This weekend I have ridden a horse, eaten delicious food cooked by other people, and listened to an inspiring speaker, Denise Cunningham. I have grown closer to God and closer to other ladies from my church.

Guess what! Our speaker this weekend has a blog too! I’ll give you a link at the bottom of this post. First, you have to read mine.  😉

This retreat was at Wolf Mountain, near Sacramento, California.

I want to share a few lessons I have received from my time on Wolf Mountain.

Alan and me…..not at Wolf Mountain. That’s Yosemite. Alan was at home being Super Dad this weekend.

#1 My very first ministry is actually my husband. When I married him, I promised many things. One day, the boys will all grow up and move away. They will promise their hearts to younger, prettier women. But Alan will still be there.

I can’t wait to get home and focus on being a better wife!!

#2. Do TELL others what God has done for you, and don’t try to take credit for that. Look what God has done in my life! God has guided and protected me through ALL of my years. He provided a way for me to go to college for FREE. He led me to Alan. God kept Alan safe through several tours in combat zones. God has given me these four adorable boys. HE has answered so many prayers and allowed us to live all over the country and see so many beautiful places and meet inspiring people.

I stand in awe of what God has done for us.

Now is the time of life for ME to give thanks and praise to God. What a life that I am living! I have everything. There is no good thing that I do not have.

Yes, I have a bad back. Yes, I have children to train and plenty of work to do. Yes, I have another cross-country move looming in my near future.

But I have a relationship with God in heaven who will carry me through all of these duties.

8Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

I’m not going to pretend like I have something to do with God’s blessings in my life. To God be the glory!

I cannot take credit. GOD gave me all of this.

We hiked to this cross at the top of the mountain this morning. It was an exhilarating start to the day!

Look for a post soon about the answered prayers we have seen just in the past week! God does not promise us a life without problems. He promises that we will never walk alone. He is always there.

#3. Don’t let the devil steal your joy. Never believe things will not change. Never believe that you aren’t good enough to belong to God. Never believe the lies! “I will just always be like____.” “I just can’t win.” “I’m not as good as they are.” And so on and so forth! Those are lies. Do not buy it.

#4. Be thankful!!

“Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endures forever.” Psalm 107:1

a few friends climbing the steep mountain

What did I like about retreat? Rest, fun, God’s word, and fellowship! Did I mention I also got to ride horses? Wow, can we go to retreat again next week???

I am so thankful for my life and the people in it. “To God be the glory. Great things he has done, so loved he the world that He gave us his son.”

view from the top

And here’s a great new blog for you to check out/read/follow. Someone asked me this weekend what it means to follow a blog. It just means to subscribe via email or social media. Blog subscriptions are free. Just type your email address in, and you’re done. That way you never miss a post. My “subscribe via email” option is in my sidebar.

Denise is a darling and inspiring speaker. She is a woman who knows the Lord well, and she has a kind and loving heart that comes through when she teaches. Plus, she’s downright adorable. Here’s her blog, where she writes about a wide variety of topics. I was most struck by her object lessons and her beautiful home decorating skills: www.refreshher.com

Have you ever gone on a retreat? What did you learn?

The post 4 Powerful Lessons From My Very First Women’s Retreat appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I fed him pudding. I ran upstairs to get something. I got distracted by a book. When I came back, Daniel had finished eating and moved onto nap. Wow, Daniel.

Daniel, age 6 months, napping on my friend Sherry, during Alan’s promotion ceremony

There are many things my beautiful little boys do well. Yes, I am sorry. I said beautiful.  They are!! Handsome, if it makes you feel better, but my goodness, they look like sleeping angels to me.

This is one of the things we do with FLARE. That’s right. We NAP. We are seriously great nappers. I remember one time, in Sunday school, our class was debating rest on Sundays. Who would debate that? Seriously. Don’t just agree to rest, embrace it, love it, protect it. The people need their naps!!!

All children look even sweeter when they are asleep, don’t you think? My blogging pal Slyvia at Tales from the Mommy Trenches had this post of  her babies sleeping on their daddy, and I thought it was SO adorable. I knew I had to copy cat, but when I went through recent photos, I found most of our pictures are of our children sleeping in the floor, soooooo…

I put together this little napping slideshow for ya. I hope you all get at least one day off a week, to just do this!

 Not one sleeping babe, but two. It doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

 Gotta love the nursing induced coma–a powerful bedtime ritual!

 Caleb sleeping on his Mama 🙂

Caleb sleeping on his daddy…or wait, no, Daddy is doing the sleeping!

 We sleep in the car.

They even sleep in their beds, without us even asking them to. I used to find Caleb sleeping in Joshua’s bed.

Caleb, sleeping in his own bed, with his Daddy doll, when Alan was in Afghanistan.

