I feel summer coming to an end. I like enjoying all of God's seasons, but Fall is my favorite season! It seems like everywhere I go lately the YMCA follows. I guess you have to do something with all those kids. Most of our new books for the year have arrived. The Webster 1828 dictionary came in today. I sat down and read it, not the whole thing of course! I also got Already Gone and The Duggars 20 and Counting. I started reading both today they are very good.

Everyone is well, the baby has a cold, but is otherwise fine. All the other children are healthy and happy. We go to cardiology tomorrow. I've been trying to think of tricks to get him to stay quiet and still during the ECHO. Usually I have to put him to sleep, but I don't want to be there that long.

I also got the 2nd book in God's Design for Sex series. This book is "the talk". My husband and I have prayerfully been considering when to have the talk. This year we want to start preparing his heart for that talk. We want to create an awareness that God made all things to reproduce. All living things come from living things. (also establishing deeper convictions for creation) We'll study plants this year and see how they reproduce we'll talk about how animals reproduce and finally go into how humans reproduce. Not that this gift is for repoduction only, we'll get into that some too! Dh and I were talking about this yesterday how we also need to help the kids realize how the world perverts and pollutes God's gifts. Although he'll have the sanitized talk, he'll never hear it that way from the world and we need to be sure that he understands that the world has a counterfeit for every spiritual thing and that he must be prepared for the battle that is just outside his door. Just by looking around the world you can see all the ways wicked man has perverted God's gifts. Just take for instance music. Why did God create music? Well as I read the Bible I see how he taught the Israelites songs so that they would remember his commands and not forget his righteous judgments. I see how much God loves songs, in fact he rejoices over us with singing! I see how we are to speak to one another with songs, hymns, and spiritual songs! There is so much information in the Bible about the gift of music. But the world has taken it and make it ugly. They have worshiped it, perverted it, and made it a stumbling block to many Christians. This is just one example of too many. It is important to understand that all or most of God's gifts have been soiled in the same way. Our children have to be prepared for the fact that they will encounter pornography, they will be tempted by the immoral woman or be tempted to be the immoral woman, they will be tempted to compromise, they will encounter sexual advances, their own bodies will try to decieve and betray them. I believe these things to be absolutes! Even though I homeschool, these children are by no means unsusceptible to these evils. The kids could go into a public bathroom and find a porn magazine or play a game of hide and seek at Bible talk and try to sneak a kiss or whatever. If there is any wisdom that comes from being 26 it is that I am not far removed from my adolescence. I remember how easily and quickly evil comes knocking on the door and the Devil shows no partiality. The Devil doesn't care that my kids are "churched" or come from a happy home or whatever. The Devil will attack my kids and they must be prepared for battle, we pray for wisdom and grace as to the way and timing we reveal the plot of the Great Deciever, but the clock is ticking away. Every hour these children are getting closer to engaging in all out war with the Enemy,our goal is to prepare them for battle, we can't fight for them but we intent to fight with them. Our oldest will be eight soon, which may seem young, but if we don't get about this business soon someone else will most definetly do it, and it will not be in accordance with Phil 4:8(whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. It is important to us that our children have a right view about this gift that the Lord has given to married couples and that we teach them to protect their purity at all costs.

Another book we got this week was The Princess Kiss and The Squire and the Scroll. I am grateful for people who use thier talents and abilities to build up the kingdom of God and encourage the ministry of the saints. My little girl is drawn to princesses. She has never seen Snow White, Sleeping, Beauty or Beauty and the Beast but she can spot a princess a thousand miles away. Her heart is drawn to their flawless beauty and lavish garments. I was so grateful to finally read her a princess book that potrayed a wise, chaste, prudent princess. Books and TV are teachers and there is no neutrality! I don't want my daughter to have silly notions of a handsome prince sweeping her off her feet, catering to her every whim. “There is a real danger in raising picky, un-pleasable daughters who are unable to follow an imperfect man. We have no business raising wimpy ‘prima donna’ daughters.”Scott Brown I do want my daughter to a princess of the Most High King. I want her to be a wise, faithful, princess who is a servant a handmaiden of the Lord, not a diva. For those of you who know my daughter, you know we have a good work to do, let's unite and pray for our daughters and sons. I have just as much desire for my sons to marry Godly princesses. I pray that they have an appeptie for and are attracted to feminine holiness. My daily prayer for myself and family is that we all learn to "love the things that the Lord loves, and hate the things that the Lord hates".