Another Amazing Day!!

Three years ago we celebrated an Amazing Day with Zechariah and now we celebrate with Genesis!

I am still in shock!! She has been asking a lot of questions lately, especially to John about 'having Jesus in her heart'.  John told me a while back that he thought he may have to sit her down and explain it and have the conversation with her as she kept bringing it up, totally on her own, unprompted by any of us.  Of course I am always concerned about their age and whether or not they understand what it means to ask Jesus into their hearts.  I don't know why, as Zechariah clearly remembers and knows exactly what it means.

Yesterday, while they were eating lunch Gigi announced to John that she had asked Jesus into her heart.  He looked at her and said in shock, "you did....when and where?".  She responded that she had  in the bathroom (nice place to do it, but that is where she apparently does her best thinking and makes the best decisions----kind of like her Daddy--hee:o).  He asked her if she wanted to say the prayer together with him and she did.  So amazing!!!

I guess she asked John in the car a few days ago about asking Jesus into her heart and he asked her if she wanted to do it now.  She responded 'no', she would do it tomorrow.  Totally shows her personality.  She is a thinker, but she is extremely independent and will do things when she is good and ready.  Also shows that this is a decision that she has to make, that it is not forced by us.  I get so frustrated when I hear comments about us shoving our beliefs down people's throats and especially down our children's throats.  I will do everything possible to raise my children according to God's Word, but in the end it is 100% their decision as to whether or not they accept it and choose to live their lives for Jesus.  I just pray every single night that the Lord will have a whole heck of a lot of Mercy and Grace on John and I as we try and succeed at the most important job we could ever have---being Christian parents.  I fail miserably, especially lately when my patience is non-existent and my temper is quick and strong.  That is why I feel so incredibly blessed and thankful that my kids have such a yearning and desire at such a young age to follow Jesus.  I know I will have to pray even harder for them now!

We spent the night cuddling and talking.  As I mentioned I still worry as to whether or not they understand and know what they are doing, so I asked all sorts of questions.  Her answers amazed me and put my worries to rest.  We talked about the Bible verse we are currently memorizing from
1 John 3:16 - "Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions".  I asked what sort of things we could do that showed Jesus' love through us.  Genesis broke down in tears as she told me about the poor kids and how they have nothing to eat and sleep in the dirt.  She has a real heart for the poor and I pray that God will guard her heart and use her to help the poor that I know she feels burdened for.  It was such a precious moment.  She was trying so hard to hold the tears in and then she just looks at me and says "Mommy, my heart is so broken, it is just so broken for the poor"!  Such an amazing moment to share with my incredible gifts from God.  I am beyond bless! Days like these are absolutely priceless!

So today, we celebrated exactly like we did when Zech asked Jesus into his heart.  We bought special cupcakes, balloons (one for her to keep and one to send up to the angels and Jesus in heaven who are having a party right now), and she gets to pick out a special new book (of course a Gigi, God's little princess book is what she wants).  I sat with her and wrote special messages on her balloons.  It was pretty cute what she told me to put!  I think the pictures will tell the story.

I also felt so humbled and proud as to how Zech was so excited for her and just kept praying and thanking God that she asked Jesus into her heart.  I pray that these kids will always be close and can pray for one another in the years that lie ahead.  I pray that we are a close, praying, Christ centered family that can openly pray, talk and love each other daily!  I pray that we will not let our differences separate us, break us apart, but instead through Christ and his love for us, we will be open and loving with one another. 

My heart is full of happiness, so incredibly full right now!   Please keep my beautiful girl in your prayers, God is so incredibly good!

The right decision!

I am just so proud, yes that Mommy eyes proud! That kind of proud where my mommy eyes are glued on.  Seriously, I think today was a pivotal moment for me, a moment where I realized that we really did make the right decision, the best decision.  No matter what people may think, no matter the stigma that it may or may not bring, I can finally say and say it in the open, that we made the right decision.

My boy came home with his report card today.  He came home with his Kindergarten report card.  Yes I said Kindergarten.  It was all 1's and 2 's, and I am shocked at how far this kid has come!!! Last year was horrible.  We fought constantly with him to do his homework, practice his printing, do his letters and sounds.  I was relentless and I really pushed him, a little too much! I knew though that he just was not ready for Grade 1 and in fact I was the one who brought it up to his teacher.  In the end they showed me how much progress he had made and said that he could go on to Grade one, but they would really be watching him.  Is that what we wanted....him to be watched?  We also did not know where we would be for his Grade one year, so we had a couple of months to make some decisions.

