Where to begin?

We have had a few packed weeks recently. Adventure waits us at every turn. I got to attend my first ever Freng Family Reunion. Dan's grandpa was 1 of 11 -those 11 kids had multiple children...who had multiple children....who are now having multiple children. In its hay day I guess there were Frengs by the hundreds (almost literally). There were about 50 Frengs in attendance-it was a little overwhelming to say the least. Dan comes from some interesting (in a good way) Norwegian stock! Noah was pretty excited because he has finally gotten the big-extended family that he has always wanted. He made a new friend (relative) who is actually going to be a 2nd grader at the same school as Noah. Yankton is such a small, small world. I have to get used to that again.
Brian had a head trauma a week ago-long story but he fell off of a stool he was climbing on & gave himself a concussion. Luckily, he is okay. We are supposed to keep watch for any recurring symptoms. Problem is-that boy hits his head about 10 times a day. I'm NOT exaggerating. I'm contemplating a stylish new glue-on/permanent helmet! He is affectionately known in our home as Harry Head Trauma (just between Dan & I-probably mean, but the only way to keep this boy alive until 18 may be to laugh our way through it).
Dan & I are enjoying being back in our "home country". At times, it feels a little like the Twilight Zone-but all in all it's good. The kids LOVE being with family. We miss Denver more than we ever thought possible & our awesome friends & ministry partners. Change, even good change, is hard.
I got to have a heart to heart with Noah about why God called us here. The unknown is hard, even to a 7 year old. We both agreed that God did call us here & there IS a reason. The best thing we can do is be faithful to God's calling & pray, pray, pray our way through it. Isn't that awesome that my 7 year old gets it? Sometimes I think he gets it better than I do-oh, to have childlike faith.
School starts on Wednesday & we are all ready. Except on Thursday, I'll be sad about them being gone...somehow I will persevere!
Keep praying for us.

Attitude of Gratitude

An Attitude of Gratitute-that is offically the Freng Family's new motto. Okay-so it's Dan's Freng Family motto & at times when he says it I shoot him a look that could kill...but we are working on it being the Freng Family motto.

So my attitude of gratitude thought of today-The home we are living in is 3 bedrooms & probably 1/2 the size of our house in Littleton (okay this doesn't seem like the gratitude part-I'm getting there)...3 things I love about it :
1.) We can totally afford it & that helps keep me home doing what I love most-being a mom & wife.
2.) We all fit & cannot avoid family closeness-that is huge as we tended to drift apart (well, a couple of us did & I tried to drift but man they can find you anywhere. Even the bathroom-is no place sacred?). We have JUST the amount of room we need & we are finding that all of our "necessities" weren't really so.
3.) Finally, my personal favorite of today...it took me only 1.5 hours to clean the WHOLE, ENTIRE place. Say what you will about having counter space-I say, the less there is-the less I have to clean!
Praise God for leading us just to the right place-and giving us what we need & not what we THINK we need.
There are a lot more awesome features to this place-but I'll leave that for another day. You know me & my sarcastic nature-all this positive stuff is kinda freaking me out!!
Keep praying for us here-we're all doing well but a lot more changes are coming, school, preschool, etc.
An attitude of gratitude...It's a good thing. (I hope Martha didn't copyright that, oh well).

Hello, Hello... is there anybody still out there?

Wow-my last post was May 26th! It is July 27th today. What a difference a couple months make. We just moved into our rental townhome & are loving having our own "stuff" again. Readjusting to life in a "small town" is going to take longer than I expected but all in all-its going well. Keep praying for us & we will keep praying for you all. I won't post as much as I used to but it's nice to be back to high speed internet again. Ahhh...I'm more of a big town snob than I realized! I'm not used to waiting for things-big town America affords you a lot, a lot of conveniences-it's good for me to have to wait, builds character-or so it is said. Next post I will summarize our move to South Dakota-we've had an interesting few months. Until next time!

Interesting Place

I often forget that I am 31 years old. I KNOW that I have been married for 9 years-tomorrow, I KNOW that I have 5 children, I KNOW that I have an occasional gray hair-but for some reason I still think that I am in my early 20s. I'm still cool-right!?! Okay, so I never was really cool-but is anyone, really? Don't you just think you are cool? So that leads to my interesting place that I find myself.

