as Jules is going - Page 150 of 154 - make disciples of all nations

Our Town

May 25, 2011 by Jules 3 Comments

Last Year's "1st Time Around the Block"

Last year around this time we were living in a different town, in a different house, with only 2 babies instead of 3. This was my original idea for something fun to activity play with my (then) almost 2-year-old. Masking tape on carpet + big blocks= roads and buildings. I mapped out the town while she was down for nap, using the tape as an outline for the roads and the Xed out sections where of course going to be the city blocks where building were. Silliness. Although it was a good exercise in sorting by color and then stacking/building blocks, it was not practical, especially for her age. She could care less about the "buildings" and it only made sense to drive ON the tape...not in between.

We did have fun though. "We" even used other toys in our town:

Curious George by the YELLOW buildings of course

Our King Kong on a tall tower

And every town needs a flying Superman!

My perfectionist self did finally let my kid play...hehe

A year later we tried this fun activity again.

This is NOT our "1st Time Around the Block"

- Stress - Expectation - Details - mom-input + a sibling= FUN!

bahaha Roads, roads, and more roads for all of our cars and little people. This is a product of a rainy day, 2 energetic toddlers, a desperate mom (who was trying to make lunch), and 1/2 a roll of painters tape. *Bonus: it's Still on the floor~ covered by the playroom area rug. I'm love'n it!

My 3-year-old (in June, as she'd tell you) daughter, Mags kept coming to the kitchen to tell me, "the cars keep 'getting' the little people." She had to help each, individual, little person go to bed so they'd be safe from the cars "getting" them (yeah, I know...I don't get it either). and Yes...entering the kitchen each and Every time she successfully helped a little person make safely to bed to announce her accomplishment. That's a LOT of little people to help in one morning.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: around the block, cars, fun, little people, masking tape, paint tape, play, preschool, roads, toddler

31 Days to Clean: Day(s) #19-21

May 21, 2011 by Jules 3 Comments

31 Days to Clean Having a Martha House the Mary way

Day 19 – Finding Joy in the Self-Disciplined Life

Mary Challenge: Do a study on words “self-discipline” and “joy” in the bible.

I used to consider myself a disciplined person. USED TO! I really struggle in this area right now. I know the importance of it both for a functional, less-stress life as well as for the Christian life. I really enjoyed the word study! Gonna be working on this one. I am still working on "fighting fatigue" by getting up at a regular time. Not Disciplined...

Martha Challenge: Bathrooms – Clean out and organize your medicine cabinet and closet. Throw away old cosmetics, beauty products, medicine, and junk in general! Update your first-aid kit.

Once again. LOVE organizing! Sadly, I still had a drawer in my dresser full of randomness from our move last year. You hear me...a stuffed full dresser drawer of stuff. My hubby and I had recently "purged" in loo of the book Radical but we were both surprised to find more things that could go.

Our medicines (except night time ones) are kept in the kitchen cabinet so we had already cleaned up, organized, and updated.

Day 20 – Time

Mary Challenge: Take an honest appraisal of your time. Write out how you are using the hours in your day, and keep a log; be specific. This is a good exercise to do, because once you can figure out exactly how you are spending your time, you can then pull the weeds of wastefulness and work towards a more productive and time wise schedule (which we’ll be talking about on Monday).

Plan on logging my day soon. I just haven't had time. Bahahahaha No, seriously though. I know this will be a helpful task. I so want to find those "weeds" that need to be tended to. I have the same 24 hours-a-day these other, much more productive, moms have. Gonna do it...I'll give an update soon.

Martha Challenge: Bathrooms – Wash mirrors and inside of windows. Wash window treatments and walls. Dust ceilings.

