Reaping

It's been a good day. One of those days where you see some of your hard work pay off.  After over four years of fighting with Munch, he decided that not only could his hair be washed, but he would do it himself, as well as get himself out of the tub, dry himself off and get dressed himself.  He was so proud that it took him an hour to calm down from the excitement (at bedtime!).  Bubblegum made a good choice of toast and mango for bedtime snack, got the toaster out and put the slices in and pushed down the toaster thingy (with my supervision, of course) and he ate his bedtime snack with gusto and brought his plate to the sink when he was done.  "What is going on with our boys today?"Ryan asked astonished.  We are reaping today. We are enjoying the reaping.  This morning we took them to a house church meeting where Ryan and I were invited to share about the progress of the documentary and his recent trips.  We were there for over 5 hours and these boys said hello to people, answered questions, played with the super cool adults and sat and played quietly while Daddy shared and the group chatted and prayed.  Everyone commented on how well behaved they were. Reaping.  When we returned home there were friends here and they shared their toys, sat down when told to at supper, finished their meals and washed up after. Reaping.
These are the days we need to remember when there are tantrums and whining, many time-outs and talking-tos.  These are the days we encourage, praise and build into these wonderful children we have for a time.  These are the days we enjoy and praise God for His grace over us as imperfect parents.  These are the days we take refreshing breaths and truly know it is all worth it.

I realize that I have put some challenges out there and have not given any updates.  So here's some updates: my New Year's resolution has been pretty good.  The resolution was not set to be perfect but merely to get us outside more.  We have indeed been out more than if I had not se the resolution. It got us out on the coldest days of winter and will continue to get us out in our surprise blizzard days of Spring.  I have been less than par on my 15 minutes of activity a day.  This has probably been the least active I have been in years and my body feels it.  I am achy and tired.  I will try again this week.  I have been reading Ephesians for quite some time now. As a challenge to myself I am going to post a video of me sharing chapters 1 and 2 next week.

The mountains.  We enjoyed our ride home from Kelowna so much.  I never grow tired of the mountains; their size, how each one is so unique, their absolute beauty.  The boys really did love them as much as we hoped.  Munch loved the random waterfalls and Bubblegum would sometimes yell, "BIIIIIIG!"  We were so grateful for our time away as a family.  There was some much needed discussion about what is next for us as a family, where we need to grow, what God has done and is doing.  The boys got to have some great Daddy time swimming and playing and myself and the boys enjoyed our outdoor time, walking and exploring.

 One interesting adventure we had was on our last night there.  We hadn't toured around the rest of the building where the pool was and thought we could look around and possibly play some of the games like ping pong and pool while we were at it.  We explored up to the top floor of the stand-alone building to find a beautiful room with couches, tables, a bar and a huge deck.  It was made for people to rent out and enjoy with big groups.  We went out onto the deck to show the boys how high up we were.  When we went to go back inside we realized the doors were locked from the outside.  We looked around the deck to find no way down....except with great bravery.  With our oldest panicking and me looking away, praying, Ryan climbed around a balcony edge and jumped onto a lower stairwell.  This was not easy for him as he is not a fan of heights.  He made it down safely and let us back into the building.  It was one of those moments when you know God is building character and teaching us about Him and ourselves.  We used it to teach the boys about courage and completing tasks even when we are scared.  The next day as we were checking out, Ryan mentioned to the staff at the front desk about the incident only to find out that our adventure was unnecessary.  Apparently, none of us saw the staircase hidden on the other side of the deck.  We actually had to go back and see it for ourselves as we did not believe them.  There it was...not even 20 feet way.  I said to Ryan, "there is some kind of biblical lesson in this, isn't there?"

Do you see it?  Far right corner. Duh. 

Lastly, I realized that only people who are members of blogspot could leave comments.  I have changed that now so that anyone can comment.  I hope that his means that I will see more in the future as it is encouraging to both me and other readers to hear from you.

Bless you as your begin your week.  Until next time.

Angela