Temperaments, Eating Bugs and Hobo Stew

Last weekend I was able to visit with my dear friend Joyce and her family, whom I haven't seen in 12 years!  It was a wonderful visit and I was able to see a part of the world (Salt Lake City) that I had never seen before.  Beautiful! I would like to ask you to keep Joyce and her family in your prayers. Joyce is suffering from a rare form of cancer.  My prayer, that God heal Joyce for His greater Glory! This trip and the long plane rides allowed this mother of 11 a rare treat, many long hours of uninterrupted reading time!  I used it to read two books.  The first one was Ender's Game, because it was already on the Nook I borrowed from my daughter, and all my older kids have recommended it to me for years.  Ender's Game was entertaining but a bit dark for this older mom.  Yet I can definitely see the allure of this story for teens because the main character is an unwitting child protagonist who saves the world.  But the book that has given me much food for thought is the second book I read, The Temperament God Gave You by Lorraine and Art Bennet.  Though this book was first published in 2005 and I have always  wanted to read it, it never made it to the top of the large stack on my night stand until now!

I don't think too many people are surprised to hear that people naturally have different temperaments.  Mothering my large crew, I can see that my children have faced the joys and struggles of life with varying intensity and reactions.  So one might ask, "why read this book?" Well, what I liked about this book is that the Bennets not only help you recognize your own basic temperament, but also how the temperaments interact together within our marriages and with our children.  I really appreciate the Bennets' suggestions on how we as parents, can help encourage our children's spiritual lives by understanding the different temperaments of our children and how a child of this temperament will "naturally" respond to God.  I'm not much for self-help books and have avoided them for years now, but I have found this book useful and am going to make (suggest) Mark read it with me. :)

Now for some family fun...as a side note, I'm not very good at having a camera ready to capture photos but am trying to get better (another advantage of "blogging").  So consequently if I remember to take a picture of an event then we include it in the blog!

Eating Bugs.  We live near a really fun grocery store called Jungle Jim's.  Jungle Jim's is known to carry just about anything you may want in groceries, the weirder the better!  Hence, my children's favorite store! This is what they came home with after a recent "Junggies" (our pet name for Jungle Jim's) visit when their older brother Josh was in town.

Our Pets. We also like animals, just not more than people.  So I thought I would include a picture of our dogs, Oakley and Daisy, they are best buds. I also promise a picture of the rabbits, fish and pet rat in a later post...I know you can't wait.

Lastly, we had an awesome weekend celebrating Rosie's 8th birthday. We had several activities that included some cousins and friends (of course no pictures...old dog, new trick?!)

Here are some pictures of the family birthday party.  Rosie wanted "Hobo Stew" and "pie iron pie's" both cooked over the fire-pit.  Every one gets to choose from a variety of ingredients for their stew and then it is wrapped in foil and placed in the fire.

To top off the wonderful weekend of fun, was a visit from her God-parents, Ed and Roxie and their family. (Grrrr, no I didn't get a picture of Rosie with them!)

Thank you God for the gift of Rosie!

Peace and Joy,

Nancy