Week Rundown! (12/30/12 - 01/05/13)

I woke up Sunday morning and headed to church to run the vans. During the morning route, Lydia called telling me she felt like she had a stomach bug. I picked up our kids along with the others. After morning services, we stopped by my parents' house to say bye to my brother Benjamin and his family, who were leaving for home. We then went home, ate lunch, and took naps before heading to evening services at church.

We woke up on Monday to a dusting of snow on the ground! Unfortunately, it didn't last through the day.. Lydia went in to work the entire day while Malachi went into daycare. Mysia went to work with me for a few hours and then we spent the rest of the afternoon grocery shopping. We spent the evening at home watching tv. The kids went to bed at normal time while Lydia and I brought in the new year. But we didn't stay up any longer! ;)

We slept in on Tuesday, and just had a lazy day at home. It was nice! Of course, we did some housework. That evening, we went and saw a movie at the theaters. What a fun night!

Wednesday morning wasn't much fun though. I woke up with a bit of a stomach bug... but Malachi was hit hard! He had a high fever and was not feeling well at all. We both stayed home. It was Mysia's first day back at school. We didn't go to church, so that we wouldn't spread any sick bug around with others.

Malachi was still sick on Thursday, so Aunt Abigail agreed to come over and watch him while Lydia and I went to work. It sure is great to have an awesome sister that would do something like this!!!

To our dismay, Malachi was still not well on Friday. It was Lydia's turn to stay home. Lydia took advantage of the situation and got a lot of things done around the house that she had been meaning to get to. By afternoon, Malachi was feeling better and they tackled his bedroom.

Saturday was a big day. We got some things at the "Restore" then worked on the house all afternoon. I was finally able to take down the outdoor Christmas lights. We spent the evening putting away all the Christmas decorations in the house. It took quite a while determining what stuff went into what box! It sure was sad. It really hurts to imagine that in 10 months, we'll be bringing it all back in again....


~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

Happy New Year 2013

Yup, it is here! 2013!

I'm once again amazed how fast this last year has flown by. So much happened this past year, it was amazing! I'm anxious to see what this new year holds and what might happen. There is so much to look forward to. 

I've glanced back at my past posts and since most are about what we've done each week, it anxious to see what the future weeks of this year have in store. Of course, I don't put my hopes in what tomorrow may hold. I've got to live each day with the expectation that it could be my last. And I'm ready!

I hope all who reads my blog had a great year, and if you still plan to follow what I post, I promise that it will be worth it. Like always, I have plans and perhaps we'll see what the future may hold!

No matter what, I can promise that it'll be interesting!

~Matt