Thread by Thread

Speaking Toddler-ese

2012-03-14T23:52:00.001-04:00

(with a giveaway - sweeeet!)

About 2 years ago, I posted a little vocabulary quiz with the phonetic spelling of some of Little Lady's words. It was fun to see the guesses, but mostly it is so precious to look back now and see what those words meant! Before you know it, they start saying things correctly, and it's sort of bittersweet for me. I still miss when LL would loudly declare that she needed to "Peek my body strong and helpy!" (keep and healthy) before doing those beautifully uncoordinated jumping jacks children are so well known for.

My Little Man isn't quite as communicative as the other kids have been at the same age, but lately his vocabulary has been exploding! So it's time for me to write some of these down. And time for a giveaway, just because it makes my heart smile to be able to pass on things that have blessed me, and this gives me a reason. :) All you need to do is leave a comment with your guesses for at least half of the words, but the winner will be based on the total number correct, not the percentage of tries correct. ;)

dee-dop
biss
boops
srash
sray
dee-die-doe
hannah
dye-dye
brush
hoe
pooh
bat
bay-bay
doddy
go-bish
nee-nee

Some of these are easy, and some are hard. Some you might even recognize from me having blogged them before. Like I said, the entry with the most correct words will win your choice of ONE of three things I feel like help me vitally in raising up these little ones (because you might already have one or more of these resources, and I'll all about options):

"Loving the Little Years" by Rachel Jankovic - Short, funny chapters packed with wisdom, humor, and lots of things you'll ponder over as you think about your own children.

"Wise Words for Moms" by Ginger Plowman - About the size of a calendar, this has proven again and again to be a priceless resource for me when it comes to using Scripture to teach my children (and yes, on multiple occasions even myself) how to "put off" undesirable behavior, and even more, to "put on" righteousness. (I could write a whole post about that...)

"Stepping Heavenward" by Elizabeth Prentiss - I've blogged about this book before. I absolutely adore it. It's not specifically about parenting, but it's really opened up my eyes about my own character. I really feel like this book has helped me to view my own heart objectively in a way that has driven me back to the Savior myself. Certainly invaluable in any area of life. The main scope of mine lately just happens to be mothering. :)

And oh goodness, if you already have all 3 of these well then, we'll just figure something else out. :) I even already have another new book that I'm reading and loving (loose translation: weeping through every chapter). Or perhaps something different altogether?

Please play. It's so fun when you play along. I'll leave it up for a week or so? That seems to be about as frequent as I'm capable of blogging anyway, haha. You're on your own honor - no peeking at other comments' guesses before making your own! ;) Good luck!!

Today...

2012-02-29T20:28:00.004-05:00

Today was a big, beautiful mess.

Not perfect, not by a long shot. Still full of training, reminders, teaching, gently guiding back to Truth. Still sprinkled with sibling arguments here and there, a little sauciness from a Little Lady, and almost zero napping from all parties.

But it was still so beautiful. It was also full of an impromptu lunch with a friend, a trip to the library, a big boy reading to me, sweet snuggly school time on the sofa with a stack of books over a foot high, and fresh strawberry smoothies for dessert. I joke with friends that God knows when I need these encouraging days so desperately. But truthfully, He does. And He gives generously. This is not about me and my would-be valiant efforts at child training. It is not about them and how much they are learning and doing. It is about Him - this is God's grace working in my house; not because of me, but in spite of me.

Two bunks, made up neatly by two children (WM up top, LL on bottom while she sleeps in the boys' room until Girly Whirl stops hosting parties at 5:30 AM)...

Laundry sorted (perfectly, I might add) by my oldest boy...

And our bed made up quite neatly by my Little Lady, with very minimal help from me.

My sweet babies ask for chores - they ASK to help. They love to help; they feel important and, well...helpful. Needed. But this isn't about "look at my kids," or "see what they can do if only you will take the time to teach them."

I am blogging all this to help me remember God's faithfulness in carrying me through weary seasons, but also as an Ebenezer: here is my declaration of how great a God we serve. I now eschew (but once long ago subscribed to) theories purported by a now very controversial group. On the whole I think they claimed results, but I do not desire my children to obey or work as one of Pavlov's dogs. I want their hearts, their love, their warm smiles. Just like God doesn't want a passionless obedience - He wants our hearts.

Now don't get me wrong: I understand the great responsibility of training our children - both training their hearts as well as teaching them how to accomplish tasks. It is an endless opportunity, seemingly an endless task. I am a seed sower: God alone with bring about the growth. But I still must be a faithful gardener. ;) I'm still learning how to tackle this job joyfully. Even when I'm in a season where it feels like many days are all thorns and slugs and weeds, God gives us these beautifully messy days that are just a foretaste of the harvest to come.

Sweet baby girl, ready to at least try to nap.

Spinning around in circles until he falls down and says "Whoa!"

Experimenting with a magnifying glass.

Monkey see, monkey do. ;)

Sweet big brother.

Y'all...you can't make this stuff up. We're not perfect in the Threads household, but we serve a perfect God, who perfectly knows our needs, and meets them perfectly time and again.

(Be sure to scroll down a tiny bit and see the video of my baby army-crawling, oh my head.)

