News about the house we are buying!

As many of you may know we have been searching for a house for quite a while now in and around Lehigh Acres. I will not lie, our search has not been without set-backs, discouragement and quite a bit of doubt. God told us quite a while ago, that we were to move out there. However, when things were not falling into place right away and we were not seeing any homes that would work, there was a lot of doubt.
Each time we would doubt the Lord would, ever so gently, tell us to wait on Him. That He really did have a plan and that His plan has a perfect timing. The last house that I blogged about here was a very good find, but the price wasn’t quite right for us. The Lord told John that this was our home, but he never really got a solid confirmation about a price. I did get confirmation on a price, but it seemed highly unlikely that the bank would come down to that when it had only been on the market for 5 days. We initially made a full price offer on the house and if you read my last post about it you will know how much I wrestled with it. The cool praise behind it was that the bank refused our terms, so we walked away, watched and waited. After a period of time, we digressed and began looking at other properties, with the impression the Lord closed that door. At this point, our doubting became an action of disobedience. We widened our search area to include the east side of Fort Myers, and looked outside the area God told us. We actually did find 2 homes in North Fort Myers that were very neat and tugged at our flesh! However, one was a bit out of our price range and the other was an older home. Either one would have been an excellent purchase/deal, but God was silent. We were trying too hard to make his will come to pass in an area we were not suppose to be!
After about a month went by and Christmas came and went, we noticed the price went down over $10,000. This brought the home into our price range. However, we were guarded with that because sometimes there are reasons why the price falls due to vandalism and key elements being stolen. This was not the case though. After seeking the Lord on it we made an offer with the seller paying 6% commission. They responded back saying that there would be no offer they would accept unless they only had to pay 3%. This was the reason why they refused our first offer! Basically it is the banks way of making sure you can afford the property. SO we countered a reduced price as if they were paying the full 6% and they accepted!
Buying a foreclosure, while it is a great deal, is very tedious! Many of the common fees paid for by the seller have been on top of their 3% and an additional portion of our transaction. While unexpected and weird because it is unlike any other house buying experience, the Lord has been guiding the whole process. The whole reason I waited to blog about it was because our realtor and mortgage broker kept warning us that the deal may fall through. Due to all the foreclosures and cash flow that is easier to deal with than waiting for loans, many deals like ours are not going through for some reason or another. So with all the nightmare stories we heard, we kept our hearts open to the fact that just maybe God might have another plan. Inspections have been done, surveys are complete and insurance was acquired on the property. Closing is suppose to take place on February 5th. So we wanted to share our new home with you! These are definitely the BEFORE pictures as we know this house needs A LOT of tender lovin care! Hopefully once we paint and replace some things it will be cute! Here is a picture of the front at the Real estate listing link. The rest are on a slide show I will place below!
CastleStone house

If any of you would like to see the layout much like the ones you get when deciding on a model home, I have a schematic that I drew on word that I can send you via e-mail as an attachment!

Click here to view these pictures larger

I was having trouble viewing these photos so you may have to use the "Click here to view there pictures larger" link! Thanks for all your prayers during this process! As you can see, we needed it!

Hello Lord

Hello Lord By Sarah Groves:





I saw these lyrics on another blog today here. Dont forget to mute my music on the side bar if you want to hear the song above.
Not sure how many of you have ever felt this way, but these lyrics were so reminiscint of our journey to find the home God has for us here in Florida. I am working on a blog about the home we think the Lord blessing us with, however, I would like to wait for more details to share!
For those of you maybe in the same boat. Maybe you are waiting to hear the Lord but not sure if He is whispering. Don't lose heart! He wants to speak to any heart wanting to hear His sweet voice!

Here are the lyrics:

Hello Lord, it’s me your child
I have a few things on my mind
Right now I’m faced with big decisions
And I’m wondering if you have a minute, cuz
Right now I don’t hear so well
And I was wondering if you could speak up

I know that you tore the veil
So I could sit with you in person
And hear what you’re saying but
Right now, I just can’t hear you.

I don’t doubt your sovereignty
I doubt my own ability to
Hear what you’re saying
And to do the right thing
And I desperately want to do the right thing
But right now I don’t hear so well
And I was wondering if you could speak up

I know that you tore the veil
So I could sit with you in person
And hear what you’re saying but
Right now, I just can’t hear you.

