Harrison Family

 Will and I bought and elliptical and rowing machine to get in better shape. Unfortunately, Pandemic has meant being in the house practically all the time, rushed schedules and little time to eat from both working at home full-time as our 5 kids also do school at home. Day 1 of working out with will..

When Your Dream Seems Impossible  What is one of your biggest dreams?  Now, think about that dream.  Is it not so hard to wait for it to happen?  This has been my struggle for many years. The still small voice of God's spirit in me says, "Wait, wait, not yet, wait, be patient"  I often argue with that still small voice, way more powerful than me.  "But Lord, why?  There is this internal dialogue that goes on in my mind, back and forth and man is that exhausting.  Can anybody relate with this? One of my dreams, has been to have a nice big house for our family.  It isn't really about the house, but making it a "home", a "refuge of safety", a place where my kids are free to make mistakes, to be vulnerable, to be loved, cherished and treasured. Financially it has taken us 13 years for this dream to come true..  How long did you have to wait for this dream of yours to come true? In the first couple of years of Will and I's marriag...

Judah running with anticipation                                                   God's beautiful creation

It has been a busy week...I was super excited Will got to come with me to ELS and talk with International Students.  There is a guy named Peter from Taiwan and he loves Ian and Ian loves him.  Ian has the biggest smile on his face and always says his name.  It's adorable to see.    I also went to the CMC at Miller Library at cornerstone.  I felt like a teacher in heaven to see all the creative things I can do in my house to teach Ian and prepare for a future teaching job.  I laminated some calendars, my new abc posters, center posters and borders that I got from the dollar tree.    I am looking forward to reading The Year Like Jesus by Ed Dobson.  I am also starting to study the similarities and differences in teaching children and adults.  I don't really have much experience teaching adults, so I am a little worried they may think something I do is too childish.  I organized the desks and cleaned them all in my new room for ...

I am overwhelmed by God's unceasing power in my life.  I no longer have an ineffective teaching evaluation, but it was changed to an effective teaching evaluation.  It has gave me a shot of hope that is running rampant through my veins to be the best teacher I can be. I am excited that I can finally teach again.  God has taken away the cloud of doom from my lack of experience that pours down over me when I job search.

This post was written a LONG time ago, 5/23/2015 I am posting it today to remember how God was working in my life. How easy it is for me to let minute by minute slip away.  Laying on my bed, overcome with pure exhaustion, only to wake up to yet another day, where I do the same thing over again. Life gets busy and overwhelming and I lose sight of the incredible blessing to married to a man who truly loves me and beautiful children that are and should be a joy. I lose sight of who God has made me to be, and I forget that I have a purpose on this earth, more than to just experience time, day after day.  I forget to be in the moment as my mind reels into overtime, thinking about tomorrow before today has even ended, and there it goes again. Tick, Tick, Tick, another minute just went by,  a minute, that I could have been more selfless, trusted God more, connected with my husband or children more. I hit my pillow from pure exhaustion and can hardly move, I question how ...

I have been reading the book of Ezekiel. Because I have never read it before.Let me tell that is on  interesting book of the Bible. A little eccentric and shocking but shows me a lot about how God disciplines sin and longs to care for us.  I have been doing a women' s Bible study on Exodus at my church. It is so cool to see words used in Exodus repeated in Ezekiel. I can' t tell you how many times I have read "And they will know that I am Yahweh. God longs for everyone to know Him.  I love in Ezekiel 16 how God says to Israel an adulterous nation.. "And as for your birth, on the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, and you were not thoroughly washed clean with water, and you were not thoroughly rubbed with salt, and you were not carefully wrapped in strips of cloth. No eye took pity on you to do to you one of these things to show compassion for you, and you were thrown into the open field in their despising of you on the day you were born.  “ ‘And I...

The other day Ian and I read a book called The Gods Must Be Angry . It talked about how in Thailand they have a happy idol and sad idol sitting on an idol shelf and how they look to this idol for their help.   It breaks and this leads to them finding out the truth about Jesus. It challenged me to see what idols are in my life. Well Ian said, “Can I make up a song to worship God and I said of course.” He starts singing and I recorded him.   He said, “There is one God there’s not a bunch of them” Some people thinks there is one or 2 or 5…. Too precious..

