almost bedtime in the trailer!

Cooper wanted a bed too. He would get kicked out of one and then hit someone else up with his puppy eyes...awww, Michael was the softy. I'm beginning to wonder if Cooper is our fourth child??? At least I can put him in a crate when he gets too hyper :):):)

Meet Tarzan, our very OUTDOOR cat!

This is Tarzan, I noticed him a few weeks ago when I was drinking coffee on the porch. I kept hearing a rustling in the bushes and then noticed the little kitty living in them. The funny thing is that he really lives in the bushes! He stays in them ALL day. (hence the name Tarzan, for jungle kitty) Anyways, he was skinny and skittish, so Allie and I have been feeding him tuna and milk every morning. The minute I call him in the morning, he comes out. Today, he finally came close to me and stayed for a while, but he still won't let us pet him. I want to go on the record saying that Tarzan will remain an outdoor kitty! I have no more sanity left to spend on getting rid of animal hair! But, he makes a nice accessory to my porch and morning coffee, and now he won't starve. So meet Tarzan!





Oh, I forgot to mention...until Tarzan lets us get a little closer, he remains and "it" :)

New Blog

It was time to seperate my family blog from a work blog. So here it is.

www.portfoliobybreanna.blogspot.com

Stay tuned for an interactive website coming soon!

Playing in the Pool!

These two have some sort of twin thing going on lately....kinda nice (and rare) for siblings to be such good friends as teenagers!





Alex is so happy to have ear plugs that enable him to get in the pool. He still can't dunk his head, but the ear plugs beat the swim cap!

practicing

People are much more fun for me to shoot than landscapes and architecture, but Stanford provided a playground for me to practice lighting, foucssing, and being able to change speeds in order to get different results with water, etc.

leaving for Stanford

We leave for Stanford today. Please pray for wisdom from the doctors and clear dirction and answers.


and on a lighter note,,,some pictures from my new portrait lens- YEAH! That thing rocks!





and oh, when did my teenagers begin to stick their tongues out again?!

a little testimony

"What good are the trials we endure if we are not able to point to the one who brings us through them."

That said, life this past decade has not been boring, and while I feel I could write a book about how God has changed me, carried me, pulled me and pushed me through the challenges He has entrusted to me, I will just take a few paragraphs today.

I feel the need to give God some glory publicly! So I am turning this post into a public testimony!

This past year has been life changing for Pete and I. I don't feel like the same person, and I am not married to the person I married almost 15 years ago. My family is living differntly than we have before. I see the work of the Lord in my children and I know the Spirit has begun a great work that will continue!

so to bring Him the glory for what He has done, let me share a few things about how God has revealed Himself more to me.

GOD IS MY FATHER! - I can say that with a different understanding than I could last year.

GOD IS MY PROVIDER! enough said. He alone has provided faithfully!

GOD IS MY SUSTAINER! A refuge who has supplied unexplainable peace.

GOD IS MY HOPE! My dreams have changed. What I hope for now is so different than what I have spent my life hoping for. I hope for His work in my life, in my family's lives and for His glory to be poured out through me.

GOD IS MY HEALER! He takes what is broken and restores it in His beauty.

The joy of the Lord is my strength. I have known His joy in the midst of pain. I am free, I feel so free! Free to forvive, free to love, free to worship!

His Spirit has poured out of me through music, and words. I am humbled to be a vessel for His Holy Spirit to reside in.

I have experienced the joy of sharing the gospel and seeing election in physical form. It has left me hungry to become more passionate and consumed with sharing the gospel that has saved me.

So to my Lord, Thank you for what you have allowed in my life that has led me to this place of abandonment, true joy, peace and new dreams!

I am Abandoned and sold out to the TRUTH, the truth that has saved a wretch like me!

Now, to live it!

Some recent work

Fourth of July 2009

Started with outside fun with friends, a ball in the face, a bloody nose, an awesome taco salad, fireworks - the kind you feel in your gut! Then when we got home we had a "girl party" that lasted about a half hour (since it was mid-night). Fun day - A beautiful day!

My selfishness revealed - yikes!

Ok, I admit it, the older I get the harder it is to be patient about certain things, and God is not done working on this in me!

