Inspiring!

This is a couple of years old but it just crossed my path. I thought it was well worth sharing and immensely inspiring!

Enjoy.

Glass half full, half empty or sideways?

Philippians 4:4-7
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Life as we know it in the Stunz household is about to be turned upside down and sideways. I have choices to make daily on how I will respond to situations that arise. I have a choice as to how I let things affect me and how I respond to them. (Philippians 4:4-7) Sometimes I make the wrong choice but, to my credit, I have made some right ones along the way.

So there are a couple of ways I can choose to look at the glass. Full – optimistic to a fault. Half full – realistically optimistic and generally content. Half empty – pessimistic. Empty – totally unhappy with life and anything and anyone in it (these people are downers). I try to be a "half full" kind of gal but I have to consciously choose to be. Half empty or empty just can’t be an option or I’m going down and I’ll drag others down along with me.

OR… I could look at things as half full and sideways. Here’s a picture of a fraction problem that Anna did in math recently. I really like this perspective. She is our optimistic, sideways thinker!! I wish I could be more like her.

Running for Segera

Next weekend our family is headed to Huntsville for an overnight camp out. Even though we LOVE camping, we probably wouldn't choose to camp in early February but my parents are loaning us their camper and a friend of ours is running 100 miles for a cause that we are head over heals in love with. He's running to raise money and awareness for the needs of the children of Segera in Kenya where our daughter went last summer and where she and our son will go this summer. Tommy explains in more detail why Jason is running this super-human race on his blog and how you can participate should you want to. So you can read the details here.

I'm anticipating incredible things to happen in Huntsville, Texas next weekend and I'm pumped that our family gets to be a part of it. Not to mention we're getting a cool t shirt!


These are the links for my facebook note in case they don't come through in the feed.

Tommy's blog: http://trechoagon.blogspot.com/2009/01/100-miles-for-children-of-segera.html

Brightpointe Ministries: http://www.brightpointforchildren.org/ (click on Jason/100)

It's All About Tori - Part 7

Well, 7 is the number of completion so I think that this will be the last post in this series. Jakeb and Anna will no longer be ignored as they kind of have been over the last week or so as we got ready for graduation and party stuff. Thanks for being so gracious and understanding, Jakeb and Anna! You're time will come!

Tori's graduation party yesterday was great and many family members and friends came to celebrate with us. We had TONS of good food and desserts. I put together a video scrapbook of her life and we watched that several times throughout the day. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and we got some good reactions - a few laughs and a few tears. I used right at 200 photos and put some meaningful music behind them. It's too long to post anywhere so if you want to see it, you'll have to come over or I'll sell you a copy for "only $129.95 with $6.95 shipping & handling". College money...... :)

A highlight for me was surprising Tori with a close friend from her younger days when we lived in Spring. I love surprises (giving, not receiving) and it was fun to see the look on Tori's face when she saw her.

Throughout these graduation festivities, I think Tori was humbled and understands how blessed she is to have family and friends who love and support her.

Throughout these festivities, I have been reminded once again of some things that are important:

*Time spent with those you love and those who love you cannot be replaced or recaptured.
*Every once in a while it is good to gorge on fajitas and desserts.
*Choices that we have made and the choices to be made really do matter.
*Wherever you are, be all there, but always be open for change.
*One is never too old to get help from her mom. (My mom scanned about a million pictures for me for the video.)
*Laughter is incredible and we don’t do it often enough!
*Take lots of pictures/video and keep them organized.
*When someone loves your kids, it’s better than them loving you.
*Pappasito’s chips and salsa are the BEST!

"Ok, I'm ready for the video!"


Fun Gifts


Tori & Megan (childhood friend)


Well, movin' on... Not sure what we'll write about next. We don't have very much going on right now. At least not much that some of you will want to read about. :)

It's All About Tori - Part 6

Well, Tori did it, she has it and now it's time to party! She successfully completed her grade school days and has her high school diploma. Way to go, Tori!!! I know we've said it before but I'll say it again just in case you missed it. I can't imagine how we could be any more proud of you.

NOW, it's time for a party. We're having a few friends and family over today to celebrate with us. And as is appropriate when you're having a party, the laundry room floods. Not a little spill over but a flood. The whole drain from the washing machine came unscrewed and the water had no where to go but all over the floor and everything that was on the floor. It was about an inch deep covering the entire floor. Luckily, I kept it from going into the kitchen but it did manage to get out to the garage and make a little river. Tommy and Jakeb are out running 10 miles so they won't be back for over an hour so after a little breakdown and throwing down every towel I own, through tears, I called my dad and he brought over his wet/dry vac. It was awesome! Totally sucked!!! :) (Yes, I said, "sucked" because that's what it did.) Definitely adding it to my list of things to buy someday.

