Father's Day

Here we are! Eric's first father's day as a father of 3! How special!

Eric is such a great dad! I am, so proud of him, and thankful to have him as a partner in raising these 3 sweet little boys.

I'm thankful that he loves to play with them and make

them laugh!

I'm thankful that he is a great example

for them to follow as the

grow into men.

I'm thankful that he loves to actively

participate in taking care of them,

especially since so many

dads out there leave little things

like feeding all up to the mom.

I'm thankful that he helps me around
the house and in the kitchen, even
if he has no idea what he's doing! :)






And I'm thankful that he is willing to sacrifice so
much to make sure we will always be
safe and free.

In so many ways, he is our hero.

Thank you, Eric.
Love you!

Macro Fun!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the new camera has a really cool macro setting. I have always liked macro photography, so I am having tons of fun with this setting! Here are some of the pictures I've taken with it: My hair!

The carpet


Jeans (love this one!)

my army-wife t-shirt

Toilet paper!!!! Yep!

And this is the bathroom rug. Don't ask my what made me think to take a picture of it. I just did. I have no idea why those lines around the top and side are there, by the way.

Point-and-Shoot

I have been pestering Eric forever now to get me a little point-and-shoot camera that I can keep in my purse. We have the big SLR camera that is really fantastic and I LOVE it, but I just wanted to have something simpler, more portable, and that wouldn't matter quite so much when I inevitably drop it.

Speaking of dropping cameras, that is exactly what I did at my good friend's baby shower. Well, not exactly. I was taking some pictures with the SLR, and I set it down on the bench beside me. I then proceeded to bump it with my butt (accidentally), and it fell off the bench, and landed on the concrete. It looked fine, turned on and off, etc, etc. But when I went to take another picture, the zoom was stuck. I tried to turn it (perhaps a little over-zealously?), and heard something pop. So we took the lens off and looked inside, and there is definitely something loose in there that shouldn't be.

And so we can't use that lens for the time-being. Eventually we'll get it fixed or replace it. The camera itself works fine, and we do have another lens, but it's a pretty powerful zoom, so you have to be far away from your subject to get a good shot, which is pretty inconvenient for those every-day snap-shots I love to take.

Anyway, I tell that story because it explains why I was fretting yesterday over not having a camera to use at Eric's Pathfinder graduation ceremony tomorrow. And why the idea to get a little point-and-shoot resurfaced in my mind. So I told Eric we should just go get one, because I really wanted to have some pictures of the graduation, and our move into our first house is also coming up, and I really want to have pictures of that, too.

Being unable to resist my charms, Eric loaded the family into the van, and we all went down to the PX to look at cameras. I spent about an hour glaring at the sales people while they did other things, and about 15 minutes actually talking to them about which camera would be good for us. Finally we picked out a Samsung SL 420. It has a 5x optical zoom, and 10 mega pixels, in case anybody cares.

It is my new favorite toy. I can't stop playing with it. And I am pleasantly surprised by the decent quality of the pictures it takes. Check this out:


It has a macro (super-close-up) setting on it, and I decided to try it out on my ring. I CANNOT believe how clear this picture is!!

One of the reasons I went for this particular camera is that it has an internal memory, so I can take a few pictures without a memory card. I was thinking it would be maybe 10 or 12. Turns out to be 3. Which I was actually ok with, because I have 3 adorable little boys, and we were headed to the playground after we left the store!

I. LOVE. THESE:

The pictures and especially the boys.

:)

Some verses that have been helping me lately:

Proverbs 16:26 The laborer's
appetite works for him. His hunger dries him on.

I like this one because there are so many times when I am worried or upset about something, and I wish I could just have a rest from all the worrying. But I know that I can only get that through God, so the fact that I have these feelings that cause me to "hunger" for peace makes me work harder to get closer to Him.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he
said to me, "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake, I
delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

I like this one because I know that I have lots of weaknesses. The hardest one for me to deal with right now is fear over Eric's upcoming deployment. I am really struggling to find peace with that one. That fear leads to a lot of other issues in my life that affect many things.. I hate that fear. I want it to go away, but as long as that deployment is still a factor, it just won't. Not completely. So this verse gives me a little bit of peace about having that weakness, and not being able to completely conquer it. God can still use me. In fact, maybe even better than he could if I had a perfect, faithful attitude that in the end, "everything is gonna be ok".

This is going to be a busy month!

After a nice looooong weekend, we are jumping back into our crazy, busy life with both feet!

Eric starts Pathfinder school today, which is an exciting opportunity for him, and also means that he will be working really hard and spending most of his free time for the next three weeks studying.

Near the end of Pathfinder school comes Banner Day, which is our battallion picnic day. Being an FRG volunteer, I will be helping out with the Alpha company booth that day, which also happens to fall right after Eric goes to the field for a couple days for Pathfinder's field exercise. So that should be interesting!

After Pathfinder is over, block leave begins. We are hoping to get in some family fun and relaxation, but this is also going to be a busy time for us, because we are moving into our new house during that time! I'm excited about this, and also dreading it. I have moved so many times, and the process has become very tedious for me. I really hate packing and unpacking. I am so excited to finally be moving into a home that is ours, though! A big house with a fenced in yard, a nice big kitchen, a garage, an upstairs, a den! Man, I can hardly wait! And it will be ours! Nine years and three children later, Eric and Stephanie will finally be homeowners! What a blessing!

