Celebrate the Boy!

Just wanted to share, Dana, over at Made, and Rae from Made by Rae are having their Celebrate the Boy month again starting on Tuesday Feb. 15!

They did this last year and to be perfectly honest, Dana's 90 Minute Shirt tutorial is what opened my eyes to the fact that I could sew!!! (needless to say I'm a *WEE* bit excited to see what all they teach us this year!)  There are sooo many great ideas, clothing, home decor, crafts, toys and everything else you can think of.

(awww...doesn't he look so little?  And totally adorable?!?  I kinda miss this hair cut.)

You can check out all the details here...and I'm really hoping this will spur me on to get stuff made MY boys' room!  (so weird to type that in the plural...especially since tiny baby boy still has no name!)

Anyway, I can't wait till the kick off and hopefully I'll have all sorts of BOY things to share with you over the next month too!

Stop the Presses!

I'm pretty sure the world must be spinning off it's axis.  Something is wrong with the world...and I'm LOVIN' it.  L.O.V.I.N.  I.T.

 So, what has happened to convince me that all is not as it should be in the world?

Well, these three cute faces...ALL asleep.  At naptime.  At the SAME TIME.  AND, within five minutes of laying down.  Now, that's not just a rare occurance in my home.  It's something that NEVER happens.  But I'm here and praising God that He always knows what I need...and today I NEEDED for them all to sleep...at the same time.

Because, let's be honest shall we?  I was NOT winning any mother of the year awards this morning.

Over All

“Oh God, be Thou exalted over my possessions. 

Nothing of earth’s treasures shall seem dear unto me if only Thou are glorified in my life. Be Thou exalted over my friendships. 

I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, 

though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth.

 Be Thou exalted above my comforts. 

Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee. 

Be Thou exalted over my reputation.

 Make my ambitions to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream.

 Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, 

above my ambitions, 

above my likes and dislikes, 

above my family, 

my health and even my life itself. 

Let me decrease that Thou mayest increase, 

let me sink that Thou mayest rise above. 

Ride forth upon me as Thou didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast,

a colt, the fold of an ass, 

and let me hear the children cry to Thee, ‘Hosanna in the highest.’”

            The Pursuit of God

                   - A.W. Tozer

12.25.10

Christmas eve the littles all opened one present (new PJs...just like half of America!  lol)  Kessa and Gabi got matching ones from American Girl that I snagged on e-bay...and the other two got jammies from Target.  Not gonna lie, I was disappointed in the jammie selection available this year...I looked at a lot of stores!  Oh well, they could have been old and holey and the kids would have loved them!  :)

Grace got a new shirt from DressMe that I think she looks FABULOUS in!  (but of course being the tightwad frugalista that I am I bought it used off of Recycled Upcycles)

Kessa recieved a beautiful, one of a kind, hand made Waldorf doll from Snicklefritz Friends (have I mentioned I LOVE to barter?!?  If you make something cool and have an itch for some cute clothes for your kids PM me and I bet we can work something out!  lol ;)

and THIS little dude...is becoming such a man.  He got REAL tools for Christmas and couldn't have been more pleased.  

(that cool bracelet Ezekiel has on is an ID bracelet from The Owl and The Firefly)

We did have some attitude issues that were discouraging to deal with on and around Christmas, but God is faithful and they seem to be on the mend...at least until next Christmas.  

Kessa also floored my husband's family when her Grandmother began reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 and she took over and quoted the entire thing. This wasn't something I sat down and made her memorize.  Last year at Christmas (when she was 3) we just read it every night before bed, and being the little sponge that all toddlers are, she memorized it.  That has been both an encouraging and convicting lesson to me about what I saturate her mind with...may it always be as beneficial as learning scripture!

I pray you and yours had a very merry Christmas and were reminded anew of the wonder and awe of God being made flesh...of Emmanuel....God WITH us.  

The Gingerbread House

Like most of you, we like to make a gingerbread house around Christmas.  I realized after the fact what I REALLY should have taken pictures of was me trying to get the silly thing to stand up!  lol.  That was a feat.  Last year I bought one that was already assembled.  I see more of those in our future.  

