~January News~

A WESTERN BLUEBIRD...THIS COULD POSSIBLY BE
A NUTHATCH. THEY HAVE BLUE BACKS AS WELL.

NORTHERN FLICKER...NOT SURE IF THIS IS A MALE
OR FEMALE...THEY ARE VERY SIMILAR

A FLICKER, AGAIN!

HOPE AT THE BARN!

OUR COLLAPSED BARN....

YOU GUYS WON'T BE ABLE TO TELL WHAT THIS IS...ZANE
FOUND A RACCOON HIBERNATING IN A DEN OF BRANCHES
AND THAT IS THE FUR YOU SEE...I TRIED AND TRIED TO
GET A GOOD PICTURE AND THIS WAS THE BEST!

HERE IS A WILD TURKEY...NOT A VERY GOOD
PICTURE, THOUGH! WE HAVE A FLOCK OF ABOUT
TEN HERE, NORMALLY...I NEED TO GET A BETTER
PICTURE OF THEM!

A MALE BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE...THEY ARE
IMPOSSIBLE TO PHOTGRAPH...THEY DO NOT HOLD
STILL FOR ANYTHING! THIS WAS THE BEST I GOT!

THESE ARE THREE MALE DOWNY WOODPECKERS...
THEY ARE EASY TO PHOTOGRAPH BECAUSE
THEY ARE SUCH PIGS AND DON'T FLUTTER
AROUND ALL OVER! THEY ARE EATING OFF
PINECONES THAT WE COVERED WITH PEANUT
BUTTER AND BIRDSEED....IT'S MOSTLY GONE NOW!

HERE IS AN ART PROJECT THAT WE RECENTLY DID...
BREAD SCULPTURES (THESE WERE NOT BAKED YET)...
THERE WAS ALSO A SECOND TEDDY BEAR, A DUCK
AND 2 SNAKES... THEY WERE REALLY YUMMY, AND I KEPT
SOME OF THE BREAD IN THE FREEZER TO MAKE BREAD
PUDDING WITH, LATER! :)

FINGERPAINTING!

THE KIDS ON THE PORCH MEASURING THE
SNOW...IT MEASURED 36 INCHES, BUT THIS
WAS VERY PACKED DOWN....I HAD NEVER
SHOVELED THIS SECTION, SO IT HAD WEEKS
TO PACK DOWN!

CASH RESTING!

Most of the month of January was so warm! It was so spring-like and gave me such a needed break from shoveling snow! We didn't use a lot of firewood, either. Last night, though, it was negative 10 degrees, but I made it a point to get both wood stoves blazing hot the day before and we didn't wake up to a freezing cold house! We also got a lot of rain on the 6th of January, which melted 2 feet of snow, leaving us with about 18-24 inches left! Glory! :) It will melt fast, once spring arrives. We are supposed to get snow later this week, but we'll see!

My mother-in-law was here the first week of January and we had a lot of fun, and mostly relaxed. I still had snow shoveling to do and wood-splitting to do, while she was here, but we still had fun. She bought us a new TV which was much needed! :) Ours was an old 1987 Radio Shack tv, and we found a 1997 one at a thrift shop...it skips a little bit at times, but I think I may be able to fix it, if I tinker with it.

On the 7th of January our barn collapsed from the weight of the snow and rain. It was really disappointing because all my hay was underneath, but luckily I am able to get to it and Hope wasn't hurt in the process.

AWANA started back up on the 15th, and has been enjoyable! Zane has 5 more sections, which will only take him two more weeks, and he will be done with his book! He has really begun to memorize scripture pretty well. He still needs reference helps, a lot, but otherwise he has greatly improved! :) Abigail memorizes his verses a lot, too. She is not allowed to go ahead in her book, so she helps Zane with his! So funny! Sheldon stays in the nursery while I am leading, and has finally stopped screaming when I leave him in there! :) Such a sweet little boy....ha has really grown up!

