I Feel A Change Coming On

Hi! If you're looking for our latest post, we've relocated to our own website. You can find today's post at lolinministry.com. Click the link and come visit us at our new site!

We Are ThisClose

Still not fully set up on the new platform, but we are so close we can almost taste it. Spoiler alert:  it tastes like chocolate!

Just kidding. You can't taste computers.

At any rate, I'm pretty sure this will be the last update we do on the old platform. Hopefully by this time next week we'll have a brand new look and a brand new virtual location. Thanks for sticking with us (you ARE out there reading, aren't you?). Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

In the meantime, here's some more Cute Kid Pics.

We're holding off on our contest until we have the new platform, but it'll definitely be worth the wait. In the meantime, leave us a comment either here or on facebook to let us know you're still out there. It's getting lonely around here!

TODAY IS ... not the day

We're still under construction here at lolinministry, but I have very high hopes that this week we will be able to finish transferring to a new platform, and if that's the case, then next week we'll be back in full force with a new look, a new order of posting and a GIVEAWAY!!!

That's right, to celebrate our new look, your incredible patience and because we want to trick you into leaving more comments, we'll be doing a giveaway next week. We want to celebrate the fact that we're into our third year here at lolinministry, and say thank you for sticking with us as we laugh along the way.

Last week I gave you pictures of Ky and Steph's cute kids to tide you over during our reconstruction. This week I'm posting pics of my own kiddos, but some of them were not nearly as agreeable when it came to posing.

See you next week!

Did You Miss Us?

Well I hope you were eagerly awaiting our return to blogland.

I hope you missed us as much as we missed you.

I hope you're not too disappointed to find out that everything isn't fixed yet.

We are working on switching platforms, but it is taking longer than we planned. This is no one's fault. Just a fact of life--in the ministry.

We hope to be up and running again soon. In the meantime, here's some cute pictures of kids!

Not so Littles

Yesterday was our baby's 1st birthday.

And as you can see, she already acts like a teenager. 

We spoiled her with a pair of new shoes and a puppy!! 

We also had a party for her after our midweek service at church. It was a lot of fun and my kids ate waaaayyyyy too much sugar. That is also the reason this post is so late today. 😊

When you have little kids, everyone tells you to enjoy it because it goes by fast. Well, after having 3 kids in 3 years, there were a lot of days where it didn't feel like it was going by very quickly. However, these days it's going by a little more quickly. 

It doesn't feel that long ago that it was my oldest baby's 1st birthday, and now she's 4. The picture app on my phone ocassionally creates "then & now" collages for me. 

This was the most recent one. My oldest at a year and a half, then again only a few days ago. I guess everybody knew what they were talking about after all when they said "it goes by fast" .

*we will be taking next week off from the blog for maintenance  Be sure to come back the following to see the changes! 

What Goes Around Comes Around

Twenty years ago I hired a young college student on a part time basis to come help take care of my five children (ages ten years to twenty months old) and my mountains of laundry so that I could care for our newborn sixth child and work on packing our house and belongings to move to Uganda as missionaries. She was a tremendous help, and a great influence on my small children. After we left for the mission field we kept in touch, mostly through her mother who is like a sister to me.

Years later this girl had finished college and was back in Alabama, teaching in the Christian school at our home church. We were chased out of Uganda by terrorists and came back to our home church, where she taught some of my children in high school. She was once again a tremendous influence on our children. She was one of my kids' favorite teachers, and when she got married, Matt ended up being one of the groomsmen.

(He's in the front row on the left, in case you can't tell.) She also had Stephanie tend her guestbook, and a couple of our other boys greeted people at the door.

After she married, she moved to Texas, and we moved to Florida where my husband pastored a church. Years later her family moved back to Alabama, and her children ended up being in Stephanie's wedding.

