Also Known As Mom

The New Testament

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:27:00 +0000

Our church is experiencing the New Testament together over 40 days of reading divided into 8 weeks. I can't even explain how great it is to look at the works of the Lords people during and after the time of Jesus. The study is called "The Books of the Bible" and they lay out the new testament without the formatting of books and versus and just gives you the story. A story that you just want to sit down and read like a novel and yet it gives you a whole new perspective of the events. A song that came on the radio last night more than one time by Addison Road called "What I Know of Holy" really puts into perspective of how this study is making me feel. We are at Day 17 in this story and I am already gaining so much more beyond the stories I grew up learning by seeing it as a whole story. This is something I suggest if you have the time to read to really do it!

I'll leave you with the lyrics of the song "What do I Know of Holy" by Addison Road.

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven but I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small, I never feared You at all, no
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes, could I behold You?

What do I know of You who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood but the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury? Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were might to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

What do I know of You who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood but the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury? Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

What do I know of holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life it's name?
What do I know of holy of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name on earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

What do I know of You who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood but the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury? Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?

Our Lent Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:17:00 +0000

We made a decision to make a few healthy changes in our lives for Lent as a way to refelct and grow on what Christ gave to us all. I have been slowing getting back to the place I know I need be for lifelong health but by making a few things untouchable for 40 days will allow me to put my cravings towards Him instead of food! We also hope these changes allow us to better see what God is trying to show us through our churches 8 week study where we are reading the entire New testament.

Some of the things we as a family are going without until Easter are no candy, cut back on most sweets, no pop, and no eating out/take out! Joel and I are also making a commitment to get to the gym 3 days a week. We are hoping by doing this as a refelction we will be more commited to these being a more long term way of making our life more healthy!

There are a few times where the kids will get a pass because of some instances where other life things are happening. One of the times is for Allie's birthday which is April 1st. We are going to allow the kids to have cake and we are going to pick up Papa Murphy's pizza for her party. Other than that we hope to serve healthy foods and have non-candy treats. Another instance is when Maddie goes on a special trip with my parents to Disney she will be allowed to eat out, have ice cream and cookies, and a few small treats with my parents.

I pray that at the end of this not only will we have learned to better apreciate His sacrifices but also to trust Him more with our health!

Twelfth Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:39:00 +0000

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve drummers drumming. The twelve drummers are the twelve points of the doctrine in the Apostles’ Creed.
1.I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2.I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our lord.
3.He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4.He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into Hell.
5.On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right had of the Father.
6.He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
7.I believe in the Holy Spirit.
8.the Holy catholic (Christian) Church.
9.the communion of saints,
10.the forgiveness of sins,
11.the resurrection of the body,
12.And life everlasting.

Eleventh Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 07:38:00 +0000

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas my true love gave to me eleven pipers piping. The eleven pipers are the eleven faithful Apostles, including: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James bar Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas bar James. (Luke 6:14-16). This list excludes the twelfth Apostle, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.

Tenth Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:38:00 +0000

On the Tenth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me ten Lords a-leaping. The ten Lords are the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-17.
1.You shall have no other gods before me.
2.Do not make an idol.
3.Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.
4.Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.
5.Honor your father and mother.
6.Do not murder.
7.Do not commit adultery.
8.Do not steal.
9.Do not bear false witness.
10.Do not covet.

Ninth Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:36:00 +0000

On the Ninth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine ladies dancing. The nine ladies are the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. (Galatians:5:22)

Eighth Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:35:00 +0000

On the Eighth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight maids a-milking. The eight Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-10.
1.Blessed are the poor in spirit.
2.Blessed are those who mourn.
3.Blessed are the meek.
4.Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
5.Blessed are the merciful.
6.Blessed are the pure in heart.
7.Blessed are the peacemakers.
8.Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.#ixzz1iRQSiFem

Seventh Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:34:00 +0000

On the Seventh Day of Christmas my true love gave to me seven swans a swimming. The seven swans are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading and compassion. (Romans 12:6-8; Corinthians 12:8-11).

Sixth Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:27:00 +0000

On the Sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six geese a-laying. The six geese are the six days of creation described in Genesis 1.

Fifth Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:26:00 +0000

On the Fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me five gold rings. The five golden rings are the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah or Pentateuch. The five books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Fouth Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:25:00 +0000

On the Fourth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me four calling birds. The four calling birds are the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible. The Holy Gospels proclaim the Good News of God’s reconciliation to the world in Jesus Christ.

Third Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 22:25:00 +0000

On the Third Day of Christmas my true love gave to me three French hens – The three French Hens represents the three theological virtues, faith, hope and love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Second Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:24:00 +0000

On the Second Day of Christmas my true love gave to me two turtle doves – The two doves represent the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

First Day of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 22:23:00 +0000

On the First Day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree – The partridge is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. ‘Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered you under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but you would not have it so…” (Luke 13:34)

Our Best Buy ordeal...

