Aware. Prepare. Rare. Scare. Fair. Share.

I like to choose clever or catchy titles so that people will read my blogs if they so choose. Today I chose a few rhyming words that I have some phrases or sentences to put with.

Aware--> are you aware of what is going on in the world today?

Prepare--> are you prepared for mass chaos or craziness to possibly take place in the world?

Rare--> stuff like this has been going on for a lonnnng time, however if you are a Christian, you understand the significance of all that is going on & that it is a rare thing, just like the Holocaust was a "rare" & historical event.

Scare--> what is going on is something that VERY WELL could be scary to me & anyone! However, as Christians we are called to fear nothing but God and that He will take care of us. Here is a very short list of many scriptures to reinforce that.

Psalm 12:2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.
Psalm 23:4 I will fear no evil for You (God) are with me.
Psalm 27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 27:3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear.
Psalm 56:3 Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.
Psalm 56:11 KJV In God have I put my trust. I will not be afraid of what man can do to me.
Psalm 57:1 KJV Be gracious to me, O God; be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge in Thee. In the shadow of of Thy wings I will take refuge, until destruction passes by.
Psalm 121:1-8 (KJV) I will lift up my eyes to the hills from where comes my help. My help comes from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved. He that keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade upon your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil. He shall preserve your soul (MIND, thoughts, memories, perceptions). The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even for evermore.

Proverbs 9:10 Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Proverbs 10:27 The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.
Proverbs 14:26 In the fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence.
Proverbs 29:25 Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

Isaiah 8:11-14 The Lord spoke to me with His strong hand upon me, warning...,"Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy, do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the One you are to regard as holy, He is the One you are to fear, He is the One you are to dread, and He will be a sanctuary (to you)."
Isaiah 8:17 I will put my trust in Him.
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

That list goes on & on....check this out!

Fair--> It's not fair that we not know what's going on in our country. We are dumb sometimes. So what?! lol

Share--> we need to share Jesus with others like never before. We need to share His word with others like never before. Urgency is a word that God has been pounding in my head for the past year or so.

So I'm gonna put in a nutshell what I know. Chuck is really kinda smart in all of this. He has helped me to understand the severity of what is going on in Egypt at this time. An example of someone who is VERY aware! lol. Thank goodness or else I would be clueless! (Let's be honest, news is sometimes pretty boring, especially if you have no clue what is going on!)

The people of Egypt have been revolting. Mubarak is their current dictator. They want him to step down. He spoke today and said that he will not step down, and finish his term which ends in September. There are 10's of 1000's of people in Cairo who were waiting to hear their leader's speech. They were hoping he was going to say he was stepping down and instead he said the opposite...they are MAD!! Cairo is CRAZY RIGHT NOW!! YIKES.

America supports Egypt. Like over 1 billion $'s a year. We are allies with them. One of the reasons is because they have a peace treaty with Israel. **THIS IS WHERE THE IMPORTANT STUFF COMES IN!!** We always want to be at peace with Israel. The Jews are God's people. Everyone knows this. If you're not sure about this, or don't believe me, research it. If you don't believe in God or Jesus, and want to learn more about this, I would suggest that you read the Bible, not as God's word but as history because it is precisely that. There is proof and evidence that it is REAL HISTORY. So even if you're not a believer, you can read it to understand some of the history of Israel and God's people.

Anyway. As long as Mubarak, dictator that he is, stays in his position, then the peace treaty that Egypt has with Israel will remain intact. If & when, no when he steps down in September or earlier, it is highly likely that the muslim brotherhood will take over. This is what most people are saying is the most logical & probable choice for they are the "most organized" group. Here is the HUGE problem. The main spiritual leader of the muslim brotherhood is on video saying things like the Jews had it coming (with Hitler) and hopefully it's their turn next! "I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews." He says. ok. So if you aren't starting to see the badness yet. You soon will! Let me tell you, this is some big, big stuff. If someone goes to war with Israel & tries to overtake them, that is bad bad news. The Jews or Israelites (whichever you choose to say) are God's chosen people. And He is very protective of them and jealous for them.