Check! The mirrors where a pain because they are those huge plates the full length of the counter tops. Ugg! I am very glad only 3 of the 4 bathrooms have tiny windows and no curtains (although I haven't cleaned the blinds)! As I've said before:

Confession: didn't do it (wash walls/windows that is)...yet. Upstairs time is scares at my house with 3 under 3. I haven't figured out a way to work upstairs while they are not sleeping in their rooms. I did wash window treatments and finally hung the ones in the girls room (rather than the sheets blocking the light). I hate washing/dusting blinds though...any helpful hints?

oh, and I'm 5'2"...ceilings...prolly never happening. Maybe the cobwebs in the corners with a broom ;o)

Day 21 –The Importance of a Plan

Mary Challenge: Take some time to prepare a plan for managing your home.

1. Envision the goal.

2. Formulate a plan.

3. Do the necessary work.

Martha Challenge: Bathrooms – Clean toilet, scrub shower and tub, clean floors.

Gonna take this time to brag on the handsome hubby: I could NOT have done the bathrooms with out his help. He did a little bit of everyting- scrubbed a tub, wiped down counters, ran up and down the stairs entertaining children, helped purge, took out trash, scrubbed some toilets...you get the picture.

I had fallen behind with my 31 days to clean and wanted to knock out all of the bathroom "Martha Challenges" all at once to get back on track and get ahead. Mission complete!

Master Bathroom

DANG! That's a bed full-a-stuff! PURGED!

Kid's/Hall Bathroom

The girls bath toys had gotten a little out of hand and were leaving puddles on the floor so we got a new ($1.oo) baskets to store some in to make rotating them out easier. I can't believe that giant pile of stuff was all in these cabinets and drawers. In each bathroom, we pulled everything out and only put basics back in. I am also trying to retrain myself to fold the towels different from I was trained as a child so they will fit flatter, higher, and more stable in these wide cabinets.

Guest Bathroom

I have always tried to provide essentials that an overnight guest might have forgotten or that would make their stay more comfortable. The baskets in the after picture are old baskets I had in a closet that I spray painted black, along with lots of other beat up ones, so they would all match.

Who's ready to visit??? We're ready to host!

What makes you feel comfortable at someones house, over night or just for the afternoon?

Filed Under: Cleaning Tagged With: 31 Days to Clean Sarah Mae Julie Rothacher Bathrooms Clean Wash Walls Tubs Tiolets Windows Hubby

A Journey of God’s Goodness

May 21, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Today's post is a guest post from my amazing Hubs, Matt Rothacher!

A journey of God’s goodness

When guests come to our house I often find myself telling various length versions of how we came to reside in 5 Concord Drive, and my wife asked me to share one of those versions here (she was vague on the length so if this gets really long, she brought this upon herself)…

About a year ago my lovely wife and I began to feel that God was moving us into a new place of ministry and, as with any move, perhaps the most important facet is where you will live. My bride loves looking at different houses and so anytime a new church would contact us it would free her up to scour the internet looking for our next home. Now, I’m not as big of a house enthusiast as my wife, but I did get excited to search for our next abode, so I helped in the internet hunt. As I did, I stumbled across an enormous house in the area of town we were looking for a price well below the norm. The house was listed on multiple sites, but the majority of those only had a single picture of the outside. With much effort, I found the one site with pictures of the inside. The aesthetic condition of the inside appeared to be a big part of why it was priced where it was, and I set my heart on it.

To understand the whole picture of this gift I have to let you in on what God was doing in me apart from just relocate. For weeks, prior to beginning the interview process, my emotions had been going haywire. I would find myself tearing up when watching the Biggest Loser, which isn’t totally abnormal but I was crying when they’d step on the scale before any emotional twist came. It was always the same- I felt the need for the emotional release and tears would start to come out and then it was if someone just shut it off and the fullness would remain. Then God clued me in on what was going on.

I was sitting in the initial interview meeting with the staff of our new church, and noticed both of them using iPhones which of course set off my “I want one of those” rants, and they assured me that all staff received an iPhone. I couldn’t tell you anything else about that meeting after that but I came home telling my wife all about the iPhone and little else about the church. This caused me to stop and ask God why I was so excited about a silly phone. What I found is something I’m not proud of; I had lost my faith in God’s goodness towards me and my life. Now I could with great confidence and belief tell you that God desired to give you the desires of your heart, I just had become jaded to the fact that He cared about my desires. Or rather that my desires just never matched His for my life.