Today we were enjoying a beautiful day at the lake. Everything is perfect, the water, the sun, the kids and then....an older gentleman decided to take a seat at the picnic bench directly behind my chair where I was sitting. All our stuff is on the table; a cooler, towels, toys, etc. He sits down and stays and stays, and stays! We are all just kind of standing there wondering why he feels comfortable to hang out in our spot. He smokes, then smokes some more than smokes some more.

I got really annoyed. I finally got up and went to the table and nicely asked him if he wouldn't mind putting out his ciggarettes. He was polite, and said yes, but he kept sitting there with all our stuff and it kept bugging me. Later, he left, but I didn't ever say anything more to him.

I just finished dinner and I keep thinking about this old man and how I let my selfishness ruin a chance to talk to someone and find out about their life. I totally missed a chance to witness and live it out in front of my kids. I am feeling bummed about my selfishness! Ok, God, Don't let me become one of those older, harder, self-entitled people. Let me be generous, kind, and always looking for who You might want me to share your salvation with.

Bummer!

Happy First Birthday Lincoln!

This boy has my heart!

A Summer Read

Pete started reading this book and now I can't stop reading it too. Oh my goodness is Spurgeon so right on and so relevant today! I am sharing an excerpt from the book, but I urge you to pick it up and get passionate about sharing and living the gospel that has saved us! (you can read online on this link http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/soulwinr.htm )

Here's the quote:

“Soul winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; indeed, it should be the main pursuit of every true believer. We should each say with Simon Peter, ‘I go a fishing,’ and with Paul our aim should be, ‘That I might by all means save some.’”

"Such a man was Paul. I am not about to set him upon a pedestal, that you may look at him and wonder, much less that you may kneel down and worship him as a saint. I mention Paul, because what he was we ought every one of us to be; and though we cannot share in his office, not being apostles; though we cannot share in his talents or in his inspiration, yet we ought to be possessed by the same spirit which actuated him, and let me also add we ought to be possessed by it in the same degree. Do you demur to that? I ask you what there was in Paul, by the grace of God, which may not be in you, and what had Jesus done for Paul more than for you? He was divinely changed; and so have you been if you have passed from darkness into marvellous light. He had much forgiven; and so have you also been freely pardoned. He was redeemed by the blood of the Son of God; and so have you been,—at least, so you profess to have been. He was filled with the Spirit of God; and so are you, if you are truly such as your Christian profession makes you out to be. Owing, then, your salvation to Christ, being debtors to the precious blood of Jesus, and being quickened by the Holy Spirit, I ask you why there should not be the same fruit from the same sowing? Why not the same effect from the same cause? Do not tell me that the apostle was an exception, and cannot be set up as a rule or model for commoner folk, for I shall have to tell you that we must be such as Paul was if we hope to be where Paul is. Paul did not think that he had attained, neither that he was already perfect. Shall we think him to be so—so think him to be so as to regard him as inimitable, and so be content to fall short of what he was? Nay, verily, but let it be our incessant prayer, as believers in Christ, that we may be followers of him so far as he followed Christ, and wherein he failed to set his feet in his Lord's footprints may we even outstrip him, and be more zealous, more devoted to Christ than even the apostle of the Gentiles was. Oh, that the Holy Spirit would bring us to be like our Lord Jesus Himself!"
” Charles H. Spurgeon, The Soul Winner".

HBC 2009

Pete and I just got back from an overwhelmingly awesome week! we were houseboat parents on a houseboat of 16 girls and 2 counselors. It was a thrill to see God move over this camp and call His own to Him. Amazing! Definitely an awakening experience for us also, in that our hearts were burdened for the battle our teens find themselves in daily. We came home with an awakened passion for our own kids and for the teens of our time. We witnessed salvations and baptisms that were only explained by the work of the Spirit! I will never forget standing outside at 1 in the morning in pouring rain and thunder and hearing the cry of young hearts claim who they believe in, as they were baptized into a life of obedience to Christ!

A big thank you to a cool aunt Kaitlin who kept the fort intact at home!

To God be the Glory, great things He has done!

GO Mr. Bird!!!

