And he's off!

We spent the morning wrestling, hugging, laughing and snuggling daddy before his long trip. We will miss him tons! 

We look forward to his return and we pray for his refreshment! 

2 in a Week?!

2 times in one week?  Watch out.  I may be back....nah.  I just can't commit fully yet :)

I figured I'd update a few more things.  I forgot to mention in the last post that my children are phenomenal at swallowing vitamins now, which really opens up a whole new world of medication and allergy meds (no more grape flavored chewable or drinkable expensive gunk!).  They can be super slow in swallowing the hand-full of vitamins they are currently taking BUT they get swallowed eventually.  I consider that a win.

We are chugging along in school.  Both kids are doing better and better.  There is less fighting me than before.  I also consider that a win.  There is still fighting, to be sure, just less of it.  I changed math curriculum to something called Making Math Meaningful.  It helps them to not only understand math equations but also math concepts (something I'm getting a ton out of myself!).  I think it'll be good in the long run even though they are having to get used to doing a bit more work.  Kale has moved on from studying just the U.S. to now studying different countries.  He and I are currently playing a geography game of North America.  Seriously I've never known more geography in my life.  Sad!  Kate is steadily reading more and more and doing amazingly well.  So proud of her!

On that note, her eyes have improved since starting therapy and we had them rechecked by the eye doctor.  He approved of her going from the bifocals back to just one lens.  We were super excited to see serious progress and we put the new lenses in right away.  Unfortunately she couldn't focus up close on her schoolwork and it frustrated her (and me) so we had to change back to her bifocals.  Bummer.  But we'll keep on trying!

Mark and I went to Branson, MO. at the beginning of October for a pastor's conference.  It was the first time in a long time that we've been away from our kids.  I loved it.  I was so desperate for a break and it turned out to be such a nice time.  We went with our associate pastors, the Quisenberrys, and had a great time getting to know them better as well.  The kids shared their time away with us with both sets of grandparents.  It was so nice to be able to leave them with family.  

On that note, Mark is doing an amazing job as lead pastor.  Honestly I couldn't be more proud of him.  He works hard, loves people, seeks God and has just blown my mind on his capacity to minister!  He's also going to school and working hard reading textbooks and writing papers.  On top of that he has dealt with our issues with Kate as well as my struggles.  He's been a rock and a help and support and I'm super blessed to be married to this man.  I don't normally gush but just when I start thinking about all he's had to do and deal with in the last few months, I'm blown away at how God has faithfully used him.  So awesome.

Two weeks ago I helped lead my first women's retreat as lead pastor's wife.  Overall it was a huge success thanks to the amazing ladies who helped put it all together.  So much of the original planning was done when my mind couldn't focus.  It was so strange to me to not be able to concentrate and make decisions.  Normally I know just what I want to do ;).  But I struggled with reading the curriculum we were using and putting it all together.  The ladies on my team stepped up and took over much to my great delight.  My mind has been coming back and was much better at the time of the retreat.  Honestly the few glitches we had were in areas I was in charge of. We had 55 women come (way more than I thought would come) and my overall goal to have women get to know each other and just have fun together was reached.  It was thrilling.  There was even a ropes course there and we had a blast going down the zip line and trying out different elements on the high ropes course.  I told people that God just filled in all our cracks and the retreat was successful!

Wow.  I don't think I even shared about our trip to Breckenridge over Labor Day weekend.  Sadly I need to get going so I'll have to save that for another post.  That just means there's another one coming!

The End

Recently Mark felt God's leading to do a 40 day fast. Actually God had been preparing him for a while now, but back in July God said now.

Tuesday, September 6 was the last day Mark ate food...until today. He went 40 days drinking juice, water, broth and herbal tea. This man of mine who loves a good Texas Taco. Who drools over any kind of red meat. Who had soda every single day. Who drinks his coffee sweet! This man of mine who really loves his food went 40 days without it. A-maz-ing. To me anyways.

I'm not bragging on Mark - although I do think he's wonderfully awesome and I'm so stinking proud of him - I want to brag on God! He spoke to my husband and sustained him through meal after meal. He was enough for Mark and He has blessed Mark in ways that aren't measurable. He has led, spoken, encouraged, loved, poured himself out, and filled my husband daily for the past 6 weeks. His blessing - measured in just knowing Him - is overflowing in Mark's life! And I pray that He has gotten all the glory (and I know that Mark agrees). Without God this wouldn't have happened. Plain and simple.