The other night I wrote my whole fruit of the spirit study on my live-journal, and was like two sentences away from finishing it and lost the whole thing! I cried! So, I'm sorry, but I will have to re-type the whole thing later this week! James says it will be ten times better than my first one! My fruit of the spirit for 2009 is Gentleness, and my word study revealed so much to me and I was very convicted! I can't wait to get it on my live-journal and here! This time, though, I will write it on Word, and copy and paste! :( What a waste of my precious time!

Homeschooling is going SO well! Zane is reading now, and has finished his history, science, numbers and letters drill book, and is two weeks away from finishing his Studying God's Word book, and his handwriting book! I am so excited! His math book will be done by March 31st and his Phonics book, I am afraid will have to be finished after we move. It will probably be done by June, sometime! We also have a few projects left in the Art book and we will be finished with that. After we finish it, I have several art projects of my own that we might try.

James will be home in 72 days! I will be so glad when we are 60 days out! I have so much work to get done in the basement, though! I just have to sort through all the boxes again and get rid of anything that we really don't need, and start re-packing it all for moving! We are on the list for housing (actually we have been on it since James got to Korea) and we are thinking of possibly moving on post, but we need to hear back from a friend who has a horse, and see if she would like to board Hope. She has a rental with horse property and one older horse that would probably like some company! :) We'll see!

I am so thankful that my life is changing! As I said in a recent post...I never dared hope that my life would ever be the same again, and now within 60 days it will be. I know everything will not be the same, and I am not so naieve to expect that, but still...it will be very similar to the life I knew before! Praise the Lord! I will sorely miss my friends and church, here! I have moved a lot of times and it is never easy, but I am happy to say that I can go ANYWHERE! I have nothing that ties me down mentally, to a certain place, anymore! It is so naieve to let things like that hold you back from the life God wants for you! I love my friends...I would not have made it through without Lori Lynch, Donna Neale, and LeeAnne Bonds! :) I love you, you guys! But, it is time to move forward, and I will see you all again...we are only going to be 6 hours away! :) When we moved from KY, I left LaNette Chittenden there, and God knows that I would not have made it without her phone calls and encouragement...her mentorship....through 2006 and 2007. Even though she wasn't here, she by-far, aside from the Good Lord, was the only person who even made sense to me!!! :) So, thanks you guys! :) You are the best!

As you can see, we have had a fair share of bird watching....a huge waste of time, but something I dearly love! :) And I was SO happy to get the pictures of the Northern Flicker! He/she is so beautiful!!! They are so shy and will actually hide behind tree trunks if you are watching them from the window....they will peak out from behind the trunk and dart their heads back behind it if they see you! So cute! They are a huge bird, actually! :) Compared to others, anyway! All those pictures were from inside the house, through the kitchen window, so I'm sorry about the glare on most of them... Sheldon loves to bird-watch, and sits forever on the counter and watches them! :)

Kid updates.... Sheldon is out of his portable crib and has moved on to Abbie's Toddler bed! :) He is so proud of himself! He is getting the rest of his teeth and has been very disagreeable, but understandably! No more sippy cups, either....not even in the car. He quit using them at the house like 9 months ago, but still used them in the car. Now he has a water bottle! :) He peed on the toilet the other day, too! It is so hard to remember to put your later children on the toilet, which is the only thing holding me back from him being potty trained! He still isn't saying many words...he, like Zane, has his own language, which only I and the kids understand. Sometimes the kids understand him better and have to translate for me! Funny! He turns two on February 10th! I know that James will be so happy to actually get to see him grow, from here on out! He has missed out on pretty much everything Sheldon has done, and it's so sad! Sheldon has also figured out that he likes to watch movies now! He will sit and watch about 3/4 of one and loves Thomas the Train movies! Thomas is really clean and very moral (the stories are written by a Reverand, for those of you who don't know and have little kids, and are searching for clean entertainment). Even girls love Thomas! :)