And somewhere in the back of my mind
I think you are telling me to wait
And though patience has never been mine
Lord, I will wait to hear from you
Oh Lord, I’m waiting on you

Right now I don’t hear so well
And I was wondering if you could speak up

I know that you tore the veil
So I could sit with you in person
And hear what you’re saying but
Right now, I think you’re whispering

Uncommon New Years goals

This Sunday I got to go to church………….. Here are some things I thought were pretty neat to ponder on.
The pastor started off by asking how many of us thought 2009 was a good year? I thought it odd that no one raised their hand because I didn’t think 2009 was bad, per-say. I do not live in a bubble and realize there are some pretty major things that made 2009 not very pleasant:
~America is beginning to realize the weight of their poor presidential choices when they elected a man that wasn’t qualified to take the presidential office. However, due to that poor choice we are seeing end times prophecy fulfilled very quickly!
~We live in an area of Florida that has been hit hard by the economy and people have lost homes and jobs all around the USA. Despite this, God still continues to use trials to strengthen our faith and take care of His people all over the globe, even if it is not the same way He used to take care of them!
The pastor went on to say that this year 2010 IS whatever we chose to make of it. We can choose to have joy and show others, that the light of the Lord lives in us OR we can choose to focus on circumstances which either rob us of our joy and/or get our focus off the Lord. To further his point of choosing joy in the New Year he went to the be-attitudes in Matt 5:3-16 to get the full understanding of what we should seek after.
3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 13"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. 14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
I love that he pointed out the fact that these things that follow "Blessed are the……." in the passages above, are not typically on the "goals list" for the New Year. He joked that if he held a seminar titled with the following list he probably wouldn’t get any takers. :o) To be poor in spirit (spiritually bankrupt), to mourn, to be meek(power under control), to be persecuted, to have lies spread about you because of the Jesus………. Hmmmm, these are usually never things we aspire to, or ask for. However, what if we did ask for these things? Would we then have the radiant love of Christ that could not be masked by circumstance, trial or menial everyday tasks? Wouldn’t Jesus be faithful to fulfill them through us!
Then came his analogy on verse 6, about hunger and thirsting for righteousness. The word Righteousness here, from the Greek, means Equity of Character. If we are to have a life that is hungering and thirsting for a character that has worth or equity, the only way we can achieve such a character is to seek spiritual food. The Bible.
When an infant is born it needs to eat often, but he doesn’t really eat much each time. Likewise a baby Christian, NEEDS to be nourished by the word more often than just once a day. Since new believers are fighting many spiritual battles with old worldly patterns of behavior, their intake of the word may need to be frequent and in short spurts. This can be accomplished by listening to bible studies, posting scriptures around the house to memorize them, accountability groups and time alone with the Lord.
As the child grows into adulthood, his meals get larger, but he eats less frequently. As an older believer, I know I can become slack in nurturing my spiritual life and taking in the larger portions. Sometimes we can be fooled into thinking the snack-sized portions are good enough because we already know a lot of what the bible says. This misconception of necessity, doesn’t take into account our continual spiritual bankruptcy! It doesn’t consider, that God uses his word, daily, to speak to us personally according to whatever our current situation is. God, in His foreknowledge, also sees what will be coming ahead of us and if we are seeking after Him for those larger portions, we may not miss His gentle warning or preparation of what is to come. The verse here says we are to continually hunger and thirst for righteousness. We are not to snack on or nibble on it, but to really seek after the meat found in the word. If we do not, we will not be filled, prepared or focused for what God has in store. He wants us to desire larger portions, dig deeper, study more and get to the heart of what God is telling us, rather than being satisfied to our current head knowledge or daily reading. Many times this means getting out of our comfort zones and when we "don’t feel like it" pray and ask the Lord to renew our hunger and thirst!
Another analogy he used was a boxing analogy. You have 2 boxers of equal skill that are scheduled to fight. One is eating in order to be competitive bulking up on protein, carbs and veggies, while the other is just snacking on bread. The one who is eating to compete will win because he will have the energy needed to complete the task. It is the same with our daily intake from the word. If we are eating to win the race and to keep our focus on the Lord, our portion with the Lord will be complete so that our walk be a living witness to others. If we are just nibbling or snacking, weariness has the ability to take over and take out focus off the Lord. Thresult of this is similar to the salt that has lost its flavor and a light put under a basket.
If many of us who make those New Years resolutions, did so by sticking to the words in this passage alone, could we be the salt and light that was referred to in the verses 13-16? Never thought my New Years goals would have to do with those things but it is apparent that if we want to radiate Christ and be effective in our walks, these are the qualities that God says we need!

