Maxwell Conference

What a refreshing weekend we had over in Boise, ID where the Maxwell Family held their conference! I can not BELIEVE how refreshed, encouraged, excited and blessed I was after that time there. When the LORD is first and He is in the center of things, there is always refreshment for my heart! First of all though, we had a 7 hour car trip over there, so all 10 of us piled in the van and took off as early as we could (that was about 9:45 or so), and to pass time, we either talked, read our own books, wrote letters, listened to a couple tapes, Mom read to us, or some of us napped! :) It was a fun time though, because I enjoy car rides where we are all together. We arrived at our Motel around 5:30 or around there, and got some dinner, then we all headed to the church where the Maxwell's had their introduction evening to the family and had a beautiful concert where they all played instruments and sang, which kind of reminded us of what we did! :)
Leah has been LOVING taking pictures with which ever camera she can, so she requested to take a picture of me on my camera, and this is what she did! :) Not quite centered, but she's getting there! :)

Leah (not quite in a lady-like sitting position) :) -she's still learning!- enjoying the car ride.
Hannah looked kind of comfortable back there! :) I love her yellow shirt! BRIGHT though!

Bekah was having a hard time smiling ;)...
Sam enjoys pictures some of the time. :) He did a nice smile for me. He looks comfy too! :)

(I didn't get pictures of every one, but those are a few of our trip in the car.)

The first night was GREAT!!!!


Playing music as a family. It was lovely! I love the ladies matching jumpers (SO PRETTY!!).

That was very refreshing and I took some pictures of that, along with a few videos. Their whole family is committed to growing and maturing in the LORD, and it just is reflected in their words, music and manners! I was blessed that evening by what each of them shared, and I knew then we would have a very encouraging time.

The next morning, we all got up kind of early, got breakfast, showers and all, then headed to the church for the first sessions which started at 9:00. We girls had a special class which the Maxwell girls shared many encouraging thoughts and advice for what young ladies at home under their father's protection until the LORD either provides a husband, but not just WAITING for that to happen. God wants us to live our lives for Him RIGHT NOW, TO OUR FULLEST, giving Him our all so that He can do mighty things for His kingdom, but we must give up our own desires and fully submit to what He has called us to do. God calls each of us to be good stewards of our TIME, and that time must be spent diligently. And we girls with young siblings at home have a HUGE calling and job... right in our laps. Lots of times, girls may thing, "oh, I need to go out in the world and make a difference... I have to spread the gospel and make a difference for Christ in the world..." or something like that. But I believe that God has given us with a family a great ministry right now in our lives to INVEST IN THE FAMILY!!! We don't need to go somewhere else to "make a difference" or "be something" for God. So I was encouraged in my ministry at home and being diligent with the time I have at home, preparing for the future God has for me. I took lots of notes and enjoyed that session.

As we girls took certain sessions, Dad, Mom and Greg each had a session for them too, which I of course didn't hear, but it was all wonderful.

The next session was taught by the oldest son at home (the oldest is married) and he taught a good session on sharing the gospel and all! (I won't go into huge detail with each session right now). I was impacted by that one as well, and took pages of notes.

Lunch was fun; we all found a shady spot in the church yard and had a family picnic before the next session started at 1:45. That one Christopher taught again on lessons we can learn from Old Testament Kings!! Wow. That was eye opening, and he brought a bunch of examples forward which I was able to find areas to work on in my life.

Last but not least, my favorite session was on "Dwelling Together in Unity" taught by 2 of the Maxwell siblings, John and Anna.
As John and Anna were speaking, they did a fun little... act... demonstrating how you can respond to interruptions or sibling problems in the right way. Giving some examples in this picture :) It was funny.

That was SO GOOD!!! As is my goal and desire, sibling relationships were encouraged to be built and bunches of examples of ways to show more love to them and put them before yourself were given. The two of them did a great presentation of some convicting areas to work on in my own life. After this hour long session, (it didn't go long enough!) I waited my "turn" to go up and talk to Anna, meet her and thank her and her family for the encouragement and everything. It was neat to meet her and talk a bit.

The Maxwell family has a neat website which I have just looked at a bit. You can visit it at
http://www.titus2.com/


I can't say how blessed and excited I was by that time in Boise! I thank the LORD for making that possible to go and meet the Maxwell family. I have much to change and grow in, but by the mercies of God and His infinite grace, I know He will continue the work in my life, as long as I am willing to let His hand move in my life.