The first thing 'Zekiel wanted to know when I was putting the house together..."Where's the garage?!?!"  Yup, he's a man.

Kessa was very intentional with her side of the house.  We bought a Willy Wonka kit complete with Runts, Nerds, Sweet Tarts, and Bottle Caps.  She loved using all the Bottle Caps on the roof.  With much care and precision. 

Zeke put some candy on his side too...

but mostly he had to be reminded to not eat ALL of it before we finished the house.  

Kessa took pity on him and helped him finish his side so it didn't look so naked.  

We also got a nice little pebble (nerds) walkway up to the house.

And this is what it looked like by the next evening.

Cannibals.  

(and yes Jess, they're both wearing Narnia shirts!  ;)

I Can Fight This Feeling...

Nope, that's not a typo, but it did get the old 80's song stuck in my head...and now it's probably in yours too!  Just consider it my little present to you.

ANYWAY...today we got up and thought it would be fun to make cookies (and we might have needed to so that the hubs would have something to take to a carry in at work tomorrow too...) but then discovered we were out of milk and flour.  Enter trip to the grocery store...in the freezing cold...with three kids.  Not my idea of fun.  I dreaded it the entire time we were getting ready (ok, so that probably wasn't the most God glorifying attitude I could have had, but it's the truth!)

After much ado I got all the car seats strapped back into the van (that's another story) and all the kids strapped into said seats and we were off!  We ran a few other errands and then hit the grocery store.  Which was crowded.  Ugh.  It was 10 in the morning on a Wednesday!  Why were all those people there?

The kids (please note in this post when I say "the kids" I am going to be referring strictly to the older two.  The two that were not sitting peacefully in the cart.)   So, the kids were crazy hyper being kids in a really good mood and a little bit too over the top for a grocery store full of elderly people.  (did I not mention that?  Yup, it was full and they were all older people...)

Remembering the reasons I wanted to teach them to behave in public I bent down and had a quite talk with them that went a little something like this, "Hey guys, I know you're excited but remember how we've talked about not everyone being used to kids and the nose they make?  And remember it's really not respectful to the other people around for you to be running around, getting in front of them, and being loud...especially for the people who aren't used to kids being around all the time.  How do you think you should act to show them God's love?"  silence  "You think maybe you should be a little calmer and stay close to the cart?" blank nodding (also interpreted as, just be done talking mom!)

We make it through the store and I have them go sit on a bench as I check out...and then I notice them using their feet to push each other across the bench...but this was NOT being done in fun.  They were getting mad.  One threw a punch.  Another picked up his or her little booted foot and stomped on his or her siblings hand as had as possible...which resulted in screaming and a mommy that just wanted to get out of there!

As I was struggling to not loose it I was reminded of some words I had read that morning.
Words that had discouraged me, rather than encouraging me.
Words that had driven me to my knees over my failure.
Words that caused me to cry out to Christ.
Words that now, in this moment, after the storm, that were quietly reminding me how to respond.  
Specifically, these words:

Today, I will pray to speak words that are only STRONG words, words that make these children feel strong. Grace words. Grace is the only non-toxic air. All other words I breathe are death words.

And because of those words, and all the other words in that post, I called upon my ever-present Savior for patience and help and I chose.  I chose to be thankful.  

Thankful that we went to the grocery store at all, because if we hadn't I wouldn't have seen the water bill that was due that day.

Thankful that my children being in the grocery store brightened the day of many of those aforementioned elderly people.

Thankful that despite the fight on the bench they were now playing happily together.

Thankful that the Holy Spirit alone is able to change my heart.

Thankful that God ordained I read those words that so discouraged me in the morning that I might gain strength from them later.  

Thankful for the struggle that I might better appreciate the peace.

A Little Bit o' School

So after this post with our schedule for our "away" day of school when we get together with our Classical Conversations group, I thought it might be fun to give you a better visual of some of the memory work we do.  I think I might try and post one piece of memory work from one subject every week.

This week, one of our history sentences!  (We've learned 12 so far this year, this one is from about the middle of the semester)