A New Year and some new beginnings

The most recent development at our home happens to be that we have left the Church closest to us and are now traveling to Naples to be apart of the fellowship there. This was something the Lord had established that we do prior to my visit to Tri-cities, but unfortunately, we delayed. It is hard to leave somewhere you get plugged in, but when God says GO it is best to listen in HIS timing and not our own! Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to Christmas eve service down in Naples, but I guess it was quite a festive event. John heard all about it last Sunday along with getting introduced to many of the folks at the church. He got to go by himself as he was the only one not yet suffering from the sinus headcolds. , In his fellowship time he got some really neat advice from some fellow brothers about being patient for the Lord to reveal his plan. This seemed to be a re-occuring theme for the day for him. Just another way for God to use others to speak to our heart! However, the neatest piece of advice that John came away with was this:
“Many times when we seek to hear the Lord’s plan for our lives, we only do so in an effort to CONSIDER (mull over & count the cost) the Lord’s plan, rather than with an attitude of first time obedience to WHATEVER God has in store.”
In theory, everybody wants to be in God’s will. Everyone wants God’s plan because in the end we understand in our heads that His plans are SO MUCH better than anything we could come up with on our own. That He is God and we are FAR from anything but a pile of filthy rags. Whether your personality is reflective of a ‘Mary’ or a ‘Martha’, we all do this in many ways that we may not realize. Either personality has it’s own demons in the way ‘considering’ plays its role. Marys’ tend to worry and dwell in the What If’s, impossibilities, and how to’s. Marthas get a piece of the puzzle and start plotting & planning for ways that will make things happen. Neither one is abiding, resting or dwelling in the fact that the the Lord has got things under His control. Especially when we have trouble RELINQUISHING the control to the Lord. That in a nutshell is the heart of the matter. Control, whether through worry or self-reliance are both sin and disobedience. Lately we have experienced a period of unanswered prayers in seeking His direction so these are the scriptures He has me meditating on. Trusting, seeking, dwelling, abiding, listening and just plain old sitting at his feet. Knowing full well that He has some amazing plans for us and to continue practicing that list above until He is ready to share, His perfect timing is in place, and WE are ready to receive it. At this point His voice will be unmistakable.
Psalm 37:3-7 3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. 7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
John 15:4-5, 7 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will[b] ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
Proverbs 14: 20 Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. 21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
Psalm 51:1,10 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Psalm 139: 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

These are some of the scriptures that are speaking to my heart lately. Making certain that we are ready to obey, rather than just consider His will for our family. Here are some questions posed on a “New Years Devotional” from truth media, that were asked to ponder over as they relate to the past year and looking toward redeeming further growth, in the coming year.

Here are some questions we might ask ourselves:

How real has the Lord Jesus Christ been to me?
Did I seek His will when making decisions?
Was my life a good example for others?
Did I help anyone else come to Christ?
How many prayers did I have answered?
If I could do it over, would I live the same way?

Happy New Year!

Christmas cooking

I must admit that last Christmas I was a bit of a GRINCH! It was our first year away from our family, traditions, familiar friends & traditional Christmas as we knew it. It didn't feel like Christmas at all! However, this year I wanted to be different. I wanted to choose to live OUTSIDE my feelings of grinch-like tendencies and make a conscious effort to redeem Christmas. One of the ways I accomplish this is by baking. It is one of my true pleasures to bake gifts to give out to neighbors. However, here in Florida you must plot and scheme to do this. You have to make things ahead of time and wait for the weather to co-operate. It seems to be against my nature and logic to turn on the oven for a day filled with baking, on a hot day! If the consequence ends up being that the air conditioner and I BOTH have to work OT in the heat it is a NO THANK YOU! This last weekend there was a "cold front" coming! Highs in only the upper 60's! WOO HOO! God is so good to me! I had all my cookie batters made up ahead of time, and we cooked/baked our little hearts out! Here are my little helpers!

All week long, when the kids would go to bed I would make my candies that just get a bit too hot to have the kids 'help'. I even got to make some new things this year as a result of following some food blogs! At the risk of sounding girly, it feels like Christmas when my kitchen is filled with good things to give out to my neighbors!

