Spring Celebration Trip!

Tax season is over! Yay....! 

Last Friday the 17th, the kids had the day off from school. So in preparation, we planned a family get-away for the weekend. It was something that the kids (and us) have been looking forward to over the past few months.

Lydia found some great deals in Branson. So we got up that morning, packed our overnight luggage, got a few things done around the house, and played video games before leaving town around noon. Our first stop was the Butterfly Palace. We got to release butterflies and go through several of the mazes. We even watched a 3D movie of the life of a butterfly.

After eating a quick lunch, we then headed to the motel, Castle Rock Resort. Once checked in, we changed into our swimwear and enjoyed the rest of the day playing at the indoor water-park! What fun we all had. There was a "lazy river" with tubes, allowing us to float around. Mysia was first to try the water slides, and after some encouragement, Malachi soon followed. They were a bit reluctant to return to the room around 11pm, but excited about Saturday.

The pools didn't open until 10am, so we enjoyed some rest that morning and ate breakfast while watching some movies on the TV. We packed all of our belongings before again spending several hours in the water-park. We had a great lunch before heading back home.

A short family vacation, and a whole lot of fun! 

~Matt

March Highlights!

The month of March was exciting, yet busy. I was still recovering from my hernia surgery, which made us adjust our schedules a bit. I've been on a weight restriction of no more than 10 lbs. of lifting. Lydia has been putting in overtime during the week and working all Saturdays.

The kids had Spring Break during the first part of the month. Lydia and I still had work, so they spent their time at the Boys and Girls Club with activities.

Lydia and I got to have a "date night" on the 13th while the kids stayed at home with Uncle Sam & Aunt Madisen. We had a nice dinner and watched a fun movie. It was great!

On Saturday the 14th, the kids and I went to “Jurassic Quest” at the Expo Center. It was neat seeing the giant dinosaurs. We spent some time at Jordan Valley Park and then attended the downtown Saint Patrick’s Day parade!

Mysia made PRIDE Panther at school on the 22nd! Yay...! We're so proud of her of course.

BJ and his family came to town for a visit. The cousins enjoyed spending Saturday (21st) playing. That evening, I pulled out my puppet Ace to get him looking good for the following. The kids were excited, so we had a "puppet convention" before bed. Mysia's puppet, "I'm more beautiful than Ace, because I'm a different 'ginger'... haha!

Malachi's art from school was featured at the Springfield Art museum on Sunday the 22nd. It was neat to visit and find his work among all the others from the area.

On Friday the 27th, we attended the Taekwondo Fundraising Banquet. I provided the entertainment by doing a skit with Ace. It turned out pretty good and we all won door prizes.

~Matt

Eating Habits

Has the economy changed your eating habits?

It has ours. Not drastically by any means, but we have been more “money conscious” when making the weekly menu and buying our groceries. Every week we make a menu of dinners before shopping. Lately, those our dinners reflect how much money we have to spend at the store.

We’ve become more thrifty in what we make, and with what we buy to make our dinners. If we can go for the cheaper brands, yes, we’ll do it. Of course, there are some things are worth the sacrifice of a few pennies for better taste!

I definitely can’t knock Pinterest... it has been helpful on finding ideas for cheaper meals. Plus, great ideas for new ones as well.

Bologna and tuna sandwiches have made a resurgence on our dinner menu, along with ramen noodles (although not Lydia’s favorite)! That’s fine with me... they taste pretty good.

~Matt

My "Daily Picture Challenge"

I like taking pictures. I like a challenge.

I’m also an owner of an iPhone, so pictures are constantly been taken. I average over500 pictures a month. Most are of my kids, of course!

At one time, I had discovered an app that would give a daily challenge in taking a photo. Many of the users would try to be creative when taking the picture of the day. However, the developer of the app gave up, stopped the updates, and the app is no longer available.

Not wanting to give up, I decided to do a search. Surely there was a place online that would do the same thing. But no. Sadly, I didn’t find anything I liked. I had noticed that some sites had lists, so I made my own. I then started assigning them with a day, and then made my won chart for each month. It makes it simple, yet still a challenge.

So far, I’m enjoying it! I haven’t missed a day since starting a few months ago, and I hope I keep going. I've even had help from my kids. In fact, Malachi helped me with the one for this post... we used Christmas ornaments, crayons and paper, plus ice from our freezer! As you might guess, it was fun!

My “Daily Picture Challenge” albums for each month are on my facebook page. Check them out!

~Matt

Malachi’s Salvation

What a special Christmas surprise we had on Sunday, December 23rd. Malachi accepted Christ as his Savior during the evening services at Hillside!

For months and weeks, Malachi has been asking us questions on salvation. They were more confirmation questions. He already knew, but he wanted to make sure. We weren’t going to push anything though. Since he is five, we were afraid of him making a ‘false profession’. Not really meaning it, etc.

However, it is something we’ve been praying about. It’s actually been a heavy burden for Mysia. She believed that he was old enough to understand, and couldn’t grasp that he wasn’t ready. She had asked, and asked him about salvation, running him through everything. She’s been a great encouragement, but was very concerned. She often shared that she was afraid something would happen, and “what if he’s at that age where it’s too late?” We’d then have to assure her (and ourselves) that it was all in God’s time and we can pray and wait.

Mysia sure did her part! Malachi was on her “prayer list”, along with several of her friends from school. Lydia and I also discussed his occurring questioning of salvation. We had often asked him if he wanted to pray for forgiveness and ask Jesus into his life. He would pause with thought, and reply with “not yet”.

Since it’s Christmas-time, there is a lot of talk about Jesus’ birth. We made it a point to explain that the ‘birth’ was only the first part of the story, and the reason for His coming was become the ultimate ‘sacrifice’ for us because of our sin. It would lead to great conversations with both Mysia and Malachi. Especially the thought that Jesus’ life was His gift to us.

Well, on Sunday morning, Lydia and I found out one of Malachi’s friends from church (his age) had gotten saved over the past week. What a blessing, and our Sunday School class rejoiced with the news. It also encouraged us to pray for those, like Malachi, who have shown interest, but haven’t made that move just yet. We talked about the subject matter, and prayed.

We didn’t mention anything to Malachi that afternoon. Of course, we spent a time of Christmas celebration with Lydia’s family. Talk about Christmas always centers around Christ.

Soon, we were back at church for evening services. We sat as a family in the pew, listening to Pastor’s sermon. Malachi was being pretty well-behaved. After the sermon, during the invitation, he grabbed my hand a pulled. I bent down, and he asked to go forward and pray by including, “I want to get saved...”

I then lead him to the the front, we knelt down at the altar, and I ran through salvation with him several times. He prayed, with full knowledge of what he was saying, and I then asked him a few more times what had just happened and what he had just done. You see, I wanted to be sure that he just didn’t go forward without meaning it. He was positive, and toward the end of my questioning, a little annoyed that I’d was going over it again and again. “Yes, dad... I know...”

As you might guess, there was a lot of jubilation over the news, and we are very happy. We tried to call and text every family member. If you hadn’t heard until this post, I’m sorry, but now you know!

As for Mysia, I asked her how excited she must be, her prayer for Malachi finally answered. She looked back to me, with a concerned voice... “that’s just one, I still have several friends!” What a daughter!

~Matt

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas day!