Do some research of your own. Ask someone who watches the news all the time and knows. Sometimes women are dumb when it comes to this kind of stuff but don't take that label with this time. Research it. Quiz people who know. Ask questions. Dig deeper. Read your Bible for cryin' out loud!!! lol. God grants wisdom and confidence in Him even during and especially during conflict such as this. But promise you won't just sit back and be dense to all of it. Become aware. Know what is going on in your country. And most importantly PRAY! Cover your family with prayer. Cover our government and our soldiers daily. Cover your church. Cover the people all over the world that this is affecting. Pray for our future. Pray for wisdom and confidence so as not to become fearful or anxious. Use all of this to grow your faith.

Here are a few terms or words that you can start with in your research:

Hosni Mubarak
Muslim Brotherhood
(note: on their English page, all looks fine and dandy, on their Arabic page, the truth unfolds)
Cairo
caliphate
Sharia Law

A lot of times I share stuff that God has shared with me, stuff that I struggle with, stuff that I'm good at etc. Today I encourage you to be a Godly woman (or man) that knows what is going on and is fervently praying over it all.

In GOD we Trust~Rach

P.S. Leave some comments. Share your thoughts. What do YOU think?!

Supermom!!

Chuck woke up to leave at the buttcrack of dawn. The dog ran away when he let him out to pee. He luckily found the dog. Woke the girls up when he brought the dog in beating him & yelling at him. He left to go to Memphis. JulieAnne woke up crying with diarrhea. Figured out she can't drink whole milk. Had to do emergency bathing. Made breakfast. Skyped with Grammy. Ran the dishwasher. Shouted the poo out of the rug. Started making cupcakes for the birthday party. Discovered Kennedy dipping her finger into the cupcake batter. Later discovered Kennedy eating the Halls Strawberry cough drops I got for her. Laid both girls down to sleep by 10:30.

WHO'S TIRED???!!!! MEEE!!!!!

Yea so today's blog, (apologies for not blogging in FAR too long!) is about being a mom. I have this GIANT soap box that I brought in just for today's blog. So hold on while I climb up my ladder and get on it! Ready?

This blog is for MOMS!! I'm gonna tell you what?! Sometimes I get so down on myself about not working outside of the house. Or not being an A+ perfect mom or person in general. But today is about how awesome moms are. Period. Just for a few brief moments, take a step back and look at your life as a mom.

First of all, if you haven't ever thought this, think it now, YOU KEEP HUMAN BEINGS ALIVE! That is a huge stinking responsibility. I mean. Since the moment you got pregnant with your little one(s) you did every single thing you possibly could to care for them. That's a pretty big deal ya know. You grocery shop. When you grocery shop, you very carefully pick out things that your children, and family are going to like. You put gas in your car so that you can take your family wherever they need to go. You dish out money so that your children can go to school, have clothing, develop skills, gifts and talents. You tie shoes. Wipe noses and butts. Change diapers. Wash clothes. Put clothes away. Switch out clothes when seasons change. Buy new things when your child all of a sudden sprouts 2 inches. Keep running lists of what is needed in the house. Pay bills. Look for lost toys, shoes, socks, etc. Wash dishes galore. Run errands galore. Make doctor visits to keep your child healthy. Cook meals (or order them!) Make beds. Clean toilets. Brush little teeth. Give baths. Discipline. Teach right from wrong. Teach manners. Teach respect. Teach about Jesus. Take kiddos to church. Buckle seat belts. Wipe messes. Mop floors. Vacuum. And the list could go on for days. But the problem is, we hardly have time to take a step back to see all the amazing things we do as moms. We are "expected" to do those things. We might be considered _____ if we do not. But here's the newsflash....WE DON'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS!!!! We daily make a choice to be a good mother and wife. We do those things out of love. There are mothers out there who are daily choosing not to do those things. Not to brush their kids teeth or take their children to the doctor or clean their house. Those are things that we as moms do because of love. And here's the second newsflash...WE ARE AWESOME FOR DOING THOSE THINGS!!!

