Excitement in the Air

Today was a VERY exciting day for many in the Brewer household....

(Lashae got this shirt for Chaney in Africa....it is soooo cool looking on him, and he is such a cool guy for wearing it for some pictures!!!! )

Lashae's first day of work!!!

Whoop whoop!!!

She finally got to get her pink lunch pail and thermos all packed and ready...this was a gift that Charlie gave her for her 18th birthday, and we were beginning to wonder if it would EVER get used. haha...we have teased her and teased her, but the truth of the matter is.....we could not have done the things we have done in the last couple of months if it wasn't for this girl being willing to stay home and help while we went to Africa, and then she went to Africa to help bring Esther home...so she has not been idle...just not earning a living in the monetary sense.....

Reece seeing Shae Shae off for her first day!!!

Then today was Esther's first day of school!!! Every kid in America could learn something from this kid....she is so excited to go to school and she simply could not wait. In her culture it is a "privilege" to go to school, and when they get to go, they take it very seriously and enjoy it, and take pride in the fact that they get to go. Luke and her are in the same class, and same grade...that should make for some good stories!!!

Luke and Esther seeing who's backpack is the heaviest....

Then Kole was celebrating his 2 year anniversary of dating Abby....how fun for them. Here is a few pictures of them attending prom a few weeks ago. They have a very fun group of kids they had dinner with at Grandma H's house.. and then off to the prom.

What Are We Going to Do??

Matthew 6:30-34 (The Message)
30-33"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
34"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

We don't know what tomorrow holds, let alone next month, or next fall, or this summer for that matter. We have a large family, work is slow, costs are rising, we have a baby on the way, and a daughter getting married. The Lord has blessed us abundantly, and He has entrusted us with a lot......sooooooooooooo

What are we going to do????

Well, we are going to just love the Lord and seek Him and do what we feel He has called us to and what He has put in front of us to do, and then we are just going to trust HIM to do the rest. He is God! He knows all, he owns it all, and He LOVES us, so I know we are putting our trust in the right place!!

Trusting is not always the easiest thing...even though it would seem to be the easy thing...I mean to TRUST GOD..sounds like the logical thing...He did create us, He did send us His only Son to save us, and yet, it takes a lot of concentration and focus and work to TRUST HIM and wait on Him, versus worrying and stressing and working ourselves into a frenzy...which, we know does NO GOOD at all, but it is the thing we default to if we don't keep our minds on HIM and make a conscience effort to TRUST HIM.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to you Mom!!!

You are the most wonderful and beautiful mom!!! I love you so much, and I'm so thankful to you for raising me and loving me and teaching me to love the Lord and teaching me to be a mom.

Mothering - Stages

Mother's Day is my all time favorite this year because I am in EVERY stage of motherhood I think there is....

I have 3 teenagers...one that is getting married in July, and so I am getting to learn what it means to be a mother of the bride. This girl is a pretty easy bride too, she is just so in love and happy that she's pretty content and happy and excited with everything... so I will also get to be a Mother-in-law SOON!!! I can hardly wait! I have the best soon to be son-in-law in the world and so I'm excited to take this title on.

One of my teens is a teen boy....that says a lot about what goes on with the mothering to this child right there! COOKING, COOKING, and more COOKING. But, man when I get a hug or a "thank you mommy" , or "I love you mommy" (which is how he says it...just to melt my heart on purpose...it's usually because he wants something, and I don't even care...it works every time.)

One of my teens is a 13 yr old girl...enough said! She is actually the biggest joy and help to me. I love this girl...She parents me more than I parent her, and I think she's better at it...NOT KIDDING!

Then I have a son who is in grade school and trying to figure out which sport is his most favorite...so of course, we are at the stage of doing them all before you can narrow it down...He is a fun, energetic boy...he gets excited about it all!

I have a newly adopted daughter who is grade school age. What a gift God has brought to me to get to mother a child that I did not carry in my womb and came to me already "potty trained"!!! Among a million other reasons this has been such a blessing to me as a mother. I'm learning SO MUCH!!

Then there's Reece...I'm mothering a TODDLER...and this kid has me rolling at all times...he either has me laughing my head clean off, or rolling around in frustration. He has me rollin' one way or the other. He is a FIREBALL!!!

I couldn't resist using this picture....this is when he is frustrating. haha..

And this is how delightful he can be...in the same 5 minutes.

This is why he keeps me rollin'!

