The Muench Bunch

Nobody can ever call Jayden lazy. Jayden is getting so overwhelmed and has good reason to. I am not sure how life has gotten so crazy for her and I often wonder if homeschool is creating more stress for her rather than if she were in public school. She now has 7 horses to care for. Mark and I help with chores a few times during the week, but she does 80%. The chores are haying horses twice a day, mixing grain for each horse according to their needs with supplements and feeding them daily. If horses are in stalls, usually Ace and lately the new horse she is calling Moose, then she has to clean stalls. She also does horse chores for a neighbor every other week. However this week she is on vacation so Jayden is doing her chores morning and night for 10 days in a row. Jayden rides Ace 5 days in a row, 2 days off. She rides Joker multiple times a week, spends time working with her weanling each week, and now has a new green 4 year old horse, Moose. Just those things alone are enough to wear

Give, love, and serve. These are golden and I want my kids to value that. A parent has to live by example. It is easy to tell them what the should do, but to actually live it out leaves an impact. Today we blessed two ladies, one a neighbor who just had surgery on her knee. The Scott family has 6 children and in the last year the husband has been diagnosed with a rare cancer. We have taken meals to them on other occasions. Today we brought their family a meal. The kids went with me and from there we blessed Ila. She is a family friend that we have gone to church with over the years when we attended Stratford. She has been so kind and sweet, loving on my children. We always took her fresh picked asparagus and she was beyond excited and treated it like gold. She got the kids little trinkets or money on their birthdays and always sent nice cards. She writes lengthy thank you notes for everything. I have been good to send her photos of the kids and cards now and then. I get a thank you car

This week the sun never showed. It has been gloomy, rainy, and cold. It sure puts you in an unpleaseant mood. On Tuesday we picked up the chicken coop that we purchased from a neighbor  I met through homeschool. She is young and very sweet with 5 children under the age of 9, The coop consisted of a little shed with a run. The boys took the day off from school to help Mark and Tony pick it up and worked on it all day. They had to take it apart, load it on a trailer, and haul it home. Then they had to build a door for it and anchor it into the concrete. It was an all day project. Jake was pretty excited and proud of his little coop. He couldn't wait to put his hens in it and sat in a little chair watching them. He is quite the chicken farmer. He has his favorite chicken, Dolly, who we is the only chicken to survive from the beginning. Then there is Helen, she came from Tony and talks to you and follows you all over. I  had a doctor appointment in Des Moines and ran a few errands so w

3/26/17 Monday and Wednesday taekwondo, Tuesday and Thursday Luke’s soccer practice, Wednesday Jake’s youth group. Tuesday Jayden and I made the long haul to pick up her horse from the guy who hauled Jayden’s horse from North Dakota. We drove 3 hours each way near Dubuque. We left after school and lunch and Jake went with. Friday Luke went to spend the weekend with grandparents. Saturday we all went in different directions. While Luke was at Grandparents in Williams, Mark and Jake went to a Sportmen’s retreat and Jayden and I went to a rodeo. The Sportmen’s retreat was held over the weekend at Hidden Acres and they had a special day on Saturday that many from our church were attending. I was excited for them to go and read all the activities that were planned. I had been praying that Mark would take Jake and I was so happy they were going. We even got Troy and Rylie signed up. They had breakfast, a wild game feed, chilli supper, workshops, chapel time, speakers, stunt trick shooters,

3/19/17 Today Mark and Jayden were at the Bismark North Dakota horse sale. I took the boys and Rylie to church. Pastor Shane came and spoke today. He is the family pastor from Cornerstone that I have gotten to know. I really enjoy hearing him and he is a very personable guy. He did a great job going through Ephesians and stopped to talk of his adoption as part of Ephesians chapter 1. He has 5 children under the age of 11, and is adopting 2 from the Congo in Africa. The two children were brought out of hiding, living in severe poverty and near dying of starvation. Goosebumps ran over me as I recalled several years ago when Shane had 2 children and we talked about his wife having a heart for adoption. I love adoption and hearing the uplifting and encouraging stories. SO many of the stories come with such long hard roads during the process. It is a hard journey, one with many trials and heartbreak. I am excited for Pastor Shane as they are getting closer to bringing these children home.

3/17/17 The second trip to Mayo,  Mark and Jayden had a road trip planned. They went from Mayo for testing and then went on to North Dakota. The two of them were on an adventure taking a road trip out to  Bismark North Dakota for a horse sale. I thought it would be some nice father and daughter quality time. Jayden has been doing her research and has had big plans to purchase another project horse. I personally thought she has her hands full with a seasoned barrel horse that she will be getting ready for rodeos, a 4 year old in training, and a weanling that needs training. My thoughts were to buy in the fall and work with a project horse in the winter months and sell in the spring. She researched the sale and the horses, and convinced Dad to go. She would spend her own money on the horse. She told me the horses were selling high. They were shiny and fancy. She found one horse that had good bloodlines, but he was in a back pen, scruffy, dirty, and head down. She said he looked thin an