Homeschooling I have been adoring the time I am spending teaching the boys.  I am trying to make it a little more structured so we can cover all topics.  It is my goal to intermingle God's truth with what they should be learning numbers, letters, holidays, science, exercise, good health etc..   Instead of teaching what they need to know and interjecting God's truth, I am teaching them God's truth and incorporating the other essential skills and knowledge they need.  Hoping a curriculum will develop out of the, so that everything flows fluidly and they see how God's word is applicable to every part of life.  God's words are transformational and should be our road map to navigate down EVERY path we are on.  God's words should be our instruction manual on who we are and that determines what we do.  Who we are determines how we act.  Focusing on how we act more than who we are leads to legalism, and I am praying God would help me to live every ...

Homeschooling has been going well with Ian.  It is so fun to see his personality shine through when we do "school time"  He was acting out a story from Uncle Wiggily's storybook and having a lot of fun.  He wrote an "I" that he said was crooked and got really frustrated he couldn't fix it,  even though it was a lot better than his first "I"  He also knows the first 2 of 3 lines of his Bible verse, "Pay attention, my child to what I say. Listen closely. Proverbs 4:20  I asked his where he wanted to put his verse and he said on the ceiling. Ian loves to do anything as long as he can move. He is also learning his phone number.  We run up the stairs and he has to read each number on the stairs when he steps on it. It is such a blessing to be able to teach my own children!  

We can't wait to move into our townhouse, with our own washer and dryer.  It will be so nice to have more room and storage.  The packing part isn't too fun, but means one more step closer to moving. Will and I decided to start homeschooling Ian.  I can't wait to get his curriculum and start teaching Him with handwriting with no tears, readers and definitely more about God. Our children are growing so fast.  Judah's development amazes me. He is starting to talk ALOT... some favorite words of his are stick, no, that, and he is saying some letter sounds as well. Ian is getting really big and grownup I can't believe he will be 4 in January.

We went to the Weekend to Remember marriage conference through Family Life Ministries.   We stayed at the Amway Grand hotel in Grand Rapids.  It was such a great conference for us to be better equipped to having a godly marriage.  We heard things we never even knew about what it meant to have a marriage where God is first.  This was life-changing for both of us. We would highly recommend it for anybody.  You don't have to have problems to go to the conference which some people think.  Thank you so much for Nicky and Sarah for watching our children and making this possible.  We realized how easy it is to let selfishness and other "extramarital" affairs keep us from having (before a good marriage) and now a great marriage.  Will surprised me by taking me to a fancy restaurant in the hotel for dinner.  The food was amazing.                                 ...

Yesterday, we went grocery shopping as Ian would say "All as a family"  It was really fun.  We didn't have to rush and just allowed Ian to enjoy it.  We had our list and were super organized as well.  We got so much food at ALDI and finally the quality of their produce has gone up. We have started a "rewards" system for Ian.  He gets a penny when he does an exceptional job of being caring, putting his toys where they belong, listening to mommy and daddy, or does something to be like Jesus. He got 25 pennies and we went to Party City, which so happens to be right next door to ALDI.  We explained that he had 25 pennies that he needed to give 10% or 4 cents to Jesus,  save 4 cents and that he could spend the rest.  He did a phenomenal job with this, and was grateful with what he got. He was able to pick from about 5-6 different kinds of candy that only costs 7 cents each.  I want him to grow up very young understanding the Godly way to handl...

I have loved having extra time with the boys and Will.  We have had a lot of fun.  Makes me really value the time I do have with them.  I never want to be so distracted from housework, or my own selfish pleasures that I neglect spending time with them,  That can too easily happen if I am not built up in God's word and asking him to change me.  I have been realizing that I too often forget that I NEED Christ. Spending time in his word, has been so refreshing lately. I am studying Colossians and really enjoying it. It seems like the puzzle pieces are fitting together every time I read God's word.  All over scripture, it says to be holy, be humble and be loving. That is exactly what I am trying to do be holy, be humble and be loving, on my own I will surely fail.  Only with God's strength, wisdom and humility am I able to live a life pleasing to Him.  The minute I think I can do something on my own, my sinful nature gets in the way, and tells me to l...

