Search Results for: free printables

I love the look of freshly polished furniture, but am amazed at how briefly a good dusting job lasts. Either my mother polished the furniture a lot more frequently than I realized growing up, or the dust just didn’t accumulate back then like it does now, because I never remember it building up quite so…

I got up during the night a couple of weeks ago and accidentally stepped on something sharp. I jumped back in pain, but since we were in a hotel room at the time and I didn’t want to wake the rest of the family, I just felt around in the dark, trying (without success) to…

Our family has always enjoyed a competitive round of Putt-Putt golf, although we normally save that activity for vacation. We love playing semi-challenging courses with lots of waterfalls and pirate ships and caves and bridges. Sometimes our littlest guys get to play free, but it means sporting a plastic club instead of a real one….

I had lunch with a friend last week whom I’d not seen for some time. I knew she was in the midst of some very significant trials, so as I hugged her neck in greeting, I told her our family has been been praying for her and asked how she was holding up. As she…

My husband had the privilege of baptizing our youngest child last Sunday. It was a special time for all involved, a fact to which Doug alludes in the video: Abigail's Baptism Immediately before the baptism, the elders played a taped interview with Abigail in which they asked her about sin, about Jesus’ death on the…

Last weekend, I helped throw a wedding shower for a long-time family friend. Isn’t she a beautiful bride? And she’s just as lovely inside as she is out. My husband is always thrilled when I host this sort of event in our home, because it means that the house gets an extra-thorough cleaning and that…

The year after we moved to Tyler, the Parks and Recreation Department built a new skate park. That was 17 years ago, back when we had a garage full of rollerblades and a house full of aspiring stuntmen (including my husband, who probably should have known better). He drove our sons to Noble E. Young…

In Hebrews 12:1, we read this admonition: “Therefore seeing we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily ensnare us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” One of our sons is getting married…

For years, my husband has talked about getting a drum set, but resisted the urge, because drums take up so much space. That decision suited me just fine, as the thought of having twelve kids in the same house as a set of drums didn’t appeal to me in the least! I imagined them beating…

In Psalm 72:6-7 we read a prayer of Solomon in which he asks God to bless the King and to make the King a blessing to others. He prays: “May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may the righteous flourish, and abundance of…

Today’s Word on Wednesday is 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, which centers on a gardening theme. A while back, our son Benjamin built our family a raised vegetable garden. Most of our yard is shaded, so he found the sunniest spot available and placed it there. He planted and tended it himself the first season we had…

Our family loves going to the beach. We usually go off season, which means we avoid the crowds, but it also means the water is colder than in the height of summer. So we spend most of our time there playing in the sand instead of riding the waves. We bury one another in sand……

A friend of mine recently lost her father to cancer. She was telling me afterwards that his funeral was packed with people she’d never even met. People to whom he’d shown quiet, generous kindness. People who had traveled great distances to attend, many, many of whom offered the same testimony: They had been struggling. Had…

My youngest child turned five last month. Earlier this year, she learned how to pedal her bike without training wheels. (You can see her in action here.) Clearly, she’s not a baby anymore. So this week, we’ve been cleaning closets, clearing out crib mobiles and baby blankets and cotton onesies, getting ready for a garage…

I called my husband at work last week to tell him something and prefaced my comments with, “I have some great news…” To which he immediately replied, “You’re pregnant!” Sadly, that wasn’t what I’d called to tell him — and at age 50, it’s seeming less and less likely that I will ever be making…

It’s time for another Word on Wednesday post. This week, our verse is Galatians 5:13 on serving one another: Yesterday was my birthday. I turned fifty. That’s 5-0. And one of my precious daughters made me a very special surprise for my birthday — a deck of fifty cards, each with something she loves about…

Today is April Fool’s Day! When you live in a house with as many children as I do, you can be sure at least some of them have some tricks up their sleeves that they’ve been saving for just such an occasion! Dollar bills on a string. Rubber bugs in the pantry. Short-sheeted beds. Meatloaf…

My mother worked outside the home during most of my growing-up years, and I remember that the first thing she liked to do when she came home every evening was to change out of her dress clothes into a house robe. She had several to choose from, but they were all soft and warm and…