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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

PLEASE VOTE!

Hi friends! We have entered a picture of our Baby Bear in a photo contest for cute babies, on Winkflash.com. I would LOVE it if you could go and vote for her. If her photo wins, we get a $100 gift certificate to Winkflash.com.

Here is the photo we entered:


Here is the link:
VOTE HERE


You do need to sign up to Winkflash.com to vote, but it's worth it! You can get 50 FREE 4x6 digital photo prints when you sign up. And they have the best prices I've seen for digital photo prints, not to mention, I LOVE their "matte" finish on their photos...so much nicer than Costco's.

Thanks so much!

Mama Bear

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Pretty Vintage Curls With NO HEAT!

I found this video by way of "Simple Days" and thought it was a great tutorial for getting pretty, vintage curls with no curling iron, or other heat source. I have shorter hair, and it's naturally curly, but this is so cute for hair that is longer and not so curly.




Mama Bear

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

From Son Up Til Son Down


There's an old (or maybe not so old) saying that goes like this:

A mother of boys works from son up til son down.

Oh, my! This is SO true! But not just with boys. My 18 month old daughter seems to have just as much energy as my 4 year old son! And it feels like I am CONSTANTLY correcting and disciplining them, from the moment they wake up in the morning, until the point where I put one on the school bus for afternoon preschool, and put the other one down for a nap! Then, when the little guy gets home from school, it starts ALL over again! And it's not just the little ones. I feel as if my voice could go at any given time when all three kids are around. The teenager is in school most of the day, of course, but when they're all around, I feel like I should be wearing black & white stripes (and NOT the kind from the old prison movies!!!). Just call me "ref".

But, this is what we signed up for. When we chose to be parents, which we did, we signed up to be mediator, arbitrator, referee, physician's assistant, cabbie, holder of all small treasures, helper for little hands that aren't quite big enough to do something, launderer, janitor, cook, waiter.

More than that, we signed up to show love, compassion, grace, mercy, humility (oh, is parenting EVER a lesson in humility!!!), and discipline. We promised to care for our children until they were at a point where they would move out and care for themselves and eventually their own families. We promised (through adoption) to not treat our adopted children any different than we do my biological child. We promised God that we would raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Proverbs 29:17 says,
"Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart."

Hebrews 12:5-6 says,
"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives."

This is proof that my constant flow of words to my children IS necessary. My constant monitoring of their actions IS necessary. I have seen with my own eyes what it means for a "child left to himself" bringing shame to his mother, as I have seen with my own eyes, that folly is indeed bound up in the heart of a child.

But I also need to remember that God left instructions specific to my own sin,
and my own heart too.

Proverbs 15:1 says,
"A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."
(OUCH! Convicting!)

Proverbs 16:24 says,
"Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body."
(Lord, please make my words more gracious each day.)

James 1:19&20 says,
"Know this, my beloved brothers (and sisters...my own words): let every person
quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man
does not produce the righteousness of God."

God is teaching me these lessons through my own children. I don't always like these lessons, but I know that I need them. I am too quick to get angry and say a harsh word, rather than a gracious one. I am slow to hear, quick to speak, and quick to get angry.

I pray that God will continue with these lessons for me, just as I have to daily
continue teaching, correcting and reproving my own children.

Mama Bear

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The BEST Chocolate Ever, and Some Toffee Too


Before I moved to California, I had never even heard of Trader Joe's. Even when I first moved to California, and up until about 2 years ago, we never really shopped there, because I was always under the impression that it's a bit costly. Which is true. On some items. Like their deli meats and cheeses.

But Trader Joe's has some MAJOR redeeming values. At Christmas time, we discovered the Frosted Mini Gingerbread Men from TJ's. Um, YUM! But two of my all time favorite treats from Trader Joe's are their Milk Chocolate Toffee, and their Belgian Milk Chocolate. I used to LOVE a good Hershey bar, but it pales in comparison with the creamy deliciousness of the Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate! I have tried many many different types of chocolate, being the chocoholic that I am, and I have been hard pressed to find anything that measures up to TJ's Milk Chocolate.


My husband knows my addiction to TJMC. He will go and buy me the little 3 pack of bars, every week, because he knows that a little chocolate goes a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG way, when it comes to calming hormones, and releasing those lovely little endorphins that make us feel so much better. Seriously, it IS an addiction! Does anyone have the number to Chocoholics Anonymous? Yeah, it's that bad!

Well, I hope you'll get a chance to check out TJ's chocolate and let me know what you think. And if you can think of a chocolate that is a million times better, you had better let me know about that too, so that I can do a comparison test. :-)

Mama Bear

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Ultimate Deliverance


In my reading of "Running Scared" by Ed Welch, I have discovered something. It could very well be that Jesus' miracles of raising people from the dead were done so that when God raised Jesus from the dead, people would truly believe what had been done...what an amazing deliverance had been accomplished!

Imagine if they had never seen or heard of anyone being raised from the dead. No one would believe in Christ's resurrection!

To quote Welch, "Little did anyone realize that all the stories of deliverance had just reached their climax. In the death and resurrection of Jesus, the hinge of history turned. Captives were freed. The poor were made rich. Invalids were made whole. And there was no longer any condemnation for those who followed King Jesus and put their trust in him rather than themselves. The REAL deliverance was not the manna in the wilderness, but the Bread of Life given for us. The ultimate deliverance was not our rescue from the jaws of death, because any temporal deliverance from death meant only that death was postponed. The real deliverance was the death of death secured by the death of Jesus Christ."

WOW!!!!

Mama Bear