Judah has been sick the last couple days.  It is so precious that he wants to cuddle with me a lot, the poor kid is so wiped out and tired.  I love moments where I can just hold my children in my arms.  He took 2 steps today before collapsing in my arms.  I think his tubes in his ears may be encouraging him to talk more.  I wonder if he couldn't hear himself too well, it may have helped his balance as well. Ian and I had some great time together.  We played red light green light.  He had to run when I held up a green circle and stop when I held up a red circle.  He is definitely a Kinesthetic learner, he learns through doing and anyway when he can move.  I am starting to work with him on rhymes and word families.  I found these great posters and large flashcards for any word family you could think of.  Here's the link if any of you are interested:  http://www.wordway.us.com/PosterSET.pdf http://www.wordway.us.com/P...

I can't believe it has been two months since I have updated.  I am so busy.  We have been traveling like crazy for Christmas.  We went to SC for almost a week and ended up having to stay an extra day in SC because of the snow.  Yeah snow in SC, too crazy.  It was good to see family and I loved that we stayed in a hotel room on the way back.  I think that we were a wee bit crazy to drive for 15 hours in one day with two kids. It was a very long trip.  We learned our lesson and split up the trip on the way home. In SC, Judah started walking along the furniture.  He is also really afraid of dogs.  He let out a high pitched cry when our friends, Jimmy and Pam's dog came near him.  We also learned that Ian really likes to dump out coins.  He dumped out all of Jimmy's coins twice.  Jimmy was a little upset about picking them up off a wood floor.  Rather daunting task, Can't say I ...

Ian's favorite phrase is "I won't go to Ninevah" from Jonah (veggie tales) movie.  He also spelled his name tonight. We found Judah this morning sitting up in his crib.  I can't believe how quickly he is developing now since his surgery.  He is so much stronger than before the surgery.  He stills falls over when he gets tired, but he is doing so much now.  It is such a different element now that he is talking now.  He is super sensitive too, he bursts into tears if Ian takes his toy.  Then Ian is usually compelled to give it back.

I am purely exhausted. I never thought it would be so tiring working and staying at home.  Wow!  It's hard because I know this is what I have to do, but it doesn't make it easy. I love teaching ESL, and the children on Friday night, but it is going to be so much more work than I anticipated.  I feel like there is hardly any extra time left.  I have to be so careful with how I spend my time, and I am about ready to drop when I get home. Having a million doctor's appointments are very time consuming and tedious as well. On a good note, Judah said dada over and over today.  I will post a video soon.  He is growing so fast, since the surgery.  I am so grateful God led us to Dr. Ham and we didn't just WAIT it out and that even though I had so many doubts about I trusted Will.  Thanks babe! No doubt they were hindering his growth,  because is eating table food now and doesn't have many gagging problems. Ian is getting so big.  He said toni...

It has been a busy week...I was super excited Will got to come with me to ELS and talk with International Students.  There is a guy named Peter from Taiwan and he loves Ian and Ian loves him.  Ian has the biggest smile on his face and always says his name.  It's adorable to see.    I also went to the CMC at Miller Library at cornerstone.  I felt like a teacher in heaven to see all the creative things I can do in my house to teach Ian and prepare for a future teaching job.  I laminated some calendars, my new abc posters, center posters and borders that I got from the dollar tree.    I am looking forward to reading The Year Like Jesus by Ed Dobson.  I am also starting to study the similarities and differences in teaching children and adults.  I don't really have much experience teaching adults, so I am a little worried they may think something I do is too childish.  I organized the desks and cleaned them all in my new room for ...

It is so great to be home.  Will and I spent all yesterday cleaning, because we left the house a disaster.  We have made progress.  We also got some new lamps to have brighter lighting in our house.  I didn't really how important that is, how it alters your mood and gives energy.  Our apartment was so dark because we live so close to the woods, and we don't have any overhead lighting. I  appreciated the sermon today.  I love how our church pays attention to every little detail, and so much so follows the voice of God.  I never would have thought that our church would have could behind us so much so in these times with Judah.  They have been the body of Christ. I am so excited to be able to start where I left off with Neighbors International.  I love working with International Students.  It seems to revive me and give me enthusiasm, excitement and energy.   I can't wait to start up MOPS again, even though I have missed some ...