Seven Parris Kids And Counting

The Wissmann Family...

The Wissmann family will be at Phillipi Baptist Church in Cleveland TN, February 4th at 7:00pm. We have seen them in concert once before and the music was wonderful, so if any of you live around the area please come and hear the Wissmanns in concert you will not be disappointed!!!

The Tennessee Aquarium

On New Years Eve our family went to the Tennessee Aquarium. It had been about 10 years since our last visit so there were many changes and improvements. We weren't really sure how the 3 little ones would do but they had a wonderful time. Tickets compliments of Daddy's brother and his wife. We surprised the kids too! It was a great little visit.

SOME THINGS I'VE LEARNED

These are some things that I have known to be true but now more than ever I can say that yes, children are a blessing! Yes, I would love to have more blessings! No, I'm not crazy to say this (scared but not crazy)! Never ever take those trips to the doctor for granted. You are not guaranteed a healthy baby just because all the other ones were. Death is real and it is SAD and it is HARD. The loss of a child is worse than I ever imagined it could be even at 19 weeks. Time makes things a bit easier even though the loss is still there and it still hurts deeply. Life is hard to understand but God is merciful and gives me grace for the day. I fail miserably at being a wife and Mom but my desire is still there. My desire to teach my kids to Love the Lord. To Love God and follow him, the most important thing!!!! To be an example to really live what I say that's the hard part. To be respectful to my husband, to be patient with 7 needy people, to love others and help my husband as much as I can in the ministry he is in. That's the hard part too. I'm not the best housekeeper or the best cook or the best friend or for that matter just fill in the blank with tons of stuff but I desire to improve! Not just sit and dwell on it but to actually do better and improve. I've got lots of work ahead of me. Now to pull out all those "self help" books I love to read! I'm coming up on 15 years of being a stay at home Mom! Wow!!!! Can't believe it has been that long. Can't believe all those times I have complained and griped about this or that when I should have been praising God for allowing me to stay home and growing our family. Not that I haven't been thankful but I just need to express that thanks to him more than complaining over such petty unimportant things. After 15 years I look back and see how blessed I am. I hope to grow this year in my relationship with God through prayer and Bible reading, to grow closer to my husband who is a wonderful leader in our home and to love on my sweet little and big ones that I get to spend each day with. My life might be looked at as boring, stressful, uneventful but what I see is love, contentment, joy, fun, never dull and never ever boring. Simplicity at its best! So thankful for a simple joyful life!

Are you lonely?

http://www.amothersheritage.com/2012/01/03/are-you-lonely/ I just read this a bit earlier and wanted to put this link on here to refer back to. It is a beautiful example of a loving Mother/Daughter (or daughters) relationship.

You know you live in the country when......

Deer graze in your front yard!!!

Forever In Our Hearts

A December Hello!

In the middle of us trying to "fix up" our blog I decided to make it go as private so that we could work on it without everyone seeing it look weird. Not knowing when and if we will ever find the time to finish what we wanted to do we decided to open it back up for viewing. Now a big apology to our friend and family who have told me that they miss seeing pictures of the kids on here. We would love to keep things very current and always have lots of pictures and updates. We started blogging when I realized I didn't have the time to scrapbook anymore. It was so easy to just put pictures on here and I have really enjoyed looking back with the kids at family pictures from a few years ago. That is what I thought a blog was supposed to be about. When the school year started we decided we would post all our fun and educational stuff on our homeschool page so we could look back year after year and remember all we did related to school or actually related to life in general. Then comes August with a stressful pregnancy and before I knew it September had rolled on by and we were well into October. As I was starting to feel better and trying to manage daily life around here the unimaginable happened and we found out that our sweet baby had passed away. For days and even weeks everything was a blur. I kept thinking is this what grief is I don't believe I am actually going through the "grieving process" but now as I look back at it I was right in the thick of it and just didn't know it. I've had much time on my hands with sleeplessness so I have jumped right back into reading blogs about others, I think just so I could momentarily forget the pain I was filling. Something funny I have come to realize is that there are at least a million blogs out there that talk about being a godly woman and mother but I just can't read them all after a while it becomes boring with the same old stuff, not that I don't want to be a godly wife and mother. There is a lot of good info out there but what I plan to do is just go back to a few of those encouraging women that help point others in the right direction. I've listed a few of my favorite well know blogs in the past. There are many to read but I must plan my time wisely. So for me I will try AGAIN to guard my time. I will read those few I found years ago and also people that I know "in real life" not just blog world. I have read that some people stay on the computer for hours all day long. And just like now at least 10-15 minutes are gone that I should have been making cookies. So off to make cookies and enjoy these last few days before another Christmas has passed.

Vision Forum is Having a Giveaway!

In case you don't already know. Vision Forum is having a HUGE giveaway!! Vision Forum has a variety of Christian books, wholesome movies and encouraging Cd's for the entire family. All of the kids (plus mom and dad) has something Vision Forum sells on their Christmas list!!!

Head on over to any (or all) of the following blogs to win some BIG gift certificates to Vision Forum....

Smockity Frocks
The Modest Mom
A Wise Woman Builds Her Home
Generation Cedar
Raising Olives
Life In A Shoe

Note: Each of these blogs above are having this giveaway. Hurry and head on over to all of them and enter!!

Wordless Wednesday

Our loss DANIEL ELIJAH PARRIS -OCTOBER 29, 2011

It is with such sadness and heartbreak that we write of our precious loss. Our sweet baby boy that I carried within me for 19 weeks was delivered stillborn on Saturday afternoon. Most that read our blog from church already know about this but we also know of others from different areas that keep up with our family and we ask that you pray for us. Not sure if anything else will be posted about all of this for some time. I'm sure there are many different phases of grief to go through. He was loved and wanted so much. We are thankful for the time that we had with him.

Trying to get back to blogworld

We are trying to get back to the world of blogging but with so many things to catch up on where to start? I had wanted to start off the school year with lots of pictures and do a little about school each day. I thought it would be a great way to remember our school year better. After a few days all that good morning(half day) sickness set in so pictures didn't seem quite as important. Now I guess I'll just play catch up with some summer pictures and go from there. I have actually missed scrap booking and really need to start back with that. Blogging or Scrapbooking, so many choices. For now I think I will just do some picture posting. I love to look back over the blog with the kids and remember all our fun times and see when they looked younger only by a few years or so. Now to plan what pictures to post out of about 1000.