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:55:00 +0000

We purchased a 26 ft LG Side by Side Fridge on May 26th 2007. The orginal price of the fridge was $1899.99 but there was $70 taken off for it being an open box item. At the time a promotion was running on open box items if you purchased one you recieved a free $500 in store Gift Card to be used at a later date. It could not be used on that date. We also purchased a 5 year Performance Plan with the fridge. We were never told of any thing that affected our plan when we bought the enitre package. Info that is important for later in our story. We have orginal receipt and Service plan details that go with this.

In the last year we have had to have the Geek squad out for multiple issues we were having and after our last time they were out around Sept 20th they made the decision to Lemon it and do a Warranty exchange. We were told then we would get our orginal purchase price amount towards an exchange.

We decided to head over to the Best Buy in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Alpine Ave a few days later (Sept 24th). We do live closer to the Muskegon, Michigan store on Harvey St but have had other issues with not so great service there and the Alpine store was where we orginally bought the fridge from anyways. We talked with an awesome sales person there named Karen and she looked up all of our info and gave so much time to us to find the right fridge. We spent almost an hour with her and she was wonderful. If only our story ended there. We decided to not place the order at that exact moment because we wanted to double check measurements. It was an LG French Door fridge that had to seperate outside drawers for the freezer. She gave us every piece of info we needed with our customer numbers and order number so that we could order as soon as we were ready.

We came home did the measurements and my husband headed over to the Muskegon, Michigan Store to do the order. We decided since Karen had given us everything we needed it would be a fast and simple process. Boy were we wrong. My husband was gone for almost an hour because once he got everything together the manager needed to be called and they were very unfriendly with him. They said first you are only getting $1329.99 for your exchange...they would not give him a reason and they just said because that is what the Geek squad is willing to give you. They also said we could not order the fridge we wanted because it would never come even though they still had it listed in store as available. No other reasons and the manager was very rude and did not care we were in a bad position.

My husband left and I spent a few days trying to get ahold of our so helpful associate at the Alpine Store because we were so confused. She took some time and came back to us with real answers and actually cared about us. She said that after talking with the manangers about the case that there is a store policy that when you receive a gift card as part of a promotion for a product and you buy a psp that the gift card amount comes off from your price you paid if you ever have an exchange happen. This is not something we were ever told and would ave totally changed our purchase had we known this. It is also not in our PSP document that we were given. In fact Karen our associate we love has been working there for 7 years in the appliance area and is just now learning of this. She is personally taking this knowledge and sharing it now with future customers as it should be. Also the store by us had no clue either not that they would have cared to take the time to really look into things for us. Also the fridge we were wanting to order should have been pulled from the inventory because it was not able to be bought anymore because it had been discontinued and every last one was sold. We thanked Karen for the info and took some time to think and hoped the info we had shared would make into the right manager's hands and they would take care of us. That never occurred.

On Oct 8th we decided to just bite the bullet because nobody seemed to care and just pick a fridge that was as close to the $1329.99 we were being allowed to exchange at. We ended up with a Samsung French door without the Ice and water on the door because we could not afford it for $1274.99. It's not what we wanted but feel very stuck in this because we are not willing to go into debt for another fridge. This again should be where the story ends....us very let down by Best Buy.

It does not end there....The fridge was delivered on Oct 16th . The delivery men that delivered it sratched it upon delivery and suggested we get a new door and my husband agreed. At the same time as delivery they completely bent up the frame to our screen/glass front door. The man actually had the nerve to tell my husband it was like that before even though it was not. The screen part is completely ruined and we have to replace it come spring. There is another $200 that we are losing in this deal...great but what could we really do? Both of these things are stated in the Delivery Manifest that my husband was required to sign. We then had to wait for a call from someone about the new fridge door. At the time of the delivery they also took the old fridge and we also sent them 2 boxes that had been shipped to us for repairs for that fridge. Those boxes showed up at my house again 2 days later for no reason......they are LG parts.

A called came in on Oct 18th from Carolynn at the Muskegon, Michigan Best Buy. She was calling after talking with her mananger (the same one that has been rude to us before) and they had decided that they were going to give us a $25 gift card for the scratches on the door. I asked and what about a new door "Well we talked to the driver and he said it wasn't that bad" Remember he is the one who suggested we get a new one. I even told her this and this is when I was told "Well we are just trying to save ourselves the work of ordering a whole new fridge just for the door...it's a lot of work" I said well I want a new door so sorry. She was not happy but said she would call us with a delivery date. Nothing was ever said about the damage to our front door because once again they just plain don't care.

It is now Oct 25th and we have not heard a single thing form anyone again and we are just plain frustrated....this ordeal is still ongoing and we can't seem to get out of it. I have no idea what to do now.....we can say with 100% confidence that we will never go back to the Muskegon Best Buy for anything other than Verizon Mobile needs (those guys there are awesome) but with $700 worth of loss here we are just plan sad because every piece of electronic and appliances that we own are from Best Buy and so are many of our families because we have always loved the service till recently. Our spending record goes back to 2000 and now I'm not sure where we go from here.

