Hi everyone, and welcome back to another Good Morning Mondays.

I hope you have all had a good week and a restful weekend and that you are all ready to start the new week with gusto!!!

Our week has been good and we have schooled and done piano – just the usual.

We went to our Revelation Bible Study on Tuesday night and we are all enjoying this and it is great for our younger children to learn to listen and sit still.

Wednesday night was Ash Wednesday and we went to church.  We don’t usually do this but we have decided to this year and to teach the children about Lent and what it means. We don’t want them to see it as a time where we “give up” chocolate, but we want them to understand the lead up to Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We have instigated nightly bible readings with our No 2 daughter reading a Psalm and No 1 son reading a chapter of Proverbs.  We usually read bible stories but have decided that the children are getting older and are ready for more.

We have also instigated a weekly prayer list and have asked them to choose who they want to pray for, our only stipulation is that there be Christians and non-Christians on that list.  We want to get past the thank you Lord for our good day and onto a more meaningful prayer time.

Sometimes at tea time we are just tired and want the children to go to bed, but they are quick to remind us of our prayer time and who they are praying for.

The children did a great job with some cleaning during the week, so after No 2 daughter mopped the floor and it was drying I took them to our local park for some hot chips and a play on the swings. This park is in a small town about 12 kms away, our nearest shopping town is 40 kms.

This doesn’t happen very often so it was a treat for them and they had done a great job.

Unfortunately No 2 son was sick with gastro on Saturday morning so we had to cancel a visit from our No 1 daughter and family.  I must admit I had a good cry over this, as we haven’t seen them since Christmas and they have been travelling around part of Australia and we were keen to get together with them.

My husband also decided that we couldn’t go to the 1 year old dedication and birthday party this afternoon in case we infected anyone else. This was very sad also but the right decision due to the amount of young children attending and we didn’t want anyone else to get sick.

This party was for the youngest son of our friends.  He is number 8 and a real cutie.  He has downs syndrome but he is such a blessing and we so wanted to show our support for them all. God doesn’t make mistakes and he has placed this beautiful little boy into a lovely home with supportive siblings and parents.  If you have time I would love you to pray for him – let’s name him little J.  Please pray also for his parents for wisdom in how they teach and train him.

So there has been good and sad this week.  I spent most of Saturday feeling sorry for myself and then Saturday night feeling bad about that. I guess I had a pity party – and I am definitely not proud of the fact, I really needed to build a bridge and get over it.

Our youngest two children made me these beautiful cards for my birthday and they made me feel so loved.  It is amazing how forgiving and loving they are, I am really blessed to be their mother.

My husband has put in a special prayer request and asks that if you have time to prayer for the following:

Sunday night starts the week of the Melbourne Bible Blitz for the Gideons International in Australia.  They will spend the week handing out Bibles at the universities in Melbourne and going around the hospitals, doctors surgeries, police academy, prisons, and on street witnessing. Their hope is to hand out 200,000 scriptures (Proverbs, Psalms and New Testament in one) and 18 tonnes of Bibles.

My husband and No 1 son will spend from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday evening in Melbourne (300 kms away) handing out, witnessing and transporting scriptures.

Please pray for open hearts and minds as they do this and please pray for all attending to be kept safe and well.

Thank you.

Okay, enough about us.

Here are our top 3 posts this week…

 Meal Plan and A Homemaking Routine Update by Jayne at Tiny Toadstool Cottage

Too Much Stuff by Latisha at Ask Latisha

Living on His Income a book review by Laura at Harvest Lane Cottage

My personal favourite this week is…Grocery No Spend Challenge by Taylor Made Ranch

Imagine not going grocery shopping for a whole month. Pop over and have a look at this post if you want to see how it goes.

I want you all to know that I find it very hard to pick a favourite post each week.  I would love to be able to feature you all.

Congratulations to everyone for being featured and thank you to all of you who took the time and linked up.

I hope you are all learning as much as I am.  I am so blessed by you all and the relationship that we are building.

This week coming up is looking at being cooler (we had a hot weekend) so I will be very motivated to get heaps done (and praying that none of the rest of us get sick).

We have a Lenten church service on Wednesday and hopefully a sewing day with my friend.  We have had to cancel the last two due to them being sick, hopefully it won’t be us this week.  We will also be catching up with our daughter and family sometime soon and we are all looking forward to that.

I have been challenged this week to allow my younger two children to do more and take on more responsibilities.  It is amazing what they can do and how they respond with praise.

So I pray that you all will have a blessed week and I want to encourage you all to keep on keeping on and stay close to God, and He will guide you.

Blessings.