Since you are so far away and I can't send many of these things thanks to the Florida heat here is the next best thing. Here are my favorite holiday recipes and some new ones I tried this year! Enjoy.

Peppermint patties

I use peppermint oil for these rather then the extract! Gives it a bit more punch but only use 1/4 tsp if using oil!

Candy Cane Snowball cookies

Coffee Toffee

This tasts very similar to the See's candy Cappacino sucker! I used instant Starbucks coffee since I couldn't find espresso powder!

Decadent Oreo Candy

Triple Chocolate Fudge

Ground up some more yummy candy cane pieces to press into the top of this recipe! This one makes A LOT so I did half it!

Basic Sugar cookies; need some deocrating inspiration? Here is where I got mine! However, when I couldn't get the Royal icing quite right from her site, I was in a pinch for time so here was Icing recipe I switched to! They turned out really pretty and the kids got to help a lot more than the prior method!

Chocolate peanut butter Buckeyes

Almond Roca Toffee; I like to add almonds to mine!

Mocha Fudge

Candy Cane Chocolate Bark

Will have to give you the recipe on this one as I didn't follow one recipe exactly. Took 2 recipes instead and made this yummy treat!

3 Cups White CHocolate Chips (1 1/2 pkgs)

1 pkg Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

1 C Milk Chocolate Chips

1o Oreo cookies

Pepermint candies (either candy canes or cheaper to buy the round disk peppermint candy!)

Peppermint oil

1. Line a baking sheet with foil.

2. Prepare the Oreos by scraping off the middle filling and placing cookies in a Food Processor. Process till coarse crumbs. Set aside. *

3. Unwrap the candy, (Approx 15 disks) and place in food processor. Grind up till coarse crumbs. Set aside.*

4. Mix together the dark chocolate chips and melt over a double boiler. Once melted spread evenly on the foil lined cookie sheet.

5. While chocolate is still soft, sprinkle with oreo crumbs. Place a piece of wax paper over crumbs and press crumbs into the chocolate layer. Do not remove wax paper and place cookie sheet in the freezer to harden.

6. While the other layer is cooling, melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler till smooth & creamy. Add peppermint oil (couple drops) and mix till well combined.

7. Take the cookie sheet out of the freezer and remove the wax paper; set aside wax paper for use later.

8. Drop white chocolate evenly over the cookie sheet & spread carefully over the cookie layer so as to not mix cookies into the white chocolate. Spread fast so that the white chocolate doesn't harden on you. Sprinkle with peppermint candies and then press them into the white chocolate (using wax paper). Place in the refridgerator or freezer till hardened.

9. Break into pieces and enjoy!

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year! If you are tempted to be a scrooge, here are some cute and small reasons to be grateful this Christmas! These little baby skinks were on the side of the road the other day. They were so cute I had to get a couple pictures. The live at a house down the street from us and were on the side of someone's home. I felt compelled to tell the owner of the home what was outside seeing that on her porch she had toddler toys in view! When I told her about the ones we saw she told me that she not only had just those 2 but there are a total of 5 living around her property! Poor lady! BTW, no one was skunked when taking pictures of these cute creatures. Michaela wants to trap them, take them in to get de-skunked and train them to be pets. That is something she IS NOT getting for Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas picture fun!

Well, got the Christmas cards in the mail the other day! I was lazy used a picture that turned out real well from our visit to Washington this past summer! Gotta love the beautiful mountain backdrop for a nice picture!

However, last year on clearance, I bought Santa hats. I had ANTICIPATING a tad bit of BRAGGING. Yes, I was going to do CUTE Pictures of us in co-ordinating shorts and T's at the beach in santa hats! I suppose God didn't want me to brag since we never really made it to the beach together! SO, when the santa hats were out of the Christmas boxes we headed for the park in whatever we were wearing!

While I didn't get pics done in time for Christmas cards, I really enjoy doing those collage Calendars for those far away family members that have most everything. Since 'winter pictures' are not really possible, we have to create our own kind! Gotta put some kind of winter feel to the pictures for the month of December! Here are the ones that made the cut!

John was not too thrilled with this idea. His face screams TAKE THE PICTURE AND GET THIS OVER WITH! :o)

A Posing picture! Notice the shorts and blue sky!