Girly Whirl on the move!!

2012-02-29T20:24:00.001-05:00

She's moving! On purpose! With a destination in mind!

(Please pardon my moderately unfocused video - our camera requires you to use manual focus on the video setting, and I am horrifically near-sighted, so even my best efforts at focusing come up short.)

Girly Whirl and Bad Mommy

2012-02-26T17:04:00.002-05:00

She's pretty stinkin' cute sitting there in her high chair, isn't she?

Too bad her delinquent mama hadn't actually fed her any food yet...by her 8-month birthday. {facepalm} So we got her a chair. (Our beautiful highchair that has held the other 3 children as babies wasn't tall enough for the counter-height table we got last year.) And last week, for the very first time, I actually set her in the new one. She was pretty pumped, as you can see. :)

Saturday morning with Hubby home from work seemed like a great time to try her on food for the first time.

She loved the spoon...

But man, oh man, did she hate the bananas...

Not too long after the above picture, she gagged and threw up what looked like everything she ever ate. And possible some things she hasn't eaten yet. But rather than a pic of that, I decided to include this one:

Agh, love the way little babies sit with their feet turned in. :) Precious, precious girl.

So her first food didn't go over too well. For her second attempt at food, today at lunch she swiped some bacon off her brother's plate while sitting in my lap. And sat there sucking on it and gumming it, completely unbeknownst to us for a few minutes. And then cried when we realized it and took it away.

Yup, I think she's related. ;)

Please help me...

2012-02-20T07:59:00.008-05:00

Not to forget. These days are flying past - some with exhilarating joy, some with agonizing pain, or mind-numbing struggles - but each one is a precious gift, and the minutes tick by with unrelenting fleet. Gone, not to be retrieved. Certainly not to be mulliganed. God, help me learn from my mistakes each day, and concrete these precious moments into my heart.

Yesterday morning I was trying to get all of us to church without my husband, who had to go round. Hurry, hurry, hurry - stop piddling, finish your breakfast, please put your shoes on, please don't take your shoes off, no we cannot watch a movie, I'm sorry you don't want to wear pantyhose but it's very cold this morning, Wild Man please come to the bathroom so I can fix your hair...

WM: Hey, look how tall I'm getting! I can see my whole face in the mirror now! I used to only be able to see my hair.

Freeze. See him grinning at me in the reflection. Hug him tight, watch him act like he doesn't like hugs, see his grinning grimace as he quickly nuzzles in closer before letting go.

These days...

Hear the Little Boy and Girly Whirl screech-screaming, gleefully talking back and forth to one another. Blowing raspberries at each other and giggling. How do babies so young in their own rights form such a close bond already?

See Little Lady babying her baby doll, whose name changes weekly, mostly to names we tossed around in the naming of GW. Hear her craft stories, watch her desperate cries for attention (some lovely, and some less so), hear her eager voice clearly reciting out perfectly our family memory work. Feel her wiggly snuggles as my early-riser tiptoes into bed with me and sighs happy-quiet, "Just Mama and me."

Watch in the mirror as I sway Girly Whirl gently to sleep: her face pressed into my neck, one thumb in her mouth and her other hand gently rubbing the back of her own head. See her happiest grin when I come back after she wakes, rocking back and forth on all fours and so excited even her head is bobbing.

See Little Boy come racing to my knees, clasping them eagerly and saying "Nee' nee'?" to let me know that he needs - yes, needs - a hug. Pick him up and hold him close for a breathless moment: he squeezes with his whole body and murmurs, "Mmmm, Mama," before scrambling to get back down.

Listen to my Wild Man reading to me, after countless hours of frustration for both of us learning phonics. See his wild joy and pride at such an accomplishment, then shock when I pull out a new book. "More reading??" incredulously and crestfallen. See his lego creations, these engineering feats with which to have ship battles with his daddy, see him striding confidently through the backyard with his play rifle slung over his shoulder, watch his carhartt-encased legs crawling under the house with his daddy to work on something...

Watch Little Lady helping me clean or make cookies...and actually being helpful...

See my Little Boy begin to respond to and learn from what seems like endless and fruitless hours of training and teaching...

Watch my tiny Girly Whirl army-crawl across the playroom floor to play with the trucks (and not the baby toys)...

And they are growing so fast. Some days I get so caught up in the immediate needs, the stress of the day, my own pain or selfishness...but these precious souls entrusted to me do not wait while I finish one more project, one more chapter, clean one last thing. I have written this before, I have said it a million times. But I am a slow learner. I know that I need to start counting again.

Try as I might, there isn't a way to close this post that makes me feel content with it. Then I began thinking about this enormous job of mine, the ways that I labor, pray, persevere, and sometimes hurt, struggle, and fail. The joys and heartaches along the road. The things I want to remember, learn from, live over again, or never repeat. All of it, whether good or ill, we are not alone. As we walk through a trying time these few weeks past and present, I listen to this song over and over (and even posted it on facebook today, too). I close my eyes and lift my hands: "With joy, our hearts will say, 'Never once did we ever walk alone, never once did You leave us on our own: You are faithful.'"

(I realize this post seems a bit disjointed; forgive me, please? Asking for grace in a dry season.)

