Now that baby no. 4 has worked me over for 3 months, I can say that I'm back in the saddle of normality. I actually did laundry yesterday--my dh has selflessly been taking the brunt of the house chores recently. Then today, I made a real meal, or half a real meal--meat and beans, no veggies or bread. It's a good start to getting things done.

I am happy to say that school has not been neglected. DD (4 yo) has been clipping along rather nicely in the shadow of ds (6 yo). He is learning numbers + 1 and she is taking the ropes giving me the correct answers to my great surprise. He is showing little interest in reading, while she picked the correct flash card with the word 'but' today. No teaching on my part--she has been listening!

We bought an unbudgeted item at the store today...the Berenstien Bears Too Much TV. After reading it for our night-night story, I'm feeling pretty guilty about wanting to turn on the thing and kick back with some chips and salsa! ......the guilt has passed and I'll be going now:)

Well, catching up...Kamp Kidney was awesome! Lifechurch.tv had about 20 people volunteer and we almost had more helpers than campers. The kids were so supportive of each other. The theme this year was Encouragement, so they were encouraged to encourage! One of the most touching things someone said was that coming to camp is like being with family; that everyone excepts each other and no one is made fun of for being different. Many of the campers have End Stage Renal Disease for kidney failure so they do dialysis three times a week. Other campers are on Peritoneal Dialysis and brought their machines with them to dialyze overnight. My first time fly fishing and I caught one, thanks to our great fishing instructor Randy.

I came home from camp with a bit of a sickness. The first night home I had a fever and some extreme tiredness. Four days later, I couldn't seem to kick the sleepiness and began to think there was something wrong. I took two naps in one day and decided either I needed to call the doctor or I needed to take a pregnancy test. So I took a test and we are expecting baby number 4! What a blessing to come home from serving the Lord AGAIN and come up with another baby. Baby no. 3 came after my trip to Honduras. So it shouldn't have been a surprise, but God likes to surprise me. We are so excited. The oldest two are very happy about the baby in my tummy and talk to him/her. By the way we are calling it Quatro for now.

So the bookstore is open but I don't have anything set up for selling and I've been so exhausted that it just hasn't gotten done. I expect to begin work on it when I'm over the tired stage. I'm still very excited about it and I hope that it will all come together at the right time.

We started school and are in the third week. So far it's been good with a few bumps and a few complaints like, "I don't want to do school!" Is anybody with me? This year our time spent doing school has doubled but it doesn't feel like it to me. I love the schedule I put together but we aren't doing all of it right now. I knew I was putting a lot into it but since I didn't know what would and would not work I just cut out what we don't want to do and the important stuff still gets done.

Back to work!

Shipwrecked But Not Lost

This book is full of adventure. It is made up of very short chapters making it easy for me to read one or two and not be stuck in a chapter when I'm interrupted. I love the cover of this one. Isn't it beautiful? Well, speaking of beautiful, my dd is summoning me for night-night hugs and kisses.

My One Prayer

If I had only one prayer to offer up to God, what would it be? A few thousand churches throughout the world have been answering this question over the past few weeks. The One Prayer series has challenged the Church to unite and wake up. What can we as the Church accomplish if we act like God wants us to act, give like he wants us to give, pray like he wants us to pray, and love like he wants us to love?

My one prayer would be, "Lord, set us on fire!" We need passion to move and not shrink back. We need endurance to keep going when obstacles come our way. We need REAL love like no one has ever seen. We need to be sick of ourselves. Enough of us...we have hands, lets stretch them out to help those in need. What a bunch of Pharisees we are! Let's stop acting like we're perfect and show the world how raw and flawed we really are. No more hiding behind stained glass and rows of pews holding the Book we've barely read. No more kneeling in prayer for onlookers while pondering which restaurant to take the family at noon. Look up! He's coming soon, and he's carrying a sword. We must be WITH him or we are against him.

What's your one prayer??