Mr. Bird is Michael and Allie's 7th grade homeroom teacher. He is awesome. In addition to having the honor of having him as our teacher, it has been my privilege to play or should I say rock out with Mr. Bird in a worship band last summer. He has a very fitting personality for being a junior high teacher and has quickly become a favorite! You'll appreciate his quirkiness and creativity!

I had to share this link. This video that Mr. Bird and two other uprep teachers made for our annual talent show is getting some wild publicity and was featured on the news tonight.

Michael and Allie are sooooooo proud,,,,so here you go, something to make you laugh!
CHECK IT OUT!!! Cut and paste the link below into your browser bar for some great entertainment!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbwgmDWuORY

Elementary school days almost gone:(

Here are some old pictures of my baby turned almost junior higher!

I think last night was the beginning of a week of tears to come. Last night was the last elemantary open house I will attend for one of our kids and next week is Alex's last week of elementary school. Although I mostly have happy tears, some are sad ones too. Sad, because my babies are growing up way too fast. Everyone tells you this is going to happen. I remember hearing "enjoy it while you can" all the time.At the time they tell you that, life doesn't feel like it's speeding by. I think something happened around mid elementary school....time went into fast forward mode and since then it has felt like the days and months and years are blazing past me. It's not so much that I want to go back, but rather that I wish I could push "pause".

So, Alex proudly showed us his work last night, and as I was watching him show me his papers, I looked at him and it hit me...Elementary school is days from being over. WOW! Alex has been privileged to attend 7 1/2 years at Boulder Creek. 1 1/2 of preschool before the big K started and all the rest of it too. It has been a fun ride. From watching him play basketball and soccer as a bear to hearing his speech for president, BC has been a fun place for him and I'm sure he'll have memories for years to come.
Ready or not, life moves on with you in the throws of it. He is growing up right before my eyes and becoming such a special young man. This year he has become so much more independent; from school work, to asking to cook for himself, to thinking girls are not so bad...etc.

I'm trying to be excited for Alex and the new stage of life that it seems we have been thrown into these past few months, and I am. But last night as I tucked in my sleeping babies, I prayed that God would slow it all down, just a little, maybe even a lot!

Being a mom is the best thing that's ever happened in my life! It has been the greatest privilege, pleasure and challenge. I know that God will bless and direct these next years...so here we go, in one week all three kids will officially be in junior high!

A few of Alex

Since the last couple of posts have mostly been about the twins, here is a post for Alex. He wasn't feeling all that great this weekend, so I'm not sure that yesterday was all that much fun for him, but today he had a few smiles.

The BIRTHDAY HOMERUN!!!

baseball on the birthday

Michael and Alex played again this morning. It was more dry then yesterday, so that made it more fun. Michael got a cool birthday present - A HOMERUN! So here are some slides of it. The first slide is actually of Michael stealing home and the second one is of the homerun!

Have you ever seen a nun baby?

So after rainy baseball, a wet, muddy, lucky to be alive dog and prom pictures, I needed to turn my daughter and her friend into nun's. Allie and Ali are partners for a school project in which they needed to come up with a medieval costume. Allie and Ali had decided on the nun outfit. Since I only had one black sheet we decided to make costumes for their dolls. What I didn't know is that sewing on a small scale is acutally harder. Needless to say Allie and Ali definitely have the "tack stitch" down cold. So Allie's american dolls know have a nun outfit to add to their wardrobe closet, and hopefully their teacher will appreciate our creativity and be ok with smaller costumes! What a strange day!

There was almost a dog murder!

Yesterday was a craaaazy day! The boys have played in a tournament all weekend again, and there was a monsoon in Redding yesterday. I finally took Allie and left because I couldn't handle watching my boys get so soaked. I wanted to call the game myself...but they don't call the games unless there's thunder, so they played baseball in the pouring rain for 10 hours-crazy! When I got home I had a half hour before needing to go take some prom pictures for a friend. We let Cooper out to go potty and forgot he was out there, this is what I found after 10 minutes! A very happy, lucky he's still alive dog. It took 7 towels just to make a train of covering accross the floor, my bath looked like a mud puddle and if it weren't so funny I would have been crying. Now, my bathroom is spotless, due to the bottle of bleach cleaner Pete used on it for an hour! What to do!!!