Hectic Life

I lead a HECTIC life... 
I mean seriously, between pulling splinters out of Simon's rear, 
helping Temperance spell and draw hearts, 
making sure Andrew doesn't attack the dog with a rake because he's the "Red Panther", 
ensuring that Judah, Levi and Emma do their school, getting to work on time, 
getting to church at Medart Assembly on time and still remembering to feed the kids!! 
Not to mention getting the house and laundry at least partially done so Mamma doesn't have a panic attack when she gets home! 
It gets exhausting... Lonely. Hard. Stressful.. Pointless??

What is the point of it? I mean sure some poor kid in Africa has it worse, yaddah yaddah yaddah.. 
But this is MY life, I live in America where I should get what I want, when I want it and how I want it! 
Why work when I can protest?? Me, Me, ME. That's what life's supposed to be all about right??
What's the point of helping Tempi write her name? She'll just forget by tomorrow. 
Why should I be the one to bandage Simon's wounds?? He's just going to go right back outside and get another one. 
Is there any PURPOSE behind all these things I do that they just forget about in the blink of an eye??

I'm sure if you're reading this you've had similar thoughts/pity parties. You've had times where you think you're ALONE in the world, no one REALLY cares, no one COMPLETELY understands what's going on.

Truth is everyone has their own little hectic life. Not just you, not just me. And when having these little pity parties we are missing some of the most important moments in our lives! Not because we aren't there for them but because we have the wrong attitude. 
Instead of being concerned for the injured brother or excited for the learning sister we've become APATHETIC towards them. 
Ever heard the phrase "I've got my own problems!"? Or how about "I'm busy."and "Whatever."? 
Those are apathetic and self-centered phrases. 
Sorry to break it to you, but the world doesn't revolve around you and it definitely doesn't revolve around me! 
It revolves around the Word of God. Seriously! God is so much more awesome than you or I that He steps out of time, out of space and forget having the world revolve around Him all he needs is voice activation!
He has given us so many opportunities to glorify Him and make great memories, but we just let them pass by. Look around you!
Take a step out of your "Me Zone" and look at this hectic life God has given you and ask yourself a question. 
What are you gonna do with it? 

If I'm Honest

Authors Note: I wrote this back in October and was asked by my Dad for personal reasons not to post it until the beginning of the year.

Today I just want to sort of lay it all down for you guys. 

Some of you may be wondering how things are going since all that "church drama".  Some of you may not have even known that there was any, and if you want to know more you should talk to one of us personally.

Now let me start out by saying that I think church politics are stupid and that the way things were handled with my family was poorly timed. 

All that aside, I am NOT here to start even more drama. I am here to tell you all how my family has handled being mistreated.

We have, as a whole, felt cast away, thrown out and unwanted by those who have for a long time called us friends. 

We have been so hurt by the lack of care shown by the church family that we were a part of for 15 years!

 I mean hello! I grew up with most of you as either teachers, mentors or friends. 

Only one person has even bothered talking to me personally to see how I was doing, and I know I am not the only one in my family who is shocked that so few people have checked on us.

We have gone through so many different stages of grief in such a short time that the only way I can describe how we're doing so well is God and God alone. 

Some of us have gotten stuck at different stages; shock, unbelief, anger, hurt and finally we've all come to the last stage acceptance.

We have accepted that although we felt wronged there is no way we could ever hate or wish bad things on those who betrayed us.

We have accepted that God has something wonderful in store for us and right now we're just waiting. 

We have accepted that things will never be as they were and that our love for our River of Life family will never fade. 

I only have a few requests for you Dear Reader. 

First of all, please don't listen to rumors and deceit about us or anyone else. 

Ever. 

Secondly, don't distance yourself from us, we haven't changed in anything except where we worship, we still worship the same way and the same God.  

My last request is that you will keep us in your prayers, we are your brothers and sisters in Christ and would greatly appreciate some spiritual protection. 

Thank you so much for letting us be in your fellowship for so long. 

Insanity

The past few weeks have been insane! Not necessarily bad insane, but insane nonetheless. Let's see, what have you guys missed? 

Well Daddy, Mamma, Mark, Blake, Nikki, Johnna, Alison, Claudia, Levi and I ran a 5k! The Kaleidoscope Color Run to be precise. Technically Mamma and Nikki walked, but they finished so it counts! 😜

It was definitely exhausting, but it was fun and everyone enjoyed it.

In other news, Blake and Mamma have jobs now! Yay! They are both working at 1 Fresh Stir Fry. She is also working at Michaels. My Dad has been getting quite a few tech jobs as well, so thank you Jesus for your blessings! 

Johnna and Mark have both put in applications at Starbucks(also known as 5bucks) and I put in mine at Maurice's,(I have an interview on Oct. 1) please be praying that we get the jobs! 

Lately we've started having family band practice, where my Daddy teaches us to play different worship songs, along with the occaisional veggietales silly song.  

Nikki and Johnna alternate Piano, Daddy, Lala and Blake do acoustic guitar, Mark does drums(Ali's learning those!), I do acoustic bass and we all sing. We sound pretty darn good too if you ask me!

Little to no arguments have been had lately. Kinda surprising, but hey good attitudes are always welcome! 

We finally put some family photos on the walls, they look really nice! Oh, and I'm supposed to get my license this week! 

Also, we started the Schedule last week. I'll try to explain that in another post soon!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us, we know we are loved. Until next time!

The Buddy System

In order to help you guys understand a little bit more of what goes on at the Hill House, I'm going to start doing some informative posts such as this one. 

Today I'm going to show you how the Buddy System works. 