Valentines Day

2012-02-14T07:24:00.002-05:00

My kids made valentines, we all made special cookies, we're going to a sweet friend's house for a little party, and I even have a little surprise in store for the man of the house. But we're celebrating 1 John 4:19 y'all: We love because He first loved us.

Real love is not a square on a Hallmark calendar, in a country with the highest divorce rate in the entire world. Real love, selfless love, agape love, 1 Cor 13 love...it's all just an outpouring of the great love we've been shown by the Father.

I love my sweet husband - I don't need an excuse to tell him or the whole world that. He brings me flowers pretty regularly - he doesn't need to do it when the whole rest of the free world is and the prices are all jacked up. And I'm a grown-up - I don't need any excuses to eat chocolate. {smile}

We love because we're loved, and I hope and pray that we all know and embrace the love of the Father, and are privileged to experience the outpouring of that love in another.

video by a dear friend of ours - check him out here

Feeling official...

2012-01-24T14:17:00.006-05:00

I am enjoying so much (despite my own personal struggles with time and the computer) how the internet makes the world a smaller place. There is no shortage of awesome Titus 2 women with blogs, from whom I can gain perspective and wisdom! A blog I just recently found but have been enjoying so much lately is In the Nursery of the Nation. She's doing a series about homeschooling right now, and I linked this morning's post on my facebook feed; it's about how our heart attitudes (and face, and tone of voice), towards the tiniest interruptions to our school day teach our children so much. I needed to hear that! It's something we know logically, but I can have a hard time translating that to real life.

Soon she'll post about practical tips for keeping the littlests happily occupied, and friends, I need those, too. My Little Man is trouble with a capital T. I use baby gates. Because if I don't, this happens:

"Ha? Ha, Mama, ha? Srash?"

Yup, he went and dug out a hat ("ha?"). And a dirty diaper from the bathroom trash can. And little bro' can climb now. Wheee. He loves the bunk beds in the boys' room. Ere go, baby gates. And hopefully some fun ideas from around the web.

In other news, I done gone and lost my mind.

Y'all. Seriously.

(sigh)

There are ants in my kitchen.

On purpose.

I really love My Father's World kindergarten. It's so.stinkin.fun, and we get to have a blast exploring God's creation. The program is interesting and captivating, and the kids love everything we learn about. Plus, they make it really easy for you to get outside your comfort zone, by things like having an ant habitat.

Seriously, I feel like a "real" homeschooling mom now that I have critters in my house that would otherwise have me panicking on the phone with our pest control company. And actually? The ants are really, really cool to watch.

Don't Stop

2012-01-23T14:17:00.005-05:00

Once upon a time, I had a clean house. A very clean house. I had half as many children, (and none of them were being schooled, therefore...), a lot more time, and an overly thorough cleaning schedule. I had dust-free ceiling fan blades, clean baseboards, fresh sheets, and a silky-soft clean doggy.

Now, I love having a sparkling clean house, I do.

But that is not my season of life right now. Perhaps it is for you, and maybe my old chore chart up there will help you out. :)

But my life right now is just not there. And what I'm trying to tell myself right now is something I remember hearing when I was struggling so much with breastfeeding and a final-sentence of PLF:

Don't stop doing what you can, simply because of what you can't.

I just can't do the white glove clean twice a week. But I can take 30 seconds and wipe down the counters when I use the restroom. And maybe the toilet the next trip.

I might not be able to sweep and mop together, or dust and vacuum in one single day now, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take 5 minutes to sweep the kitchen and dustbust the pile. Then take 5 minutes to spot-clean where the peanut butter and jelly sandwich hit the floor open-faced, and I left it for the time being because the entire cup of milk that just got overturned because someone is still not sitting properly in her seat during meals was a little more immediately important, and then I totally forgot about the PBJ smear until I was sweeping.

Oh, I'm sorry. :) I digress.

See what I mean? I can't do it all in one fell swoop like I used to. And, for better and worse, I am very all-or-nothing (which is why FlyLady doesn't work for me), so I often put things off because I know I won't be able to finish them. (Case in point: I've been meaning to overhaul my personal cookbook for over a year, and have been putting it off because I wanted to be able to do it in one sitting. Finally yesterday I realized that that isn't gonna happen, so I started working on it in small chunks, and now I'm already nearly done, yay!) But I should never stop doing the little things that I can do in a few moment's time just because I can't do it all at once. This works for sewing and cleaning for me. I'm still working on finding a way to make it work for exercise. ;)

This might seem like "homemaking with littles 101" to you. :) But for a former Type-A poster child who God is gently breaking down by grace, child by child, this revelation has been very freeing, convicting, and encouraging for me. Hope it's a help to all the recovering type-A mommas like me. :)

M-m-makeover time! (again)

2012-01-21T15:12:00.002-05:00

Our home is sweet - home, sweet home. Lovely, and I love it.

And it is cozy. {smile} Our house is basically one great big room with a hall and bedrooms. Our eat-in kitchen is fully open, divided only by a half-wall, to the living room; and fully open to the sunroom/playroom by a french doorway with no doors on it.