Now I'm not being overconfident or cocky, or full of myself or anything like that. I'm just being plain honest. To be a good mother or wife is something that not everyone chooses to do, and to make that choice is an amazing thing. (If you're not a mom yet and are planning to be a mom one day, I'm making the assumption that you also will be a mother who does all of those things....so go ahead and consider yourself a part of this supermom blog as well!!!) Those things are not easy. People do not WANT to do those things. I mean, control and neat freaks aside, raise your hand if you look forward to cleaning toilets, scraping burnt junk off dishes and changing runny poo diapers???!!! oooo ME ME ME!! NOT!!

So if you're a mom who does those things, or is already past the phase of doing those things and are smiling on the inside as you watch your own children do them (mom! ;) ) then here's a giant message from me. YOU ARE AWESOME!!! YOU ARE AMAZING!! I crack up at Mother's Day. I firmly believe that every single day should be Mother's Day. Not a single day should go by without a thank you to us...who agrees? It feels good to be appreciated. Don't get me wrong. I know good and well that we don't do all of those millions of things to be appreciated. But I tell Chuck pretty often that I could never and will never get tired of hearing him say that I'm a good mom. We deserve to hear that every now and then.

It's hard. Very hard. But the other night I re-read Proverbs 31 and I'll tell you this...if my children & husband don't rise up and call me blessed, than I am a waste (vs 28). If I don't live my life to be like Christ in all ways, being a mother and spouse included, then I am wasting my life away daily. If my husband doesn't have full confidence in me (vs 11) than I don't even deserve to be a wife. If I am not at least making the effort to be like Jesus daily. Than I don't deserve the privilege of being in those roles. I'm not the best mom, and I'm definitely not the best wife. But I try. I fall and fail and everything else, but His grace is sufficient for me. It covers me afresh each day so that when I have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day....then I know I have a new chance tomorrow. As dirty and grungy as I may have been yesterday, today I am awakened with beautiful purest of white garments. Praise the Lord huh?!

I say all of this to give ya a boost. I know I sure as heck need a boost. So I've been boosting myself lately! I think that's ok. We all need encouragement! And if you are a mom, wife or soon to be or one day to be mom....then be encouraged. You're doing amazing! Way to make the choices to do what you do! From me to you, here's a pat on the back :) And if you have never checked out Proverbs 31, the wife of Noble Character then you should check it out, and if you have, but haven't in a while or a day even....then check it out again today and maybe every day!



Doing Hard Things for Him~

Rach

So much to say, so little finger strength!

I have way too much to type about tonight, but a person can only type for so long before fingers begin cramping and eyes begin blurring....and my eyes STINK this week anyway so I MUST be short winded if at all possible!

First of all: visit to eye doctor on Friday. A good & bad thing. Good that I finally went....bad that I can still not see far away. SOMEONE HELP ME. Sheesh. Why are there no eye doctors in this family when I need them. Anywho. Hopefully we'll get that worked out and when I go back for my re-check this Friday, I'll leave able to see road signs!

Next: We are having a SUPER wonderful holiday season in our cozy new home this year! Absolutely not taking it for granted that God has blessed us with this perfect home and that while so many people around the world have nothing tonight while it's 20 degrees outside, I have a home, a warm cozy, spirit-filled, Godly home! Thank you God!

Third: Our advent activities are sooo much fun. We are by no means doing organized daily advent ritual time. But I "borrowed" some advent activities from some other moms (see previous posts) and have been using some of those, as well as creating our own! Examples include: polar express & hot chocolate night, root beer float night, making candy cane ornaments, painting our hands red & green & making handprints (the whole family did this, which I decided was a good way to watch how the girls hands grow from year to year), I bought a stamp nativity set and we did that and made a banner in which I should totally post a picture of b/c it's sooo cute, baking, going to the zoo lights in Memphis...the list continues. I also have checked out some awesome books from the library about Christmas & baby Jesus etc. Kennedy absolutely loves to read and sometimes I forget to nurture that. What a blessing to have a 2 1/2 year old who can't read enough books! *Note to self...read more books to Kennedy!!! So yea, we've been having a blast and I really love how involved Chuck is in all of this! He is eating it all up. He is a huge part of this, and without him being on board with all of the activities, it wouldn't be the same.