A candid while playing a little bit of Santa tag!

One of the problems with the bright blue sky was that it was hard to tell if everyone was looking at the camera after the shot! Bummer!

One final jolly pose!

Hope you are all having a Merry Christmas and enjoying the preparations for remebering why we celebrate! Love to ya all!

One way Stomach bug

After my previous post that i may be sharing remedies on my blog my Dad, who gets my posts delivered to his e-mail account made sure to reply; "That's weird!" He would be one of the Nay-sayers I was chatting about! Love ya dad even if you think I am weird! If you don't care about the content of this 'Natural remedy' post in particular please just delete! :o)

Recently my family suffered from a bought of some sort of stomach virus. It effected only 3 out of the 5 of us. There was no vomiting so, without being graphic, this gives you the general idea where the stomach bug was being flushed out (no pun intended)! If the stomach bug would have caused probelms with vomiting AND the later, my treatment would have been different so please keep this under advisement.

For Michaela and I, to avoid getting the bug, we just took the immune boosters listed below under the link for Immune boosters for the whole family! Berry well, Vitamin C (or Emergen-C), Vitamin D, Bee Immune, Colostrum transfer for both of us! This kept she & I from getting the bug!


When the body is trying to expell a virus from the system, in either direction, our initial medical reaction is to stop it immediately with chemicals. I remember when Immodium AD came out in the stores and it was great at stopping the inconvenience ASAP. However, what I later came to understand is that there are much better, more natural ways, to help this process along, without keeping the nasty bugs in your system!



Papaya enzymes (I just buy these at Wal-mart in the vitamin section)

Probiotic

~This one for little kids Rhinophos chewable probiotic

~This one for the older ones, my hubby & myself Beeyoutiful Tummy tune-up or Ultimate defense)
I actually ended up using the Tunny tune-up on Abby as well because the Rhinophos wasn't strong enough for her.


Bentonite clay; read about the benefits of this toxin flusher here. You can usually purchase this at a local health food store or from the website above here.


Vitamin D3 (I just get the huge bottle from Costco 2000 IU)


If you are just getting started with Immune boosters from Beeyoutiful, you can save a bit on this pack for the whole family!


Multi-vitamins for the whole family Men, Women, Kids


Besides pushing a lot of fluids, all of them were complaining of stomach cramps so we gave papya enzymes for this.

The bentonite clay is taken to draw out the toxins (virus) from the gut. You can't use metal spoons while mixing this as the metal does something to the clay, so I use plastic spoons. Keep in mind that the clay DOES taste just like dirt. We mix 1 tsp to a little water and it makes basically a slimey blob that is easily swallowed. The they need to take a full glass of water afterward! If you have a child that has a strong gag reflux you may want to purchase some capsules. My kids are pretty great troopers so they just swallow the blob-o-dirt. You only do this once a day for the duration of the spell plus one extra day.

While the Clay draws out the bad stuff the Probiotics re-innoculate the stomach with the proper/good bacteria. About an hour after the clay I gave a probiotic.
At meal time I give vitamins such as the D3, Colostrum, berrywell, bee immune, along with their normal multi-vitamin .

One bonus about giving kids the liquid vitamin (superkids), immune boosters (berry well)is that it absorbs faster. When you have things coming out as fast as they come in, absorbtion is a big deal!


After doing this stuff yesterday when it all began, everyone was doing much better the next day. Abby and Ben had some residual effects, but it was their body ridding itself of the final bugs and fighting through the infection. I continued the immune boosters, probiotics for a couple days after to keep the body fit to fight off any other bugs they come on contact with!


On a side-note....... If you do not have a good health food store nearby and you want to place an order for Beeyoutiful products AS WELL AS some bulk herbs & spices, the company More than alive does sell both! To keep your shipping rates low this is how I do it.

If you just want to purchase Beeyoutiful products and get it at a discount, beeyoutiful has a supplier that 'sells' the products at a 15% discount and beeyoutiful gives a portion of the proceeds to fund their family mission trip to Kenya. Since I love a good deal AND a GREAT cause I like to order through her when I do not need to include any herbs with my order! To order through her, just email your list of items to sales@valuesdrivenfamily.com. You can order anything from Beeyoutiful.com through her but she only recieves the discounted price from the beeyoutiful products.

Anywho, this is how we took care of the latest stomach bug! Love and hugs to ya all!