This poor thinking was a direct result of the birth of my first child, Maggie. I, like most men, really wanted a boy (for the record I would not trade my Maggie for a thousand boys) and the entire pregnancy I wanted this baby to be a boy. I knew though, from the very beginning, that she was not a boy. We didn’t find out the sex until her birth but I knew. I knew because I wanted a boy and therefore God would not give one to me. It was a horrible image of God, I knew this, but it was my image of Him. Apparently it was set in place almost two years before I realized it bothered God even more than it bothered me. So back to the iPhone and my question, “why this phone was so exciting?” God’s answer to my question was one that spoke healing into my heart. “I am going to prove my goodness to you through this move. I want to give you the desires of your heart even the ones as small and seemingly insignificant as an iPhone.”

I mentioned that the house was already listed well below average, so much so that you looked at the price, and then at the square footage and concluded: problem. Something’s gotta be wrong with it. We were sure that there was probably something wrong with the foundation and clearly the interior needed some immediate attention, but I loved it and began asking God to give it to me at a price our family could afford. We made an offer $25,000.00 below the asking price, contingent on there not being foundation damage, and they took it! Our home inspection found nothing wrong with the foundation at all, which came as shock to everyone but my wife and I. The price of the house versus the size of the house was so unbelievable to the bank financing our loan that they sent their own inspector and made a structural engineer come out to look at it; it passed again! Every step of the move God showered His goodness upon me with the house being the second biggest blessing of it. God capped off our move with a completely unexpected blessing. His name is Benjamin and he is the son of my right hand. My God gives the best gifts; he truly cares about the desires of His children’s heart!

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” –Jesus (Matthew 7:11)

*To learn more about My handsome hubby or to read Matt's blog click here.

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: 31daystoclean, desires, God is Good, home, iPhone, journey, julie rothacher, matt rothacher, Matthew 7:11

“I got Seberal fings to do today!”

May 19, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

"Maggie, you are supposed to be at the table for breakfast," I remind my (almost) 3-year-old this morning as I came downstairs with her little sister.

She boldly announces to me from her playroom, "Mamma, I got Seberal things to do today!" She continues with her "list" as she reluctantly follows me into the dinning room, "I got to Play wit my rug; get dressed, take a nap, get a pencil, get up, eat breakfast, go back to nap, go to Izzie's house (her sister). I got seberal fings to do in my kitchen."

Crack'n me UP!
"Be careful little eyes what you see (read). Be careful little ears what you hear. Be careful little feet where you go." My prayer that I will breathe life into children daily, not tearing them down. They not only repeat, verbatim, words and phrases we use or read to them but also quickly pick up on and reproduce attitudes, moods, and concepts being display before them. This "concept" has not only come from, I'm sure, me and my crazy "to-dos" but also from a simple silly book in our home (from my hub's childhood), "Frog and Toad Together" by Arnold Lobel.

Even better than this...she's got a shadow who is watching my every move AND her big sis!

What have you caught your kiddos saying/acting out that came directly from you or something you've exposed them to? I love these kind of stories!

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: attitudes, children, concept, daily, display, exposed, Frog and Toad, kiddos, lists, moods, prayer, reproduce, she said, verbatim

Here Turtle Turtle Turtle!

May 18, 2011 by Jules 4 Comments

I have had a ROUGH morning! Can't even really put my finger on why. One of those days where you wake up later than you wanted to, moved to slow to get ready before the hubs has to leave for work, ya eat a wholesome poptart and DP breakfast, the toddler and preschooler are finding all the "bad choices" they can to get lots of your negative attention, the preschooler has decided today is not the day she is going to become fully potty trained but instead is going to full-out poop and pee herself, lunch consisted of ham and cheese sandwiches, and all ya wanna do is scream then hide in the quiet pantry and eat oreos...melodramtic, I think not.

God decided to change my afternoon!