Before the evening was up, we had time to go to the park for the kids to run out some of their energy! :) I took a few pictures there.

Mom and Manda <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYjcMRlX2iVIOdGdaeaIi-lgoyRcZgrumVk9rR7ARAp3gD8JKaEzyFyzfGxC0I360oURiMbk1u-7IWa7403NVshwA3UCeKI68PqIKk77uNedo1JlWSPCGZLDFyOfWMn5UbtfvO4FBeCIQE/s1600/P1080392.JPG"> Bekah- I seem to be having trouble finding a REALLY happy face :) She DID have fun!
Hannah on the slide! :) They enjoyed that one.

Sam just got a drink of water. :) There's evidence of it on his shirt! Cutie!!!


And Leah, loving all the play time! :)

I praise the LORD for this encouragement. I pray that you all are blessed and may we all continue to listen to the still small voice of God!

Love to you all,

Special Visits...

Hello, dear readers!
It seems as if we are always apologizing for long delays in our posts- that's how I was going to start this post! :) However, I think most of you understand how busy life can get, and usually, computer time isn't a priority here. But, I have to apologize to 2 friends of mine that visited that I should have posted about earlier!Rebekah W. came from Canada to our area for a visit! She and I have been writing for maybe a year now, so it was a neat opportunity to be able to meet her! (She was the second pen-pal I got to meet!) She and her mom were only able to be here for a short time, but we had a great time visiting and getting to know each other better! It's always so much fun to hear other people's stories and experiences! We took several pictures together (actually, quite a few! :) and they had to leave.The second visit was from my pen-pal, Elisa J. that came from California! We have kind of a unique story- when our family went to the San Diego Zoo in February, we saw her mom and younger sister! I was not writing to her at that point, so I didn't know that that was her family! :) So, it was neat to be able to meet them all and get to know them better. They came at about 9:00 p.m. and we stayed up talking till 12:00 :), then they camped in our yard. In the morning, we played a couple games, talked, and played violin, and they left around 11:00.
Both visits were very fun!I also got to meet another pen-pal of mine at Stephen and Tara's wedding, but unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures! :( It was so fun to talk to her, but we didn't get to talk as much as we would have liked, because the time was so short, and we were helping at different places in the reception area. But, it was so nice to meet her and her family!
I love you three girls!!!
There will be more we will be posting about soon- we had a wonderful and refreshing weekend at a conference by the Maxwell family. That will take another post in itself! :)
May the Lord bless you all!
~Amanda
P.S. By the pictures, we girls are reminded how short we are! ;)

Thank you all for your prayers!!! Mom took Rebekah up to the doctor yesterday, and the doctor said it was a pretty serious kidney infection. We are giving her antibiotics right now, and she's doing much better today- back to playing with her favorite kitten! :) Please continue to pray for her, that things would completely heal.

Mom had to take Peanut back to the vet this afternoon, because the lens that the vet sewed in came out (we're not quite sure how that happened). We aren't sure if she will be able to see out of that eye after this infection- please pray that she will!

Thank you all, again, for your prayers! How wonderful it has been to know that you all have been praying!

Blessings,
Amanda

Please pray for Rebekah

Hey - I have another prayer request. Rebekah apparently woke up last night, and her legs hurt, and she had a high fever. And this morning, her fever went down a little, but her head, stomach and back all hurt. Apparently it could be something serious, but mom just left to take her to the doctor, so we don't know anything yet. Please keep her in your prayers also!

Thank you SO much!

Please Pray!

God cares about the littlest things, so I would just ask you to pray for our little dog, Peanut. She has a bad eye infection. We've been giving her treatment for the last week or so, and we thought she was getting better, but I THINK it was yesterday, it started acting up again. Mom took her to the vet today, and she JUST called and said that the doctor was pretty concerned about her eye. :( So they sewed it up - and it is supposed to be like that for about 2 weeks. She may not get her eye-sight back in that eye. So please pray for her - that she would take it well, and that it would heal up quickly! Thank you all!

