Why Not?

I know it has been a while since I blogged. I have several reasons why. One is that I am having techinical difficulty with my digital camera uploads. Since I am not necessarily a techno-savvy person that is a big mountain to scale for me. I really haven't had the time to try lately.

We also established this weblog to be fun and show off our family pictures. We have gone through a series of hard providences. We have come out on the other side a little more patient and thoughtful (I think, I hope anyway). These things always serve to remind us that we are not as big or tough as we think we are. We really do need to hang onto Jesus. When it comes down to it, He is all we have. We really are thankful for our church family that has been Jesus with skin on for us.

We are hoping and praying that this year will be one to blog happy things about:) It has started already:
My good friend, Valerie BBG, had a beautiful baby boy. You can look here to see for yourself.
We also got a new niece on Dec. 21! She caused much excitement for her parents, her aunt, uncle and cousins. Most of all for her big brother. He is quite enamoured with her. We know he is going to take good care of her.

We also got my mom for Christmas. Not just for a visit, but to stay! She has a nice, little place just down the street from us. She has decided to call it Providence, which is a very fitting name for the house. It is a good reminder and testimony of God's goodness even in hard circumstances.

I bought sauerkraut!

You might well ask why. I will tell you-for Reformation Day. Now you are probably wondering what that is all about. I am not going to miss this opportunity again. We are going to celebtate October 31st with German fare and some fun educational things, that have yet to be decided. In case you were wondering, it is the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Whittenberg. Celebrating God's providence through this man is a much better way to spend that day, I think, rather than simply not celebrating Halloween as we have in the past. Well, so much for leaving the controversial things to Carmon:)

Look who's nine!

Yes, our oldest is nine, as of tomorrow. We have a lot of fun playing with our funhouse pictures. We couldn't find a pirate, but our BusyBee settled for being a WWI flying ace. What a blessing our boy is. Happy Birthday!!!

I love a contest.

I do love contests. I like playing games and having fun. I am honest enough to admit that I like winning, but I also enjoy playing too. So here is a contest definately worth entering at the In A Shoe website
This contest is quite a challenge for me on several fronts. I had to learn a couple of new computer skills. One was learning how to insert a link in my post. The information was graciously provided on Karen's website. Then if you link to the contest you can actually enter for a second contest for another worthwhile prize. I hope my friend Valerie(BBG) is proud of me.

The contest has a prize from Vision Forum for $700.00 worth of products. That is for the family that guesses the number of items in the new Vision Forum catalog that is coming out. There will also be a drawing for 2 $50.00 gift certifcates from VF as well. Nice prizes and lots of fun. If you click on the In A Shoe link and then follow the directions you too can enter.

Fun, fun, fun for everyone.

Good News.

We had to postpone our carwash until this last Saturday. We were blessed with great weather and a wonderful crew. We raised $410.00 all together. Some came from people at church that donated even though they could not come to the car wash. Some was also earned at the carwash. The money all went to Dave and BeckyLynn Black for the Ethiopian churches they minister to. Our family has been blessed to be involved with their ministry in a hands-on way. This was great for us and the children.

Growing by leaps and bounds.

It is hard to believe that our little munchkin is big enough for the "jumpy duck" already. It seems that she was born only yesterday. She is such a sweetie. We are going to have to change her nickname from Our Latest Model to Bubbles. She likes to blow lots of spit bubbles. We sure wouldn't trade her for the world.

Look who's forty!

Yes, it is true. It happened on 9/11 this year! The best looking guy turned forty. His loving wife got some of his buddies together to have a surprise BBQ. It turned out so great. The birthday boy was clueless enough to even attend in his orange "safety" shirt from work. They all had a good time involving fire (on the grill), guns and fellowship. The next day the adult Heaths (with our Latest Model tagging along) departed for a beach trip. The kids all did extremely well by keeping all the secrets from Daddy's present (a new gun) to the surprise party. Pretty impressive really!

The Birthday Princesses!

I found the picture! The pretty Birthday Princesses! Yay! I am so blessed with these girls. I am thankful for their younger sisters too.

The Cake

Ah-ha! I found the cake picture. The Barbie part of it was even edible. The children's aunt found incredible pleasure in cutting the cake.

Switch!

Okay, If I had previewed it then I would have known that I didn't have the right picture in the previous post. Oh well.

This is the picture of one of the birthday girls. The picture with the birthday post is of our Monster child. She is doing her topless hula impression in front of all of our Costco. stuff that had yet to be put away. Okay, I am off to try to find the cake and the picture of both girls.

The Princess Diaries

Well, I think I got the picture of the Birthday Girls. Tabitha and Tahlia turned 5 and 3, respectively, on Labor Day weekend. We went shopping. The girls were each allowed to pick an outfit, a doll and a nail polish. The older princess surprisingly picked a pants outfit (albeit with plenty of pink), a Princess Barbie and white nail polish. The younger one picked a pretty pink dress, a Snow White fabric doll and pink nail polish. They picked Burger King to eat at because it has a playground. To each her own, I guess.

