End of 5 Teenage Daughters Month

Well, as of Lauren's 20th Birthday yesterday,

(Happy Birthday Loz!!),

we no longer have 5 teenagers!

Dave and I have been away for the

past 17 days,  so Cam and Loz have had an

instant family and done a great job

of 'babysitting' for us :)

So, because of being away I wasn't able to

post any photos of the girls all together.

And thankfully, we don't have

teenagers like these.........

In the coming days, I'll be posting some of

our 8000 +km trip, where of course

I took as many photos as kilometres:)

Sneak peek:

Had to go back and visit one of my favourite places

Epic Dust Storm on the Stuart Highway

Watch this space!!

SPLISH SPLASH SPLOSH!!

Yesterday, we were able to have Chloe's 13th

birthday party at the town pool.

It was an all girls pool party with some

friends from youth group.

She was able to have all her sisters there

too and we all had a great time.

Amazingly, I survived being climbed all

over and hung onto constantly.

There was 18 of us all together,

and I can't remember the amount of times

I counted to 18 to check we hadn't

drowned any!!

Here's a short video of some of the action!

Well, that's the last 13th birthday party for me,

until the grandkids come along I suppose!!

500 000 kms!!!

Yes, on a trip to Darwin

on Tuesday, our trusty old girl

(no, that is not me),

ticked over 500 000kms!!

And guess what?

She didn't fall apart straight

after that:)

We have had her for almost

18 years now and she's

still going!

Dave and I are just about

to add a whole lot more kms

onto her with a trip down to

Mt Gambier and back the

round about way:)

The bus is up to 708 000 kms

and still ticking.

The Lord is good!

That's all I can say!!

And just in case you're

wondering.......

CHLOE IS A TEENAGER!!!

Yes, it's true! Our baby is now 13!

So that makes 5 teenage daughters now,

for 1 month, until Lauren turns 20!

And an added blessing of having Lauren

and Cam arriving last night so

we can have the 5 teenagers in the house at once!

This year is a big one for us.

I turned 40

Lauren turns 20

Abbi will turn 18

Emilee 16

and Chloe turned 13

Maddie turns 15 in August

and Dave just turned 41!!

So, 5 of those birthdays are pretty big.

Welcome to old age,

when you're the parents of 5 teenagers!!

Oh, well, bring it on!!

THE BIG 40!!

They say that Inside every old person,

is a younger person wondering

what in the world happened!!!

And so, now that I am now at the

ripe old age of 40, as of yesterday,

that about sums it up!

But Hey.

So my thoughts on being 40?

It stinks! Seriously.

I'm am in denial about getting old,

but my body doesn't always let

me stay that way unfortunately.

Every time I think about exercise,

I lie down til the thought goes away.

I realise that the

"I just woke up" face of

my 30's, is the "all day long"

face of my 40's.

And that Forty isn't that old...

if you're a tree!!

And of course in regard to

body shape and weight:

Eat right, Stay Fit,

Die Anyway!

And did you know,

Old age comes on suddenly,
not gradually, as I thought? 

A woman tells her doctor, 'I've got a bad back.'

The doctor says, 'It's old age.'

The woman says, 'I want a second opinion.'

The doctor says: 'Okay, you're ugly as well.'

So, as you can see, I'm not really

that excited about turning 40.

I never thought I'd really mind,

but now it's here, well,

man! I feel old!!

But hey, I can still turn a cartwheel (I think),

 I can still run up the stairs,

I can still somersault into the water,

I can still ride a skateboard,

I can still play dodgeball at youth group,

I can still play a mean ragtime on the piano,

so I do have a lot to be grateful for really.

And to all you 'young ones',

Respect old people.

They graduated school without

Google or Wikipedia.

Being 40 means I've had lots of

experience and you know what experience is...

Experience is what you get when

you didn't get what you wanted:)

And on that note, to anyone who is

approaching my age, I'll leave you

with this encouraging thought...

Brain cells come,

and brain cells go,

but FAT cells live forever!!

James 1:5-7

 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God,

that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not;

and it shall be given him.

 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.

For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea

driven with the wind and tossed.