Also about twenty years ago, two young men, brothers, began working for my husband in his painting business. Their parents were missionaries, and they had been raised in Brazil on the mission field. They were in Alabama to go to Bible college, and they spent a great deal of time at our home, eating home cooked food and playing with our children. They also spent some time with my husband doing some fishing and shooting. Bob and Charlie were both courteous, well-mannered and godly young men. On more than one occasion I told my husband that if we could raised our children to be half as good as those two, we would be successful parents.

Both young men finished school and went back home to Brazil where they got married and started families. Then they came back to Alabama to start deputation as God called them both to be second generation missionaries in Brazil. We happened to be in Alabama at the same time, and Stephanie ended up babysitting their children on occasion. Both men finished deputation and have been serving in Brazil for many years now. In fact, our church supports Bob and his family.

Almost six years ago, Stephanie married a young man who was also called to the mission field of Brazil. Six years and three children later, they have finished deputation and left for Brazil last summer. They live in the same city as Bob's family and are serving with them in the work there. In fact, while Stephanie and her husband go to language school several times a week, Bob's daughter babysits for them.

I love the way God has woven these wonderful people into and through our lives. Each of these people are so incredibly special to us, and I thank God for allowing us to have had a very small influence on them. Then they each had a bigger influence on our children. Then our children had an influence on their children. And now their children are having an influence on our grandchildren.

It's also such a comfort to me to know that, while some of our family is far away in another country, they're not alone and they're not with strangers. Through God's grace, they are with people He brought into our lives many years ago.

Isn't God good?

************

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  We will be taking next week off from blogging. We've had several issues with the platform for our blog, including problems with people accessing it and leaving comments on it. We'll be doing some maintenance work next week to hopefully iron out those problems. We'll be back to blogging the week of April 29th, so make sure to come back then and see our changes. And test out our repairs by leaving comments, of course!

Happiness is Homemade

There is really nothing like spending quality time with your kids. I admit that I’m guilty at times of getting caught up in the things that need to get done and the things that have to get done that sometimes I miss out on that quality time with my girls. I’ve been working harder at putting the things that aren’t so important aside to make more memories with my girls. They are only this age for such a short time. I’m noticing that with each kid that you have the time seems to go by that much faster! 

The other night the weather was so nice, we had just put in a full day’s work at the church, I had a sink full of dishes, I didn’t have dinner ready or anything planned. So instead of facing all the work I had to do we took the girls outside to play. We played chalk, we took turns pushing the baby in the stroller and shot some hoops, it was so simple but we had a lot of fun. We came inside, ordered a pizza and spent the rest of the evening watching a movie. It didn’t cost a lot of money, but it was spontaneous and special.

I’ve had a little Easter dessert that I had been wanting to do with the girls, so over the weekend we finally got to it! 

     Here are my little sous chef’s hard at work.

and our results!

My parents got to come for a visit so we did a little early birthday party for this pretty girl! 

and she may or may not have partied too hard!

It really is the little things that matter most. I love making memories with my family!

What are some of your favorite things to do as a family?

** Next week our blog will be under construction!

All your care

Earlier this week, I was reading in I Peter, and a couple verses stuck out to me.

I Peter 5:7-8

 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. 

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. 

I know these verses. I've known these verses for years. I taught one of these verses to my 3 year old. But something jumped out at me this time when I read them. 

Life can be overwhelming. Motherhood can be overwhelming, jobs can be overwhelming, bills can be overwhelming. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do, there are many things or situations in life that can just come upon you and take over. 

That's when verse 7 comes in. Instead of being overwhelmed, you give it to God. Cast it upon Him, for He cares for you. 

Do you want to know why that's an important thing to do? Because we have an adversary.

The devil. Who is walking around looking for prey to devour. You know who is easy to devour? The weak. The ones who are burdened down with cares. 

If you are not sober and vigilant, and casting your cares upon Him, you are that weak prey that the devil is seeking to devour. Holding on to the burdens, and the overwhelming thoughts is making you an easy target. 

What are you holding on to today that is painting a big red target on your back?

