Hiking - a cold day sandwhiched between two beautiful days - go figure!

So it wasnt just cold - it snowed. It was very pretty on the way up but the whole way down... was freezing! I think I am starting to warm up days later! ;)

Conor made this craft in church a few months ago. It was so precious I had to frame it! The first thing he was thankful for was papa and grandma.

Preschool with the best teacher ever - Mrs Jones

Baking with Grandma

FYI If Erin makes you cookies... just know that she has probably licked the knife of the icing and then used it on your cookie. She is three but still a wild child :0)

Birthday Celebrations Continued...

Erin's 3rd birthday was on monday and James' 30th birthday is Saturday. It was so fun to have papa and grandma here to party with us.

Erin Grace is three years old!

My baby is three years old xoxox

Papa and Grandma came to suprise James and Erin for their birthday. We went to chick fil a for lunch. Then we went to Build a Bear with Addison and Skylar. We had a fun birthday celebration. Chloe Beth came over for cake and ice cream after dinner. The people at chick fil a sang to erin and she loved it but was shy at the same time. When we sang to her with her princess cake, she just laughed and giggled with glee the whole time. It was precious. She enjoyed her day and loved all the parties! :)

t

Under the Bridge

I have seen some cool 'God' things lately. I have been blessed to hand out food to the homeless. What strikes me each time is how big and scary those men look... But the light and softeness in thier eyes when we reach out. When we say "would you like a sandwhich?". I got to pray for William and ask God to bless him with a job. I got to talk to a lady who has had two children and they have been placed for adoption, living in two different states. I got to talk to a man who fled his home because he is wanted for arrest up there and has three children that he does not see or take care of. God, show these people your love through your Word and please use me in the process.
I saw God work Tuesday morning as we passed out some food and Bible verses. That night we went back to the Rescue Mission. I sat by Davea. She moved here from South Carolina. One of her four children is in Melisa's class. Wow - God. Thank you! Melisa teaches in the inner city school to be love and a light to the children. How awesome you are to lead us to people who desparetley need you. May they be comforted by you, Jesus!
Donita gave a Bible to a man she met in the morning time. He just got out of prision in California and is going through the program at the Mission. He wants to get his GED. He was blessed by Donita's kindness and knows God is blessing him. We are blessed to be a blessing. Let us never forget that.
A man said to me "did I see you in the park on Sunday? you gave me a sandwhich". He said "please remember to pray for me". I was moved that he remembered that small act.
People around us are hurting. People around us do not know the kindness and goodness of the mighty Saviour. Please share the good news of Christ this week.
I was moved to see the activity on facebook from people in our church sunday night. God is getting a hold of hearts. Last night, I saw that a cashier recieved three tracts and an invitation to a movie being shown at our church this saturday. That is so awesome!!! We are listening to the Bible and applying what we know. Yay!
For God so loved the world that HE gave His only begotten Son. That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have EVERLASTING LIFE. John 3:16
I am blessed to Know God and His Word. If you know God and His Word, pass it on friends. Pass it on.

Erin

Something that I have noticed lately is bedtime routines. The kids love for me to come into their rooms and pray with them and say goodnight. This is after daddy has already been in to them. Erin prays forever (it feels like it!) she goes on and on about everything that has happened that day. I bought her a new night light becasue her other one was way too bright. Erin does not need as much sleep as the rest of us think we need! She wakes up as happy as can be and cant wait for breakfast :) One night the power went out. None of us noticed because we were sleeping... that is until erin started to cry becasue her night light went out and she woke from her sleep knowing her room was too dark! That is how light of a sleeper she is. She hates the dark. We pray for angels to protect her while she is sleeping because she thinks monsters live in her room. She is two folks.
Her friend Ella gave her some princess clothes. Erin loves dressing up and she adored the new dresses, necklaces and purse. So - that night she refused to wear a pull up to bed. She said princess do not wear pull ups to bed. Needless to say we put one on her but at two in the morning we hear her crying. She had taken off her pullup and wet her bed. It wasnt funny at the time but it makes me smile. She really believed wearing that dress to bed would make her wake up dry. Oh Erin - we love you so much and you make us smile with all your craziness. You can spell your name now. I love how you say orange. You love baby kendra and addison coming over to play with you. You are so excited for your birthday in Feb so you can make a bear (build a bear). Every day you say 'I love you. Is it MY birthday? I hope you read this someday erin and know how very funny you were from such an early age. May you never loose your easy going, fun loving, crazy persoanlity! You are so very sweet. I love you baby girl!