And....of course....I'm PREGNANT....so, once again, being reminded how to mother a child in the womb....which means when your head is in the toilet...you remind yourself ...this child is a BLESSING...

So, to sum it up in short....I am the.....

mother of the bride

mother-in-law

mother of man child...teen boy

mother of teen girl...my younger mother

mother of grade school super athlete

mother of adopted Ugandan treasure

mother of a toddler (fireball)

expectant mother!

See why I love this year...you just don't get to be all these things at once usually. God has an amazing sense of humor and He does give the BEST GIFTS and each child is a GIFT STRAIGHT FROM GOD!!!

Rodeo Week-end

We had a wonderful week-end. Esther and I enjoyed a ladies' tea on Saturday with my mom and many friends, and Charlie took Charsie, Luke, and Reece to a Pee Wee Rodeo.

On Sunday, we all made it to the rodeo, and what a beautiful day!!!!



The horses and the kids were just feeling good and having a ball. The Lord has blessed us mightily with being able to continue to rodeo this year. We took last year off, as it was just too expensive, but this year we decided it was important to the younger kids and so we are going to make it to a few. We could not have done it if it wasn't for our horse trailer being donated back; every time we look at it we are reminded of the goodness of our Lord. We often talk about it like the scripture in Joshua, that talks about God having the Israelites building a memorial as a reminder of what God had done for them.....

Joshua 4:4-7 (New International Version, ©2011)
4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones (or this horse trailer) mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones (this trailer) are to be a memorial to the (Brewer)people of Israel forever.”

I added all the parenthesis....obviously!!! haha

Our big red "Hart" trailer is a memorial of what the Lord can and will do and what He has done for not only our Esther...getting her home....but, the blessing to the rest of our family to be able to enjoy our rodeo life with our kiddos.

This was Esther's 2nd time EVER on a horse and she loved it!!! She was somewhat timid at first, but by the end of the time Charlie had her in a full-on trot and she was enjoying it VERY much.

The First Melt-Down

Last night Charlie and I are just finally in bed after a long day, and there is a very faint knock on our bedroom door....we say come in, and Esther is standing at the door with big tears in her eyes....I think to myself....ok, here we go, I have read about this, I have prayed about this, I hope I'm prepared....as I say to my sweet girl...."What is the matter honey?" And she rubs the tears in her eyes and says, "Mama, I think I have lost my toothbrush." Holy smokes, I can totally handle this....I hit Charlie dead in the chest, and say, get this girl a toothbrush as I hug her and tell her it is absolutely NO BIG DEAL!!! We have plenty of toothbrushes!!! We buy them in bulk at Costco. So Charlie flies out of bed and begins to ask her what color she would perfer. She picks red and skips off to bed after a big 'ole hug from her mom and dad.

I'm pretty sure we handled this one with flying colors. Whew....if this is as bad as it gets, I think we are totally equipped!!!

As she left the bedroom, Charlie and I gave eachother a high five and were glad that on this night this was the biggest problem we had to face.

The Lord knows to start us out in baby steps!

A Few New Faces!

I changed my blog picture...to the current update. As you will notice we have 2 new faces in the picture...the tall handsome young man in the pink shirt is my soon to be Son-in-Law!!! I can not wait, we are so excited and since he was an amazing trooper and spent the week-end with the family, we thought if that didn't scare him off he was a sure deal, so we put him in the family photo. His name is Chaney and he and Lashae are getting married on July 24!!! We can hardly wait, they are the most beautiful, godly, fun, loving couple I have ever met. They are just glowing with excitement and joy; and Chaney must love her A LOT to put up with what he did this weekend. We had them take their engagement pictures at my sister's house and we had soooo much fun, that it turned into a several hour project, and we didn't waste one second...we were being typical bossy hens and the poor guy was outnumbered about 5 to 1....and he did not complain one time, he was THE BEST SPORT!!!

Then, the other new face is our Esther!!!! She is the one in front with the pretty sundress on! (hehehe...in case you couldn't tell). We are soooo excited to have her in the family photo finally. She was wonderful all weekend. She got to meet a WHOLE bunch of family that she had not met yet, and she loved every minute of it. She can not figure out why we all live so far apart though.......I thought that was a good question!

So, that is the new family photo....at least until mid September when this baby hits the scene!! As for now, I'm so glad it is where I can easily keep track of it because it just makes it easier at this point.