 They even trust each other. That’s newborn Dan, sleeping on three-and a half year-old Caleb.

 serious rump-in-the-air-sleep
 Caleb, 6 months, passed out on the couch, on Christmas day

I used to have to wake Daniel up from his nap every day at 2:30, to go get the boys from school. I put his gloves and jacket on him, in his sleep, and carried him out to the stroller.

passed out in a room full of kids

I’m going to slide down and go play, wait noooo, nooo, I’m just gonna zzzzzz.

Daniel seemed to prefer dropping down and sleeping in the living room floor.

just plain exhausted

But if I said the words, “nap time,” he’d run and hide in Daddy’s closet.

. ….ah, the ever peaceful Ergo nap.

We wish you all a restful day and a wonderful week!

The post Will Nap Anywhere appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I’ve written gobs of blog posts where I’m really bad about never going back and letting you know how that all turned out.  This is my goal for tonight:  lots of updates!!

Update #1:  The Great Clean Out

inspired by reading Money Saving Mom‘s book:

It’s sort of an odd time to suddenly be all about organizing my house:  we are moving in JUNE.  However, we are drowning in TMS–too much stuff–so I have been plugging away at “The Great Clean Out”.  I decided to combine it with “Getting Organized”, one of my goals for the year.  I’ve been a rubbermaid boxing, label makin’ fool.

Okay, really I’ve only managed to organize three rooms and a few closets, but I’m going to whip out that “4 small boys” excuse again.  It works well for me.  Progress is progress.  Go me.

Here are my Organization tips:

1.  stackable boxes.  There’s nothing worse than avalanches of stuff. You know, like a giant pile of purses that falls on your head if you move the wrong way.  It looks bad.  It creates confusion, and it just doesn’t work.  Put all that same junk in stackable boxes, and suddenly BOOM, you look–and are indeed–organized.

2.  Label it!  If it’s in the box, it needs to be on the label.  “Office stuff” is not a label.  A proper label should read:  “paper clips, folders, notebooks, paper”.  You get the idea.  Specify!!!!

3.  Toss, toss, toss!!!!  

If you don’t remember the last time you used it, you don’t need it.  If you’re keeping it for that day, two years from now, when you will most certainly need it, but you don’t need it now–chances are you won’t know where it is then, so unless it’s extremely expensive–toss it.  

Even if it is costly, it may not work anymore by the time you finally need it.  You get the idea.  Go watch that t.v. show Hoarders for some inspiration.  This could be you!

I am almost done with our coat closet:

Sometimes I find myself with literally only 20 minutes before I have to leave the house, and that’s when I work in mini-projects like this.  All you need is 10 minutes to organize one drawer–one shelf–one cabinet.  You get the idea.  But first, go to your favorite “everything” store (Target), and get some of these awesome clear, square boxes.

Update #2:  Keeping My Toddler Busy

Remember all the hilarious Dan photos?  Dan covered in pudding, Dan and the powder- bedroom- blizzard, Dan and the baby cereal, etc. etc.???  I’m constantly on a mission to keep this little booger busy.  

My friend Patti gave us these Knex blocks for him.  HIGHLY RECOMMEND.  Check out the house he built.  After I took this photo, he stuck a propeller on top of it all and called it a helicopter.  Then it flew away with Daniel, and I’m not sure where it is now.

He has been much better lately.  Your birthday gifts to him also have helped him to stay busy.  THANK YOU!  He is obsessed with airplanes.

Update #3 Snow

We have snow everywhere, every week or so.  The good news is that it melts more quickly now.  The bad news is black snow:  GROSS.  Alabama friends, you would die.  Piles of plowed snow everywhere, and the street pollution turns them black.  Makes you wonder about what we’re breathing.

It’s a thing of wonder and beauty when it’s freshly fallen.  I will never really dislike snow.  It’s just that I don’t want to be cold anymore.

Last update:  #4  My Friday night dilemma from my last post

We ended up dividing up the kiddos.  Alan took Joshua and Dan to the buffet dinner.  I stayed home with Caleb and John David, which has actually been an extremely relaxing evening for me.

See, I kept JD out and about all day.  We volunteered at the school–don’t worry, we made and sorted copies and didn’t disrupt any classes.  Then we went to lunch with my friend Margret. JD ATE QUESADILLAS!!!  I was so proud!

All that, plus three hours of stroller riding to get the boys from school and an hour and a half at the park left JD wiped out. He was completely sleep deprived, so he went to bed at 6pm.  Yes, I will have to be up with him a little tonight to pay for that, but oh well.

Right now it’s just Caleb and me–oh the glory–the two people who love to sit here and play computer the most, and that is exactly what we are doing.   I love you, Caleb!!!!

Caleb and me, 6 years ago

More Organizing Posts:

The Great Toy Overhaul

Goal: To Take Housekeeping More Seriously, But Not Too Seriously

The post The Year of Getting Organized appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The post I love Sundays! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.