First Day of School

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:45:00 +0000

I can hardly believe that the end of summer has gone and we are the first day of school for the 2011-2012 year. I felt so overwhelmed when the kids got out of school last year thinking we were going to have the longest summer ever full of stress. That was not the case at all in fact we had a great summer and it went way too fast. Now this morning I sent my girls off to 1st and 4th grade and left wondering where the time has gone. Logan starts preschool again next week. This is our last year of preschool at Kinderkirk and can not believe that in the last 7 years we have had a child there for 6 of them. This time next year we will be taking Logan to his first day of Kindergarten and I will officially have the house to myself everyday. It's exciting and scary all at once and I am so glad I have a year before it happens!

4 years already

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 10:42:00 +0000

How is it possible that it was already 4 years ago, on what was a rainy morning a lot like today, my little man was born. Sometimes I feel like it was just yesterday and I swear even though he is big for his age I want to keep him my baby. Alas though today we celebrate his 4th birthday while we are camping in Ludington. We will hit his favorite restaurant House of Flavors for lunch and then Brats for dinner. Happy Birthday my little man!

9 years ago

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:30:00 +0000

It was 9 years ago that I became a mom for the very first time. I can not believe how fast the time has gone and how much my life has changed in that time. I am very blessed to have Maddie in my life and though she is starting to push into the harder days in life I also find so many other things more exciting and easy to do with her as well. Happy Birthday to my oldest and thank you God for making me her mother!

11 years

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:38:00 +0000

That is how many years I have been blessed to be married to my best friend and love of my life. I can not believe how fast it all has gone and how many things we have been blessed with along the ways most importantly our 3 children!

Busy day

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:27:00 +0000

Busy day just took my Kindergartener to her last day before I lose her to all day school. Later today I am taking my Brownies on our last adventure as a troop (many of us are leaving including myself). Then it's time to get packing for camping for 4 days and all of the cleaning that goes with being gone so we can come home to a clean house. Tomorrow is Maddie's last day of 3rd grade and one step close to moving to intermediate school the following year. Oh yeah and tomorrow Joel and I celebrate 11 wonderful and crazy years ♥ All in all seems like a pretty awesome day though it is busy!

CSA

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:33:00 +0000

I am just so excited for the start of our summer CSA today! I get to go get a whole box of asparagus, lettuce, rhubarb, tomatoes, green onions, spinach, carrots and German Butterball potatoes from Visser Farms! I can not wait as this is only the start of 21 weeks of awesome produce at $20 a week you can not go wrong! You totally need to check it out!

Memorial weekend....

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Mon, 30 May 2011 14:34:00 +0000

Oh what a Day..... a quick brief run down is we had the campground looking for Logan today and 911 on the line when Logan decided to hide and seek on us as we were packing up. Then came home to a defrosting deep freezer...unplanned BBQ of weird things tonight now. This is after taking Maddie to the ER yesterday for periorbital cellulitus (infection in the skin around her eye) and Logan getting sunburned in 59 degree weather on Friday.

A little more on the Logan thing:

Logan got in trouble for eating his popscile in the trailer after I cleaned it for packing up. So he decided to hide in there apparently while Joel and I were on the otherside of the camper getting electric, water, and sewer put away. We ...noticed he was not on the playground so I went into the camper and called for him. Then we ran around our friends sites calling for him and a better search of the playground. Nothing...I went into the camper and did a hardcore search and found nothing. At this point I sent Joel to the office to start checking the gate and alert the staff...our friends started to call 911 and people were looking through out our area for him. I decided to plug the camper in and slide our slide out incase somehow it had trapped him somewhere. As I go in for the fourth time he pops his head up and said here I am................... I totally lost it to tears at that point. I am relieved that he did not wander away but hate his ability to play hide and seek so well that he moves spots and does not even answer when Mom is yelling "Logan please come out I am not mad I am so scared please tell me where you are". We have had some major talks as can be imagined.See More

Home

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Sun, 01 May 2011 15:43:00 +0000

Well we are home! I wish I could say that it feels so great but it is still just so cold here and it was so beautiful down there. It's barely even spring here in Michigan but in Myrtle Beach they are in Early summer for sure and it was awesome. I love the warm weather and the beach but I am not a huge fan of the humidty...well more what it does to my hair. We kept very busy but enjoyed much pool time and family time.

4 more days...

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:17:00 +0000

This is how many more days till we leave on our family vacation to Myrtle Beach. It could not be coming at a better time either. I had to spend some time this morning pulling out snowpants, boots, wintercoats, hats, and gloves to get the girls off to school because of an unexpected snow in the middle of April. CRAZY!!! It will make leaving to mid to high 70's seem even better. We get to celebrate Easter down there as well! If you can't tell I am very excited and ready...I even have almost everything packed and in the car. We did not go anywhere for Spring Break either so this will be really nice for the entire family. A really great thing too is that I am very close to my weight loss goal and get to wear smaller short than I wore all of last year!

Happy 6th Birthday Allie

noreply@blogger.com (Tina) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:17:00 +0000

I can not believe how fast time has gone and Allie is now 6. It does not seem like it was really that long ago but she has sure grown into a wonderful little girl who loves to spend one on one time with us. Though she may seem shy when she is alone with someone she will talk your ear off. Love you Allie Bear!