I will probably spend a lot of time organizing and getting ready for the move these next few weeks. I may even get some packing done, so we don't have to do it all while Eric's on leave.

Busy, busy, busy!

"My Heart Will Choose..."

Last Sunday, I woke up feeling really tired and discouraged, and just wanting to go back to sleep. It's been a pretty rough month for me, for several reasons that I won't go into, and I was just feeling run down. I very seriously thought about asking Eric to take the boys to church without me.

But, for whatever reason, I got up and went anyway.

Our pastor wasn't there. It was the former pastor speaking. He left a few years ago to take care of his wife, who has been very, very sick. He said he was going to speak about Job.

He read through the entire first chapter. He went through God's conversation with Satan. He went through the day where Job lost everything he owned, and all of his children, all at the same time. And he read Job's words at the end of the chapter: "The Lord gives, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised".

Job experienced a lot of loss. When I hear the word "loss", there are a few things that come to mind. All of them are painful, but there's one that has really been weighing on me lately as Eric's deployment to Afghanistan continues to bear down on us. What if I have to go through the loss of my husband?

So that's where my mind went when the pastor started talking about what happened to Job. Then he said that the book of Job does not answer (as so many people like to think) the question of why God allows bad things to happen to good people. But it does ask the question "when God allows bad things to happen to good people, is He still worthy of our praise?"

He talked about how important it is to know God now, because you don't know when trouble is coming. And all I could think was "deployment....war....death...." What if that trouble comes to me? I don't even know how to describe the way the thought of that possibility makes me feel. I picture myself getting the knock on the door, like in the movies, and that's just it. There is no life after that moment. Not a life that I have any interest in living, anyway.

But it could happen. That's the cold, hard truth. You can say that if we have faith and pray, that God will protect Eric while he's deployed. But the fact is that that is not promised to any of us, no matter how much we pray, or how perfect our faith is. We are never, ever promised protection from physical harm. Never promised protection from a lonely life without my best friend.

When he said "you better get to know God now", it hit me so hard, because I know that trouble is coming, and it could be that trouble that I can't stand to even imagine. That could be the trouble that comes for me.

Am I going to be able to love and praise God if he takes my husband away?

No.

Doesn't that sound bad? It's true, though. I'm not. I'm just not strong enough.

So I tried to get my heart ready to sing the song, which has the line "you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name". This is what I prayed: God, I know that I can't make myself feel the words to this song, but I know it's the right way to feel, and I want to feel it, so do it for me. There have already been circumstances in my life that I have had trouble praising you through, and I know that -whatever happens-my life is going to get a whole lot harder soon. There will be days when I can mean these words easily, but there will be days where I can't, so please help me say them anyway."

So we stood up, and I started singing, but it was just barely a whisper because I was crying too hard. I haven't cried in church in a long time. I don't even remember the last time I cried in church. I stood there and cried and Eric gave me a hug, and I choked out those words, "my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name."

I am thankful that God can hear me whispering while I cry, because there was just no way I could do anything else at that moment. He knows how weak I am, and I believe He will forgive me for not being able to sing it out loud with a smile on my face. If He will make me strong enough, I will choose to praise Him the best that I can, no matter what happens. Even when I just don't want to.

And I'm also thankful for the knowledge that someday it will be easy. When I get to Heaven, I won't have to choke the words out, they will come so easily, because all the pain and sadness and fear will be gone forever.

This is a song I found on my sister's facebook page. It's just beautiful, and I can't think of any better way to end this post, so here it is:

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nWGRltOQAw

What's Happening?

Eric is on staff duty tonight. If you don't know what that means, it's basically 24-hour duty. We go to see him some, though. I took the boys up to the PX at lunch time and we all ate Subway together. And then he came home at dinner for some homemade ham and pineapple pizza and chocolate covered strawberries.

My house is in a shambles. I really need to clean it. He'll be home in the morning, and it will be nice if I don't have too much work to do while he's here. He has the next 5 days off because of Memorial Day, which I think is so cool. Soooo ready for some good family time!

I don't think it will take long to clean the house. It's a small house, and I usually get the work done pretty quick if the boys are asleep. Which they are.

After Eric left tonight, I played with Sam on the couch for about an hour. He is just so cute. So sweet. He's really developing a personality. And he is such a happy, smiley little guy. He's starting to want to touch and explore things, and once he sees something he wants to check out, he is very determined to get to it. He will lean and reach if I'm holding him, and if he's on the floor he rolls to his tummy, scrunches his legs up to his chest, and then lunges forward. This scoots him about an inch forward, and he will do it as many times as he needs to to reach his goal!

My kids are all just so cute and awesome. They are a lot of work, but I wouldn't trade them for anything. They really do make me happy, and I'm thankful that God gave me them. I know they will make me smile next year when I'm going through all the stress and fears and whatever else I will go through that I can't even imagine yet, since I haven't been through it.