 For let not that man think that

he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

One of the biggest hindrances to prayer,

is our unbelief.

If we don't believe His word,

and the promises in the Bible,

we make Him a liar.

We are to pray, nothing doubting.

God is willing and able to give above

and beyond our expectations.

Philippians 4:19

But my God shall supply all your need

according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

When we ask of God and He answers,

and gives us the desires of our hearts,

He becomes all the more real to us

and the next time we are in need,

we will more readily come to Him

with our arms outstretched

in earnest expectation, with unwavering faith

in His promises and His ability

to supply our needs.

So often we pray to God,

without any sincerity in our prayer.

We pray without really believing

that He will answer. Half-heartedly.

Doubting. Without faith.

Oh, the things we miss out on

when we pray, holding out our tiny

little cup, hoping He might dribble

a few drops of blessing in,

when he has an endless supply at His disposal,

ready and willing to pour into our lives,

if only we would trust Him,

and come holding the biggest bucket

we could find!

1 John 5:14-15

¹⁴ And this is the confidence that we have in him,

that, if we ask any thing according to his will,

He heareth us:

¹⁵ And if we know that He hear us,

whatsoever we ask,

we know that we have the petitions

that we desired of Him

Wet Season Beauty

The wet season is here and Sunday

night we had an awesome lightning show!

I was able to grab the camera and sit out

on the verandah and enjoy all the action.

God's magnificent power is very evident

during a powerful storm.

Who else but God can draw

with light across the sky?

The Hands We Hold

 

 

 

Something I was reading the other day started me thinking about the hands we hold.

When your child puts their hand in yours, it may be filthy from making mud pies, or smelly from patting the dog or sticky from eating an ice cream, but it is a hand belonging to a child who you have the responsibility of training. A life to mold. A hand that is trusting you to show the way.

Proverbs 22:15 “Train up a child in the way he should go,

and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

This doesn't just mean raising an obedient child, but raising a responsible adult. We, as parents have the amazing and fearful task of instilling Godly values into our children and

teaching them life skills that will help

 them as they grow older.

Teaching them the importance of hard work. Teaching them what the Bible says on all subjects and guiding them through life, protecting them but not sheltering

them from lessons they may learn along the way.

The hands we hold are hands of the future. These are hands that will hold a Bible or an ungodly magazine. Hands that will raise in praise or raise in anger. Hands that will serve God or serve the Devil. Hands that will be gentle or harsh. Hands that will work hard or be lazy.

Hands that will help, or hands that will harm.

What an awesome responsibility we have! So many Christian parents are choosing to walk away from the Bible as the best child training manual ever written, and are turning to worldly wisdom.

1 Corinthians 1:20b

“........hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”

1 Corinthians 3:19a “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God”

God sees the world's wisdom as foolishness.

God's way is always best.

What are we doing with the hands God has given into our trust? Are we choosing to ignore them when they reach out to us? Are we teaching them laziness by our example? Are we teaching them to be greedy? Do we train them to be hard workers, not giving up when things get hard? Are we teaching them what it means to serve others with no thought of reward? Do we teach them

to use their talents for the Lord?

Hands can be used for many things, good or bad.

We only hold our childrens' hands for a little while, so the time for training is very short.

As parents, God has given these precious lives

into our charge and we have the blessing of training the future generation.

Don't take lightly the lives that belong

 to the hands you hold.

 

 

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

 

 

 

 

We love you, mum!

HOLIDAY BIBLE CLUB

 

Well, last week we ran our first

Holiday Bible Club!

 

Thanks to all our helpers from near

and far, the week went well

and we were all very weary but happy

at the end of it all:) 

 

Here are just a few photos

of the action.

 

 



The girls show the kids how the pros do the 3 legged race!



The kids line up for the action!

The kids enjoyed the singing and the lesson time

Max, with his survival wrist band made in craft time

Hannah and Chantella

Chloe and Micheal take on the 'lasers'

Mustached little men

And, just plain sweet!



Thanks so much for praying for us.
Please keep praying for the Lord to work
in the hearts of all the children that came along
and also the parents we were able to meet:)