When A Man Understands

Ive done a lot some blogging about the differences between men and women here on the blog, and I've even talked about how hard it is for one gender to understand the other at times. That, of course, doesn't mean you have to live at cross purposes. It's not always necessary to understand the why's of a certain reaction or response. Sometimes it's enough to understand simply that there will be a reaction or a response.

For instance, if some of the males in my household are equidistant between the bathroom and the back door, there's a 50-50 chance as to which door they'll choose in order to take care of nature's call. I don't understand it. I don't like it. I just know that it is a fact. On their side, they know that I don't like it. So although an outdoor choice makes perfect sense to them (!) they're more likely to choose the indoor response if I happen to be nearby.

One of the areas that men don't understand is pregnancy. And really, who can blame them? They've never experienced it and never will, so they can't truly understand all the intricate realities of what a woman goes through while she's pregnant. Bless their hearts.

My Indiana Jones wrestled with some of this through my six pregnancies. He had sympathy cravings which meant he asked his six-month pregnant wife to pick up a 36-bar pack of Hershey's candy bars while at the grocery store. Except the cashier didn't believe they were for my husband's cravings.

Indiana also tried to be supportive in the labor room. But he learned quickly that encouraging me through a contraction and chanting, "Come on, no pain! No pain!" were two separate things.

Now our third son and his wife are expecting their first baby, and yes, that grin has pretty much been on his face ever since they announced they had a little bundle of joy coming. I think it got a little bigger when they announced that the baby is a BOY! (Just in case you missed it.)

Paul's been pretty supportive during Shelby's pregnancy, understanding (or at least accepting) the nausea and exhaustion that often accompanies the first part of a pregnancy. But he's even taking it a step further. He's had some cravings. He's joked about having mood swings, but the grin is the only mood I've seen. But he's also been good about filling in for his wife. For instance, she's off coffee for the duration of the pregnancy, and she really misses it. Some men might sympathize with their wife, but still drink their coffee. Some might give up coffee right along with their wife. But here's where Paul is going the extra mile.

He's having his coffee and her's too. Talk about a sacrifice!

Here Comes the Bride

Were you one of those people who started planning details about your wedding when you were young? My Stella girl has already began her wedding planning, with many details picked out. Not only has she started on the many many details it takes to plan a wedding but she has also started praying for her husband. It's never too early to start doing that, right?

She told me a while back that she wanted to get married when she is 17, just like I did. I informed her that I was 20 when I got married, but didn't have the heart to tell her she wasn't going to be able to date until she is 30.

One day last week we took a girls’ day and she had taken a note pad with her to make sure she could write down any details of her wedding so she wouldn't forget what she wanted. She had mentioned to me that morning that she wanted to design her own wedding dress, and asked me if I could make one. I told her that I thought that was a fantastic idea to be able to design her own gown but that I would be happy to help her find someone when the time comes to make it for her since mommy can only sew a button. On her notepad she started some sample sketches of what she wants her dress to look like.

She is also very big on making lists, she started a list for everything she needed to get for her wedding.

If you can't make out what any of these pictures are, don't worry. I couldn't tell all of them at first either so we talked about it. She read off her list and it sounded a little something like this:

1. Tables and Chairs
2. Candles
3. Blue Flowers
4. Cupcakes
5. Balloons that say "Best Wedding Ever"
6. Music

When she mentioned the last one, I asked what type of music did she think she might have. She informed me that it would be godly, like "Jesus Loves Me".

I happily listened to all of her plans and told her that I loved everything that she had so far, but perhaps we should focus on finishing kindergarten first. She sighed at that idea and went back to designing her wedding gowns.

Teacher in the Making

On Sunday, the one that made me a momma turned 4.

The last four years have been a whirlwind, and I feel like I missed most of it. Since she was born we've moved from Kentucky to Alabama, started deputation, had two more kids, and moved to Brazil.