Our Cousin's Wedding - and Pictures!!! :)

These pictures are very late - but here they are now! :) Our cousin, Sara got married on July 24th! I was not very pleased with my pictures that I took :( - but here are a few! :)

Awww!The CUTEST flower girl in the world!!!! :) Our dear little Becky! :)
And the cutest ring-bearer in the world, too! :)
~Taking communion~
This is one of my FAVORITE pictures!!! :)
Giving of the rings

The sweet couple! :)
Mr. and Mrs. Mark S.!!!! :) ~The beautiful centerpiece!!! :) So pretty!

The cutting of the cake...
And... the feeding of the cake!!! :) I didn't get a picture of Mark feeding Sara, because both photographers got in front of me before I could snap a picture!!! :)

The beautiful cupcake display!!! :) The girls and our cousin, Silas did this!!! It was amazing!! :)
Another shot of the cutest ring-bearer!!! :)
And another shot of the cutest flower girl!!! :)

A shot of them together!!! :) Don't you LOVE Rebekah's hair? Mom did it all curly for the wedding!!!

A close-up of the cupcakes our cousin Slias' wife, Jamie made, and we helped decorate!! :)
Their car.... ohhh... :)

Blessings,

~The Most Recent Happenings!~

Hello! I thought I would update you all on what's going on at the H. household!! :) We have all been so busy, but we've been having lots of fun as a family!!! God has been so good to us - blessing us in so many ways!
We've been getting a little bit of produce from our garden!!! :) We've been getting onions, as shown in this picture, and a few peas. Our cilantro is gone now :(, but I'm going to try to collect the seeds! :)

And our dear sister, Hannah, turned 8 this week! :) Happy birthday, Hannah dear! :) I only got a few birthday pictures. :( But here they are anyway! :)

Hannah LOVES books - and she got PLENTY of books! :)

Rebekah, at the party... and here she is, holding her favorite kitty, Fudge!!! :)

And Peanut looks SO bored!!! :) But here she is at the party!!!! ;)

And in the evening, we went to bible study, where we had a small "birthday party" with the group. Here I am with Rose! :)And I've enjoyed getting a couple pictures of the twins together... :) I took more, but I'll only post 1!! :)

And we went raspberry picking at the S.'s house!!! :) They were so generous to let us pick!!! :)
One of the S. girls found a "conjoined" raspberry!!! :)

Here is a CUTE picture of Rose!!! :) She is SUCH a cutie!!! :)

And a picture of Amanda and Rose! :) It's really cute! :)

Here's Dani with Heather!!! :)

And Greg... NEVER being serious!!! ;) This was how many we got! :)
Here is Amanda with Pearl and Heather! :) They are such sweet girls! :)

And here is Skye - they all love bonnets and aprons... and they make them themselves!!

And we just had a FUN family hike with all the family except for dad. He stayed home because he had lots and lots of work that he needed to do, so we left him so that he could have a quiet house! :) It would have been much more fun for him to come, though. This is a picture of Sam coming across a bridge... so cute! :)

And Rebekah... :)And Mommy!

Hannah....
and Leah! :) You can see the some of my siblings got over the bridge before I did - so I didn't get pictures of everyone coming across the bridge!!! :)
~One pretty bridge...
I LOVE windy paths!!!! :) There were more, but I took so many that you would be SICK of windy paths! :)
We took the Indian Cliffs trail! :) It was fun! :)

I do NOT like this picture of me, but this is the only one I got on my camera!!! :)
Dani and Leah - taking a quick rest!!! :)
~Hannah! It was a cute picture! :)
~This was Amanda on a tree trunk with gnarled branches! :) It was quite fun! :)
Greg - smiling with his PROFESSIONAL camera!!! ;)
Rebekah holding her water-bottle! :) She is was such a good sport and had a good attitude most of the way! :)

My baby bug, L!!! :) She's SUCH A CUTIE!!!!!!!! :)

Dani - taking LOTS of pictures! :)
Well, the view was a good reward!!! :) So pretty! :)

The lake was so blue and pretty! :)
I saw a few of these pretty flowers on the path! :) They were so small and pretty!! :)
We saw a GROSS green spider... Amanda wanted me to take a picture of it! :)

Some weird moss.. :) Kind of funny! :)

And... we got a wonderful reward!!! :) Ice cream bars!!! :) It was a FUN and rewarding day!! :) I hope you enjoyed all the pictures!!! :) Being a family is SO much fun! :)