It was no doubt a battle. The enemy fought hard to convince Mark that no one would know if he had a bite of the sandwich or the candy or whatever. He fought hard to convince Mark that 20 days was plenty of time for God to speak and that he didn't need to go the full 40 days. But my husband, with God's strength, fought back and won. He was obedient. And it was an amazing thing to watch. The kids cheered him on and were so proud of him. He sat with us at every meal. Went out to dinner with us a couple times when we were meeting friends. He was a warrior not just a trooper.

His first bite of food was dry toast. Not totally thrilling but we have to be careful to start out very slowly - much to Mark's chagrin. Too much too fast could cause him to get really sick. So it's toast today, maybe some salad tomorrow, then slowly add in fats, proteins, carbs...I wonder if this readjustment part will be harder than the actual fast! :)I have to share before and after photos of this event though because it is quite a visual process. He didn't want to do pictures each week as he lost weight but the before and after are still pretty amazing. He lost just shy of 30#! The weight that he is at now was what he weighed in highschool. Seriously he hasn't seen those numbers in 20 years! It'll be interesting to see how much weight is gained back in the next week when there's actual food in his gut.
















Mark Palmer - Thank you for being an example to your family. Thank you for seeking God's heart, for listening to Him and for obeying. You will never know on this earth how much you have impacted our children. Thank you for being you!

Inagural Ride

On Saturday I told Mark that we needed to figure out how to go on a bike ride with the whole family. Neither Jack or Kate have bikes. But our friend, Tiff, has a bike trailer thingy to pull kids behind.

So we begged her to borrow it, got it from her on Sunday, and took it out for a spin Sunday night after naps. The weather was perfect! Not too hot and not rainy and cold.

Kale had gone to a friend's house to spend the night so we only had the two without bikes but it worked out perfectly actually.

We loaded up our bikes in Mark's truck and headed over the hospital where there are some nice easy(er) paved bike trails. Mark strapped them to the back of his bike and off we went!

The kid laughed and giggled. We had a great time. I'm pretty sure the next time we go won't be quite as enjoyable since the kids will be riding their own bikes...but we're sure gonna try! I hope we'll get to do it more often and even for fun Fridays!

All in the Family

The boys share the talent of raising one eyebrow.I do not have that talent.
Kate does not have that talent.
Impressive.

Totally failed!

We went to dinner last night for Mark's birthday and I totally failed to get even 1 picture!!! Bad wife!

And it was such a fabulous time...we had dinner with our friends Mark and Shelly and their two adorable littles. We haven't hung out with them in forever so it was great to sit and laugh and eat de-lish-us! calzones. So sad that I forgot to document our fun time with pictures.

Then we headed to church for a wonderful presentation of the Passover meal and all that it symbolizes. Seriously amazing!

Sadly, late night = long day = short blog....

But! It was a fun late night!

They Say It's His Birthday...

And they would be right!

Today is the day we celebrate Mark coming into this world. And it is definitely something the kids and I want to celebrate. We're very thankful for this man!

I don't have any awesome birthday pictures for you. This morning we went to the chiropractor, then the kids and I went to the park, ran errands, did school, jumped on the trampoline, ate lunch, and made birthday cards.

After naps we are going to meet Mark at one of our favorite restaurants, Mama's Boy, for some pizza and calzones before heading to the church for the Passover Meal celebration. No we are not Jewish. The reason we're having one is because the Passover meal is not only the last supper that Jesus ate, but a meal that tells us about the coming Christ (through the symbolism). I'm super excited to hear more!

I will leave you with some of our park pictures today. Hopefully tomorrow I will have more actual Mark birthday photos to share.

Doesn't everyone wear a mini-skirt/dress to the park with a winter parka when it's 45* out? Oh yes we did have a little cheek showing every now and then that we had to cover...

Waiting patiently for the others to come down.

And from one extreme to the other. We have a sweater and snowboots....

Marriage and Ministry?

My blog title is a woman's journey through motherhood, marriage and ministry and it is not lost on me that most of my posts are about motherhood. It's an easy one. My kids do the weirdest, funniest, silliest, scariest and sometimes horrible-est things and it's interesting. Plus they don't have much of a say about what I decide to blog on. They're great blog material (and I find it keeps me sane).

But when it comes to marriage and ministry? That's a whole other story. Those two things involve people who do have a say about what I blog about. They may, or may not, want to be my blog material. I totally understand that and want to respect other people's privacy. This is sometimes difficult though because so much stuff happens in both of those areas of my life and it's really challenging to figure out what I can blog about.

I'm saying this because I decided to do a, hopefully, light-hearted blog about marriage. More specifically what it must be like to be married to me.

My friend posted this on her facebook status the other day and I immediately thought of Mark and I. We're weird. But our weirdness is compatible!