Thanks, Dad, for saving the day!

Clean up is done and we're ready to partaaay!

It's All About Tori - Part 5

Here is another thought from Tori's Pawpaw that came in about Tori's life so far.



You hear a lot about "style" but not much about "substance". Tori has handled good times and bad on her way to becoming a fine young woman with a solid balance of both. Character counts. It always will.

PawPaw


I've laughed and I've cried so much over the past few weeks. I'm grateful that there has been a measure of both. Tori's graduation ceremony is tonight. She'll walk to receive her diploma that she has worked so hard for over the last 13 years. She'll be in her cap and gown looking so grown up and beautiful. We'll be proudly watching with friends and family. I'm pretty sure I'll be tearing up alot.

It's All About Tori - Part 4

So here are a few thoughts from family and friends to add to the series of Tori posts. Enjoy and thanks to those of you who helped make this post so great! If more come in, I'll be sure to post them.

Tori, as you go from one stage in life to the next, you will….blah blah blah… Hey Toto, You know that as I've watched you grow from the fuzzy headed, cutie patooty, playing with the gerbil ball in the bathtub, to the incredible young lady you are today…I have to sit down just to take it all in. You and I have shared some great times and I look forward to many, many more with you in the years to come as you grow even more and become even more awesome than you already are. Gal, God has such incredible plans for you and to watch you follow them is a blessing to all of us. But, I can only speak for myself when I say, "HEY FRIGID-EAR, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE REFRIDGERATOR"! I love you with all my heart and I will always be here for you! ALWAYS!

Love, Ollie

Let's see....How about a silly poem?

Tori with the pixie ears,
Tori with a tiny rear,
Mumbles her words half the time,
What isn't mumbled is often whined,
Smart as a whip, sharp as a tack,
But still a blonde and that's a fact,
Stunning beauty to behold,
And she has a heart of gold,
Now that kid is all grown up,
Driving around in her own red truck,
Congratulations, you've done well,
And I hope you never go to jail.

Love, Jenny

A few things I've learned from Tori:
That taking medicine can really be entertaining.
That it's not cool to drive a large, loud truck with the generator running.
Give a girl an empty whopper wrapper and you never know what you might get in return.
That chocolate and new shoes really do help heal a broken heart.
That a very proud aunt can cry like a baby just because her very special niece is growing up!

Geez! Thanks, Tori.
Edie

Aaron's Top 5 things he likes about Tori :

5. Freaks out easily when touched by feet.
4. Key member of the Stunz family singers.
3. Allows Kenyan babies to pee on her.
2. Does what she says she will do.
1. Loves God and loves people.

It's All About Tori - Part 3

Things we’ve taught (and didn’t teach) our daughter…

We DID teach her:

To sleep through the night. This was a particularly difficult task at the age of 2 when she thought it was ok to come crawl in bed with her totally exhausted and mostly unaware parents. We had to make up our minds, not hers. (great advice from my wise sister)

To share. Or to take turns which is the politically correct term these days. Also learned at the age of around 2 with her friends Shelbi and Emily. Man that girl could throw a fit! Shelbi and Emily could too for that matter. :)

To love God. We didn’t force her, though. We simply did what we could to guide her towards Him. She accepted Christ at the age of 5. We wholeheartedly believed she understood her decision. I think it’s safe to say that we were right.

To question. To question God and her parents, teachers and others who are teaching her anything . With respect, of course. Also, to question her faith. Periods of doubt will come. Embrace them and figure it out.

Seek wise counsel. That would usually be her parents. Ha! She has done a great job of finding a few, others, besides her parents, that will offer wise advice and encouragement.

To love others. Friends may come and go. Some have stuck pretty strong but friends are still no guarantee. Family is always there so “play nice”! And spend as much time with them as you can.

To love all. God created everyone. Every race. Every color. Every stage of life. Every human that walks the earth. He loves them all and so should she. And she does.

To nurture. She will be such a great mommy someday. I’m not sure if nurturing is taught or if it is inherently wired. But she’s got it. She understands and loves kids and they love her back!

To work hard. We don’t do lazy in this household. She knows how to clean the kitchen and scrub toilets. She knows how to clean her room and can do it at the speed of light.

To get dirty. She can certainly be a girly girl but she also loves to camp, hike, and doesn’t have to take a curling iron and make-up. She will avoid porta-potties if at all possible, though.

To do your best. Perfection is not attainable nor expected. Set the bar high but be realistic. Hopefully those around you will be realistic too.

