Notes from Nicole

I like to think of myself as friendly and open to meeting new people. My friends like to think of me as a "freak magnet." I do not say that with any disrespect if you are the one whom I have met at some point in my life when our paths have crossed, it just always seems as if I find myself in situations that normal people usually don't encounter. Like the time when I was waiting for the rest of my family to come out of a restaurant and I saw a man fall off of his bike in the middle of the street right in fron of me! The traffic just kept moving and not one vehicle stopped to help and the man just kept lying there in the middle of the street! I turned to my son and told him to wait right there and I ran out to help him out of the road-eventually someone with a truck did stop and put his bike in the back and took him home. Or maybe the time I took my kids to an event called Punkin Chuckin and there were literally hundreds of people there, but I noticed that this tin...

I have lived in the Midwest my entire life. I have been surrounded by cornfields, dirt roads and small towns. Some may consider those things a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it. The one thing that really sticks out in my mind though is the snowstorms that we used to get as a kid. I don't know if it is one of those times when as a child everything seems bigger than life and then in adulthood you realize just how small something truly was? But I know that some of the snowstorms that happened during my childhood were huge, by any means of measuring! The current weather forecast for our area in the next couple of days is predicting one of those good old fashioned, huge snow storms. Now, some people will panic and head to the grocery store and clean out the bread aisle, the milk cooler and the egg cooler, because of the "maybe" snowstorm. These folks would be your former boy scouts and girl scouts who still live by the "be prepared" motto...

Have you ever bought a loaf of bread and then somehow a small hole gets poked into the bag and all of the sudden you have a loaf of stale bread? I have done that several times, and it is usually when I am ready to pack someone's lunch and that is the only bread I have left in the house! Those are the days where my kids get crackers with their meat and cheese:) I was thinking about this staleness as something that can also happen to us as Christians. What can make us or our faith go stale? There are lots of things. If we do not stay fresh in the Word, it can cause us to become stale. So stale, in fact, that reading the Bible has become a chore that we try to avoid doing. So stale, that going to church or sunday school has become a chore that we try to avoid, as well. I know that there are many, many, many things going on in our lives, but when we put those things first and God last, it is like poking holes of doubt and discontent into our faith. These are some excuses that...

To say that this has been a long and stressful year for my family would be an understatement. Our family has been through a lot of changes and adjustments in 2010. Without going into details, I will just say that I have been asking God, "Why?"- a lot. I have not always gotten an answer, but I have tried to remain faithful and trust in Him. Today, however, I felt like it was the last straw! I found out that my husband, who has been gone for two weeks and has been out of the country more times then he has been in it this year, has become snowed in at the airport in France! AHHHHH! I just do not want to feel this disappointment, nor do I want to have to tell my kids that their dad will not be home tonight as expected! We have been getting used to my husbands traveling and we are so proud of all of his accomplishments, but it just doesn't make it any easier to know that he will not be home when we thought he would be. So, after I got off of the phone with him, I crie...

We just returned from visiting the "happiest place on earth"-Walt DisneyWorld. I don't know about the "happiest place" on earth, (ie: an upset child and a red faced adult at every corner), but it was definately one of the best family vacations we have ever had. For those of you that have not had the Disney experience yet, let me just give you a brief overview of what you can expect while you are there. At each theme park there are people that greet you with a smile and a "hello", and not just when you first walk in, but all day long. There are rides and attractions that are out of this world and that will engage the imagination. There is a multitude of restaurants to choose from and all of the servers are very attentive and curteous. Sounds like Heaven on Earth, doesn't it? As I was walking around Disney with my family and watching the joy that my children were experiencing, I couldn't help but think to myself,"Wouldn't it be g...

"There is a time for everything, and everything on earth has its special season." Ecclesiastes 3:1 Life is always changing, isn't it? The season changes, the calendar flips to another month, and we wonder-where did all the time go? That time is still there, it has just been changed into memories. Now, some of those memories will be remembered fondly and some will be remembered with sadness. The time in our lives does go by so quickly. My grandmother is 85 years old and she has seen her parents die, her husband die and recently, her best friend die. Is this the reward for living that long, to sit by and watch everyone you love die? I know that death is never easy, but there is a very important thing I have learned from watching my grandma mourn her losses. That one thing is to cherish the memories that you have of someone. God gives us the choice to see these memories as a blessing or a burden. Some people do not want to remember someone that has passed on, because it is t...

Do any of you remember the Disney tv show called Dinosaurs? It had this little baby dinosaur who would always tell his dad, "You, not the mama!" That is really the only thing I can remember from that show. When my son was little he LOVED being with my mom, his nanny. So much so, that she thought it was funny to teach him how to point to me and say, "Not the mama!" It was pretty cute-until it turned into a temper tantrum when we had to leave my parents house! Oh well, he finally stopped saying, "Not the mama" to me. These past few days I feel like I could say it to myself-"No, not the mama-PLEASE!" I have been fighting a sinus infection and my husband is out of town, so there are times when I just want ot sit and do nothing! No one will notice that pile of dirty dishes and the kids won't mind if they wear the same outfit all week, will they? My now, 12 year old son's solution to this problem is to clone myself...hmmm...anyone h...