This girl is my mini-me in all areas: the good and the bad. She looks like I did and she acts like I did. Every time I talk to my mom and tell her something my daughter did (you know, the not so good things), I get the response, "hmmm, I feel like I know someone else who was just like that". 🤷‍♀️ I dont get it.

She is also quite the little momma to her siblings, whether it be very insistently informing me of their needs or dragging her little sister away from somewhere she shouldn't be. I was also like this. My mom said I took helping her upon myself, even to the point of deciding I was ready to change my first baby diaper because the baby was crying and Mom was dealing with another kid. So, I just did it.

But with the "little momma" thing also comes some not so good stuff. My daughter loves her fashion. She puts on a carefully chosen dress and shoes to match, and then goes to check herself in the mirror. When she determines she is satisfied with her look, she then goes to her dad for approval. I say approval, but she really wants the "ooos and ahhs". Now she has added to the routine by going to her brother for a compliment. She recently trained him in the response to give her.

Daughter : "how do I look?"
Son : "beautiful, you're so beautiful."

I'm not sure how she got him trained to answer that way. Maybe I should have her start teaching him the alphabet next.

Men will Never Say This ...

We have discussed before here on the blog the (obvious) differences between men and women. I personally feel that I've been put in a unique position to have an upclose view of the world from a man's perspective since I have so many men in our family. With that in mind, I came across the following recently and, after verifying the accuracy of the statements with the Boyd men, I'm sharing with you things you'll never hear a man say:

1. Does this hunter's outfit make look fat?

2. Do you think he's prettier than me?

3. My wife never listens to me.

4. I'll have the light vinaigrette salad and a diet soda.

5. Why do't we go to the men's room and freshen up?

6. No, I didn't see the game last night. I was watching QVC.

7. Looks like it's time to buy some new underwear.

8. Okay, who left the toilet seat up?

9. I've got my father's thighs!

10. The dog??? No, that was ME!

And because we also always try to include helpful suggestions here on the blog:

Happy Wednesday!

Believe Nothing and Trust No One

Im not typically an openly opinionated person. If you ask me my opinion, I will tell you otherwise I am more of a keep it to myself until I get home and share it with my husband type of person. Just ask him, he’ll tell you!

April Fools' day is a great day to try and pull off the ultimate prank and I’m all about a good one. However, I have had something on my heart that has bothered me for several years that I want to be openly opinionated about.

Every year on this day I come across someone using pregnancy as their April Fools' joke. To tease about such a sensitive matter is not only inconsiderate but can really hurt someone. So many people struggle with trying to get pregnant, miscarriages, or even the loss of a child. Not long after Matt and I were married I had a miscarriage and we lost our first baby. We were devastated! So it is really not something to joke about.

It’s easy to be tasteful with your pranking. I have even provided a couple of fun ideas. I personally have not tried any of these but someone very close to me has. From some stories that i’ve heard he was quite the prankster. To protect this person, I won’t name names…. April Fools', it was my husband.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Place saran wrap under the toilet seat.
2. Replace the icing on Oreos with toothpaste.
3. Fill a bowl with cereal and milk with a spoon place it in a freezer overnight. Someone will be surprised the next morning when they try and eat their breakfast.

So tell me, how are you pulling off your ultimate prank?

Mother, May I? - Setting the Record Straight

If you're reading this, then you probably read our last post written by Jill, my mother. https://lolinministry.blogspot.com/2019/03/mother-may-i.html   I would like to share my side of this story ... or these stories.

  My mom is a writer. A suspense writer. So, as you can imagine, the stories she made up for us when we were children were not your average "mommy stories".   Let me share one with you. When I was in high school, my mother taught at our school. So, we had to leave early every morning, and as we pulled out of our subdivision, there was always a bus parked near the entrance. The bus wasn't running,  it was just parked there and the driver was sitting inside.  And my mother,  being who she is,  would tell us that the driver had to stop there every morning to get rid of the dead bodies he had hidden on the bus.  She said that it was a good body dump spot because there was a drop off right there into a swampy area. I'm not a huge fan of buses to this day. 