We are constantly rearranging, redecorating, re-fabbing, and redefining spaces within our home to accommodate our growing family and shifting needs. Very shortly after we bought and moved into this, our first home, we found out we were expecting our second little treasure, so we had an office/guest room for a grand total of about 6 months before I overhauled it into a nursery for Little Lady. It was so worth it, and we moved our "office" space (mostly just the computer) into the kitchen, which had a perfect bit of counter space for it.

However, when your "office" is part of the kitchen...well, we all know what happens to an office space. And flat surfaces. In many ways, it was convenient. And in many ways, it was driving me bananas. It mostly always looked like this...

So around Christmas I started begging Hubby to help me rearrange the playroom and get a computer armoire, and we've finally finished, yay! So above is before, and here is what my kitchen looks like now:

My, my - there actually is a kitchen now! :)

So here's our computer corner, where I'm sitting right now...

out in the sunroom, which was an addition on to the original structure of the house, which explains the brick wall, haha. :)

Oh, and I never blogged it, but immediately behind me is...

My sewing/craft/school supply overflow table that my beloved put together for me, using 2 9-cube storage units and a sheet of laminate. I'm still finishing it off; I need to glue some ribbon around the raw edge of the laminate, and do something to the back of the storage unit facing the playroom. I was thinking about magnetic paint, and putting letters and numbers and stuff out there - opinions? (At first I didn't want to do this, because I was afraid they'd end up all over the playroom, but let's be honest: the ones on the fridge already don't exactly stay in the kitchen, you know what I mean?)

Oh, and my precious momma-in-law is here for a visit, which means that Truett (who has permanently moved to the farm) is here for a visit too.

And Little Boy is in love with the "doddy." :)

Happy, rainy weekend friends!

A Storyteller at Heart

2012-01-19T22:26:00.005-05:00

Oh my goodness, this girly...

...she has my heart. We got to go on a mommy-daughter date last week, and it was so precious. We just went shopping, to lunch, and then to starbuck's for coffee (for me) and hot chocolate (for her) to curl up with some beloved books.

And let me tell you, her books are definitely beloved. Books and stories of all kinds sweep her up. She's kind of like her mother, isn't she?

One day recently, after I had told every single possible combination of events to craft up a story about princesses and dragons that my brain could muster on not enough sleep and too much caffeine, I suggested, "Why don't you tell me a story, baby girl?"

Sister delivered. So now her favorite thing is to tell me stories. And for posterity (as well as your enjoyment), I had her tell me one today while I sat at the computer and transcribed it. Most stories run along this general theme, although sometimes there's more killing and soldiers. (She does have an older brother, after all.)

So now, in Little Lady's words, a princess story. No, a dragon story. Well, actually, it's a story about a princess and a dragon, Mama.

Once there was a daddy who was mean, and the dragon was mean too. So the dragon throwed (sic) sand at everyone and made them mean, and made them yucky rules like they had to sit in the mud and throw dirt at each other. But the mommy was a good queen, and she said no no no, because she wanted everyone to obey God’s word and honor Him. So, then there was a princess who obeyed the mommy’s rules and then everybody else wanted to obey too, because the good princess was so good and kind and pretty in her heart, so they all obeyed the good queen and God’s word instead of the cruel, wicked dragon.

The end

Our school year so far...

2012-01-17T23:07:00.006-05:00

This year has been exciting, challenging, fun, and sometimes a stretch as we've continued in our homeschool journey with Wild Man in kindergarten and Little Lady doing preschool-level work, although that mostly means exactly what her big brother is doing with lower expectations from Mama. ;)

Someone asked me the other day how life had been acclimating to 4. Well, I've already told you that, haven't I? But her main question, after hearing about our autumn was, "Wasn't doing school on top of all that so hard for you?" I had to answer honestly then, and now:

No. Actually, I think homeschooling what was held us together. It gave us a purpose, an agenda for each day. A little structure, learning, fun, and creativity. All without the immense stress of the clock, needing to be somewhere at a specific time, or having to have things completed by a certain date. Yes, there were times it was hard, times I didn't want to plan, or days when I just wanted to loaf around and not execute our plans. But overall, homeschooling was definitely a support rather than a stressor.

When people ask us how we're enjoying having school as a family at home, I answer with a smile, "We love it almost every single day." And that's the honest truth. We're having some growing pains figuring out how to do this thing, with both Hubby and I being first-generation homeschoolers. We're encountering some resistance from WM, already a perfectionist, who doesn't like to do anything he cannot do perfectly. We're figuring it out, one baby step at a time, and every school week looks different than the one that preceded it. Mama is learning how to order days, what works and what doesn't; what is important and what is not. And folks, I am a slow learner.

But really truly, we mostly love it. The kids are learning so, so much about the world around them. And we are all learning so much about our Creator, and about one another. For anyone curious, this year we've been enjoying My Father's World kindergarten curriculum. For now, having a single comprehensive curriculum is really working well for us; it simplifies my planning and helps me not stress out with over-researching and planning. A blog I enjoy reading has an upcoming series about homeschooling, with some practical tips about how to pursue home education with as little stress as possible; perhaps you'd like to check it out. :)

Okay, now to the good stuff:

Sweet Hubby putting together a bulletin board for our kitchen/school room.

