Power, Breathe and Living Water

Holy Holy is He.

Jesus your name is Power, Breath and Living Water

She has such a beautiful voice!

Kari Jobe is the newest channel on my pandora and I am LOVING it!

Why have I never thought of this!

I can't believe I have never thought of this.  We have all been there.  Just needing to clean up from breakfast, make dinner, put away the laundry when one or more of your children is/are screaming/whining, grabbing your legs making it so you have "little earthlings" as I say attached to you.

This was me this morning.  I decided at 730 to have playgroup at my house.  I wanted to clean up the breakfast mess and fold the laundry and put it away (and I needed to get dressed and get the kids dressed out of pj's - Cora never made it out of pj's but she looked really cute with her little skirt on over her floral pj's.)

So a friend and I did a little toy swap.  Cameron had played with this little ball popper thing at the Drop & Shop for probably close to an hour (I should have bought it, it was only $7, but we have a LOT of toys) and so I was telling said friend about it and she said you know what, Jenna, we have one, you should borrow it for a few months.  I thought to myself, really!  What a great idea, I will give you something for a couple months and when we get our respective items back the kids will be overjoyed!  On Sunday, we got the toy at Cerissa's from Tara (more info on the craziness of getting 6 families together, read here.  I hadn't taken it out of the car and my oh my am I glad I waited until this morning.

The kids and I had just finished eating breakfast, Cameron was very needy (for some reason and it seems like almost every morning, he just screams at some point in the morning, I think his teeth may hurt, his eye teeth are coming in and he is VERY drooly.

These are NOT very good quality pictures, but this is the evidence of the drool.

People were coming in 45 minutes, I had to get some stuff done before people set foot in my house (most importantly get out of my pj's).

Usually this would be not super easy unless I was RUSHING around like crazy, but the teething toddler pictured above was making it very difficult.

Cue new COOL toy:

Thank you Tara and Playskool for occupying my children for the whole time so I could cram clean (it felt like cramming for finals as I remember telling myself 30 minutes before the exam that I wasn't going to learn anything else and I should just rest and pray a little bit and let the information sink in.  

I was half dressed when the first guests arrived and needing to fold the laundry so people could sit on my couch.  I finished folding the laundry, brought it upstairs and finished getting dressed and joined the fun!

Here are some pictures of late:

Cameron's Words

Mama
Dada
ra-ra/rora (Cora)
ba (ball)
ight (light)
on 
off
ight ight (night night, he actually said it with an n today before his nap!)
hi
bye
hello
elp (help) up
ee (please, he sometimes will say eeash)
water (this is not common but he has said it before)
moo
baah
la la
ow (meow)
oof/woof (roof/woof)
waaa (baby crying)
ga-ma (grandma)
love you
ug (hug)
no
es (yes)
mine
eat
out
own (down)

Why did Jesus die on the cross 'cause?

Uhhh...my daughter asked this yesterday while she was looking through the Easter book that we have. My dad chuckled and said "your mom can answer that or you can ask your pastor."


I thought about it for a second and I said "because people did bad things and God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross."  Yes, she is 3 perhaps the better explanation would have been because He loves us as Andy said later in the day.


Later I told her that God wants to be friends with us and we had sinned/done bad things and we couldn't be friends with God without Jesus.


I have the Jesus Story Book Bible and maybe it is time to start reading it with her before her nap.

The other funny thing that happened yesterday was what she said after reading Fancy Nancy with my father.  My dad was telling Cora that my family, Mimi, Papi, Mama, and Auntie Maressa had been to France.  All of a sudden, she got very sad and started crying.  We asked her what was wrong.  She said, "I sad cause eddybody is going to Paris."  We all chuckled (Andy was home and my grandma was here too) and said oh no we WENT to Paris a LONG time ago.  Before you were born, in fact.  She was very sad for the rest of the night.

Thanks Anna for introducing us to Fancy Nancy!

Cora's Birth Story (Part 1)

Better late than never, right!




I remember so clearly the morning I took the pregnancy test.  We lived on Summer St in a third floor apartment.  Andy was getting ready for work and I used the first sample of the day.  I was probably 5 weeks.  We were doing natural family planning and were pretty open to getting pregnant.  I took the test.  I left the room and left it in there.  We went in together.  We both said, "whoa."  Andy went to work and I don't remember the rest of the day, but I remember that morning so clearly.


I was working at A Woman's Concern in Revere and I really don't remember how long it took for me to tell anyone at work.  I do remember telling my parents.


Andy and I were going to borrow my mom's car (which is sitting in my driveway now as we have inherited it) because she was going to China and therefore had no use for a car in Massachusetts.


We showed up and we talked in the kitchen.  I told my dad the news.  He hugged and kissed me on the forehead and said "Congratulations!"  I got married pretty young and here I was 6 months later pregnant.  He immediately got his cell phone to call my mom who was in California on her way to China.  We had been debating between telling her before she left or after she came home so we could tell her face to face, but if we had waited she would have been the last one to find out and that would have been no good.


"WHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAATTTTT" was my dear mother's response.  "You're WHHHHHHHAAAATTTTT!   I am too young to be a grandmother."

She calls herself Mimi and and I am pretty sure she likes every minute with the child that made her a grandmother.

Holy Week

So it is Holy Week.

The week before Jesus died on a cross for me.  For you.  For all of us.

I didn't give up anything for Lent.  I was "too busy."

God and I have been reinventing quiet time to be a time when it is not so quiet, but the kids are quietly watching a tv show.  Yesterday, when I was feeling so frustrated I wanted to run away, I hid in my closet and journaled.  I am so blessed to have a walk in closet now because I can make that my little prayer closet!!

In study last week, we were talking about why and if Jesus had to come.  Why did Jesus have to come?

disobedient people

sin increasing

a conditional covenant that we couldn't keep

missing out on the relationship with God

God needed to judget His people who had become so disobedient

Jesus took the judgment for us.  He became sin so that we may be forgiven.

Tim preached on the cross this Sunday.  Why the cross?  Why didn't he save himself.

He wants to be with us.  He died to bring us to God.

If that isn't the best news you have heard all day, I don't know what is.

Hillsong United - It's Your Love (Faith + Hope + Love) HQ