To know and use your gifts. She has a pretty good handle on who she is and who she was created to bef. She knows her abilities and talents and she is aware of her limitations.

To serve. To serve locally and around the world. The doors for serving and helping others are always open and she’s more than willing to walk through them.

To play hard. She loves to laugh and have fun.

To cuddle. With her mom and dad or little sister on the couch watching a good movie. She’s never too old to do that!

To dream big. Nothing is impossible! Cliché, maybe, but it’s true. Go for it, baby.

We DIDN’T teach her:

How to sleep until noon! Not sure where that came from… She certainly got over that problem she had when she was 2. Maybe we taught her too well?

To fold fitted sheets. I’m pretty sure I’ve failed as a mom here. My mom tried to teach me but I can’t fold those stupid things so I wasn’t even going to begin to try to teach my kids how to. Just roll it up in a ball and stick it in the linen closet. Better yet, just wash it and put it right back on your bed.

To be grumpy in the mornings. That really only happens when she wakes up before noon. I will be warning her future husband and children for sure. No real conversations before 10am or so.

To love healthy food. She would much rather eat Hot Tamales (the candy). Tommy fixed me a wonderful dinner one year for my birthday and she cried through the whole meal. She knows how to eat healthy, so one day, maybe…..

To be adventurous. Well she is adventurous in some ways but she certainly loves the comforts of things she is accustomed to. She can take adventure in small doses. Can I just say, “Hong Kong Mall”???

To clean up puke. She is already telling me that I’m taking care of my grandkids when they get sick.

To make straight A’s and 4.0’s. Maybe it is genetic somehow but she is sooo smart and it seems to come so easy. I know I didn’t or couldn’t have possibly taught her that. Maybe Tommy did when I wasn’t paying attention.

I'm positive there are other thing we have taught her and didn't teach her but all in all, we've done good with this kid!

Tommy’s post yesterday made me cry. I’ve done a lot of that lately and I’m sure there’s plenty more to come. Happy tears because we’ve somehow, by the grace of God and a lot of hard work, done a great job with Tori and she is an amazing human being. Sad tears because things are changing and she’s grown up. She’ll always be my baby girl but it’s time for her to go out and live her life – her way.

But I’ve also done a lot of smiling lately. So many memories as I’ve reminisced through videos and pictures of Tori’s life. If the videos weren't all on ancient vhs format I might post a few. I may still if I have the time to transfer them over to this century's technology. But let me just say that Point of Grace had a big influence in her younger years.

She hasn’t really had a choice before whether she would spend her days with us or not. She now has a choice. I’m pretty confident that she’ll choose us every now and then and I’ll be incredibly thankful for every moment!

It's All About Tori - Part 2

We walked around the Hospital parking lot still trying to decide what we were going to name our first child. We had no idea if it was a boy or a girl so we were throwing around different names again. The contractions got bad enough that Andrea would have to stop occasionally. We went back inside and the nurses announced that we would have a new baby soon. They put Andrea in a hospital gown and we kept doing laps, inside the hospital halls this time rather than outside in the parking lot.

As labor progressed I was fascinated by it all but there were also times that I lost focus. Andrea wanted me to watch the monitor and tell her when the contractions were coming, when they had peaked and when they were over. One time she felt pain coming on and saw I was watching ESPN on TV and she sternly told me, “You’re not watching!”

The end of labor is such a frantic thing. The room is busy with motion of doctors and nurses and the pain of a mother. In no time at all Tori came into the world. There was a moment of silence that seemed to take forever where the world stood still and I watched Tori take her first breath. Then she screamed and all at once I felt a flood of emotion I did not know I was capable of. First I realized what a miracle it is for God to breathe life into a human. Then the doctor handed me this little baby girl and the magnitude of the responsibility of being a dad was real to me for the first time.

As I look at my daughter today I feel another wave of emotion I was not prepared for. The emotion of releasing the arrow and letting the child I have been responsible for be free to be an adult and find her own way in life. I do not doubt that Tori will do well. She is more mature and ready for what is ahead than I was at her age.

I am not the kind of parent who wishes for the past. I like our past but I also like where we are in life as a family and I enjoy watching my kids grow up. Although Tori is not moving out of the house any time in the next couple of days or weeks, when she does set out on her own I will miss being in her orbit everyday.

Tori I am proud of who you have become. I have written that in your birthday cards the last couple of years and I mean it. You are who you are partially because of me but also in spite of me - and that is a good thing.

Houston Half Marathon 2009

I know I said the posts would mostly be about Tori. This one includes Tori but I found the picture below and it spurred this post.