He was also going through numerous tests and we were told to wait for the results from those, before we made our decision.  We got them and it really did help explain a lot.  He has a slight hearing loss (not sure why and we are following it) and thus has been doing some extra speech therapy (more for him to slow down and get everything out that he wants to say---this kid has so much to say---it's exhausting for me sometimes).  With that, we found ourselves miraculously in Airdrie again.  Miraculously because we had to get out of our place in Cochrane (that is a whole other blog in itself---we were just sick and tired of putting up with marijuana, drinking, parties...etc.), but we were not having any luck finding anything.  We basically started looking anywhere by the end, yes even in the not so great areas of Calgary.  We got this place on Tuesday and moved on Friday and it was not even advertised.  Total, total God thing!! Our landlords are amazing too!  However, we then had to find a school for our monkey and make that difficult decision.

Christian schooling has always been a must for us, especially for Zech.  He is so evangelical and everything for him revolves around Jesus.  He told me the other day that he only likes to go to school to learn about Jesus! He would not survive in the public school system with his zealous goal of telling everyone and everything about Christ.  However, money is also an issue as we can not afford the tuition of a private Christian school with our meager 'ministry' wage.  I tried Catholic schools, we were even going to drive him a half hour away to a semi-public Christian School, but everybody was full.  So we went to Airdrie Koinonia Christian School.  Our first meeting with them was really good and we expressed our concerns about him going into Kindergarten.  Well, their cut-off date for accepting kids into Grade one is Sept. 30, so Zech would not make it in.  I am sure that they would have made an exception if we felt he was ready seeing how close his b-day is to the cut-off, but we had an amazing conversation with the resource teacher and principal and felt really confident about our decision to put him in Kindergarten again.  The teachers expressed how important it is to ensure that little boys are ready to go on and that they have the confidence and tools to succeed in school.  I wanted him to be ahead, not always lagging behind or having to 'watch him'. 

However, I haven't told anyone.  I think it had more to do with me and my own personal issues, as Zech would stay in Kindergarten for the rest of his life if he could and he has no problems telling people that. I felt that some how I had failed him, didn't spend enough time with him, should have put him in preschool.  I have really backed off this year.  I don't push him as much as I did last year and he is genuinely interested in learning.  He will come and sit down with me and go through his counting book. He is sounding out words and trying to read all on his own.  He knows all of his sight words.  He has no problems memorizing his Bible verses.  I am proud of how hard he is working and striving to do his best.  I do not care whether or not he is the next Einstein, I only care that he is working hard and trying his absolute best and that he has the tools and confidence to succeed.  We will be going through more testing with him here again soon.  I pray that this is something that he will 'grow' out of and that it is not getting worse.  It does explain why he is so 'loud' though! :o)

So proud of my boy!

One year ago....

My dear Aunt Elaine passed away.  It is hard to believe that it has been a year already! Since I was the one that introduced her to the blog world (which I have been horrible at lately), I thought it was fitting that I dedicate this blog to her. 

She was such an amazingly strong, vivacious woman, who remained so positive right until the end.  Her battle began with discovering she had breast cancer, over coming it and then discovering she had  brain tumours. She was fighting those as well, but then my Uncle and her were in an accident and she was injured bad.  I am still amazed that she fought and hung in there given everything that she had injured in the accident.  However, it was too much and she just could not hold on.

I remember visits with her, long chats, serious chats, and her stories and sense of humour.  She loved to talk, to find out anything and everything she could about everyone.   We really cherished the fact that she was genuinely interested in hearing about us, our lives.  She genuinely understood that we didn't have to have 'everything' to be somebody.  We weren't judged by what we had or didn't have, said or didn't say, believed or didn't believe.  It was ok to be 'us' around her, which is a rarity for us!

So many great memories of her.  Some I know we will never forget and will chuckle at for years to come (Dominican, Kelowna and the pink shorts in the hot tub, lunch at the Uni with her, seeing her right before she went in for surgery after the accident, the list could go on...). 

While I have been horrible at blogging lately, I always knew that when I did blog, she would be one of the firsts reading it and commenting on it.  Her comments were stories in themselves, which I loved because I always learned so much from them.  I loved reading her blogs too and I miss them! 

My dear Aunt, you are missed by so many and have touched so many!