The best part of what we've been doing is the advent candle lighting stuff. Once again, no hardcore routine service or anything like that going on, but we're doing our best to actually do it with the girls and have all 4 of us involved which is quite the feat. Last Sunday we prayed for Chuck's cousin Robert in Dubai. He's Uncle Robert to Kennedy...and she adores him! We're going to be sending him a package in the mail and praying for him to be safe and not be lonely during Christmas time. Simple enough & very understandable for a 2 year old. We also adopted our nursing home pal for the season ( and probably we will visit her forever if it works out b/c I'm sure we'll fall in love with her :) ) Her name is Rose Ivory and we have not got to visit or meet her yet but we will this week and I cannot wait! We are gonna make her some goodies and go be a little light in her lonely life! Next week we'll be focusing on our Compassion child. His name is Marteny and he is from Haiti. Chuck and I "adopted" him before we were even engaged and have been supporting him I guess for more than 5 years now! Sooo cool!

I wanted to share an AMMMMAZING idea from one of the same gals I mentioned in my last blog. If you like to doing more giving than receiving and are trying to teach your kids to do the same, then check our Amanda's most recent post. Maybe you've read the book The King's Christmas List, if not, I haven't either, and I'm going to do my darndest to get the book and do what she did next year with my little bebes. I just think it is the greatest idea to buy gifts for children in other countries and I know for Chuck & I, that's what we want our kids to think about at Christmas time. What are more ways to give to others?! So check it out at impressyourkids.org.

Besides all of that!! We are still doing our ABC's and for a while, I had posted what we were doing with that. I know it benefits me to see what others are doing (as I always say) so I want to continue to share what we are doing as long as people want to read about it or borrow or store for future use! We are now on letter I. I have a lot of catching up to do, but I promise that my next blog will be catching up with those. However, fun sidenote, I have chosen the word "Inn" to be our special word this week. No room in the inn. Our scripture is Luke 2:7. Lots of more fun things in store as well! Can't wait! Gonna be fun.

Busy week ahead. Lots of parties and programs at our Mother's Day Out this week. I'll tell ya this much, this mama cannot WAIT to hear her little Angel singing Jingle Bells at MDO on Thursday! I may even make myself a t-shirt to wear to rep my girl!

Hope everyone's holidays are going great! Keep Him in mind. Always.

Rach

New "Advent"ures of Team Van Hook

Ok...go me. I'm back again. Twice in one day... WOOP! I figured if I didn't go ahead and do this now, then I might not ever get my hands on Chuck's computer again to do it. So love it & read up!

Alright. So. I am so totally going out on a limb with this whole advent thing. I follow a couple of blogs that have been driving me crazy talking about advent this and advent that lately. Confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com and impressyourkids.org are the two main ones that I follow. I'm by no means a stalker, however, when I started working with Kennedy on doing a letter a week, these 2 mamas had some really great ideas that I sometimes use. So the past few days, and especially today, HOORAY FOR DECEMBER day, I've seen a lot of advent talk. So I decided to look into it and see what these chicks were talking about. This is the cool informative website that I found. I thought it was super cool!! I tried to remember ever having seen or done an advent wreath and then I remembered my elementary Sunday School teacher at FCC here in Jackson. Mrs. Bettye Cole! *sigh* I LOVE her! She tried her darndest to teach us young bucks about the Israelites and all their drama, but Lord knows we were much to young for all that! lol. I would get so confused! But I also remember at Christmas time, she always brought in this wreath with purple and pink candles. We had no clue! I knew that candles were cool. (Don't yall remember when candles of all sorts were so uh-mazing! lol. feel free to hate me for that link!!) But anyway. Yea. That was it in the advent world for me.

Well Chuck and I laid in bed last night talking about how we could start a family tradition that would last for years to come. I'm a crafty girl, but I'm not one to go getting fresh new traditions every year if I can have one great one that we all love. So we came up with a game plan. Here's a summary.

We will do the advent wreath. I think it's a super cool visual leading up to the single greatest birthday celebration ever! (sidenote: let your kiddo throw a huge birthday party for Jesus and invite all their friends! How fun is that :) we did it with the youth last year at the Gathering and made it a Birthday Party/Ugly Sweater Party!) We'll light one candle each Sunday leading up to Christmas and then light one on Christmas. Each will have a corresponding theme and scripture, which I got from the above informative website. So that is something that we'll do every year.

