Hangin' With the Big Girls

Nothing new and exciting to report on. Just some cute pictures to share. Enjoy!

Rachel begged her mom to be able to come back and spend some time with her Aunt Lauren and cousins. Here is all three hanging out at our house. Look at her hanging with the big girls. She does a good job of holding her own. Hannah better watch out because Rachel is bigger than she is.

Kate loves to play with Bella and her stuffed animals. She likes to lay on the stuffed animal so Bella has to cuddle in to her. It's a game. I think that we are also successfully learning what it means to be gentle with Bella. Yeah! No more pounding on the dog (unless you are mommy and Bella is on the table eating your lunch for the 3rd time this week).

Kate

Hannah

Hannah

Is It enough?

"Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law." ~Psalm 119:18

God brought this verse to my attention while going through a recent Bible study. Then, further in the study He challenged me to question whether or not God's Word was really sufficient for me. Is It (the Bible) enough to teach me or do I rely God speaking to other people to teach me about Him? I am not in any way suggesting that doing Bible studies or listening to sermons or reading Christian books is sinful or harmful. However, I think that lately I've been using it as a crutch, especially as a "new" tired mother. So many days I find myself sitting down and doing my quiet time out of obedience and not necessarily desire. I get lazy because I'm tired. I feel like the life is literally being sucked out of me from so many different angles. So rather than ask God to open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in His law, I open a Christian book or Bible study and rely on them to do the hard work of studying the Bible for me. There are many times when I think that this is perfectly okay. This is just my opinion, but there are times in life when you need those resources to guide you or you need the encouragement from someone who has been there. God gives spiritual gifts such as teaching and preaching to equip Christians. If He didn't want us to take full advantage of those people's insights from the Holy Spirit than He wouldn't have given them in the first place.

However, I shouldn't just be growing in His Word when I am in a Bible study. Yes, there are times when I may be spiritually dry and I am just not finding the meat in the Bible. I don't want to use that as an excuse though to pick up another Bible study.

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." ~Hebrews 4:12

"All (emphasis mine) Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." ~2 Tim. 3:16

God is challenging me to dig a little deeper and allow His Holy Spirit to teach my directly through His Word. That is difficult to do because I just finished Exodus and the end of Exodus is full of God's instructions to Moses about all of the measurements and specifications of how the Tabernacle is to be built. It's kinda hard for me to read through that stuff. I can't say that it's exactly my favorite part of the Bible. However, this morning I started Leviticus. Another book not often cited, but I want to read through the Old Testament. The first 3 chapters are about how the Israelites were to make offerings. I won't say that my revelation this morning was anything life-changing, but definitely a reminder of what a true sacrificial offering is. This may be weird, but the following was honestly my conversation with God this morning as I was reading the first 3 chapters of Leviticus:

"God, I don't understand why these poor innocent animals had to be slaughtered because of the sin of humans. It just seems kind of unfair." (side note here: Yes, I could never survive on a farm, even though my husband is trying to convincing me that we should have farm animals.)

"Lauren, isn't that the same that happened with you? Didn't you really deserve to be slaughtered on that altar because of your sin? Wasn't it the Lamb of God who took your place on the cross?"

"I guess so, Lord. I deserve the punishment of sin, not your Son. Your Son was blameless, without defect, and Jesus was the only acceptable sacrifice to you."

That is what you call a Holy Spirit blow to my spiritual gut. Once again proving that God's Word is sufficient to teach me. The original point of the text in Leviticus was to provide instruction to the Israelites about bringing an acceptable sacrifice, not necessarily to teach them about Christ. It was written hundreds of years before Christ walked the earth. Yet, God's Word is living and active and He can use His Holy Spirit through His Word to teach me whatever He wants me to get that day.

Lord, open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your law.

Garage Sweet Garage

For most things in life, I have a go-getter personality. God did not create me to just sit by and let other people do things for me. This can be a blessing or as most Christian women have experienced can be a curse. What I mean is that when God is telling you that He will change a situation or calls you into submission under your husband's authority in His timing, that is hard to swallow for a woman who thinks she knows what is best. However, I decided that after a year of not having my car in the garage where it has spent some time off and on until George decides to acquire more stuff and then it gets shoved back out to the driveway, I was putting it back into its rightful "home." George came home about 3/4 of the way through my little project and called me a "crazy woman" because I had actually moved or scooted some pretty heavy stuff. I have been asking for weeks, probably months, now if he would clean out the garage. I'll let you guess where that request went. If it looked like trash, it went in the trash. He's actually lucky that most of his stuff is too heavy for me to lift, otherwise, I would have had much more trash. I even went through some of my old boxes and threw away some trophies and awards that I received throughout my education. For a pack rat like myself that was a little difficult. However, I know that my treasure is not here on earth and I figured I'm just saving my children the time of throwing things away when I die one day. After about 5 hours of hard work, I accomplished my goal. I parked my car in the garage with room to get passengers in and out.



The other two little crazy women in the house are just normal babies. Getting into everything and having fun doing it.

I bought them shoes the other day because I wanted to have something to cover their feet with in the cooler weather. I just went to Target and got the "cheap" shoes. They do have flexible soles so it helps them to learn to walk better. Those little shoes cost me $13 a pair. Multiply that by two and the little black dress shoes that they need and we're talking a lot of money just for shoes that they will outgrow in a couple of months. It's the times two that gets us. However, WE WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. Check out the adorable little shoes.

Hannah

Kate

I don't know if you can see what Kate is doing in this video, but she has a little toy chair that she is bouncing up and down in. She can actually stand up out of it without any help. She's becoming much more skilled at bending down and picking things up without falling over while trying to stand back up.

For Aunt Amy

Since I was sweetly told yesterday that I need to update my blog more frequently because Amy (George's sister) is obsessive about checking for new pictures, I decided to dedicate this post to her. It's full of pictures. Eat your heart out, Aunt Amy.

Hannah
Hannah-don't you love the footie pajamas she's wearing? Guess what size they are? 9 months. I've surrendered to the fact that Hannah will always be my little pipsqueak.

Hannah

Kate

Kate

Kate

Kate

Kate

Kate

Kate

Hannah

The weather was finally nice enough to go to the park yesterday and do some swinging. The girls loved it.

Babies' First Halloween (Together)

Yea, yea... I know that it's not their real first Halloween. However, last year they were separated. So it was their first one...together.

Kate

Hannah

We took the girls to our church's "Trunk or Treat". George's parents' RV is a "land yacht" so their theme was Noah's Ark. Hannah and Kate were the two by two lions. They did a great job, other than the minor freakout Hannah had when we first got there. I think she was a little overwhelmed by all of the people there. However, I was truly impressed with them not messing at all with their little lion manes. They did SO good!

Kate (if I wanted to lie to you I could claim she was waving here, but really she's not)

Grandpa & Grandma Schaefer came to visit

Mommy, Hannah, Kate, Daddy

Hannah & Kate-aren't these the cutest chairs? Nanny & Grampie Lantz got them for them

Aunt Erin, Hannah, Kate, Aunt Amy (this was part of Hannah's freak out)

Hannah & Grandma Schaefer

Hannah (did I mention that she was going for the cowardly lion act) & Daddy

Hannah and Kate are now both clapping! Yea girls! They are so proud of themselves and I am, too! Hannah is even waving...kind of. She waved to the Babies R' Us cashier the other day. I guess we need to teach her this whole stranger danger thing. In due time.

We caught the clapping on tape, but once again, every time I transfer video, it gets darker every time I download it. I think you can still see it though. Enjoy!