Our family is all about to take part in the Houston Marathon somehow. Anna is running in the kids run on Saturday, Tori and I (and my sister, Gwen) are walk/jogging the Half Marathon and Tommy and Jakeb (and my brother-in-law, Mike) are running the Half Marathon. I'm not sure I'm ready for it but ready or not.....

I found this picture from Tommy's first or second Houston Marathon (the full 26.2). Tommy's not in it. I was spectating and waiting around for Tommy to come around the corner and snapped this picture. I had forgotten about it and thought it was funny. You see all kinds of funny stuff at the marathon from the spectator view and the participator's view. I like both views. If you participate, though, you get a "free" t-shirt!


Perhaps these two young ladies ran their share of marathons back in the day.....

It's All About Tori

Tori doesn't like it when we tell her that and it's even worse when we start singing the worship song, "It's all about you...", but for the next couple of weeks, if I have the time, my posts will probably be mostly about Tori, in a good way. She has two final exams left in her high school career and she's finished. She will walk and receive her diploma next Thursday. She will also turn 18 in just a few short weeks. I can't believe it!

She has done so well in school and continues to amaze me in her academic acheivements and motivation. She's just a well-rounded kid (excuse me... young woman) with a souped-up brain and it all seems to come so easy for her. She got a lot from me but I know she didn't get her smarts from me. She must have got that from her dad. I was one that "had potential". :)

Tori, your Dad and I could not be more proud of you! You are an incredible young woman who loves God, owns her own faith and are a productive contributor to society. This has been our goal in raising you from the start and we feel we have acheived great success. You are loved beyond what you could ever imagine!

My liver is fat!

Well, I went for my year and a half checkup a couple of weeks ago. I went to get routine lab work done along with another ungodly test that I will leave to your imagination.

My iron is always low. I've given blood twice in my life, and neither time went so well. I couldn't even give blood for my own daughter's surgery a few years ago. I've been taking iron for all this time (give or take a few months when I got lazy).

My iron is in check now but she told me I had a fatty liver and my cholesterol is just over where it should be. They did some further tests to make sure it wasn't Hepititis or something and that all came out ok.

Turns out it's probably just the 30 stinkin' pounds I've gained over the last year and a half. Guess I got lazy with more than just my daily iron intake.

DANG!

Not only am I fat on the outside, I'm fat on the inside! That's just wrong!!

I hate New Year's Resolutions. They are only a set-up for failure for me. So I'm not doing that.

I just need daily discipline. I'd rather clean the kitchen than exercise.

I'm walk/jogging the Houston Half Marathon in a week and a half so I'm not totally unhealthy and lazy. I just weigh too much.

Why am I putting this on our family blog, you ask? Well, it's sort of an announcement to my kids that I'm really going to clean out all the junk food in our kitchen and we're going to start eating turkey and twigs again.

My liver needs to lose weight!

Why does food have to be so fun and discipline have to be so unfun???

Christmas letter from Mercy

I'm a little behind in getting this posted but I need to finish packing up Christmas 2008 to get ready for our 2009 adventures.

We got a letter from our "daughter", Mercy, from Kenya just before Christmas. She wrote it to us before they left the US to head back and some sweet person from the Daraja Choir mailed it to us. Receiving it was definitely up at the top of my Christmas highlights list. I wanted to put it on our blog because it's getting packed up and I want to have it posted somewhere so this post is more for me than it is for you. My blog post, my perogative.....

Here's a picture of it. She's quite the artist! She is so animated and fun and her "all over the page" and "fill up every bit of white space" art expresses who she is completely. I love it!


I think you can read what it says if you click on it to enlarge.

She prayed often while at our house and her prayers are what I remember the most, besides her need to dance constantly. :) She prayed for God to "bless the work of their hands, O Lord." It moved me every time she prayed that. I was so glad that she included that in writing in her letter. Such a sweet girl. We are so blessed to have her in our lives.

Homeschool Remodel

We've done alot of home remodeling over the past few months and now it is time for a homeschool remodel.

We started homeschooling Jakeb and Anna this school year, 10th and 4th grade respectively, and can I just say that the last semester was quite a challenge for me. Not only do I not know how to teach Chemistry or Algebra 2, we had to deal with a few personality differences 24/7 and a very busy routine for me, especially over the holidays. I knew it would be challenging but didn't expect it to be as challenging as it was. Not knowing what the heck I was doing didn't help any either. Tommy has helped a lot and is extremely supportive. He helps Jakeb with the Chemistry and Algebra and has great discussions with Jakeb over certain History lessons. He also will sit and do spelling words and read to Anna at night. Afterall, this was our decision, not mine, so we're "all in this together". Are you singing? (High School Musical for those of you who don't have a 9 yr old daughter)

When we started, we got a free download of a lesson plan and grade tracking software which is wonderful and did the best we could with ordering the curriculum we thought would work best for each kid. We talked to a few trusted homeschooling parents/friends and they gave us tons of advice and information and then we jumped in.