As both my girls headed upstairs for nap and the babe was still snoozing, I looked out my front window to watch a women shoving something out of her car into my side yard. She proceeded to poke at it and stare at my yard... I RAN to grab my shoes, threw them on as fast as I could, all with a huge smile on my face. As I hurriedly unlocked the front door I watched the car drive away. As quickly as possible, without bringing awkward attention to myself from my across-the-street neighbor and alerting him to my craziness , I wide-strided it across the yard in the vicinity of where I saw the yard-pocking women drop off something. I'm sure if that neighbor had seen me he would have thought I was a crazy eyed little kid looking to get into trouble.

I FOUND IT! That's right, it was a TURTLE!!!

Isn't he CUTE?!?! (Could she have sat it any closer to the curb?)

I snapped this shot, watched him for a moment (hunkered down like a preschooler investigating something on a field trip), and then, as if there were any other options, picked him up and carried him quickly over to my house all the while trying to figure out where I was going to keep him. hmmm... This will work until the girls get up from nap and I introduce them to our new friend:

Sooo excited!!! Eeeee!

This may sound just plain silly to all you sane people out there but here's a little background and what I feel God is trying to tell me on this HORRIBLE day.

When I was a child, one of the things my mom Always let us do was "save" turtles from off the road! We could be driving along, in a hurry to somewhere, I'm sure, and we would see a turtle in the middle of the road. It never failed, whether it was her idea or my brothers and mine, we would "save" the turtle by just moving it to the side of the road or on some occasions, TOOK IT HOME! I usually don't advise taking them home. Most of ours, if kept in a box, did not like lettuce, ripped up grass, and dirt we threw in there to create a lovely habitat for them.

Every time (and I DO mean Every time) I see a turtle in the road, to this day, I want to "save" it. I once "saved" a turtle during the 1st year of my marriage. One the way home, on my 45 minute commute, I found a turtle and naturally brought it home. When I arrived home, bearing my treasure and grinning ear to ear, my hubby just raised his eyebrows in confusion as he stared back and forth at me and my new friend. "Why?" he asked. I was taken back..."why"...why would I need a reason? That's just what you do. He proceed to explain to me that it was not a good idea to "save" turtles. Reasoning: danger factor- for me to be in the middle of the road just like it is for the turtle, sickness factor- wild creature, weirdness factor- it just is, and the turtle factor- this is not his home, wilderness is, they don't really eat lettuce and carrots, and so on. Ok ok, I hear ya. So I submitted to his God-given and obviously well placed authority. No more turtles coming home. I placed that one in our giant, treeless backyard, hoping it would live there and like it! I checked on him the next day and some how he'd escaped my fenced in paradice...boo!

This morning was different though! For some unknown reason, a random stranger in a white station wagon (also hold a place in my heart), cruised down my cul-de-sac and chose my yard of all the other well-wooded yards to place this little guy in. YAY! Our Father is good! There are so many little nuggets I could pull from this but today I'm going to walk away with: my Heavenly Father knows me! He knows my past, present, future. He KNOWS me! He knows me today. He knows I had a rough morning. He knows a silly turtle in my yard would make me smile! Tears are coming just thinking about how loving He is toward me. He's not disappointed in me. He's not upset because I lost my cool with my babes this morning. He isn't giving up on me because I wasn't seeking His detailed will from my life today. He knew I needed some encouragement today and He knows me so well that He places a turtle in my yard to jog a silly memory from childhood, renew my joy, and give me inspiration to interact more meaningfully with my girls this afternoon!

What kind of turtle stories do you have? I'd love to hear them. PLEASE share.

*side note: I intend on putting the turtle in our backyard while the girls Ooo and Awe over him, give him a name, have a lesson about adorable little turtles, and then set him free!

**UPDATE**

Pics of my girls spotting and chasing the turtle

Filed Under: Parenting, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: 31daystoclean, crazy, cul-de-sac, encouragement, habitat, He Knows Me, lettuce, neighbor, sane, snapped this shot, TOOK IT HOME, turtle, Why?