Abigail is still pretty much in the middle of everything all the time, sort of lost in the sauce...poor girl! I have to carve out time for her....I am really hoping that the challenge of having a middle girl child goes away slightly as they get older.... It really is hard to make time for one on one with her. I have had Donna watch the boys for me recently so her and I could go grocery shopping together and that was really nice! :) She has been so helpful and obedient, lately, and her and I do a lot of cooking and cleaning together. I read a lot to her, as well as do preschool stuff with her! She loves Barbies and her and I dress the barbies and do their hair a lot, which is fun. Our favorite thing to do is paint our fingernails and do our hair the same way! Sometimes we try to dress the same for church, too! :) I love having a girl!

I talked about Zane up there quite a bit already, so there isn't much else to report on. He has been quite bored, lately with not being able to go outside much! My brother comes over sometimes and plays with him....otherwise he spends his days doing school, playing with his army guys, watching movies and playing around on the computer...he does help me so much with anything at all that needs doing...bringing up wood from the basement, getting things for me or the others, cooking and some cleaning, etc. Basically, very bored right now and waiting for Daddy to come home! They run around the house A LOT and ride their bikes in the house sometimes, too. They burn off a lot of energy that way!

I am reading Emma, by Jane Austen, right now and really loving it! I also watched the movie Emma, as well as Pride and Prejudice (the newer one and the A&E ones). I like both versions! :)
I have also been reading my Bible, everyday! I made my own 2-year schedule....this year I will be covering Matthew through Revelation, Psalms and Proverbs, and Genesis through 1 Kings. Next year will be the remainder of the books! A one year plan is just too much for me, so I came up with my own schedule, and worked out perfectly to two chapters a day! That is a reading amount that I can handle! James decided to do the smae schedule I am doing but has some catching up to do! :) It will be nice to both be in the same place once he gets home! :) I love reading my Bible, and it is so much easier to remember to read it when you have the schedule on the calender days! :)

Well, nothing else is really going on! We are just anxiously awaiting spring and enjoying our new year! We will get our tax return in a few days and we are so excited to announce that we are paying off and canceling our last credit card! We still have our emergency fund, as well, so we are definitely feeling like we are on our way to becoming debt free! :)

Blessings to you all! Have a good rest of winter! :P

My 2009 Book List and 2009 Goals

My 2009 Book List and 2009 Goals

• Jan. 10th, 2009 at 9:55 AM

~My Goals for 2009~


I have been meaning to get these out into writing, so I would remember and I have had no time to focus this first week of January. My mother in law was here and then trying to start homeschooling back up, take down Christmas decorations and get the house back in order. And then on the 6th my barn collapsed from all the weight of the snow, on top of my horse's hay. I had to shovel off the camper and broke a sky light in the process, of doing so. It has just been a crazy week, and has left me no time to do anything but what I have had to do. So, I have had no time for reflection, and contemplation....basically no time to even think. Plus, i am so physically exhausted that it is almost impossible to even focus on anything but making it through this time. I will definitely have to post a picture of the barn....thankfully Hope was not in it when it collapsed and the shelter that is attached to the barn stayed up and she can get under that. It is just a pain to get to my hay, and it got wet in some places from all the rain we got. One good thing, though...about a foot and a half of snow melted with all the rain. Before the rain came we only had about 6 inches of our T-posts on Hope's fence visible, and now about 2 feet of them can be seen, so I know a lot of snow melted. :)
With the warm temps, our house was about 75-80 degrees and the other morning I was wearing a t-shirt. I was standing in front of my mirror and lifted my arm to brush my hair, and I discovered a lot of arm muscle (from shoveling snow) that I have never had! Whoot! :) I am impressed, since I am so scrawny! :) What will I do at Ft. Lewis with no snow to shovel all winter? I doubt the gym will get me the muscle, as well, as real honest labor!