3/16/17 So, this might sound like I am bragging and maybe I am just a little. However, I think the fact that I am 42 and not 22 gives me the right to a little bragging. I have been taking taekwondo with Luke since October. I was in taekwondo in college and that has been 20 years since. Luke has been in for 3 years now and I have been tempted many times to jump in and join him. Finally I took the step and it all came back pretty quickly. I remembered quite a bit of the technique, and I could still do everything pretty accurate. I also still have my ability to kick high. Next to the 17 year old in the class who never misses a class and tries to outdo everyone, I think I am up there. Granted, the majority of the class are kids under the age of 13, but there are adults too.  I put snap and muscle into my punches and kicks. At first I would be pretty sore for two days after, now I am feeling pretty good. I still get sore and I feel the stiffness in certain areas, but for the most part I fe

3/12/17 Years ago in a bible study, one of my friends made the comment that she was being her husband’s holy spirit. I didn’t really understand at the time what she mean’t. Today I realized that often times that is me, I am trying to be my husband’s holy spirit. Once in awhile I hear a sermon and I am just moved in a way that makes me want to go home and plan how I am going to give or serve, help, or travel, attend a conference, or make major life changes, or share the gospel, invite families over. I am excited and ready, then I talk with Mark and his thoughts are very different from mine. He isn’t moved in the same way that I am.I don’t always understand why he doesn’t  feel the same way that I do. I then find myself nudging him and trying to get him to do this or that and it really only causes him to get annoyed. I am trying to by the holy spirit working on his heart, but it is impossible. I cannot do the job of the holy spirit, I am not supposed to. It is up to God, it is his plan,

Monday on the way to taekwondo class I happened to hear the weather on the radio predicting it could be stormy later. After taekwondo class we walked out to some dark skies and things were looking ugly. The radio was calling for high wind, hail, and we were under tornado warning. I called home right away to make sure everyone at home was aware, which they were not. Jayden had just gotten into the arena with Ace to ride. She ended up getting him put away quick, hooking up the new trailer and pulling it into the arena just in time. The storm cut loose with lots of rain and thunderstorm. I also called the Buhr's, our closest friends that live in Ames. I asked if they would mind if Luke and I came and waited out the storm. Nobody really seemed to know about the storm. Luke and I were starving after taekwondo, so we drove through Chik FilA and grabbed some food. The sky was looking dark and I was flying through Ames to get to my friends home on the west side. The rain had started but w

3/5/17 Jayden helped Mark with flowers for my birthday. She found a Pioneer Woman vase and together with the flowers were lovely. My birthday fell on Sunday and I started my day helping in the baby room at church. After that we met Wade with his family, Alice, and my parents at Hickory Park. Orrie and Rylie had gone to our church, so went for lunch with us too. We got to cuddle with baby Levi and have a great meal and dessert. The plan was for our family to go to the Faith and Family night in Des Moines like we did last year. I had 5 tickets for the basketball game, pop, popcorn, hot dog, and concert by Zack Williams. The kids really didn’t want to go. Since Rylie was with Orrie, the boys begged to go with him. Jayden thought since the boys didn’t have to go that let her off the hook. I wasn’t going to let it spoil my day, so made the most of it. Mark and I enjoyed the ball game and concert. The concert is always very enjoyable. It was a very small crowd, small stage and excellent sin

 Today I organized and attempted to declutter my house,. I think it would take a month. What I did in 12 hours doesn’t really make a dent. Today Jayden, Mark, and Jake went to pick up the new horse trailer. It is so exciting!! A trailer with all the bells and whistles. The dream trailer, the kind Jayden and I have always hoped for. I went from the old rusted out worn floor stock trailer to my first purchase in 1995. I bought my blue stock trailer with a front tack area. Nothing was sealed of course and I usually carried my saddle in the cab of the truck so it wouldn’t be covered in 2 inches of dust when we got to a barrel race. Then we got the Featherlight and that was so awesome and amazing. A trailer with a real tack room and trailer with slant loads, drop down windows, the works!! Now for the Bloomer,  this one is like the luxury Cadillac of trailers. It has all the bells and whistles. Yes I am feeling a little spoiled, but I will not take it for granted, because I had to go through

3/4/17 This week we had two days of snow. The weather has been up and down.  Jake went with the cattle hauler and rode to Omaha then Osceola. When Mark was little, he liked to ride in the semi when they sold cattle and now Jake is getting his chance. I was a little uneasy about the idea, but Jake sure enjoyed it. Hannah came and rode horses with Jayden on Thursday and ended up spending the night with us and going to Meals from Heartland bright and early the next morning.  Friday morning 30 kids from the Dayton youth group went to help package meals. The kids had the day off from school and took their free day to go and serve, that speaks volumes! They also had to all be up bright and early before the crack of dawn in order to leave town at 6AM. It was an early morning and I was helping drive. In my vehicle, I had , 7 th grade girls along with Luke and Nathan. The packaging went well, we had our assembly line and I was helping the 7th grade girls. The two hour shift went fast and we st