School starting at the Funks....... one week in already

School is in session at the Funks.  We had a great first couple of days. I like getting off to a good start. Love the smell of new books and a new curriculum for Odin.  We also started a new spelling curriculum which they think is so funny sounding out letters. They woke up the first day and started school by 5:30.  I think Auntie Annie was amazed they were so excited and ready to go.  A couple of them dove into books while the others exercised.  By the time I took Jeremiah to school at 7:30 we had a few hours in. Awesomeness!! We have 3 this year schooling at home and Jeremiah going to public school and Gabe just causing trouble in the neighborhood. 

We had our traditional ice cream for breakfast.  Of course it's as much as you want.  

     

he asked for a shake this time instead

Gabe is chillin and writing on walls, destroying everything in this house waiting for them to be done.

By the time I got home and got situated it was 9:30 already.  I hadn't even ate breakfast or changed my clothes.  Jut got my teeth brushed. Everybody was doing their stuff and working and Gabe was spilling water all over the kitchen.  I let him play in the sink a few minutes and he made a disaster.  Gabe and Olivia have a cold all of a sudden.  Cough and runny nose.Yup, took them to the Dr. and they got strep.  Dave came home for lunch  and I realized I never ate my breakfast.  Still on the counter. I am the queen of letting things get cold.  Reheat.  Reheat. Reheat...or just eat them cold! Don't get me wrong I'm  not complaining.  I love my life and all these little stars.

Jonah trying to school......love these memories

Break time for Odin. Gabe keeps calling your name until you answer him and he wanted Odin to play air hockey with him.  We scored this at a rummage sale..  Pretty sweet hey!

Homeschooling is a lot for this one.

This is our island every morning at about 5:30. 3 different teacher manuals out and ready to go.

Olivia made cookie pizza for an afternoon snack.  This girl will bake everyday if I let her.  That's what we teach...bake goods change the world.

Too make a long story short...Jeremiah had a bout of blood tests over a 2 month period in Sheboygan and at Children's Hospital not sure what was going on.  It turned out to be Mono and he seems to be doing good and back to normal now.

Jeremiah had a great first day.  I always get so sad leaving him there by himself but he was excited and had fun.  Gabe keeps asking for him at home though.  Not sure about this new transition.  We have prayed for the teacher and her family.  We have prayed for his school year and the students.  We have prayed and asked God to allow him to be His hands and feet in the classroom and all throughout the school.  And we will continue to pray all those things.  

This school year is literally bursting with hope.  I cannot wait to see what  God all has planned.

               Happy 12^th Anniversary David…

I am blessed. We serve an amazing God.  What really got us through this  year were the years and years we committed to learning love. The endless hours communicating,  praying, moving toward one another. Moving toward one another problems and all. Those years, that time spent learning to love prepared us for the bottom that was cancer. 

  

 I can see how many marriages don’t make it through such a trial as cancer. I don’t want to portray a false reality to that  very hard season we faced. I agree with my friend, love counts in the raw meat moments of marriage when very little is reciprocated. Very little of what the world calls love has found it’s way to me in those  few months but my love has only increased not withdrawn. I know Dave would say the same thing. I love you from a place much deeper than what the world calls love. I know Jesus well. I  understand unconditional love. From that place I   was able to love beyond my own strength. 

1 John 4

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

 I love you more, but you love me so well. It all comes from the deep roots of our  faith. 

 

I am so blessed and thankful you are alive. 
I love you dearly David.  
 God is a mighty God.
Thank you for an awesome 12 years! 

 tears

Trying to really find out what makes me cry lately.  Really sitting back and looking at where the tears are coming from and why. Uncovering it all I guess.

Isn't it interesting how you can  fight like mad to keep them down, – until your children look at you. When they see your  face, they  soften with concern. They also question me with their eyes, Are you okay?

I cry easy. I laugh loud at nothing.  My emotions swing from high to low and back again. I am an emotional girl. There may be a lot that comes to mind when you hear that word - emotional. There is moody-emotional, feel-good emotional, touchy-feely and moved-with-compassion. There is fear-emotion and anger-emotion, all sorts of emotion.

I have spent a lot of days of my life trying to change how I feel about things. I know there are things about my emotional self that I believe, things that are woven deep and hang on tight, things that aren’t true. I haven’t figured all those lies out yet. Perhaps that’s the problem: I try to figure out my emotions rather than give myself permission to simply feel them, then let them fade.

Maybe our tears are tiny messengers, secret keepers of the most vulnerable kind, sent to deliver a most important message-here is where your heart beats strong.  Here is a a gift from your  inner self, sent to remind you of those things that make you come alive.

Tears carry the gift of your desire.  Listen to them.  Change in the world comes when we acknowledge what moves us and why.  It could be injustice or a something you see through your children or just in the grocery store.   I don't know what it is for you, but you need to know.

Listen to what  makes you  cry.