last swim of the season

This is how the conversation went:
Jadon: do you dare me to go jump in the pool?
Me: Sure, you do know it's very cold right?
Jadon: I know, I'll just go out there and jump right in without even thinking about it.
Anna: Can I do it too?
Jadon: It's really cold Anna!
Me: I dare both of you, go for it.

And guess what happened?

Do you see who is wet and who is dry? Anna was in the water so fast I didn't even have time to get my camera ready. Jadon had doubts after seeing his sister's face when she jumped in and came back up.
And then Anna went back in for a second dip while her brother was still contemplating if he would follow through with his dare.

 And then he did it.

 He said it wasn't that cold, yeah right!

Crazy kids! The pool is now officially closed for winter, it will be another 6 months before they start swimming again. I'm thankful because our pool budget goes way down, phew!

What if?

What if I had spent more time with her?
What if we had reached out to their family more?
What if I prayed for her more?
What if I had been a better mentor?
What if I served her better?
What if I loved her deeper?
What if I invited her to more things?
What if I made more time to just sit and talk?

These are all questions I have asked myself over the past several months. I'm talking about a girlfriend of mine (who doesn't read my blog) who I had the pleasure of sharing my faith with. For 8 years I shared Christ with her, I took her to Bible study, we sat on my living room floor studying God's word, I became a mentor to her, she looked up to me and I taught her about being a daughter of Christ, about being a mom, a wife, a friend. We gave her a ride to church, I loved her son as if he was one of mine, and I even had the honor of praying with her as she made her decision to ask Jesus to be her Savior. And then the most special moment, where I got to baptize her on a Sunday morning in front of our friends and family. Even after that day our talks continued, our time in Bible study was a weekly event, but then she started drifting. It was a slow drift, not really noticeable at first. She started talking about a couple who she met at the Asian market, they spoke her language and she loved that. She was drawn to them. She hadn't been able to speak her native tongue with anyone and she was excited to finally have someone to communicate with who could understand her every word. She was introduced to a community of people who spoke her language. She started attending church with them, I began to hear the term Jehovah Witness. Before long her husband started going to church with her, something he had never done with her before. It wasn't long before she spent less time at our church and more time with them. I noticed this couple's van (the same couple who introduced her to the JW church) at her house almost on a daily basis. I'm sure this made them feel special, feel wanted, feel needed, feel like they had community. I can't tell you how hard it was to restrain myself from walking up to her house (she lives two doors down) and fight for her faith, to come back to what she had learned for those 8 years I had spent with her. She assures me she studies the same Bible, she believes the same things. I know better. It makes me very sad. I have conversations with her son. He tells me they will no longer be celebrating Christmas because he is now not sure that Jesus was even born. My heart broke, I assure Him that Jesus was born, that Jesus died on the cross, that Jesus will be returning and that Heaven waits for us, for him. I remind him, I practically beg him to never forget that Jesus loves Him so much, regardless of what church he goes to. And then I'm left with so many questions like I mentioned above. All those what ifs?
What do they have that we didn't have? Could it be that they finally found a community that they had never experienced before? I'm at a loss. All I can do is pray, pray that God will reveal Himself like He never has. That they will discover the truth and that the truth will set them free. My conversations are so limited now, she has placed a distance between us which makes it nearly impossible to dive into a deep conversation. There is a darkness in her eyes, as if something has a hold of her. The light that was once there is gone, I haven't seen it in a long time. I miss that. I miss her. Her husband won't make eye contact with me, not even a glance to allow for a friendly wave. For once in his life he is diving into the church thing, he wants to tell others about his new found faith yet he won't even look my direction? It confuses me. Why did he never come to church with her, with us. What do they have that we don't? Her son comes down less frequently, he now has to ask if he can come down and play and most of the time he is told no. What can I do? I know I can't live out her faith for her, I can't make decisions for her, she has to be the one to do that. I guess I have to let her go down this path and pray like the persistent widow that she return to her faith in Jesus. I just can't help but feel a little responsible.

What if I had spent more time with her?

What if we had reached out to their family more?

What if I prayed for her more?

What if I had been a better mentor?

What if I served better?

What if I loved deeper?

What if I invited her to more things?

What if I made the time to just sit and talk?

the rest of the story & more fun!