Also, on the homeschool lady's blog, she provided a link to upload the ornaments that her family used for their advent calendar. SOOOO cool! Everyone should totally check them out, use some of what she has, or maybe tweak them for your own family. I don't even feel one bit bad about copying her idea and using her stuff....if it ain't broke, don't fix it & don't reinvent the wheel...I love those phrases. So we're going to make those ornaments and hang them up! Kennedy will be so in to that stuff and it's stuff that we all will have fun doing for years to come. So we won't have to change it, unless we want to.

Lastly, my favorite idea and this one I am proud to say is 1/2 way original. Chuck & I think it's SUPER important for the girls to know that it is more important to give than receive. That is a ridiculously hard concept to teach when the world tells you that YOU NEED EVERYTHING! We decided that we would yes do Santa, but Santa will bring 3 main gifts because Jesus got 3 gifts. Those will be things that she will really love. Then we got her a few things for under the tree. Nothing huge by any means. BUT, we're making sure to go all out when it comes to giving. For every candle that we light, (which will end up being 5 including the one we light on Christmas day) we will have a person that we are giving to this year. Ex. our compassion child, the girls' angel tree friends, our nursing home buddy we adopt etc. Is this going to be easy? I DUNNO! Probably not. It's gonna take a special effort and sacrifice. But that's what it's all about. We are going to be praying for each of those special people and talking about how God allows us to give back to others, and how much it means to them. I am excited! I can't wait! As I said in my last blog, I am no perfect holy Mother Theresa type mom. Just a mom who recognizes that it is important to start early instilling Godly traits into my children (and ourselves for that matter!)

Fun story about Kennedy! I went through her room and cleared out a ton of toys that we can give away. She found the bag and said, "Hey these are my toys. I wanna play with them." I said, "No baby. We're gonna give those toys to other kids who don't have as many toys as you and sissy might." "Why?" "Because some people don't have money to have any toys and you have plenty to share. So we are going to give some away." "OH! Like my Veggie Tales movie. He gived things away." ... Little did I know, the previous night she had watched her new Saint Nicholas Veggie Tale movie in which the little boy gives all of his fish away. HELLO! She soo gets it! She's only 2! What a simple, pure, beautiful faith! So I know it's not too early, and I pray that as she gets older and all her friends talk about the ridiculously insane presents they got for Christmas, Kennedy can maybe share how her family got to give the gift of love. Christ's love. And maybe the light of Jesus in her life will shine brightly into the lives of all those around her!

I know I love to hear what other people are doing during the season. I love to talk about Christmas traditions with other families! I think it's soo cool to see how everyone celebrates Jesus' birthday :) So I thought maybe someone might like to see how we are going to start celebrating. PLLLEASE feel free to leave comments on here or facebook of favorite traditions.

A Beginner~
Rach

Lifelong Learner for Life!

YAY! I haven't had the chance to blog in sooo long and I am so excited to get to again. As usual, I have quite a bit to say...surprise! lol. So I will get started.

First of all, Team Van Hook enjoyed a FABULOUS 12 hour long road trip to and from Chuck's hometown of Fayetteville, NC. Muchas gracias to his wonderful family. Everything was perfect, and my butt thanks you tremendously for all of the food spoiling you gave us ;) No really, we had such a good time, and the road tripping with the littles honestly wasn't terrible. (The new car seat that we got JulieAnne saved us...for REAL! She loved it!)

Next order of business...God has been revealing some awesome AWESOME things lately to me...I'd like to share.
1) Paul! Cool dude. As I've been reading through his books of the Bible, I have realized how important it is for us to know Paul. The main reason is this. His credentials. If anyone knows about Paul, which to be quite frank, I never really cared about who Paul was as an individual, I just knew his stuff in the Word was good. However, I believe that Paul made it to the "Bigs" in the Bible for a specific reason. I never realized that Paul was like Jew of all Jews. Like the main Christian persecutor EVER. Like gangsta thug nasty Jew man. Ok... I think you get my drift. So yea, God chose Paul, specifically so that people in the future (like us crazy folks today) could be confident that if God would CHOOSE Paul for such a huge ministry and purpose...then He can, will and DOES choose us as well. NO MATTER WHAT. Murderer, crack addict, prostitute, Christian hater, bible burner....WHATEVER YOU ARE....GOD LOVES YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, AND HE WANTS YOU! Yup. It's kind of one of those aha or duh moments. Anyway. Just cool watching how God used Paul so greatly....which leads to numero dos.