The daily lesson plans and trying to "go by the rules" was seriously stressing me out but I didn't know how to fix it. Overall, it's been good and I have no regrets but over the holidays, knowing our lives are about to go into warp speed with a pending overseas move and our oldest daughter graduating from high school, I needed to come up with a better system. I can't tell you how much thought I've given to their education because it is such a huge responsiblity. With all of the frustrations and challenges, we've thought and thought and discussed and discussed and even shed a tear or two. We've tried many different things and some things worked and some things didn't. Maybe by the end of this year, I'll have it figured out but somehow I doubt it. I think it will continue to need updating. Remodeling your home is a never ending process, right? So is parenting and everything that comes along with it. You can't keep doing things the same way all of the time. You have to be flexible. For someone who likes consistency, this is difficult.

But, I'm ditching lesson plans and ditching going "by the book" for the most part. Some of my close friends and family reading this are gasping aloud, I'm sure! I followed the rules to a tea and it drove me crazy. We used the same curriculum to teach Tori when we homeschooled her in the 4th grade and since we didn't know any better, we didn't purchase all the lesson plan books. We just went through her books and learned the stuff page by page. She's graduating a semester early and is close to the top 10% of her class and pulling a 4.0 in her college classes simultaneously, so it didn't screw her up any.

We've ordered some new curriculum for Anna's math from the same place that Jakeb's Algebra 2 and Geometry came from. I LOVE IT!!!!! Teaching Textbooks is a wonderful math program for a non-math oriented teacher mom. It was a crazy idea to switch mid-year but again, all the lesson planning was driving me bonkersand I wasn't confident that I was teaching her what she needed to learn. Anna was doing Abeka and it's okay and she did well. So well, in fact, that I gave her placement tests and figured out that she was ready to move on to 5th grade math! This is the kid who didn't know her multiplication tables when we started in August. I guess I'm not that bad of a teacher, huh? Since we're starting a new curriculum, she'll probably go into the summer to finish but she loved it so much yesterday she did two lessons and wanted to do more! Jakeb is finishing up Algebra 2 in a little over one semester and will go into Geometry and finish that up early summer.

I've also restructured the daily lesson plans to weekly so I don't have to get up at 5am every day or stay up late to get ready for the next day. It's ready for the week and it will make the kids have to be more disciplined in working on their own. I'm still up at 5am but I'm not doing lesson plans.

I have a refreshed outlook on our homeschool adventure. I'm sure there will still be challenges but I'm not stressing over lesson plans - today.... They'll still learn the material, and I'm pretty sure they're actually learning more than what they would in public school. Besides that, Anna has gained an enormous amount of confidence in her reading and testing issues and that give us much joy.

I'm excited about this homeschool remodel and it's not near as messy as our bathroom remodel was.

Bella-Full Dog Treats - Going Strong

Anna began making Bella-Full dog treats last month to help fund Tori & Jakeb's trip to Kenya this summer. Tommy and I are providing all the supplies so all of the proceeds from the treat sales is being split between the two of them.So far, she's raised over $100 in less than a month!

You should see Anna cookin' in the kitchen! She's awesome!! She's able to do everything by herself except get the pans in and out of the oven. She does the measuring, the mixing, the rolling out, the cutting, EVERYTHING!

If you'd like to order some (or some more), or you know someone who does, please send them our way. We're not real keen on the idea of shipping though, so you'd have to be real special for us to ship. :)

Also, if you've already ordered some, let us know how your dog liked them. So far, we haven't heard anything legitimately negative. I say legitimately because one customer said their dog wouldn't eat them at first but that's because he normally gets to eat pizza and waffles and stuff that their kid throws down. So why would he???

Jenny made the "business" card for her. It's cute! Thanks, Jenny!!

Good day at church!

Tori and Jakeb got to do a song in church today. Tommy preached on being content, a not so popular topic that he made entirely tolerable and one that we are personally learning a lot about in this stage of our lives.

They sang Brandon Heath's song, "Don't Get Comfortable". The lady in front of me obviously had better things to do than listen to my kids.

My husband and children are incredibly gifted and talented and I'm thankful they were able to use their gifts and talents this morning. It was a good day at church.

Coraline

Tommy has been reading Neil Gaiman's book, Coraline, with Anna. The movie comes out in February and we will definitely be going.

Gaiman also wrote Stardust (one of our favorite movies) and some other really great stories. What an imagination this guy has.