As for scenarios of survival from dad. He is a krav maga instructor, plus he is also teaches concealed carry classes. So, when we were young teens and my parents were going to be gone for a whole day or something like that,  my dad would teach us where in the house to go and what to do first, and so forth; and then we would act it out. My dad would be "the intruder" and we would have to follow the plan. It was fun, but now, when I'm home alone and I hear all those "house noises" that sound like someone is coming to kill you,

I automatically think of those scenarios. He was a pretty good teacher, in those areas anyways. Teaching me to drive is another story. Let's just say, we went to an empty parking lot and it ended after five minutes when he told me to back the car up and then yelled, "boom, you just ran over a person and killed them"...  Mom did the rest of my driving lessons after that.

Now, on the flip side of things, we may or may not say things to our kids that they might bring up later. The other day we decided to play an impromptu game of hide and seek. It really only started because the kids had searched half the house for me and hadn't found me, so I decided to stay hidden for a while. They even looked in the room I was in, but they didn't check behind the door. So, my husband told them that I disappeared because they were too naughty. After he sent them my way two more times, and they still didn't find me, they were starting to panic. So, I jumped out and scared them. They screamed, laughed, but it was a half cry half laugh. My son said, " I thought you disappeared forever!". My daughter said, "Daddy said you were gone because we were naughty, but I told him 'Nuh-uh!!!!' ".  

I guess what goes around comes around. I wonder what they're gonna bring up when they're my age. 

Mother, May I?

There are times in life when your adult children question the way you raised them. Times when you find yourself having to explain the choices you made and the stands you took. Such a time (one of many) came for me last week and I thought I would share it with you. These times are never easy, but perhaps they can be a learning experience for all of us. Following is a text conversation between Stephanie and me this past Friday evening. It started out of the blue like this:

Stephanie:  I blame this on you.

Me:  You blame his scaring away axe murderers on me?

Stephanie:  No, I blame the fear on you.

Me:  I never told you axe murderers were trying to break in.

Stephanie:  I just saw it and it made me think of you. Because you're the one who told me weird stories all of my life ... and I guess dad too because he used to teach us scenarios of what to do if someone broke in the house while y'all were gone.

Me:  So we wanted y'all to be prepared. I think that makes us good parents. Have you been killed by an axe murderer? No? Then I guess we were successful.

Stephanie:  Lol

Me:  (A short time later because I felt like I should retaliate for her accusations) okay, I was looking up clown memes to send you, but I'm home alone and I ended up scaring myself.

Stephanie:  Hahaha

Stephanie:  (Half an hour later): This is something you would have said to us:

Me:  I only would have said that so that you would know there's no such thing as monsters.

Who would have guessed kids could grow up to be so sensitive and hold your sarcasm against you? So if you have adult children, what decisions/comments have you had to defend? If you're kids are still small, what's something you've said or done recently that you know you'll have to explain someday?

Babies and Belly Laughs

Do you ever wish you could remember all of the funny things you did or said when you were a kid? I personally don't remember a lot of things that I did as a young girl but I remember a few. I remember that my love for shoes started at a young age. I could never decide which pair I wanted to wear so I wore one shoe from each pair around the house. I also remember always needing more that one pacifier at a time. 

Well, when my kids get older and ask me what they used to do as a kid, I won't have to rack my brain trying to remember every single great thing because I get to document it here.

Over the last several weeks I've taken note of some fun things these girls have been saying and doing!

1. There's nothing like spending quality time with your sisters..especially in a really cool fort!

2. As you know, we are in the middle of potty training and it's going well. I told Livie let's try and go potty. She yelled from the other room, "Neverrrr!"

3. The girls were playing bandits, and I here, "Get on the ground, perp!"

4. These girls can be very sweet to each other, one particular moment, Livie told me. " I love my sweet, sweet Mila Shay!"