Bulletin board a week or so into school; creation unit banner, sun unit stuff.

Love this picture, "quiet" reading time.

Sometimes when she was tiny, Girly Whirl would join us, but girlfriend can no longer be trusted to remain in a seated position in the Bumbo.

Little Man loves to color for about 30 seconds if I tape the paper down. Then he starts ripping the paper, eating the crayons, and throwing them down and saying "Uh-oh!" in a really surprised-sounding voice...

And sometimes I'll notice that the playroom is a little too quiet and find him like this.

Wild Man drew the solar system.

Sponge painting leafy autumn trees.

Isn't it beautiful? I throw away most of their artwork after I take photos, but I haven't been able to part with these paintings yet.

Some more artwork. I love his words; the letters are all over the place, haha! Just get it on the page, right?

Pretty typical "seated" position for boys.

First book he read all by himself!!

Big sister is only too happy to take on the role of teacher.

Snuggle-time on the sofa for reading.

Making words.

Painting pine cone Christmas trees.

Oh, proud boy!! He's so in love with sitting at the table for school when his big kids do.

Our very crowded bulletin board at the moment...this makes me so happy.

Favorite art so far! We made ocean collages when we studied the letter 'O'. Watercolor paints for water and sand, real sand, construction paper, pipe cleaners, sweetgum balls (sea urchins), pine needles (sea anemone), bubble wrap (reef), sticks painted to be coral, shell-shaped pasta, and tempera paint stamps for other animals.

Oh, and hole reinforcers for the octopus' suckers. WM's octopus was red, because as he told me, "The octopus is flushed red because he's angry, and octopuses change colors when they're mad or scared." Thus the angry face he asked me to draw.

School year in brief so far. :) I've been taking pictures of all the work, and I plan to make a photo album for the year when we're done. Hope you enjoyed a little peek into our home school life!

It's January 7th, so if you're like me...

2012-01-07T22:37:00.004-05:00

and you start today, you might have time to finish this set before Christmas, 2012. ;)

I haven't been posting as much "fluff" lately on the blog, so it completely slipped my mind that although I put this on facebook, I forgot to put it here. It took me around 3 years of half-hearted effort, and 2 months of deliberate working to complete this sweet, sweet nativity felt set. I bought the pattern at BuggaBugs on Etsy, along with several other felt set patterns that have yet to materialize in our house.

Here's a close-up of the holy family...

Yes. Yes, I did stitch Joseph's face and beard on upside down.

Shepherd...he's my favorite. :)

And the wise men...

And the "worth it." :)

(If you're interested in purchasing the pattern to make a set, it really isn't that difficult. The instructions are great, and you can totally do this without a sewing machine, although it does help to make the construction stitching go faster.)

How do I begin to say...

2012-01-05T13:36:00.009-05:00

The truth? the truth to the question that we all get asked about a million times a day?

How are you doing?

Most of the time, my answer is something along the lines of "Good. Insane. Life is crazy, but it's good." And that's really true. It really is. Life is good - there is inherent goodness in life simply because of the Giver of it, and there are shining silver linings to every single day. And life in our house is mostly crazy. Who would expect it to be anything else with a 5, 3, and 1 year old and a newborn/infant around?

But really...really, if I'm being honest the main word running on repeat in my mind all fall was not good. It was drowning. We all often say that we are just trying to keep our head above water with something. Well, I wasn't even doing that any more. I felt like I was drowning.

I know I seem on here like everything is all happy-happy-unicorns. And that's an intentional effort, not an intentional deception, and I'd like to share the difference with you. I'm not trying to make anyone think I've got it all together. And believe me, if you stop by my house unannounced, you'll see it with your own eyes. So why do I intentionally not blog all the choppy waters that leave me floundering and gasping for air?

For one thing, I don't want to look back on this time of my life and reread all the pity-party-lines all over again. That's easy enough for any of us to drudge up; I frankly don't even really need a whole lot of drama to be able to throw a pretty smashing pity party. But that's not God-honoring in the moment, and it's not any part of how I want to live each day, and it's certainly not the kind of legacy I wish to leave.

Negativity is not how I want to color our life today, nor how I want to reflect on it later. So I don't flesh it all out. I don't make exhaustive lists of every single yucky thing that happened in a single day (although trust me, I've been tempted on more than a few occasions recently). So when I say (in real life and here) that life is hard but it's good, I'm not trying to be all holy-holy-righteous-glass-half-full girl. I'm often struggling, and just trying to feed the good wolf, y'all.

But...(second), I *am* pretty much a glass half full kind of girl. And my gentle faithful Father continues to teach me lessons along my way. I like to write them down, because I want to remember them. And I like to share them, because I know how it encourages me to hear other people's stories, and I pray it will encourage someone else to hear mine. And I want to see the good in the bad, the intended beauty in the seeming disaster.

Let me go a little deeper, a little more personal here. When I wrote The Problem with Devotion Based on Emotion, I was in an awful place. I was in Mordor, if you've read the post. I simply wrote down the sermon I had been preaching to myself for several weeks.

