Eve of Thanksgiving

I love to be warm. Our fireplace is on, making our home cozy, but I additionally have a space heater blowing warm air on me in our bedroom, and Josh just put boiling water into a mason jar so that I can tuck it into the sheets of our bed to warm my feet while I sit here and type. Yep, I love to be warm! :) I'm thankful for warmth!

I was just sitting here thinking about Thanksgiving, and how gratitude is a real game changer. It's something we try and talk to our kids about often.

We'll tell them that when you see the world from the perspective of abundance and all you've been given, it creates a heart of humility and joy, but also makes you grateful for even the smallest things. We aren't owed anything. All we've been given is a gift. And a thankful heart is a gift in and of itself!

Our family follows the teachings of Jesus. Jesus has changed my life! More than anything else ever could. But I was amazed tonight even thinking about the fact that Jesus gave thanks before he broke the bread & shared the cup, representing his body and blood that would be broken on the cross. He gave thanks before becoming the sacrifice for the world! Wow.

The Bible even says to let our thanksgiving be a sacrifice to God. That is something that I can give Him!

I can think of very specific times in my life that God met me in my pain and let me see that He was there with me. He was in the midst of it, caring for me. He was so close, wrapping me in peace. Covering me in His love. He even comforted me with a specific verse to hold onto in those times:

When my parents divorced, He was my stability, never changing. He loved me and was with me.
Isaiah 43:1-3,

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

 When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

 For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

When our first daughter, Melaina, was born pre-maturely and didn't live, He was my comforter and my Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 26:3,

You will keep in perfect peace

all who trust in you,

all whose thoughts are fixed on you! 

Trust in the Lord always,

for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.

When Jude had lengthy health problems, God was my strength and my confidence! I could look to Him, and follow Him, the Great Shepherd, as I shepherded my own children.

Psalm 23, 

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. 

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 

Surely your goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

So here in my warm bedroom, on the Eve of Thanksgiving, I want to thank God, for all of His good gifts! For being with me every day of my life, for being my stability, my comforter, my peace, my strength & my confidence. But most of all, for being the God who lacks nothing! In Him is all goodness and truth. He is full of compassion and unconditional, everlasting love. In Him there is no darkness at all. His kindness draws me close. I can rest. I can enter His presence with boldness because I'm His child, because of Jesus' great sacrifice. My life has abundance because He is abundant. Because of Him I can give thanks in times of joy and in times of pain. He doesn't change; He's faithful. And I'm so, so thankful for that.

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

Psalm 106:1

Lord, thank you for loving me. Little me. Thank you for making me Yours. I love you!

Meet Westley!

The big news around our house is that we got a puppy! In the seventeen years that Josh and I have been married I think he has suggested that we get a dog about 12 million times. ;) And I've always answered with something along the line of, "please never ask me to own a dog." Ha! I just didn't want to be leashed to a pet that put it's nose on the sliding glass doors, and that I'd be cleaning up after. (Don't worry, I've had a heart change!) But the older that the kids have gotten the more I realized that Josh would never have his family dream of owning a dog if we didn't do it soon. Some friends at church had just adopted the cutest Australian Shepherd puppy and told us about two puppies that were left in the litter. I showed their photos to Josh and we decided to visit them. When the breeder opened the door, this sweet boy puppy came shooting out of the garage to greet us and never left our side. He had the best personality! Can you see the instant love in our eyes? :)

We actually drove away to "sleep on it" and chat about puppies. Josh had found a breeder that we were suppose to meet a few days later to put a deposit on a litter for the following year. But after driving away from the puppy that never left our side we started to talk about him. He had passed all of the puppy tests, and we loved his personality, and realized that when choosing a tiny puppy based on appearance you have less control of what personality you're going to get. Whereas this sweet puppy had won our hearts in such a short time!

So we called the gal and drove back to her place and adopted Westley! We've been reading The Princess Bride aloud and we all agreed that this puppy's personality is very much fitting of the phrase, "As you wish!" So Westley it was!

And this right here is what makes me happiest. Look at the smile on my man's face! That's worth it all.