Tammy Bennett - personality plus (her thoughts!)

I heard this lady speak and I enjoyed hearing about the different personalities! So fun to pick out your personality and your hubby's personality :)

Sanguine - have fun
Choleric - take control (me ahem)
Phlegmatic - find peace, avoid conflict (james ahem)
Melancholy - perfection

Okay - so I was going to write my notes out for you... but you could probablly google those four words and find out which describes you the most.

Interesting. What I love is that God gave me my personality and even though I am the bossy one... I get alot done! :) There are wonderful traits to my personality and some that are on the ugly side. I can surrender the good, bad and ugly to God and He makes beauty out of ashes. Lord, thank you for my personality. Please take me and mold me into your masterpiece. Amen

Thoughts from Linda Mintle on Relationships

I attended a cenference a while back and thought I would share the information I learned from Linda Mintle.

If you have a problem with a difficult person- don't cut them off. It makes you a better person to figure it out. God puts us in relationship. How i love is how i show Christ's love to others.

Here is a simple belief that creates relationship problems... we try to change others!

Year 2, 7 and 15 are tricky years in a relationship. Truth - I cannot change anyone.

Relationship dance steps:
Discuss- Avoid
Demand - Refuse
Criticize - defend (avoid)
Accuse - deny
Pursue - distance
Attach - withdraw
Attack - attack
withdraw - withdraw

We need to change your step in the dance and the relationship dance changes.

The Change Process:

Surrender.
1 peter 5:6
"humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.

Accept the need for change
psalm 139:1

Confess your behavior (couples pray together) you will be A M A Z E D what praying together can do. Please - try it... please.
james 5:16

Take responsibility
galations 6:5

Forgive (forgiveness takes one - ouch!)
matthew 6:14

Be Transformed
2 corinthians 3:18

Persevere
2 peter 1:5

No relationship is beyond repare if you are willing to reconcile. Forgiveness takes 1 - reconciliation takes 2.
Pray, Forgive, Do things together, Control your tongue (james 3) Deal with conflict and focus on the positivies.

This may be vague but the information really helped me so I wanted to write it down on here. Thanks! :)

the Solarek's Sweet Christmas 2011

It has been a wonderful celebration of Christmas this year. December started off beautifully! We went to see the play "Scroodge" Dec 1st. Our friend gave us wonderful seats up front and we had a blast. By the end Erin was playing James' i phone, and Conor was saying "this was way too scary for me. You should not have brought me here" :0) All in all, it really was a great night and I loved going as a family. Dec 2 brought the lighting of the Christmas tree in down town Roanoke. I felt like I was in a cartoon when the Mayor of Roanoke told Santa his number one wish for christmas was snow... we went down town with Elijah's family (one of conor's best friends) and then we came back to our house and built ginger bread houses - What a wonderful start to the holidays! Oh - I don't remember if I mentioned on here that our christmas tree fell down in the middle of the night and scared the life out of me?! The kids didnt hear a thing and james didnt even want to go down and check what the huge crash sound was??!! My tree sat naked for two days - it was naked while we had friends over to decorate the gingerbread houses... it bugged me but not enough to stress out. If you know me and james by now - it is our motto to enjoy life and not stress out about silly things like undecorated christmas trees.
A fun thing I like to do during the sundays of Decemebr is entertain the teen girl's sunday school classes (i did make sure the tree was re decorated for them!) It is special to have them into our home and hear from each one of them about their lives.
One of our teens organized a teddy drop off - the teddys would go to children who lost everything in a house fire or natural disaster. This was a wonderful thing for us to do with our children bc they have so much. It was special to collect some of their teddys and send them to children who really need them.
We went christmas carolling a few times which is always fun to see people smile at our small gesture. Singing at the old folks home was awesome and the macdonalds on 460 :)
James and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. We went to Olive Garden, came home and watched our wedding with the children. It was precious. This kids thought we were the prince and princess... We (thank you Ashley and Kathy!)painted the basement and hung a world map, map of ireland and map of america - that was our gift to one another and we are delighted with how that room turned out! When we were in mexico the leaders talked about putting maps up in your home and teaching your children there is more to life than their neighborhood!