I recently shared an "out of the mouths of babes" story about Little Lady. She is, without a doubt, far more spiritually sensitive and spiritually discerning than her older brother. It is remarkable, to be quite honest with you, but along with that comes intense attack. When I told you a little more about all of us, who we really are, I said that she is a bit of a troublemaker, and we are trusting in faith that our shepherding will make her stubborn for Kingdom purposes...well, I didn't exactly say much about how difficult that shepherding can be. Husband and I wryly joke to one another that if we sent James Dobson a video of LL on one of her tears, he'd have to write yet another new edition of his famous book.

Imagine trying to herd a sheep who was hellbent (yes, I said it, and trust me, I mean it) on wandering away. Who bolts away; you chase it; it bites you and runs the other direction. You bodily carry it back to the fold, because it refuses to submissively follow. As soon as you reach the rest of the herd, it sets about bellowing and bleating...such a ruckus you can barely think. You try to remember what those formulaic books about shepherding said about this; all they ever said was that if you gently and consistently herded your sheep, they would all fall in line, and if they didn't, well then you're just shepherding incorrectly. You must be a failure of a shepherd. In fact, the book says that if you have failed then you're probably not really a shepherd at all. You dress like one, and talk like one, and hang out with them, but if you can't get a wayward sheep under control, then you're just fooling yourself about being a shepherd. The books say probably what your problem is is that you are actually the one rebelling against authority, and the sheep knows it, and is just so smart that it refuses to submit to your authority as a shepherd unless you're submitting to your own authority of...well, whoever a shepherd's boss is.

Now imagine that this sheep does this every day...all day...for months at a time. Your other sheep are suffering from the enormous amount of time the wayward one requires. Your pastures look just terrible, as you haven't had time to do anything to them. Your robes are probably filthy and torn from chasing the sheep through the mud and briars all day long. You are enormously sleep-deprived, because between the baby lamb in the fold waking up at night, and having to use the nighttime hours to complete pasture-work that used to be accomplished during the day when the wayward sheep could actually frolic with the other sheep without head-butting all of them, your eyes are closed for maybe - maybe - five hours total a night, and that not all at once.

Do you begin to understand where the word "drowning" is coming from?

I digress.

When I wrote The Tipping Point, and at the end encouraged us all to not make permanent decisions in a temporary season, trust me folks, I was shouting those words at myself most loudly of all. A few weeks ago I told Husband that with just the basics of taking care of everyone, housework, errands and shopping, teaching school, laundry, meals, etc...I feel like a person who is tens of thousands of dollars in consumer debt and making the minimum payment each month. The interest (the work that I don't get to each day) is accruing faster than I am making dents in it all.

So now as I'm writing this, I can tell you that we've been enjoying a restful break. A sweet respite from the drowning feeling. My house was even CLEAN while we were on our break from school for Christmas, and I've even had time to bake quite a bit, and make a few special meals for Thanksgiving, Christmas day, and New Year's day. But I've also been using peacetime to prepare to go back to war. This is the reality of Christian life, is it not? We are taking up our crosses, not being carried toward Heaven on a litter of flowers. (That, by the way, is a paraphrased quote from Stepping Heavenward.)

Today must be deployment day.

It is Husband's day off, which is usually my day to run errands. I was so looking forward to going shopping (alone) with some of my Christmas gift money, as I have only about 3 long-sleeved shirts that I wear on an everyday kind of day. But Husband is sick with a terrible stomach virus. I am caring for him (in sickness and in health, baby!!) in addition to our regular day, which will now include - in addition to copious amounts of Germ-X - a post-nap grocery store run since it's my usual shopping day and we're down to bare bones on most daily things. (Who doesn't love to go to the grocery store at 5 pm with 4 kids? Really, I can't be the only one.) And these sweet children are giving me a real run for my money today. Poor big kids were so crushed when they found out that Daddy wasn't up to playing on his day off, and the attitudes followed suit. Throw in a DVD player that has frozen and eaten a DVD belonging to the library, a toddler who isn't sleeping well and started melting down immediately after breakfast, and a constipated teething baby who seems able to poop only when she is 20 minutes into a nap...and you can guess what our house is like today. And that's the short list, folks.

Just before lunch, Husband had staggered out of bed for a few minutes to check something on the computer (in the kitchen). I don't know how it all started; I'm not sure words can adequately describe the thrill of having all four children crying at once, while two of them are hanging on my legs, and the oldest is wailing and flailing in frustration over lowercase 'n's and all I want to do is make lunch but it's hard to walk to the pantry to get the peanut butter out when you're dragging 2 children along like very heavy Uggs. Right then I looked at helpless Hubby, who was looking pitiful and guilty at the same time, and just laughed. I laughed! (Really, it was hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.) He said he wished he could help, I said I wished so too. But go to bed.

And I go to war. And life is good. It is crazy...and it is good.

(And as I wrap this up, I'm almost positive I just hear Little Man retching in his crib. Excuse me.) {edit a few hours later - just a very productive cough, whew!}

"It's a beahwy important lesson."

2012-01-01T15:06:00.003-05:00

Yesterday morning, my Little Lady was sitting nearby on the kitchen floor while I worked, playing with a little Bible. You know, the miniature ones that are just the New Testament and Psalms? Yeah, it's funny - those are a hot commodity in our house. The kids LOVE them.