2) The whole Jewish thing. I won't get too much into this. However, I have learned a lot through my Journey in the word about God's people. Jews & Gentiles. Law vs freedom. etc... As Paul was instructing the people to recognize that they don't have to live by the Old Testament laws anymore, because Jesus came as the ultimate sacrifice to free us... my eyes were opened to some things that I guess if I would've paid more attention at Johnson (ug I hate myself seriously for not) then I would have already known. But anyway, reading through Galatians I turned to Chuck and said "Why don't these people get it babe? What did they not understand about Jesus coming to give us freedom from the law? How could they not have known it was the real Messiah?" and the questions continued for oh about 10 minutes...lol. Finally, I shut myself up with another aha moment. I thought back to the beginning...in Exodus when the Moses brought down the 10 Commandments. When he came down to share the laws that God had given him, the people were going buck stinkin wild down there. Worshiping idols and all sorts of junk. That's when it all began. They were hard-headed and stubborn from that moment on. So my realization was that is how it's supposed to be! The answer to my questions was because God said so!! lol. Until Jesus returns for all His believers, will they "get it!" Well...I'm sure there's a TON more to it then that...but for me... it was a bunch of new cool thoughts that I thought I could share on here. I love learning. Period.

3) Be like Jesus. This idea has been confirmed multiple times lately. A very simple and wonderful though. Especially at this time of year. But in all situations lately, instead of responding the way Rachel wants to respond I think the old school phrase WWJD. For Christmas, I really REALLY REAALLLY want one of those bracelets that I used to rock back in Middle School for me, Chuck and Kennedy even. I firmly believe that if in all things we simply attempt to be like Christ then a whole lotta problems would fix themselves! How would Jesus parent? What kind of spouse would Jesus be? Wouldn't Jesus make it more important to give than receive at Christmas time? :/ What kind of friend would He be? Would He care how clean His house was? How much money He made? ... and so on. Just some stuff to chew on this holiday season!! Some stuff I'm really searching my soul about lately!

ok...well! I have a WHOLE nother blog to do SOON about how our family is going to do an advent wreath/calendar with a twist this year. Guess I'll hafta save that one for hopefully tomorrow...or if I'm lucky after this crazy youth hang out night, I can crank that one out tonight. By the way...side-note...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't think I write all this stuff on here to be "holier than thou" or "better" or anything like that. I am not. I am sooo imperfect it's not EVEN funny! But, I know that I am encouraged when other people share, and I myself am encouraged when God shares with me, so I just want to give back and share with whoever reads this. AND...if no one reads it, I still feel better just having got it all off my chest :)

Stay tuned for my next post which I will so cleverly entitle "Advent"ures :)

Pray for us....it's crazy youth night (how bout we already have 14 kids on our youth group...Praise the Lord!)

Peace In the Middle East
~Rach

imperfect perfectionist.

So anyone who keeps up with my blog knows that I've written quite a bit lately about my daily battle between wanting to be the perfect me for me & for others, and then being perfect to be more and more like God. Total, huge, very big difference. One that I am dying to overcome! So yea, I totally understand that I have to put Rachel in the grave every day and pick up my cross and tote it. I know and understand that God does not want me to be like Martha. He would much rather me be a Mary who drops what she's doing to come sit at his feet. So....here comes my openness. I mean this time it's super open and honest. So much so, that I can't even believe I would air my own dirty business like this, but whatever, I'm not perfect, as much as I wish I could be sometimes!