Westley was 13 weeks old when we adopted him, which worked out well for us because he was 95% potty trained, and so well behaved due to the breeder's great care for him. I think it's been God's grace that he's been such a mellow puppy because it's helped me to adapt to having a dog in our house. He seriously feels like another member of our family and I find myself telling him I love him all the time. Josh eats that stuff up. ;) Here's a bunch of Westley pics from the past couple weeks that we've had him:

He sure loves the kids! He loves to sit next to them when we ride in the car. He also loves to lay under their feet at the piano, or help them feed the chickens, and he loves to visit our bunny rabbit every morning! He also likes to run laps around our circular driveway with the kids.

Westley's first bath...

Out for a walk... this right here makes me smile. I'm so thankful God gave us Westley!

Before his toys were shredded... ;)

We took him to Ben's football game and discovered he knows how to bark! Ha! He only barks when other dogs get near us. He's quite protective of us. He's a friend to every person he meets, though. But we definitely need to get him socialized to other dogs.

Morning walks...

Buddies...

Dad and Janet watched Westley and the kids one night while Josh and I went to a dinner at the beach. The kids had the best time. Clearly Wes did too. I love that he lays at Josh's feet. :)

Alright, there you go. I've turned into a person who posts lots of pics of their dog. Josh would tell you that this right here is proof that God answers prayers. ;)

Disneyland Part 2 (California Adventure)

We had a great time at California Adventure on our third day. We ended up only spending one day there, since we enjoyed Disneyland so much more. But our one day was wonderful!

The first thing we did there was watch the Frozen musical show. It was excellent and absolutely worth spending an hour at it! There was a short wait, so we played reverse charades.

We had fun checking out Cars Land, but didn't ride the ride until evening time.

I was most excited for Jude to walk around Flo's V8 Cafe since he use to play with that toy so much when he was a young boy.

The sweetest thing about the Cars ride (to me) was that Jude has wanted to ride it for years. Cars was his favorite movie when he was younger and he had quite a large collection of those cars as a kid. He played with them all the time and had so much of the movie memorized. So here he is, thirteen, and obviously not as enthralled as when he was seven, but I LOVED that we got to ride in the Lightening McQueen car, and that our car won the race! It was just as good as it could get. As Jude would say, "Boo-ya!"

We liked the Redwoods Forrest area of the park and the kids liked riding the zip lines together.

I loved the Flying Over the World ride! It was amazing! I don't have any pics, but it was really amazing.

We managed to ride the Great Rapids ride and NOT get soaking wet! We were so happy about that because we rode it later in the day. :)

We all loved the Incredicoaster! Josh and Jude rode it twice and the rest of us just once. Jude would be very happy visiting Six Flags next, I think!

Ben's face here cracked us up...

Our last day we went back to Disneyland. We rode Splash Mountain with ponchos this time and I got SOAKED! The water hit my face, went through my neck hole and all down the front of me, ha!

...but it was 97 degrees that day, so I dried off in a jiffy.

We explored the Island and it's caves...

The boys especially loved wandering all over. Josh snapped a pic of us girls while we waited for the boys to re-emerge.

We started logging how many times we'd ridden Thunder Mountain with a photo...

...8...

That night we took the train a couple times...

And loved watching the show...

We fit in Autotopia...

And the Finding Nemo Sub... (which nearly put me to sleep) ;)

We did Star Tours a couple times and bought some last minute light saber key chains. ;) And I got a warm drink.

And that night we watched some old Mickey cartoons before we called it a wrap.

And we remembered all of the highlights as we walked back to our shuttle...

And took one last family pic...

And waved goodbye as we walked to our shuttle feeling really happy that we did it all, and loved every minute getting to be together.

The next morning we were up early to try to beat the traffic to the airport, and it worked great.

And the beautiful Oregon mountains welcomed us home.

I'm so thankful for this season of life with our kids. They are such a gift from God. Every child and family is. But I'm just so grateful that He's made us the Fegles Five. We sure love each other. And love our Savior so much.