this n that

Just a sampling of what keeps me from posting very often.....school, harvesting green tomatoes, canning green stuff, painting, studying and a host of other things....just in case you wondered. :-)

I've been thinking a lot lately about being in touch with God moment by moment throughout each day and always knowing or asking for His leading in each decision I make big or small. I wonder how many opportunities to touch others lives I have missed in my lifetime because I am too busy doing my "to do" list to be aware of His leading. Even within our own family. God has given us these children for a time and have I taken every opportunity to instill His truths in them? Bryce is almost 17 and where has the time gone? 

We went to Coal Mine Canyon a few weeks ago.

Matthew had fun crawling around in the sand!

We definitely need a real carrier for Matthew.

Tara, Sharayah and Seth took a different route so 

that they wouldn't have to go down the drop off.

Matthew was being silly eating his broccoli!

He was opening his mouth, and saying "ohhhh", 

in a really high voice

        

"Helping" Dad build a fire

        

and...

         

         

...admiring his work!

He is always right there when he hears the stove door open. He will leave anything for that, including food.

I love his inquisitiveness about figuring things out. He seems to take longer than our others though,  to figure out that "no", actually means, "no". :-) Maybe he will keep us young.

Scorpions anyone?

We have not been hiking in a long time so last Sunday we decided to hike down into the canyon. It was amazing how different everything is since the monsoon rains. We walked up a gully that was about 4-5' wide and about 5' deep that was never there before. And the sand dunes were a lot steeper...at times we found ourselves sliding down out of control. A bit scary for me, but the kids seemed to think it was great. Seth let everyone know when he got stung by a scorpion. Thankfully it wasn't the poisonous kind. And believe it or not, even that, hasn't deterred him from going barefoot.

We are keeping busy plugging away at school. So far we are staying on track. Yay! It's hard to believe Bryce is a junior this year and we are having conversations about continuing education. He would really like to go through CollegePlus, like a family we know has done, and get a bachelors by the time he graduates high school. So we are praying about it to see if God opens the way for that.

We have been blessed with a wonderful crop of tomatoes for the first time since we moved here. So we are really enjoying the fresh tomatoes. I had forgotten how good they actually are. Looks like there will be enough to freeze or dry too. Next year we are hoping to plant more in our garden.

Matthew got his cast off about a month ago and he has been taking steps for about a week or more now, but still prefers to crawl. He gets lots of practice with his walking though because his siblings are constantly coaxing him to walk.

The last several months have just seemed to take a lot of effort on a daily basis. Sometimes I feel like I just get more behinder each day...not just in tangible things, but in relationships in our own family, and God and with friends in the community. Sometimes it feels like I'm walking to school uphill both ways in several feet of snow. I just started looking up scriptures on joy because I know there are days I forget about rejoicing in the Lord. So if you think about it, keep us all in your prayers.

Recording has started, of the New Testament in Hopi. We are really excited! Someone who has attended church meetings for years commented as she heard the book of Mark being recorded that she didn't realize how serious it is. Hopefully this will bring more understanding for the older generation here that grew up speaking Hopi.

Recently I have enjoyed having more interaction again with some women in the village. We had not connected for a while so this has been good. I hope we can keep it up through the winter when it seems harder to get out. One of them does a lot of reading and has been asking for books to borrow, so I loan her a couple books and she brings them back in a few weeks for more. The books have been christian nonfiction for the most part....true stories about real people and she really likes them.

Matthew helping with the dishes...or not.

Excavating

This is our tomato jungle

Ready to go up!

Skyping with Grandma Miller

Love those corn cobs.

Seth and Sharayah helping with stucco at the Red Feather straw bale house.

Recycled stuff and Matthew pix - Posted by Tara

Seems like we've been crafting a lot lately--mostly sewing but lately it's been cutting with th Cricut machine:

And I've mostly been cutting from this one cartridge:

Matthew in the laundry basket!

The celery monster!

Mom made these little jackets for me and Sharayah...

And these for Matthew - all from recycled shirts!

Posted by Tara 

 

Matt's B-Day By: Seth

WOW! It has been one year since Matt was born at Phoenix Baptist Hospital at 9:14pm. For me it was a nightmare, it seemed as if they would keep him there forever. One of the nurses said "you know sometimes adults say they were abducted by aliens? Well they actually are having flashbacks of when they were in the nursery and the torture they had.But of course that was not true. Well that is all past now so I do not have to worry.

And now for pics.

Matt opening Grandmas gift

Being glad that all the attention is on him

Hi Camera 

To happy to speak

A pic i made for Matt, this is about 5 minutes after he was born.

Digging in

Look mommy i'm eating his ear!

Little Boy Blue...Cast

Matthew seems to be doing pretty good this morning after all the excitement he has had.
He loved going down the slide with his siblings....until he stuck his foot out to the edge of the slide. Oh dear! He cried harder than I had ever heard him cry (I wanted to cry too) and he really favored his left leg. Basically no swelling though. It was Tuesday evening so we gave him motrin and somehow managed to get through the night.
We headed in to Flagstaff Wednesday and sure enough the x-rays confirmed a green stick buckle on both bones in his left leg. They said it is pretty rare for someone his age.

We had to go to yet another doctor to get a cast for him. He enjoyed being a clown and making faces at the doctors while they were discussing the fracture with us. It was amazing how much better he felt just having it stabilized.

We are not having to give him too much pain meds....he does pretty good. Except when he gets more active with playing then you can tell he is in more pain. They said he can put weight on it when he is comfortable with that.

Matthew, the day before

He was really good about it.

Happy to be back home I guess.

______________________________________________________________

I Seth, am going to show you two pics of lightning that i shot.

This is the best one.

( I think you can tell )

This one I shot in Kansas when we were driving.

It seems I’m finding less and less opportunities to update here. Summer is here and has been keeping us busy answering the door and feeding extra kids. Of course all of this brings more opportunities to touch lives……I have to admit there are days I just don’t have the desire to touch lives.  I’m realizing more and more how I really am nothing without God and I need to rely more on him to get me through each day. Trying to get it all done and be a light in the process is just not something I can do on my own. Am I living my life day to day moment by moment in such a way that it is obvious that I truly do have faith/trust in God? So it seems our days are filled to the brim and amidst that I find myself calling out to God for strength and wisdom for it all.

It has been so good the last 8 months or so to have a closer relationship with this Christian family here. To hear them share their heart. The reservations we have sensed from them have come down and we are openly fellowshipping.

A couple days after we got back from our travels we had a baptism here for the couple that moved to Kansas 1 ½ years ago. It has really been neat to watch them grow amidst their struggles.  It was the first time they had been back to visit since they left.

We had Hopi Camp Meetings here a few days later. We were pretty involved down there this year so we had a full 3 day weekend.

So far we have a flourishing garden this year. (just tomatoes :-) We’ve used our grey water for watering and this year we started using soap nuts for laundry detergent instead of my homemade laundry soap. Maybe I’ve been killing our plants all this time. The tomatoes are really growing and have fruit and blossoms. Yay! I need to get some shade cloth on them today though because the sun is getting too hot and I'm afraid I'll loose them.

It sounds like I need to get Matthew up, so I'll let Tara add pics.

Tara feeding deer

Matthew Chillin'

Matthew and Sharayah - At the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo

Tara - petting goats with Cousin Bryn

Sharayah, hangin' out

                                                               Matthew with Cousin Aliya

Matthew with Cousins Leah and Ryan

Argggg!

The Miller Family!