As most of you know, Chuck's sis stayed with us this past week! SOOO super fun. I, in a very unnatural for me way, put most all of my cleaning duties aside for the week. (Cheyenne and Chuck would beg to differ...but there are some things that a mom MUST do every day like cook, do laundry, do dishes, etc. or else no one can function) No dusting, no floor scrubbing (except for once in the kitchen) no toilet cleaning...and actually no laundry. (Hence the reason I did 10 loads today...blah!) That was SUPER hard for me. I know there's more people like that out there, and that I'm not the only psycho one...lol. But anywho, I spent the majority of my week just hanging out and trying to relax and have fun. Sounds great huh? Yay. Good for you Rachel. Way to relax and and enjoy your family. You really are a new person. NOOTTTT!-----> THE REST OF THE STORY...

On Thursday night, I went and cleaned a friends house. Helps her out, and helps me out...so it's a win win! I had made dinner and ran out the door, leaving Chuck, Cheyenne and the girls with a whopping mess of a kitchen (and entire messy home at that...the air mattress lived in the living room the whole week which was totally cool, until this night) I got home from cleaning and Chuck said, "Umm...babe. I hope you don't get mad." hmmm...good convo starter yea? no. He then informed me that one of the guys he's been hanging with lately, who's a young life leader here in town, (and also went to HS with me, a few years ahead) swung by. I haven't seen this guy in years, and have never even talked to him. He is now married with 2 kids. I say all of this to set up my story! This guy...and his whole family...decided to "pop in" while I was gone. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Any other clean freaks screaming with me yet?! So Chuck told me that...and what did I do? Wellll....I would love to share with you lovely readers that I was so holy, and said "Oh that's great! How fun was that?! I can't believe I missed them!" But what did I do....*sigh* I can't believe me....I stood in the kitchen alone, cleaning, and CRIED. Yes. I'm serious. I cried. I was sooo dang mad that someone I didn't know "popped in" and their first impression of good ole Team Van Hook was that we were total SLOBS. O.M.G. I had never been so embarrassed or upset. Even almost mad. Seriously Rach? Who are you kidding? You know yourself that you had company, that you have 2 young children, and that this couple also had 2 young kiddos, which means...they understood and didn't CARE!

I mean to tell you! I was TORE UP! You would think we were like homeless or something the way I was acting. And truthfully, I was the only embarrassing thing about the whole night! So here's the God part...obviously, I was tested hardcore. Once I had a chance to chill and look back on the situation, I realized that God had totally spanked my butt!! I could just hear him in my mind saying Rachel, you need to walk it out. You can't just hear me teaching you, you have to put it to use. You need to learn to settle down and remember what is most important. What's important was that God brought a family over to our home. This particular family has a LOT in common with us! AND they felt comfortable enough to "pop in!" That's awesome! I always say that I want people to feel comfortable to just pop in to our home. So why did I freak out so much?! To learn a lesson. For sure. God wanted to see if I meant it. Well now I really get it. Even moreso than I thought I got it before. Gah lee. Isn't that ridiculous! lol. How silly!

Anyway, God totally opened my eyes through everything that happened and I am sooo glad. Another cool thing I realized is just how perfectly Chuck and I balance each other out. He's the chill, laidback who-cares-we'll-clean-it-later guy. And I am the babe, let's-do-everything-now-so-we-don't-hafta-do-it-later girl. lol. Any other couples out there like that?! I'm sure! Well I just thought I'd share. Once again, I hope my vulnerability is not just another crazy Rachel story, but maybe in some wild way can encourage, challenge, uplift, or maybe even be a spanking for you too!! lol. Who knows! Alright signing out. ps I cannot believe it is sooo dark soooo early tonight. Weird, and I can't get used to it. I'm so off. I need hot chocolate. STAT. peace out!

tail tucked between my legs~ Rach!

Teach me how to Duggar.