Now to the good stuff - Christmas Eve. We went to our friend's house and baked some cookies and they made a feast for us! I love being around people so for friends to have us over on christmas eve meant so much to me. We did leave earlier than expected bc our kids were whiny and we put them straight to bed when we came home! :) Christmas Eve we went to the Baptist Community Center to watch the children perform a play for us. James, along with the youth group and Smith family go to the BCC each wednesday so it was special for James to come and watch their play. When we arrived, James did not see (i did - ahem!) a concrete ditch between the road and the curb. He popped the tire good let me tell ya! Well, being the stress free people that we strive to be (it is a decision/choice people) we went in and enjoyed the play and said we would worry about it after. For those of you who know where the BCC is located you may be smiling! The Smith family gave many hours on christmas eve to help the children prepare for the play and helped serve the food and clean up. This family is a wonderful example to me and I love their heart for God and people! Mr Smith helped James after the play and God blessed us fix the car for 15 dollars. Being at the BCC was precious. The children did a great job sharing the message of Christ. Their parents came to watch them and I pray that someone came to Christ through their efforts and the Truth they spoke of.
We ended the night at i hop with more friends who ministered over at the resuce mission. I love all of these people and I love being around like minded believers. We are blessed. We came home, put the kids to bed and prepared the dinner for the next day.

Erin woke us up Christmas morning and she got to look at the goodies in her stocking. Then she woke Conor up saying "it's christmas conor!". He came in to our room with his stocking and dumped it out to see his treasure. We came down stairs, read luke 2 and prayed to God, thanking Him for His gift to us. Conor took this seriousally because he realizes what this day is really about. We skyped my family and they got to see the kids open their gifts. Conor got a remote control dinasour from our neighbor. Her boys were finished playing with it and she thought of us. How sweet of her! That was conor's favorite gift! They each got a new Bible, dress up clothes and a pillow pet. They had a lot of fun!
We got to go to church which was so special to me bc we do that in Ireland and I love it! The kids sat in with us and were far from angles but it was special for james and i to share this with our children. Conor was wearing a tie that sang jingle bells when you pressed the button... bad judgment on my part haha. Erin has learned that we will take her out if she says "i gotta go potty" so she uses that to her advantage ;0) life with a 2 and 4 year old - gotta love it! I really enjoyed singing with the kids and letting them be apart of the worship service in that way.
We had a feast of a christmas dinner and were joined by two sweet families. I felt blessed to the top of my soul being with these people. Our turkey looked (and tasted) so good and very pretty if i do say so myself! it was one of those turkeys that deserved a spot on the table for all to admire :) last years thanksgiving turkey tasted great but didnt earn a spot on the table. So where are my pictures? my camera is broke (note to self - dont let the children use the camera in the future)... sorry folks! James took some christmas pics with his phone so i will put them up soon. After dinner three familes visited friendship manor and sang christmas carols to the elderly. It. was. priceless.
You know my kids by now... far from little angels. All the children were marvelous but since this is my blog I will brag on conor and erin. Erin was as sweet as can be and sang all the words and the people loved watching her precious 2 year old self. Conor was a gentlman. He handed out lots of candy canes and made sure he gave them all big hugs. As a parent, I was soooo very proud of them and how kind they were. All of the children knew the candy canes were for the elderly and didnt moan about it. They loved singing and blessing others - so precious! At the end conor said we didnt tell them about Jesus and we didnt share the story of the candy cane. I told him we would do that next time and that we told them about Jesus through our songs. To say we were blessed would be an understatement. Then we went to our friends house and watched a movie while the kids played :) We have a lot of friends whose families are not in the area so our kids are like cousins. God always blesses!
We had a great christmas! I loved being at home and getting to celebrate the way James and I prefer.
Some blessings that happened for our family were 1) we recieved a christmas card with 100 dollar bill. We wanted to buy a cow from the compassion book to give to a neady family in Africa and God blessed us with that 100 dollar bill - He provided for us! :) 2) James recieved some gift cards to restuarants from some friends in the church. if you know james - he loves eating out (no wise cracks about my cooking) so that was God's gift to him!
3) we got some precious cards from people sharing how much they love us and how thankful they are for us. Being in the ministry, those cards always mean so much. Thank you! James got a plaque for his office from one of the guys he is mentoring with the sweetest note.
That was our christmas. Beautiful. Filled with Christ. Filled with family and friends. Thank you God for your gift of Jesus Christ and thank you for the gift of knowing you now and forever more. I love you!
I am just like my mother and i will go out this Christmas Season singing 'oh i wish it could be christmas every day!' :0)