4. This week baby girl discovered a new skill!

5. I knew that in the coming years I would start getting some sass from my girls. I mean, it's dealt with when needed but if you belt out a laugh before you can say anything else...well, then.. what can ya' do? Here are a few of those moments...

Me: "Girls, it's time to get dressed!" 

Girl: "Would you calm down old woman?"

Me: "Stella, you are really cool!"

Stella: "Thanks, I was born that way."

Stella: Just call me Stella Mc-Gorg (gorgeous). I'm so glad she is humble!

6. There has been another popular phrase around the house lately, and I'm not sure where they picked this one up but, one girl said to the other, "Would you please be quiet you stuck up, snot!" At least she said please, right?

7. When Stella learns something new, she becomes very passionate about it and wants to share it with everyone she knows. I've blogged about her learning some Krav Maga moves. She told me after her first lesson, "I've never killed a person, but I'm really strong!"

One of those people she is teaching is her sister. In the video below, you'll find just how well that's going.

I hope everyone has a great week!

It's Fall Ya'll

Last week was the official start of fall here. That doesn't really mean much because the temperature hasn't really changed. It's still hot most days, but on days when it cools down because of the rain, we take advantage of the wardrobe opportunities.

It's really not even cold enough for the long sleeves, but my kids are adjusting to the brazilian weather and they think they're freezing to death. 🤷‍♀️

In other news, dinner time around here has become pretty interesting lately because this boy thinks it's the time to talk instead of eat. 

This was a "dad, let me tell you something"  moment. I'm all for dinner conversation, but Lil man does a lot more talking than eating. As you can see in this picture, his plate is still full  but the rest of us were done eating.

Well, I'm off to get stuff done on this "crisp fall morning". Bom fim de semana! (Have a good weekend!)  

A Night On the Town

With the new little one we're expecting this summer, our family count has gone up to nineteen. Even though five of the family are off serving in Brazil, that still leaves fourteen of us getting together for family night. Sometimes it's difficult to find something that pleases everyone, but last night was an easy one. We went to Texas de Brazil to celebrate Matt's thirtieth birthday.

We had a party atmosphere as we started out, although it was temporarily dampened by an accidental fist to a face. But hey, what can you expect from this crowd? There was another brief moment where one of the guys had to be told that his pleather coat was not welcome and he had to leave it on the bus, but he parted with it fairly easily.

The restaurant was a little more upscale than we're used to, but as far as the guys are concerned, you can never go wrong with a place where the waiters are continually bringing more cuts of meat to your table. In addition to the never-ending meat and the unique salad bar, the restaurant serves dishes of garlic mashed potatoes and fried bananas, called plantains. The plantains are for the purpose of cleansing your palate between meats, but the guys liked the banana so much they ate more than was strictly necessary for the "cleansing".

Sometimes little ones can be a tad picky, but this one was pleased to find all-you-can-eat rice at the salad bar.

Others were pleased with fresh mozzarella balls, olives and croutons with a steady side of attention from her uncles.

In fact, attention from the uncles and Papa was a big hit throughout the evening. Although I think the girls' mama might sometimes wish the uncles weren't quite so attentive. Like when they told the girls that this city was where Batman lived. 

I'm pretty sure that the guys all came close to eating their weight in meat, but that didn't stop them from topping off their meal with ice cream cones from the shop next door. The trip home was filled with llamas, songs, video messages for the Brazilian half of the family and "AAHHHHHHH's" as we went through tunnels (It's a Boyd thing).

There was a brief stop at Grand Traverse Pie Company because why not? Also a slight mishap that ended with ripped pants and a minor injury before most of us succumbed to meat comas for the remainder of the ride home. We're a hearty bunch though, and by the time we got back to the house, some were ready to finish up the evening with a little pie. 

What have we got planned for our next family night? Well, because we like variety, we're looking into a little thing called huntakiller.com. 

Why be normal?