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
— Dr. Seuss

One of my weirdness qualities is my ability, or inability, to just sleep. I think I'm a pretty annoying actually. Well I'd be annoyed if I were Mark. I guess that's why our weirdness' are compatible.

For one, my eyelids are way too thin. I turn my clock almost completely off at night because I can still see the light through my eyelids. I have to make sure the curtains are completely shut because any crack of moonlight or sunlight, I see. My cell phone - which charges near my bed - must lie facedown so I don't see it's light. When Mark gets up earlier than me I have to bury my head under the covers because the light that escapes under the bathroom door annoys me. I think I need to invest in one of those masks...

Also I hear everything. I hear a kid crying (and not through the baby monitor), a cat scratching, a dog barking, a coyote howling, wind blowing, rain falling, diesel trucks starting, Mark snoring, the cat giving himself a bath, a watch ticking (I could not sleep one night because there was a watch somewhere in our room that was ticking so loudly!), my own breathing and my mind racing. Sometimes it's so hard to sleep with myself.

We climb into bed, Mark's head hits the pillow and within a matter of literally seconds (maybe 90 seconds at the most) he's asleep. I hear his deep breathing and I'm amazed! I still haven't adjusted my covers, my pillow or my pajamas, or made sure there's no light shining anywhere. I kinda feel like a dog spinning in circles trying to figure out the best way to sleep. It can take me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to fall asleep depending on how many things I "see" or "hear".

Mark tells me to just ignore it. That's what he does anyway. Believe me if I could I would. I'd rather not toss and turn and get up and adjust things. I'd rather fall into a deep sleep like I'd like to but it just doesn't happen that way for me.

We share a queen size bed and really it's fine. We're little people so a king size bed feels enormous. Plus we get cold. Mark says we have a symbiotic sleeping relationship. And I don't really mind sharing warmth but once I'm asleep there's an imaginary line drawn down the center of our bed and I know in an instant if he's crossed it. I've wound up rolling onto my side and rolling right into an elbow. Of course I wake up and Mark does not. Sometimes I'll roll over and there's Mark's foot....across the line! This is going to sound completely ridiculous, I know, but I feel claustrophobic. I kinda gently move him back onto his side of the line.

We also play covers-tug-o-war. He pulls the covers with him when he rolls over leaving me with a cold side. So I pull them back. We do this several times a night. Sometimes when he wakes up and see how many covers he has, he's amazed! Of course he doesn't wake up in the night when we're doing the tugging....

There are the nights when I pray....a lot. For peace. For sleep. For thicker eyelids and ear plugs.

And nights that I pray a prayer of thanksgiving for Mark. Somehow, even though he shares a bed with me, he sleeps! I guess this is one of those weirdness compatibility things.

One Enchanted Evening

Friday evening was the Daddy Daughter Dance at our church. This was the 2nd year they've put this on and my little daughter was beyond thrilled to be going. She woke up Friday morning, came into our room and the first words out of her mouth were "Tonight's the dance!!!" Yeah, she was excited :)

Unfortunately Jack had gotten sick the day before so we took him to the Dr and found out that he mostly likely has the flu. The test came back negative but the Dr was quite confident that that's what he had and that we had caught it very early. He had hung out with our friend Madison on Tuesday who was fine on Tuesday but was diagnosed on Wednesday with the flu. So we were pretty sure he had it. Thankfully he's doing much better today thanks in part to getting him started early on medicine. He's still quite tired but doesn't need to be held 24/7 and that means a lot. I kinda feel like I've been sick for the past couple days because holding Jack that much forces me to stay on the couch or my arms give out. I've seen quite a few cartoons that I really didn't need to see....

Anyway, back to Kate.

Getting her ready for the dance was fun. We'd went last week to find her dress, cut her hair and pierce her ears. After her nap she got her dress on lickity split! And she was beautiful!Then we curled her hair - something she had wanted. After the 15 minutes or so of curling she decided it was too poofy and didn't like it even though it was adorable! She pulled on some of the curls to try and straighten them out but we eventually got her distracted enough to stop. Make-up was the wonderful distraction. I told her I'd put pink eye shadow on her as well as blush. She was very happy with that!She had a smile all night I think! We took pictures - so much like prom - then they headed off to the restaurant of her choice....Sonic! Thankfully Mark took a few photos of their fabulous dinner.
And one from the dance.My friend Kim took some pictures for us too.Seriously this dance was so cool. People spent months preparing. The theme was Never Grow Up. They decorated the sanctuary in a forest theme. Huge trees, lights, stars...it was truly magical. The whole crew did an amazing job. They had a skit, princesses all dressed up talking to all the girls and dads, food, a professional photographer taking dance pictures and a DJ. It was a ton of work but man did those volunteers bless a about 200 dads and daughters. What a gift! A night devoted to the beautiful relationship between a dad and a daughter. Priceless!When they got home they both sat on the couch and told me all about it (I really think Mark had as good a time as Kate! - he told me that we have such a special and beautiful daughter - I love him). Kate talked about the princesses and all her friends who were there. She just kept smiling sleepily. Mark said she wanted to dance the whole time. So they did. The barely stopped to get a drink and have their pictures taken. Needless to say when they got home they were both pretty wiped out but full of precious memories.

