Poems by: Brianna Beck

I AM

I am caring and a servant of God.

I wonder how animals are built.

I hear a whistle.

I see a unicorn.

I am caring and a servant of God.

I pretend to be a vet.

I feel happy about unicorns.

I touch zebras.

I worry about when I die.

I cry when I think about my dogs, which had died a long time ago.

I am caring and a servant of God.

I understand that I can't own a zebra or a horse.

I say that I trust in God.

I dream about horses.

I try to take good care of animals.

I hope to become a vet someday.

I am caring and a servant of God.

Brianna

Kind, horse rider, helpful and loving

Daughter of Chris and Michelle Beck

Lover of horses, friends and family

Who feels loved, happiness and energetic

Who feers spiders, sharks, and snakes

Who would like to meet Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift and Toby Mac

Resident of New Madison, on Preble Co. Butler TWNP Rd.

Beck

Happy Mother's Day

Today Chris and I went to Wal-Mart to look at paint colors for the exterior of our house. I can't wait. Finally after four long years we are able to revive the look of our old place. Our house is over 100 years old and still has the old wood siding, not sure if it is original but it sure looks it. Painted I think it will look quaint and charming. Currently, the yellow paint is peeling and cracking and much of the largest side of the house is completely bare of any paint at all. Yes indeed it will do my heart good to pull up to a freshly painted house. We can't afford to put new siding on it and I kept thinking it was a waste of money to paint it but I just can't take it anymore. I'm sure that sounds so silly and maybe even selfish but I just need to like the way my house looks. Don't get me wrong every year I love where we live even more and so do our kids. But here I am with a former career in design and I can think of one million and one things each day that would make our old farmhouse look just darling until the reality of little money and often even less time creeps in. So excited to have one idea come into view. We are thinking burgundy house with white trim. We need something dark to cover all the crack and hole fills and areas where new windows have been put in but you can still see where the old 10'H windows were. I'll be sure to post before and after pictures so you can share in the experience with us.

Tomorrow I am heading to church for a Mother's day seminar called "Taking Care of your Mother's Heart". A heart surgeon is coming in to talk to us about heart health and then they are going to be talking about our spiritual hearts. After that we are off to my Mom's to celebrate with her.

Sunday I am actually going to be home for the first time ever on Mother's day. What a treat. After church the kids and I are planning to plant flower boxes and perhaps work on our garden.

Happy Mother's Day I hope you get to enjoy it because each one of you deserve it!!!!
Chelle

Silly Old Snake Hunter

I killed a snake on our property this week. Chris and I were taking our spring tour of the place with the kids looking at all the beautiful flowers God has sent. Joseph and Natalie were playing in an area where there are trees and a little brush. Jose starts running yelling " Run Natalie, SNAKE, SNAKE"! Chris is deathly afraid of them so I asked him to go get a shovel. I told Joseph to show me where he saw it. I was stepping around, not seeing anything, then I looked down at my feet and noticed a hold close to my foot and realized I might be standing on the nest. Sure enough a few seconds later I saw a brown snake standing up at me with it's red tough going nuts. I jumped off the nest and got to Chris with the shovel. I started chasing after it and caught it with the edge of the shovel enough to get in there to finish the job. I've never seen any this long here before, it was about 3' by the time it all came out of that hole. Par for course of where we live but the funny thing is, I pulled a muscle in my arm killing it and I'm still taking ibuprofen. Guess I'm a silly old snake hunter or perhaps one that is just really out of shape.

Last night Chris was in Col. working so the kids and I finished up most of the spring cleaning I wanted to get done this week. After supper we got out all of the camping books we got from the library. We had so much fun. We are planning lots of different games, crafts, cooking over the fire, hiking with the purpose of teaching how to leave a trail to find your way back and recognizing animal foot prints and dare I say "scat trails". Yes they are fascinated by the pictures of the different scat which is a nice way of saying poop in the books. They want me to be sure to print off the poop pictures of different animals so they can recognize it on the trails. Funny the things kids get interested in. Anyway we had a great time planning all of the fun. We are all so excited for our first official "School's Out" camp trip in the bus. Perhaps a new tradition for the Beck family. I'm going to go to Richmond this week to see about finding some fabric to make new curtains for the "Big Red Bus". Can't wait for all the fun.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!!
Chelle

Family Update

This week I only had one cleaning job scheduled which was yesterday and I don't have another scheduled until next Tues. soooo, I am taking this week to get everything spring cleaned and in order around here. I am excited. I started Monday cleaning out the laundry room. I like getting paid to do others but I love it when it is my house getting cleaned.

Soccer has started for Joseph so we have been enjoying getting to the field practices and games.

Brianna had her last choir concert on Monday but will go to a choir contest in a couple of weeks. We have been taking a look at what she will take next year as a freshman. She signed up to take FFA (Future Farmers of America). She is very interested in becoming a veterinarian and was interested in getting more experience being around and learning about livestock. She's also decided to play high school soccer in addition to her choir stuff so we should be very busy next fall.

Chris and I took Natalie to a wedding reception last Saturday. The entire night she just wanted to dance with her DaDa as she affectionately calls him. He held her while they danced and those big brown eyes were fixed on his. She is a big Daddy's girl.

We are taking the kids camping in the big red bus for five days the first week they are out of school. They have been looking forward to that all year long. I have reserved some fun books from the library about camping games, crafts, songs and campfire food for kids. I want to make is the best camp trip ever for them. They have had a long year and they deserve it, can't wait!!