Anyway.

So she's flipping through and talking and singing, making up songs like "Joy to the world, Jesus saved us because He loves us," and then she stopped and said, "Mama, do you want me to read a passage to you?" Well, homegirl can't read yet, but she turned a few pages, and in a very clear voice recited one of our family memory passages. (It was James 3:2-12, if you're curious. :) Unwholesome talk of all kinds has been growing at an alarming rate in our home, so we geared some memory work toward that to help us teach them how to sort through their own hearts; may God take our seeds that we sow in faith and burrow them deeply in their hearts!)

Then she flipped a few pages and said, "Do you want me to read you another chapter?" "Yes, baby, I'd love that." {cheeseball grin} "It's a beahwy important lesson, Mama." "Okay, I'm ready."

"When Jesus saves us, then we obey His Word."

I smiled slowly, and looked to see if Husband was listening, which he was. "That's actually really good theology, Baby Girl," he called out.

It is good theology, you know? How else do you respond to the grace poured out? When you recognize the depravity of our condition, the need for a Savior, the righteousness transferred freely...how else do you respond but with gratitude and a deep-seeded desire to honor and obey?

Not "if we obey." Not "when we obey at least 50% of the time." No...there is a saying that all ground is level at the foot of the cross. There is no need to clean ourselves up before reaching out a hand to the Savior. Read the gospels and see who he hung out with. He begs us to come to Him first, even with all our messy junk, and then to repent and turn away from our sin. It is the very beauty of the Light of the King that makes all else look like tarnished entanglements, as they are. It is his kindness that leads us to repentance, the (to paraphrase Chalmers) expulsive power of this new affection for Christ that grows in us, that grows us in grace to chip away the pieces of the former self and obey His Word more fully, with more joy, and more grace. Further up, and further in (CS Lewis).

It is a very important lesson. I still get them backwards sometimes. Even now, having been a believer for over 10 years, I still think I need to clean myself up to come before the King of Kings. But that's His work. He saves us, and He refines us. As I have quoted before from "Stepping Heavenward," He is just as willing and able to sanctify as to redeem us.

Happy New Year, my friends. May we all know the grace and love of Christ and the joy of obedience more personally and more fully in the year to come.

A cake recipe and a frosting Tutorial

2011-12-21T00:00:00.007-05:00

Hmmm, what on earth might I be making? With my darling hubby's birthday tomorrow, what cake does he request? Let's see if you can guess. HUGE hint front and center...

Ohhhh, red velvet cake: you little Christmas-temptress of the dessert table. Actually, I take that back. As I told my sweet love tonight, red velvet cake is probably not in my top 15 most beloved desserts. But it is beautifully Christmassy and vivid red, and (one of) my husband's favorite desserts. (It must be said that when it comes to sweets I bake, Hubby has a pretty complex classification system. To that end, they're all the favorite of one class: the favorite pie, the favorite fruit dessert, the favorite dessert that doubles as breakfast, the favorite chocolate cake...Perhaps this is his favorite red cake?)

Let's get crackin' - turn your oven on to 350*F and prepare 3 or 4 cake pans. Spray them with baking spray (such as Baker's Joy or Pam for Baking), line them with parchment/wax paper, and then spray them again. You could also hand-grease them with crisco, but spraying almost always works perfectly for me.

(I hate, hate, hate cutting out parchment and wax paper to line pans with. But here's how I do it, in case you - like yours truly - don't feel like shelling out for parchment rounds.) Roll out a length of paper and lay your cake pan down at the topmost corner; draw around the edge with a pencil. Then slide your pan down and over, to the bottom-most edge and as close as possible to your first circle to cut down on waste; draw around it. Repeat by sliding over and up for your third circle.

Cut between your circles, then fold them in fourths (hold them up to the light to make sure your lines match up) and cut along the line. Unfold and it's perfect - ready to go!

Next, I like to prep everything before I get going. So measure out your flour (2.5 cups) and 1 teaspoon each of salt and baking soda. Want another little tip? I'm full of them tonight. :)

When you use up all of a can of baking powder, gently remove the label and carefully (and quickly!!) wash it out and let dry. Fill with salt, and voila - such an easier way to measure out spoons of salt for recipes. Just dip and scoop, then use the built-in metal lid to scrape off the top and level your measuring spoons, just like you do for baking powder.

Okay, so mix your dry ingredients together. You could sift them together, but I must confess I do not. I just dump them together and then stir it all with a whisk for about 15 seconds.

Next, in a glass cup or bowl, measure out 2 tsp cocoa powder. (You can make them heaping. I promise I won't tell.) To this add an entire 1 oz. bottle of red food coloring and mix well. Add 1 tsp vinegar and stir well.

In a mixer, cream together 1.75 cups EACH of cooking oil and sugar. Add 2 eggs and mix well.

Add your red mixture and mix well. Into the same measuring cup, I poured 1 cup of buttermilk. Add flour mixture and buttermilk to cake batter, alternating and beginning and ending with flour mixture. Add 1 tsp vanilla and mix well.

Divide batter between your pans and cook for 25-30 minutes.