My last post was about Camden injuring his foot at the Go Daddy family picnic. I wanted to share more pictures from the day and update on Camden's foot. We took Camden to the foot doctor yesterday because he still would not put any weight on it. We found out that he most likely has damage to the ligament that runs across the top of the foot (called the lisfranc ligament) so he is now in a walking boot that he has to wear day and night for six weeks. So far he's doing great with it but I have to remind myself that this is only day 2 and we have 40 days left. I'll have to add a picture of his boot, I just haven't gotten around to taking a picture yet. But here are some other pictures from our fun time at Michael's work picnic. My parents joined us for the fun too!

Ouch!

Today we went to a family picnic that Michael's work put on. It was so much fun! We had a great time. I will blog more about it this week but wanted to share a few pictures tonight. This is a picture of Camden going down a super fast slide, I took this picture seconds before he crashed at the bottom and hurt his foot. It got twisted at impact and boy did it hurt!

He was in so much pain at first that he actually got nauseated and had to sit down for a while. He has such a high pain tolerance so when he complains, we know it's bad. We managed to get his high top shoe back on his foot for support and he was able to limp around the picnic the rest of the day. He wasn't his normal bubbly self and a few hours later, he was doing this.

 We took the shoe off to get a better look and discovered he was brusing near the bottom of his foot and it was probably a good idea to take him in for X-rays. You can kind of see the bruising on this picture on the side of his right foot.

After a visit to the urgent care, they didn't find any fractures on the x-rays but the radiologist will have the official read in the morning. They sent him home with it wrapped and gave him crutches. The crutches were fun for about the first hour and as the day went on, not so much. And out of all our kids, Camden is the one who has the hardest time just being still and doing nothing. So needless to say this afternoon has been very frustrating for him, which means it has been frustrating for us dealing with him and this is only day 1 of the ouchie foot. I sure hope he wakes up doing much better in the morning and that all we are dealing with is a sprain. Whatever it is, I have a feeling it's going to be a hard week for him!

Breakfast, science, and a recital

I can't believe I have only written one post in October! The reason for this, Tis' the season for my photography business. My weekends are filled with photo shoots, my week days are filled with homeschooling, and any spare minute has been spent finishing a study I have been writing on the book of Zechariah. Crazy busy times I tell you but I really can't complain. I finally have a minute to update on my poor neglected blog, so here we go.
The other night before bed Anna took our breakfast orders and wrote down what we would like for breakfast the next morning. I then woke up to this:
Anna LOVES to serve others. She has such a servant's heart. And she has some pretty amazing skills in the kitchen.

 Here she is reviewing the breakfast orders that she wrote down.

 She knows how to make scrambled eggs all by herself, I'm always in arms reach but she loves to do it all by herself.

 Ta da!

 And after she served everyone, I made her her favorite breakfast, a breakfast burrito!

 Camden takes the simple approach to breakfast while Jadon....

 prefers a more sophisticated one.

My husband had a great idea a few weeks ago when he said, "Let's have a Science fair!" He said how it would be fun to invite our homeschool friends over on Halloween and everyone can bring something science related to share. So that's what we have been working on lately. All three kids have a different theme, I'll blog about the boys later because right now it's sort of under wraps and it's top secret but thought I would share what Anna has come up with so far. Her theme is all about crayons. I had no idea so many different experiments could be preformed using crayons, thank goodness for google. I got this first idea from another homeschool mom. It was super fun!

 We also experimented with mixing paint colors.

 Michael and Camden brainstorming about his project (top secret at the moment)

Anna and I also did a crayon shaving experiment and ended up making sun catchers. It was so much fun! I love being homeschooled, I mean homeschooling our kids!

 After the crayon shavings, you put it between two sheets of wax paper and then between newspapers and iron on the low/dry setting for a few seconds.

 And you'll have to wait to see the finished product after the science fair!

Our dog has been sleeping a lot. Perhaps it's because he is aging. It used to be that he would go to bed at the same time as Anna now he is often in her bed waiting for her when she goes to bed. This particular night he was sound asleep when she climbed in. 

And last but not least, Anna had her piano recital! We did a few pics before we went. 

 I'm surprised that Anna will wear a dress, she's such a tom boy and will proudly tell you that she is. She loves boys things so it makes me happy when she gets all prettied up! But it didn't take long for her to do this.....(see last picture)

 Now that's more like it!