LOL. First of all, everyone should know that we have special company this week. Her name is Cheyenne Bonnie Lanae Van Hook. Yep...the whole entire week...someone save me!! (totally kidding...assuming she will read this soon.) So yea. We're pretty much a ridiculous trio we are. Ole Chuck, his sis Cheyenne, and me. There have so far been talks of boogars, pics of poo, farting, burping, laughing, crying, yelling etc. It's only Tuesday. Shooo....we got a whole nother few days of ludacrosity in our home! I love it. It'd only be better if my sister was here too :( That would definitely throw a kink into things seeings how she is about 13 weeks preggo now!!! Gosh I miss her. (Yay for me being an aunt!) Anywho. We are having a very fun time! I love Chey so much, and I'm glad that she gets to be here for a whole week. She hardly gets to spend quality time with us or the girls so it's awesome! (PS Hope no one is offended by my list of "fun things" but I'm honest, and so there ya go...that is honestly what's been going on in my home. Take it or leave it, like it or not!)

Today has been a fun day! I went off to work this morning...Yes I finally have a job for the first time in forever. I'm working at a Mother's Day Out. I love it. I get to take my girlies so it's good :) So today, me and JulieAnne headed to "school." K stayed home with Aunt "Bonnie" because she has a nasty chest cough. Little did I know that my poor sickly baby would be at home with Bonnie in their swimsuits, swimming in the bath tub....life's tough huh?! When Chuck got home from work tonight, for some reason, we somehow ended up all Duggarish. Cheyenne made dinner. I've been on dinner strike. Bored cooking and feeling like I cook the same thing all the time, so she made dins tonight and it was excellent! Chuck rotisseried (I made that up!) a roast and then used our meat slicer to cut it into roast beef slices, bagged it and put it in the fridge for sandwiches later....no seriously. He really did! It was delicious and even picky Kennedy agreed! I decided to cut up some fresh pears from outside and throw them in the crockpot for the night with some butter, cinnamon & sugar. Then we really did go sit in the living room and watch 19 Kids and Counting. lol. Random night huh?! I loved it! Oh and I almost forgot, Chuck made homemade hot chocolate which was like the most delicious thing I've ever had! (My husband ROX!!!) It was a super good time.

All this being said, I want to add just a smidge of what God's been working on with me lately. It kind of ties in with my last post titled Abba. It also comes a little bit from Jeremy's message Sunday as well as what I've been reading as I finished up Romans. The truth is a simple one...but a wonderful one. Here goes. Selfish perfection=bad. Selfless perfection=good! A brief explanation. So many times, I strive so hard to be perfect for myself. To make myself look better. To make sure my house is super clean (HELLO YEA RIGHT I HAVE 2 YOUNG CHILDREN!) for when company comes over, to cook well so that people think I'm a great wife, to do this or that to make myself look better to me and to others! Anyone feel that say AMEN?! Yea I thought so. That's what I like to call selfish perfection. Aiming to be perfect for my own selfish reasons.

Now...there is a perfectionism that God is totally ok with! And that is the perfection that God is changing my heart to follow and aim toward. That would be setting a goal for yourself to be perfect in God's eyes. For God's purpose and will. To please God. To allow your life to be transformed like Christ. To lay down your own life daily and put aside all selfish desires and thoughts and simply want and need to be like Jesus. That's it. Obviously as we all know, we will never be perfect. Impossible. But, we can sure as heck try. That's even what God wants. He knows we're gonna mess up...so what! That's what makes Him all the more amazing! But I know that He wants us to be like Jesus. Every day to try more and more to be like Christ. Now that is possible! So that's where I'm at. Being renewed and transformed daily. So that my mindset is slowly but very surely changing from selfish perfection to selfless perfection. I want to be perfect for God!! I want to be as much like Jesus as I possibly can for reasons that bring glory to His name and no other. If I'm more like Jesus, then my prayer is that God could use me and my testimony as a way to show His glory to others. I want people to see Jesus, not Rachel. (Please don't get me wrong, I am not bashing house cleaning, and good cooking. I love to cook, clean, crochet, make bows etc... and that is who I am. I am not going to change those things, but I can keep in check the reason behind my doing those things.)

Just wanted to share! As always. My split personality life is so ridiculous. Crazy but serious. Loud but quiet. But mostly just honest and truthful. I like to be an open book. My prayer is that God uses me! Be encouraged! Closing thought....go pray over your babies tonight while they sleep! Kiss them one more time! Tell your husband how much you love and respect him and that he's the best dad and husband ever :) Sleep tight!

Selfless Perfection For Me~Rach