Sunday we celebrated with some cake and ice cream and a special dinner for their aunt as well. I will see if I can locate the picture of the cake. It was sooooo pink.

Down at the Carwash

One of the latest projects we are working on is a carwash. It is to raise money for the Blacks in their ministry to the Ethiopian churches. We have been privileged to send eyeglasses with them on one of their trips. That was a "hands-on" need that we could do. The kids got to help pick out eyeglasses at the dollar store. Then we packaged them up and sent them to Virginia to our friends that distributed them. It was great to get the pictures and updates from that trip. It is a great way for our children to be involved with our brothers and sisters in a different nation. Hopefully, it will stir their hearts to be compassionate and giving. It is also great to let the churches in Ethiopia know that we remember them in prayer and in tangible ways. It is so personal and we are thankful for this opportunity. So for a "hands-on" way to earn some money we are washing cars two Saturdays from now. I will take pictures to send and also to post. We are praying for good weather since it is prone to rain here anytime.

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. I Cor. 9: 1-11 Amen.

September Flurries

It actually starts tomorrow...
The birthday flurry of the Heath household. My sister-in-law will kick it off and it will end with a birthday leaking over into October. Does it count if his due date was September? The oldest three girls' birthdays are all in September. The big daddy-O has the dubious honor of turning forty on the 11th. We have a couple of nephews and one dear friend's son also in September. Our oldest son is the one that slid into October.

We do try to make each child's birthday a special treat. We have stolen some ideas from the Friedrichs, who have more children than we do at this point. So instead of big parties or expensive trips to Chuck E. Cheese's we do some personal things for them. I think that through out the years those are the things that they will remember. I plan on taking some pictures and posting the birthdays as they happen. Hopefully, I will make up for my lack of blogging this month.

For Rebazooka!!!!

I have not blogged lately because of the lack of anecdotal material. I want this blog to be a funny little window into our family. We have had some hard kind of things hit us recently that take precedence over blogging. I had a request to keep up some entertainment so here goes:

The word is famulus. I had never heard of this word before. It means an attendant or assistant, especially of a medieval sorcerer or scholar. Now how would you use that in every day conversation, hmmmmm?

I will blog some more when I have more energy. Hope this satiates my audiences thirst for new vocabulary words.

Seven Happy Years

My husband and I attended a couples' Bible study. One of the first meetings the couples introduced themselves. We were to say our names and how long we had been married. One very funny gentleman introduced himself and his wife. He then said they had been married for 19 happy years...and that isn't too bad out of 25. This Saturday my husband and I have been married for 11 years. Now you can figure out how that is related to the title.
We have had some hard times and some good times. We both have more mileage on us than we had at the altar. We also have six children that adds quite a bit to the equation. I sure am glad that we have each other. He is the best friend that I have. There was a teacher I had back in YWAM that said after 10 years of marriage he and his wife really loved each other. Then after 20 they really knew what love was. Then after 30 they really knew. I think he might really have know what he was talking about:) I love my husband more now than I did then. I am looking forward to the next decade in our marriage.
Happy Anniversary to you Mr. Heath.

For Five Minutes

I have achieved a clean house. Yes, I know it is hard to believe, but I have done it. It only took shipping out the oldest three to relatives and about a week of scrubbing. If I can avoid feeding the Menace twins in the house then I could actually keep it clean for more than the foreseeable five minutes.

Full hands/ full heart.

Our latest model is displayed here with one of her very (overly at times) loving sisters. I snapped a shot and had to re-snap this shot to censor the in-need-of-cleaning counter in the original shot's background. I know that one day my house will be in order, clean and with everything in its place. I am sure those will be the days when I long for the sounds of laughter and childhood delight that accompany all the dirt and smudges. I think it is all about learning contentment. I still took a different picture minus the smudges.

We do have lots and lots of love at our house. We also have lots and lots of kids to love. I am thankful that the big problem we have with our Latest Model is that we have to protect her from too much affection foisted on her by her siblings. The most dangerous, of course, being the Menace Twins. When we go out in public with all six of the kids we get many different types of responses. They range from downright rude to smiles of congratulations. I think the most heard one is, "Wow, you have your hands full!" I am guessing that because I took all six to the pharmacy this morning. We picked up some medicine and a couple of presents. After I paid and we were leaving, our oldest son beat the cashiers to the punch. He told them, "Yes, we do have our hands full!" I read a response from someone else that has a large family that I have used several time because it is perfect. "Yes, my hands are full, but so is my heart."

I have fingerprints continuously on my sliding glass door, no matter how often I clean it. I also have a sweet toddler that loves to give hugs and "eskimo" kisses. I have more dandelion bouquets than space for them. I have boys telling me how beautiful I am on a regular basis. I have hands to hold and people to go with me for walks. I have lots of people to dance with and they never say I look silly when we do. Yes, our hands are full, but so are our hearts.