Best. Day. Ever.

At least according to Kate it was. And Mark said that after marrying me and the birth of our kids, this day definitely ranked up there with the best day ever. It was because he finally, after many years of dreaming, got to get his new-to-us truck.

See he's been driving a '92 maroon Honda Civic for the past 5 years or so. It's an awesome car and has been a huge blessing for us for a long time (amazing gas mileage). But recently things started falling apart. Not to the extent that it wasn't drivable but that it made driving not so comfortable. The heater wouldn't kick in till he was almost at work (a 25 minute drive!) and if you turned the windshield wipers on you weren't sure when they'd actually start working. It could be 5 minutes later or 20 minutes later. Not so great when you really need them. The "purple sock" (as our friend Mark calls it) was in need of repairs. So we either put more money into this car that we don't want to drive forever or find another one.

Mark has been looking for a new vehicle for over a year. He finally settled on a Toyota Tacoma and began really looking for a good deal. Once our financing went through on the house we were able to get going on the truck. Mark found a good deal on Thursday (online), got a plane ticket to Denver on Saturday (from a friend who works with the airlines - amazing deal! and blessing), got picked up by his dad and together they drove to Colorado Springs to pick up his new toy truck. He grinned for the entire trip home. He is beyond thrilled! And the rest of us think it's pretty awesome too. Mark's waited a long time for this. He deserves a reliable, warm car :)

Here it is. An '09 Tacoma.

We met him in the driveway as he pulled in from his trip and begged for a ride. We all hopped in and drove to get the purple sock at the airport. Then we drove together to town and went to celebrate with dinner at Denny's. {On a side note I think Denny's is highly underrated. We all ate huge meals for just $20. Can't do that at McDonalds! Plus you get breakfast for dinner! Love it!!!!}

We got seated and probably 5 minutes later we got the best view of the Snowdown fireworks! We were right across the way from where they were shooting them. We sat in a warm, comfortable booth and enjoyed fireworks while we waited for our food. We didn't even know Snowdown had fireworks!

And here is Jack's plate of chocolate chip pancakes. Let's just say this gave him the "jolt" he needed to begin hopping on the seat and trying to climb over the back. Thankfully we were in a corner booth so we didn't physically disturb any other customers.

Kate proclaimed on our drive home that this was the best day ever. A new truck, fireworks and dinner out. And I'd agree that it was a pretty awesome day.

Week in pictures

Since it's been over a week since I last blogged I'm hoping to give you a little bit of something interesting to read. I'll catch up more later with more pictures but for now I can let you know what we've been doing!

Last week we spent moving furniture and stuff out of our house because we got new

It was waaay overdue. I'm quite amazed that we put up with our old nasty carpet as long as we did. But this stuff is heavenly! Needless to say it was a TON of work so we haven't truly enjoyed it yet.

We also saw family for a couple days, drove to Silverton and swam at the hotel pool.

On Friday we went
out for a fancy dinner for Pastor Appreciation. So much to tell there but suffice it to say that we rode in a
I had never ridden in one. Ever. So much fun. I'll share more later. Unfortunately I have no pictures so I have to steal them from friends who were there and they haven't posted them yet. When they do I'll steal them and share them!

Saturday was our women's breakfast and then a children's ministry party. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent doing laundry and packing for our trip tofor a wedding. A sweet girl from our youth group was getting married on the beach. We drove to Denver on Sunday after church, dropped the kids off at the grandparent's house and flew out Monday morning for the Monday afternoon wedding. Unfortunately it rained the whole day of her wedding (hadn't rained since December!) but it was still beautiful and we were so glad to be there and be a part of it.The rest of our trip has been spentat that hotel by the pier, driving downthe Pacific Coast Highway in ourtiny little Chevy Aveo :) We had a blast!

We went to Rosecrans Cemetary and Old Point Loma Lighthouseand the beachand Coronadoand the USS Midway. Where we ran from huge planes!It's been fun, relaxing, and crazy all at the same time. We're headed home today and can't wait to squeeze and love on our little ones. We've missed them!

I'm sure I can come up with more pictures later but we're about to board a plane. No wifi up there. :)