In the Buddy System, each older kid is assigned a younger kid, these are called "buddies".  Here are the assignments for our family: Johnna-Simon, Charissa-Tempi, Alison-Andrew and Claudia-Victoria. Now you may have noticed that there are some names missing from that list. Well there are. 

Gideon is taken care of by everyone, but his favorite person is Daddy. 

Mark is kind've the overseer of Emma, Judah and Levi. They're old enough to get their own food and get themselves dressed, Mark just ensures that they remember to do these things, and Nikki ensures that Mark does. 😉

The duties of buddies include: making sure the child is woken up, dressed (diaper changed in Tori's case), fed, hair and teeth brushed,  and that they are following the Schedule(we'll discuss that in a different post). We also make sure they're ready to go when we go places. 

All in all this system works really well for everyone. 

It helps us older kids get lots of time with the younger kids while providing us with real world parenting experience, it helps my parents not to stress as much and it helps the younger kids get educated more quickly! How? They emulate us, we have this amazing chance to mentor our younger siblings, and I think we do it pretty well.

Book of Funny Conversations

A lot of times in the Hill house we have silly or crazy conversations, this will be a continually updated post in which I will let you share a few laughs with us.

Temperance and my mother were sitting on the couch talking-

Tempi: When you wear a dress you are supposed to cross your legs.

Mamma: That's right, so people won't see your panties.

Tempi: But my panties are really cute! *pulls up dress*

At the Biltmore Simon had a butterfly on his finger.-

Simon: Look, now I'm a Disney princess!

Also at the Biltmore after sitting on some red dirt-

Ali: Do I have red on my butt?

Levi: I don't know let me check

*Levi pulls her pants away from her butt.*

*Alison jumped away screeching*

Alison: I meant on my pants!!

 

Temperance pondering things during breakfast-

Tempi: Gideon came out of Daddy's tummy since he's a boy. 

Shocking Summer

Hello Everyone, I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've updated. The past few weeks have been...interesting. In fact, this whole summer has been full of  life changing experiences.

Some of you know and many of you don't know that on July 11th of this year my 4 year old cousin, Hannah, went to be with Jesus. Usually I wouldn't say for sure that someone was with Jesus because only God knows the heart. However, I don't believe that she had reached the age of accountability yet so I am certain that she is with the Father. This tragedy was extremely unexpected and I hope you will join me in continually praying for my extended family.

After this shocking experience, we tried to return some semblance of normalcy to our lives and I dare say we were succeeding. We even had Johnna's graduation ceremony; which was a tear-jerking celebration.

During my Dad's sabbatical we took a family vacation. Everyone went, including Nikki and Blake. 

First we went to North Carolina, rented a cabin and visited the Biltmore Estate. It was beautiful we had a lot of fun exploring the gardens, touring the house and rolling down hills. 

After that, we traveled to Georgia where we visited with my Aunt Sarah and her husband, Uncle Wesley. They were extremely gracious in letting 17 people invade their living space. 

We went to Six Flags over Georgia; hands down the Batman is the best ride there. Thankfully everyone was able to keep their food down for all of the rides we were on.

Sadly our excursion came to an end and we returned home to reality - the reality that my Dad had to resign. Not because anyone did anything wrong, simply because the staff at the church feels that it is time to take the music in a new direction.  We were and still are heartbroken by this decision, but we trust in God's bigger picture not our immediate circumstances. We are all looking forward to new opportunities.

Right now even though life can seem crazy and full of turmoil this scripture has been helping me. Who knows? Maybe it will lift you up too.

Isaiah 43:2-3, NIV
"When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze."

Weekly Wonders

This past week has been an extremely humbling experience for me. 
Johnna, Alison, Claudia and I went on a mission trip with our youth group. 
Now most people when they think mission trip think about out of the country trips, or working in soup kitchens. While both of those activities are great, that is not what we did. 
Our youth group went to Panama City, stayed at a Christian beach resort and every day we went to the Boys and Girls Club. While we were there we would play with the younger and older kids ages ranging from 6-16. We also worked outside the building cleaning up trash, trimming trees and bushes, and cutting vines off of  fences. 

Working with these kids was so much fun! We played dodge ball, basketball, colored, ran around playing tag or hula hooping, We did anything and everything that they wanted to do. At least three of the kids there accepted Christ Jesus into their hearts; it was amazing. 

I learned a lot there, first and foremost being that sports are definitely NOT my forte. As much as I tried to play basketball among other athletically inclined games, I ended up getting hit in the face with the ball more times than I care to say. 
One of my favorite experiences, was when a 9 year old little boy came and showed me his favorite book which was a New Testament Bible and proceeded to read me the Lord's Prayer. It was one of the sweetest things I have ever seen. 

It was also really great to grow closer with my youth group, being able to speak into the lives of the younger ones in the group was a fantastic opportunity! 

Friday we went to Shipwreck Island, a water park. It was tons of fun roaming around with Johnna and our friend Sarah; we went on the same ride at least 5 times just to talk to the lifeguards who had great senses of humor. 
Overall, I was thrilled with the experiences I had on this trip.

During the time that we were away, my dad fixed the refrigerator's water thingie and the rest of the family went bowling without us. Or as Emma texted Johnna, "boiling".

I'd like to take a moment to say goodbye to Pascal who passed away last week due to food poisoning.(he ate something he shouldn't have.) Goodbye.

Tonight my parents went with some friends to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. Johnna and I were slightly put off by this because we wanted to watch it also, but alas adults like to go out with other adults, go figure!

Until next week, thank you for reading!