A rose by any other name...

We have nicknames for all the kids, but we are sadly lacking for nicknames in the grown-up department. I have been thinking of changing Menace #2 to Monster. Then we can have the Monster Report. It might even be more entertaining than ETC's Chicken Report. If I comment on Monster's antics then it keeps things in perspective too. Toothpaste does come off of bathroom cabinets. She is also washable. Now if we can convince her to stay out of the DVDs and keep the water IN the bathtub instead of on the floor we will really be ahead of the game. Anyway, before I digress too much, our vast reading audience is welcome to suggest nicknames for the adult Heaths.

Still getting the hang of it.

I am still battling my computer handicap. I wanted to upload some gorgeous pictures of Mts. Rainier and Adams that a friend of ours took. Some how I am not getting them to come through as of yet. I am going to keep trying though. I am not going to let a computer get the best of me. Hopefully I can do it with a modicum of patience.

The temperatures have changed to completely pleasant here. The outdoors beckon so thus this shall be a short post.

Ode to Jan's

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways...

The Jan's I refer to is our local thrift store. It is officially called Jan's Lost and Found. My sister-in-law introduced me to this lovely store years ago. The only problem with Jan's, since they aren't allowed to smoke in there anymore, is that the experience ruins ordinary thrift stores like Goodwill. Jan's usually has several items that are advertised on their board for 10 cents. For example, yesterday all shoes, dresses and skirts were 10 cents. They also have a color posted and anything that is that color or contains that color is 10 cents. You get the gist of it.
Yesterday I scored some dresses for myself (it is very hard to find modest dresses that are the right size and that I can breastfeed in), some jeans for the boys, a couple pairs of shoes for the girls and some baby outfits for our latest model. The grand total was $3.43 (tax included). It just doesn't get any better. I don't think anyway.
Now you know why I am a Jan's junky.

A Thing of Beauty!

It may not look like much to many, but it truly is lovely. It actually isn't the visual effect that is so stunning. It is the audio effect. Not too long ago our sink lost pressure and started emitting a horrible noise akin to a jet taking off. Definately more annoying than a "squeaka, sqeuaka" from a wet binky. The noise would fluctuate from not too bad to extremely annoying while doing dishes. My wonderful husband took the entire thing apart to see what in the world could be wrong with it. The sprayer worked just fine the entire time without the noise. The dismantling process answered no questions so we have lived with the objectionable noise until this weekend. I bought a new faucet last payday. While my husband slaved over our bathroom project, his brother-in-law put in the new faucet. The lack of noise is truly a thing of beauty! I had to call a couple of friends to force them to listen to my sink. Of course, I had to call after I came home because I valiantly sacrificed and took all the kids to swim. It was so rough floating in the pool during our heat spell. If that is the sacrifice I have to make to have the house worked on then so be it. I will do it again if it is necessary. Lots of kudos to the two heroes of the hour-you know who you are!

Introductions...

I have some pictures of the kids so I can introduce them. I seem to be lacking in pictures of the adults. Hmmmm, maybe it is because I take most of the pictures when the hubby is busy slaving away supporting all of us. I found that I have to post each picture and comments in a different post. I couldn't figure out how to get pictures and comments to go together is just one post. I told you that I was techno-challenged.

Latest Model

This little girl was our only girl not born in September. She arrived on my Nana's birthday, though. That was kind of special. She has been quite a joy to have around. All her siblings love her and want to hold her and squeeze her and call her George (okay, maybe not the George part, but the rest is true).

Menace #2

This picture tells the whole story on this one. She is into everything. She does, however, live life to the fullest.

Menace #1

She really is very sweet. We just have to watch out that she doesn't "overlove" on the baby. She dotes on our latest model, but does not understand that she can't pack her around like a doll.

Princess

She was our first girl. She loves pink and tea parties.

Our SamBoy

His name is really an acronym S low
A s
M olasses
Boy.
He is our thinker and is often lost in thought so he doesn't get going too quickly.

BusyBeeBoy

This picture is really pretty accurate. He is 8, but thinks he is 18 and ready to take on the world.

Feel like dancing.

Now that I have some what gotten this thing to work I feel like dancing!!!!
Yeehaw!
I am having almost as much fun as a tornado in a trailer park:)

Trying to do the picture thing...

Now we will see if I can get the picture to display properly.

Technically Challenged

Well then...
Here we are the first ever post on the Heath Happenings. I did get the profile to change the way we wanted it. I am amazed that we have gotten as far as this. Now all I have to do is find a way to get the pictures and other things on here that I want. Now my computer friends can claim me again.

I sure hope no one is holding their breathe for an incredibly savvy website and intelligent posts. I don't know that we will ever have either, but I am trying. This is already a giant leap for the computerly challenged.