Hope you are all having a good week!!
Love, Chelle

Wonderful Easter

We had a lovely day of celebration. Hope you all had a great Easter too. Here are some recent pictures of the kids. Enjoy.

Love, Chelle.

Interviewing Your Daughter's Date

Praise Melissa and Keith Hutsell for giving us this wonderful resource-
How to Interview Your Daughter's Date by Dennis Rainey.

I know I have mentioned before how often the issue of the opposite sex comes up in our home lately. Again we knew this would be a part of public school. It has been a big issue the past few weeks for our oldest daughter. A boy was wanting her to "go with him" I'm terrible I say, "go where? you aren't of the age that it is appropriate to go anywhere with a boy." She will say "Mom!!! you know what I mean." I'll be honest this boy had me a little concerned, he didn't seem to obey boundaries and enjoyed the thought of challenging us. A small example is we said it isn't appropriate to talk on the phone to boys so we had told Brianna to let him know that if he calls, she would not be permitted under any circumstances to talk to him. He called anyway, he had said he was going to talk to me then if he couldn't talk to her. Just so happens that after school one of us Chris or I are always home with the kids. I'm guessing from his reactions he's not used to hands-on parents. It did however, put a red flag up to us about the character of this young man. In time Brianna came to see this for herself and made good choices but oh how tough the past few weeks have been.

I won't go into any more detail accept to say that book was so wonderful. It made us realize we have more power than we were feeling. We told Bri that she was a precious jewell to our family and that we would not just hand her over lightly to anyone. We explained that any boy that would like to spend time with her "at an appropriate age" or any boy that was thinking of calling her a girlfriend would most definately have to meet up with Chris for him to be able to get to know the young man and let him know of our expectations and make sure his character is honorable. After that we would both have to have time to get to know him in our home. I was amazed at her reaction. I expected great resistance but instead I could see in her that she felt so loved and protected. She beamed saying "she would feel better if Daddy did that." I could see the love in her eyes for her Daddy, The idea of him doing this opened her heart to him in a really deep way. This has opened the door for many good conversations about being evenly yoked and what to look for when choosing a date and not just wanting to go on a date with someone because she is asked but taking a look at the character of the person first and their possible intentions. This is hard stuff. She will be in high school next year. Anyway the book brings a great perspective that empowered us and with it and prayer we were able to quickly gain control over the situation. God is so good. I kept thinking God will use this for His glory or we wouldn't be going through it now. I can see how he is using it in her. Chris and I particularly like the part of the book that tells Dennis has a baseball bat in his office with the words "The Respect Her" lasered on the bat. We might need to get one of those. Just wanted to share that.

Easter preparations are in full swing. It is great to have the kids home today. Joseph and Natalie are getting ready to paint eggs. Brianna and I are going to make 4 dozen muffins today to donate for the Sunday morning breakfast at church. The Jr. High kids will be preparing the entire meal tomorrow morning. During that time Jose has meet the team for soccer then he and I will go off to the grocery and I will spend some time tomorrow making food to take to my Mother's. However, we are looking forward to a relaxing family night tomorrow night and will enjoy Chris being home for the weekend for a change. After church on Sunday we will go to Mom's house to celebrate for the rest of the day.

Hope you all have a great Easter!!!!

Love,
Michelle

The Way to Heaven

Natalie has been home from school all week with an upper respiratory virus. Chris took her to the doctor yesterday and they said it would pass in a few days. Her poor little cough has been relentless and many sleepless nights for all of us.

On Wed. evening I dropped Bri and Joe off at church and came back home with Nat since Chris is always in Col. on that night. Bri was to help my friend with the pre-schoolers and practice singing her part for Easter. Joseph loves going to his class and has been learning so much lately.
My friend called me yesterday to let me know how great they did without me there. Music to a mother's ears. She said, " if my kids were that good I'd want someone to tell me." She went on to say they were servants of the church. Bri was patient and good with the children and did everything asked of her. She said instead of playing when it was over Joe came to her and said, "Miss Robin I will sweep this whole floor for you if you would just put up the chairs." She said she so delighted with them and wanted to let me know how great they were. I hope it is ok I am bragging on them, it made my heart sing.

When they got home Wed. night, Joseph was all about telling me what he had learned in his class. Little sister who is going through quite a rebellious phase was listening in. Natalie says to me, "Mama I don't believe in your Jesus." (Joe went through a short phase like this at her age too, I panicked then but have not with her.) Anyway, Joseph gets very agitated when she hears her talk like this. All of the sudden her blurts out to her, "Well Natalie if you want to go to heaven you have to believe in Jesus. Mom and Dad will be in heaven , Brianna and I will be in heaven and where will you be? Jesus died on the cross for our sins so when we die we can go to heaven and be with God and if you don't believe in Jesus then you don't get to go!!" This was not said gently but rather abrupt, so quickly Natalie burst into tears. I comforted her but then confirmed all her brother had said. So black and white in his little mind, I do so hope it stays that way for him. Grown-ups tend to muddy the waters a bit. It was desperation I heard in his little voice for her to believe what he was saying, he loves her so much. It made me think of God and how he must feel each time we turn away from Him. Desperate for us to come back so we can be with Him.

I just wanted to share that.

Hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Love-Chelle