I am the 31 year old mother of 5 children-ages 7,6, 4, 4, & 3. I am working diligently on packing up our house to move the above children and my wonderful husband to our new, exotic destination-SOUTH DAKOTA!! While packing up my 7 year old's room I was faced with an interesting problem-do I keep the plastic "fake" puke that he is so fond of? I mean, he is really, really attached to it. It has lead to a lot of great laughs. Do I take it or throw it?

WOW-is that a reality check or what? As a young college graduate who was newly married & expecting her first child-did I ever, ever imagine that I would contemplate whether or not to keep the fake puke? I can honestly say-I never thought I would have this problem. Yep folks, the glory & splendor of motherhood-it's awesome.

By the way-I DID keep the puke. It IS pretty funny & he is very attached to it. Am I cool or what?

I love it when a plan comes together.

Things are starting to move and fall into place. This is such a relief. There was a point last week where Dan & I just looked at each other and said, "what in the world are we doing?". I mean, really, we have a house we love, our grass is looking awesome (it was a disaster zone of waist high weeds just prior to our move in), our kids are in great schools getting every service they so desperately need, the list goes on & on. If we did not ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY feel that this is where God is calling us we would have said forget it.
God is amazing-he can do anything & use anyone to help bring glory to Himself. We have been blessed by so many people, already, who have done so many things to help us with our move. We feel so loved by so many. We (or at least I) had no idea that we were that loved. It's a great feeling-to leave somewhere you love to get to go somewhere you love. Most people are not so blessed. We have the countdown calendar on the wall with a little picture of a van loaded down with stuff. Each day we move the van down one number-we're down to 23 days before the big move. WOW-I'd better get crackin'. Keep us in your prayers as this remains stressful on all of us for so many, many reasons. Even good stress is still stress.

Hello, my name is Crazy.

We are MOVING!! Yay! I am so excited to be moving back "home". Dan accepted the call to be the Senior Pastor at Emmanuel Church in Yankton, South Dakota. We both grew up in the vicinity, all of our family is there, and most importantly-the church is awesome & has accepted us as we are. We are all so excited.

However, the moving part has me stressed to the max & beginning to feel A LOT crazy. Yankton is a small town (depending what standard of measurement you use-by South Dakota standards-it is a decent size town, compared to Denver-small). We are looking for rental housing but it is eluding us as of right now. We are loading up the moving truck & hitting the road on June 10th! That leaves us not much time to find a place to live.

Yes-I know God will provide. He ALWAYS, ALWAYS does. You'd think I'd learn to trust a little bit. What I need to remember & what Dan & I have reminded each other almost daily is: "God provides, he doesn't necessarily give us what we think we want/need/deserve (ie. a large, large house with a large, large yard for our ridiculously large, large family)-but what he does give us is ALWAYS better than we could have envisioned for ourselves". Now-I'm not throwing out the name it & claim it theology here-I'm just trying to remind myself that God knows ALL THINGS. It may be in my family's best interest to squeeze into a 3 bedroom apartment for 6 months-I don't know. But luckily, I don't have to. God has got it under control.

So-I may need a few gentle reminders about what I posted. Feel free to email me at kelly.freng@live.com to remind me-because I can guarantee you that I'll be stressed out & freaking out again by tonight.

Where am I?

I just realized that I haven't posted for a long, long time. Oh well...it seems my public can live without me.
Life has been crazy around here (as in most of your homes as well, I'm sure). The spring fever has blown right into summer fever & my kids are ready to be done with school. I am mostly ready for the snow to stop. Seriously-Colorado is ridiculous. 75 degrees in January & snowing in late April. I am also ready for the non-stop shuttling to stop for a few months.
Any bets as to how many days I last with NO ACTIVITIES going on? I'll say about 3 days & then I'll be ready for my kids to be doing something again. I need to just prepare myself for the bickering-it's just part of being a kid/brother/sister.
I also have realized in this time off that I do spend way too much time on the computer. So...I will not post as often as I did in the past. There is really nothing I have to say that means that much to anyone anyways.
Keep us in your prayers-we've got a lot going on & more to come!