James

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;"

I just finished reading through James and providentially my Mother is beginning to study this book in her women's Bible study. So, I think it would be good to put a few thoughts down about this book.

One thing that struck me when reading the passage above is how often I don't ask and when I do it's not in faith but with the thought that "this way I will get what I want" and that is not the correct attitude to have! We should be prayerfully crying out to God in faith knowing that He knows all our needs and will provide for us. He will also tell us no when we don't need what we are asking for. That is what I have struggles with before. I ask because of course this is something that I need! Well, we need to remember that God knows best and He will be the judge of what I need.

James is a wonderful book and can be a great help to us all!

Brush Up On Your English Grammar!

Since it's that time of the year when schools are starting up again, I thought I'd mention a helpful book. It will take you back to the basics of identifying the parts of speech, sentence structure, and diagramming sentences. Now if you made a face after reading that dreaded word "diagramming" then this book is for you. Mrs. Wilson shows how easy it is to diagram, as each new part of speech is taught. She says, "Diagramming sentences is a good exercise because it forces the student to analyze every word in the sentence by examining the function of each word." I think of diagramming sentences like taking a puzzle apart and grouping the pieces, by color or shape, so you can see where the pieces go and how they fit together. Our Mother Tongue will certainly give you the tools to know our unique language better and use it correctly.

Happy Birthday again!

This time to my wonderful Mom! Yesterday was her birthday and she was actually busy most of the day so we didn't do too much of a party. You are a great blessing to all of us kids Mom. We love you!

Happy Birthday!

To my daughter: You are a blessing from the Lord! Nineteen years ago when the doctor said, "It's a girl!" I said, "It's Molly!" You will always be our lovely girl. Your dad and I overflow with thanksgiving to God for you!

Little sisters, little sisters all in brown; smile for the camera and don't fall down!

Little girls, little girls pretty as can be; grow in lovely gracefulness and bless your family!












Oma & Opa like this one too!






Aunt Molly is taking a trip to Idaho next week. I'm sure she will be taking more pictures of our favorite little ones!

Good Quotes

I found these in the Oke Family Cookbook. I thought they were pretty good! Enjoy!

Eating slowly helps to keep one slim: in other words, haste makes waist.
A. H. Hallock

When pleasures to the eye and palate meet, the cook has rendered his great work complete. William King

Doing little things with a strong desire to please God makes them really great.
St. Francis De Sales

Who Likes a Mystery?!!

If you've read the Mandy books and liked them you'll think this is a pretty cool story. For those of you who don't know about the Mandy books, I'll just say that Mandy loves to solve mysteries. Surprisingly, our mystery actually didn't take too long to solve, but it's a good one!

This past Tuesday my husband noticed there was a dent in the side of our Cadillac and he wondered what had happened. On Wednesday morning he mentioned it to me and we went outside to take a look at this unexplained oddity. Upon careful observation my husband said, "Notice this on top of the hood. It looks like blood." We both looked at it and confirmed it did indeed look like blood. That definitely sparked our curiosity. We started trying to figure out what could have hit the side of our car and splatter blood like that. "Was it a biker or a skater who slammed into the car as it was parked on the road on Monday night? Wow! They must have hit pretty hard to bleed like that!" It didn't really make sense, so I think we both went into the house thinking that we probably would never know the mystery of the dent.

That night I began to read our local newspaper. On the front page an article intrigued me. It was entitled "Dog attacks doe near downtown Grants Pass" I began to read that a "100 pound Pit Bull chased and caught a panicked doe near downtown." I kept reading, "The attacking dog ran through traffic in pursuit of its prey. The doe in its panic hit and damaged a parked car before bounding into the rack of a passing pickup truck." All of a sudden the words parked car stared back at me and a question mark lit up over my head! I then looked at the day it happened which was Monday afternoon. As my husband sat on the couch nearby I explained the story to him and asked, "Could this be the answer to our mystery?" Next, I yelled to the other room, "Hey Molly! Did you drive the Cadillac on Monday to work?!" She confirmed that she had driven to work, which is downtown and had parked on 4th & J. As my husband and I talked it all seemed to make sense that the deer might have been the culprit who made the dent in our Cadillac.

Well, to be quite sure, we decided to call the newspaper to help clarify the details. Sparked into activity by this question, my husband, detective extraordinaire, talked with newspaper reporter Shaun and first asked exactly where in Grants Pass was the car. After explaining it was in the vicinity of 4th & J St, Shaun seemed curious as to why my husband was calling. My husband then explained that he thought the car, hit by the deer, was our Cadillac, which was parked near our daughter' work. One of the first things the reporter asked was, "So did your daughter come home and say, 'a deer hit our car in downtown Grants Pass!' And you thought, 'Right, that's a good story!'" Ha! Ha! Actually Molly hadn't even noticed the dent! :) So, to end this mystery, the police report did say that the parked car was a Cadillac. Amazing! Who would have thought?!

I guess you might be wondering why we didn't first wonder how much it would be to fix the damage. Well, the car is on its way out to the car graveyard so that is why it didn't come into our minds. You might also be wondering what happened to the poor scared doe. The story went on to say that the dog got a hold of it, but passers-by scared off the dog and the doe ran off with its two fawns following it. I assume the deer probably went off to die. A sad ending for that side of the story, but a mystery satisfactorily ended for the Sumpters.

This is our "Gray Ghost" as my in-laws call it. You can see the mysterious dent! The blood has already been washed off.