Captain's Blog

Currently in progress..... :)

"If you think you can do it on your own, good luck with that." - Laurie

So much fun! We woke up had pancakes, hung out, had lunch, went to a mall on the nNorth end that was having family events. One of the things they had was people dressed up in full costumes from Star Wars. Our kids have not seen the movies but are really into Star Wars Lego and Star Wars Lego game cube games. So they were loving it. We forgot our camera. Can you believe it?! How can you see Star Wars characters and not have a camera. Thankfully we remembered that our handy dandy phones have cameras!

Someone was handing out Free McDonald's hot chocolate coupons and we saw Giant snakes and then we had our kids charicaters done for free (our kids drawn as cartoon characters) Too cute. We're framing that one!

And then we hit McD's on the way home to get our hot chocolates. How fun!

I hope you all had fun whatever you were doing.

Blessings from our family to yours.

Alanne.

It's always good to be thankful but I really feel like we ought to be more thankful when someone give us the gift of time.

Time is a precious gift and limited resource. I have often found myself thinking or saying (to my kids) "Don't waste my time!" (then I explain to them that when they don't clean up their toys I have to do it and it takes my time away from something else - they seem to get it then) How we spend our time is very important and while I could go off and say make sure you are spending time in the word and prayer, that's a given so make sure you are doing it!

When someone takes the time to be helpful, answer questions, or lend an ear, thank them. They have stopped what they were doing and spent time on you. Now good friends willingly do this it's a bit of extra spending when it's not a good friend.

I have found Edmonton a very helpful city and people are very willing to open a door or take a minute to give instructions/directions or explain how things work here. They may not feel they need to be thanked but I would encourage you to do it and make it a habit.

Thanks for taking the time to be encouraged and challenged.

Alanne.

If as a wife our main responsibility is to be our husbands helper then there must be a simple answer for children and their responsibilites. There is! Children obey your parents.

Eph 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Col 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Kevin and I have done and taught the parenting course Growing Kids God's Way and we highly recommend it. On the topic of obedience here are a few quotes from the course.

"Children will rise to the level of expectation of their parents. Many parents expect to little and receive exactly that." -Growing Kids God's Way

Have you found threating a time out or ? or counting to 3?

"How is it that a child will obey the third time but not the first? The reason is that the parent is finally resolved to force conformity. If a child obeys by the third request, why not by the first?" - Growing Kids God's Way

Anything short of first time obedience "only serves to lure a child into sin...". I don't want to be guilty of that.

Straight talk parenting may not be my most popular post. Ladies there is a standard to be met. It's a high calling, it will produce fruit.

A verse that I read this morning stuck out to me but I wasn't sure how it would fit in today's post. God knew.

Matthew 21: 43"Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. .."

Not that "you" are a bad person. We all need to grow and improve. Take this info, raise the standard and produce fruit.

In this with you raising our kids His way.

Alanne.

It's from the Femanine Appeal book. It's new to me and has completely changed my way of thinking. I recognized it in my own life and the lives of other wives but did not realize it was or could be a problem.

This is the line that changed my thoughts. "you should not experience guilt when your friend saves twenty dollars a week on her grocery bill by clipping coupons if your husband would rather you spend that time on other tasks than save the extra money."

Wow ladies this was huge for me. How many times have I pushed my agenda with Kevin cause it would save time, money, energy etc. when I really needed to be asking on a regular basis "How may I help you?" and How would you like this home managed?

Think of it like Carolyn pointed out in the book. "With any managerial role - whether in a large company or the local McDonald's - a job description is essential. Scripture has provided a job description for us as managers of our homes, and it is suprisingly simple! We are to be our husband's helper (Gen. 1:26-31;2:7-25;1Cor.11:8-9).

"What will most help my husband?"

If you walk into a marriage knowing this it will save you bigtime. If you are in a marriage it may revolutionalize your life.

I'm excited and encouraged. There is so much freedom in this. Let me know when you get it. :)

Blessings,

Alanne.