Anyway, here are some of my musings on goals for this year...I admit, I am not even that focused right now....I have so much on my to-do list today, and I can't think of anything else......

#1 in importance.......start tithing....even if it is just $25.00 a month. I have a bad complex with tithing, or any type of giving in general...I am so worried about money all the time and I know that part of the reason that we are never blessed financially and that we are in debt so badly due to the business mess we have made, is because we have never as a couple given our money over to God, and trusted Him in that area. We also didn't go into the business deal that we got into in 2006, with clear motives, didn't pray about it, and my husband was very impulsive about it. So, we are barely scraping by right now, but God has extremely laid it on my heart to start tithing SOMETHING, and trusting Him, and letting Him guide us financially. Dave Ramsey and his debt-free program, is not enough. I want God to be in control, and it is hard to do so, but I need to try!

#2 Take out 25.00 a month (or a less amount than what I have tithed), and put it in our safe for our Christmas fund. With 25.00 a month we would have 300.00 to spend at Christmas time....with 50.00 a month we would have 600.00 to spend....but like I said, it HAS to be a lesser amount than what I have tithed.

#3 Read 24 or more books for myself, and 12 aloud to the children (they have to be chapter books....we read picture/story books all the time, but the kids are old enough now for Little House on the Prairie, etc). This month we are reading Charlotte's Web aloud and the kids are loving it!

#4 Concentrate on my Fruit of the Spirit of the year. See my other post, titled My Fruit of the Spirit Update (on http://rachellephipps.livejournal.com )to know what I am talking about!

#5 Gain Weight....I so want to get up to 105 lbs, but we'll see....so far it has been a discouraging road. I did weigh myself last night and I was 99 lbs, which I haven't been in months, so that brought a smile! I hate weighing less than before I was married. It sucks and I am trying so hard, but I am also working so hard, so I doubt I'll gain it until my husband is home and we are settled in WA.

#6 I really want to read my Bible through this year, but right now I cannot get up early enough to get it done, because I am so exhausted. Sometimes I don't even remember turning my alarm off. My husband calls me at 3 am so I can restock the woodstove (it is 8pm for him, so it is perfect), and once I didn't even hear him call me, and the phone isn't that far from my room. This is very significant because I am usually a very light sleeper. Mornings are the only time I can really read my Bible....I could read it at night but I am usually too tired to focus on it. It's sad that my Bible reading is number 6 and my other books are number 3. It seems easier to read fiction at night, because it doesn't require much concentration...but it's not right, so I either get up early to read my Bible or forget the book-reading at night!

#7 One on one with each of my kids....a good idea that James and I came up with is to give Sheldon February, Abigail April and Zane, June. These are their birthday months and they could do something special with dad and something special with me that month. We could also do their half- birthdays in the same fashion. Sheldon would have August, abbie would have October, and Zane would have December. This leaves January, March, May, July, September, and November for James and I! :) Our birthdays are both in May, so that would be perfect! :) Only problem is that our Anniversary is in August, so maybe we could give Sheldon July instead and take August for us. I think this is a great idea and it is a great way to schedule time for each child and plenty of time for us as a married couple! Being in the Army might make it difficult though....with stuff coming up, and all....we'd have to adjust it, and that's the only downfall.

#8 Ride my horse a bit more! :) And continue to teach the kids to ride.

#9 Scrapbook

#10 Serve the Lord, serve my husband and re-connect with him, and serve my family....enjoy life and take nothing for granted! :) Work on becoming debt-free, and take it more seriously! :)


These are the books I have read in 2009...my goal this year is to read 24 or more books. I want to have a better assortment of history and political books, but still read the Classic Literature, modern fiction, practical and spiritual books, that I normally seem to read! :) We'll see how I do! :) This list I will have to remember to add to! :)

~ The Shunning by Beverly Lewis ( I am still reading this)
~ Emma by Jane Austen (this one is in the line-up)