not what we wanted and not what we thought we were getting when we asked for SC. So J called his branch manager and asked if there was any way we could get a different assignment, if there was anything left on the list or anything new since the list had been released. Guess what?? The only assignment they had to offer was a teaching position with the ROTC at Southern Illinois University.

In order to get the position J's name had to be placed in "a hat" and go through a selection process that can take up to 60 days. Not even a month later J got the word that he was selected. We are moving to Illinois in March. Whoa God

Let's recap...
-I said I wanted to minister/advise new/soon to be Army wives
-J gets a list that has ROTC positions on it, we ignore those options
-We get what we wanted attached to something we didn't want, we questioned and were offered ROTC yet again
-We get ROTC

I can not for one second ignore what is happening here and the orchestration that God has performed.

I am so excited about this upcoming assignment. I have prayed since September for this opportunity and now that God has given me the chance to act on my wants I am feeling every emotion possible. I refuse to let the fear of letting myself down, letting those cadets and their partners down, letting God down to deter me from doing the best I can with this. I am praying daily that God gives me the words, the ideas and the courage to make this happen.

I am Thankful for

J went back to Kuwait on October 30th leaving us roughly 4 months until he is home for the "good". My kids respond very well to knowing what is going on and how long until the next step. Clayton is obsessed with calendars...I have no idea who that came from. I love countdowns too and wanted a fun way to help the months pass but also be engaged in the time and not counting our days away.

For November doing a Thankful themed count down was a given. I made 30 leaves with my Cricut and each night we write what we are Thankful for and tape it to the cabinet. I'm going to add each day and update this post as we go along.

 

 

 

        

Which goal is our's again?

This "deployment" is going by at a snails pace and I am dragging right along with it. I am so used to being the busy commanders wife and on every board I could get myself on, that small town/civilian life was killing me...so I filled up the calendar!

 

The Y is like our second home and I love the staff and families there so I was super excited that Clayton wanted to play soccer there. He played on a really cute little team and had a blast! He loved the coach and made fast friends with his teammates.

Coach Mike and team Thunder

 

End of game high fives-all just friends in the end

 

The Y really pushes that at this age it is all about having fun and learning the skills of the sport along with listening and team building skills. There wasn't a goalie and they didn't keep score and while I don't always like that mentality in life it was ok for this league.

 

I will be the first to say I'm not planning college applications based on a soccer scholarship! Clayton "played" more than he played soccer but he enjoyed the team and learning and can't wait to move on to a new sport.

Sissy was at every game cheering on the "kids" with her Thunder shirt.

 

End of the year party- Getting his first trophy ever!!

Having pizza with his "girl" friend Ava. They go to school together too and are super cute together :)

 

Next up is basketball season. While Clayton may be in the 5th percentile in height he is going to rock that court...maybe