Tuesday Morning Outreach

Today was the end of our first season of ladies' outreach. We went to the Mall to hand out candy and say thank you to the cashiers. I bought something in Old Navy and was not brave enough to hand the lady candy and a Bible tract. I was talking to her but was too nervous to do something out of the ordinary - I'm slow sometimes! I met my kids at the mall - their teacher was having them buy christmas presents for a child whose parents are in prision. What a great idea! (the angel trees by the train). I helped them shop for their gifts... I went into the dollar store to buy a big bag for the gifts and while I was there God made me brave. I was able to talk to the cashier about christmas and what his plans where. He said he will not get much time to shop because he is so busy working. I gave him some candy and a Bible tract, along with our christmas program invitation. I said you may not be able to come but maybe your children can. He said he was off sunday night and would like to bring his family to our church. I was delighted! I wont win any prizes for being the most out going christian in the mall today... but I am praying the little I was brave enough to do will be alot for the sake of the Gospel. Little is much when God is in it??
Be brave, friends and ask God how you can be a light in your ordinary activities.
Next season we are going to focus our efforts in three places. The first and fourth tuesdays will be spent at the Baptist Community Center. I will tell you all about that sometime. Our teens go there each wednesday and I am so very proud of them. The second tuesday will be spent at the rescue mission doing various ministries. Our church goes there tuesday nights so we love going and seeing the residents twice in the one day! The third tuesday will be spent at the Roanoke Child Development Center. We have gone there to read to the children and make a craft with them. Our time there was so very precious that we would like to invest into that ministry each month.
God has blessed us with alot of women who have a heart for reaching out. It has been an honor and a blessing to work alongside each of the ladies. May God bless you and if you would like to join us on tuesday mornings from 9 am to 11 am - let me know! We will be starting back Jan 10th :)

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my Dreams...

Christmas is my mam's holiday. She LOVES Christmas. I know. Who doesn't? Last year I planned on going home for Christmas but Ireland had so much snow that my flight was cancelled for a week! Craziness! Needless to say I did not get to spend Christmas with my mam. This year James and I will spend Christmas in our home in Virginia. Christmas is a wonderful time of the year... It's a little sad for me too. I know so many who have burdens this time of the year. I feel for you. May we fellowship with Christ during HIS holiday. May we fellowship with each other and share each other's burdens.
Happy Monday, friends. If anyone from Ireland wants to suprise me for Christmas - come on over! :)