Okay, here's where to trust your common sense instead of directions. So clearly, the directions say 25-30 minutes. I arranged my pans in the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes, so I could rotate them. Then cooked for another 9 minutes, and went to rotate the pans again and lookie here...

The cake had already pulled away from the edge of the pan, which means these babies were done after only 19 minutes! Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes, then rest of the way on racks.

For frosting, combine in mixer two 8 oz. blocks of cream cheese, 1.5 sticks (12 tablespoons, or 6 oz.) butter, 2 tsp vanilla, and 2 pounds (2 boxes) of 10x sugar, and assemble your cake.

Okay, so here begins the real tutorial part of this recipe.

Let's get this straight: homemade cakes are not hard. We all can follow directions! :) But sometimes homemade goodies are...trouble. And then we feel like we don't have tons to show for our efforts, right? So we want a homemade cake to look as good as it's going to taste. Sort of like with sewing, you don't want things to look homemade in the sorta sad way, haha. :)

While I am nowhere near the talent of my sweet SIL Marcie, I do have a few tips for making cakes not look so homely-homemade. Almost none of which I did tonight. First, you can level your layers using a long, serrated knife. This helps your cake be level and flat when you assemble it, and helps prevent "quakes". Alternately, you could invert some of the layers, which I did for the bottom and top layer of this cake.

Second, make a crumb coat!

All I mean by a "crumb coat" is a thin layer of frosting (icing? I don't know the difference) that you apply and let dry/set completely. This layer catches any loose crumbs on the surface of the cake layers, so that you don't have dark flecks of cake visible in your light-colored frosting. So in the photo you see above, I had assembled my cake and done a thin crumb coat using about half the cream cheese frosting. Then I stuck it in the fridge uncovered for a few hours (unnecessarily long, but this spanned supper, bath, and bedtime for the children) to let the frosting set and harden.

The other alternative to a crumb coat in a dark-cake-and-light-frosting situation is to add something to the frosting, like chopped pecans.

Okay, so let's say you've made a crumb coat, though. Next, apply a gracious plenty frosting to tops and sides (but you shouldn't use all of it for a 3-layer; perhaps a 4 layer would need it all). I'm not super skilled in photography, so the colors don't show up that great, but let's take a look:

Not awful, right? Probably looks a lot like cakes your grandmother made.

Not nearly as pretty as those dry, mostly-flavorless, but gorgeous cakes in the bakery department of your local grocery store.

Alright, let's beautify this thing a little bit. There are a couple of different ways I do this, but for a red velvet cake, this is my favorite design.

Grab a small spoon from your regular flatware and dip it in the remaining frosting in your mixing bowl. Using the tip of the back of the spoon, draw little circles, semi-circles, and swoops in the frosting...

Using a spoon makes a more gentle swirl than the tip of a knife or offset spatula, although it's still possible to accidentally gouge too deeply into your cake, so use a light touch here. :) Your swirls might develop peaks (like merengue); leave 'em if you like them, gently work them down if you don't. Work around the sides and up to and across the top, going back when needed and overlapping swoops and swirls.

Ahhh, swirly, curly cakes make me smile. :) Now, clearly, this isn't going to win any prizes for its looks or anything, but the swirls cover up the mishmash, impossible to get perfectly smooth frosting look of just covering the cake and calling it a day.

Your favorite red cake, just for you, Babe: Happy Birthday. For your present, I put a picture of you in pajamas on our family blog. :D

Red Velvet Cake

2.5 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cocoa

1 bottle red food color

1 tsp vinegar

1.75 c oil

1.75 c sugar

2 eggs

1 c buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

Sift together first three ingredients. In a non-porous bowl or cup, combine next three ingredients. In mixer, cream together oil and sugar; add eggs and mix well. Add red mixture. Add flour mixture to batter in 3 additions, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla. Bake in 3 or 4 prepared pans at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 - 8 oz blocks cream cheese

1.5 sticks (12 tbsp) butter

2 pounds (2 boxes or 1 large bag) confectioners (10X) sugar

2 tsp vanilla

Allow cream cheese and butter to come to room temperature. Cream together; add sugar in small increments; add vanilla. Beat well - should be slightly fluffy. Assemble cake.

Sometimes...

2011-12-13T23:12:00.001-05:00

(warning...this isn't a light-hearted post, no attempts at humor to soften the blow)

Sometimes, the weight of this broken world is so crushing that I can't breathe.

That there are children without clothes to cover their bodies on even the chilliest of nights, and I lament the loads of laundry.

That there are parents who would desperately love to feed their children...well, anything at all. And I sigh over the pantry that is too small to contain the most recent grocery trip's food along with our abundant staples. (One time Wild Man had lost his dessert privilege for a meal, and was basically losing his cool, terrified that the cookies would all be gone by the next day. I calmly said, "Baby, there's always more,"...and I choked on my words. How rich we are, that there is always more!)

That there are parents so desperate to feed their many children that they will actually sell one of them.

That there are marriages breaking and wives devastated and men broken over pornography...which at least in part fuels the above problem.

(Think I'm exaggerating or making this up? Go here - watch these films. Porn destroys lives...everyone it touches. It indisputably contributes to and fuels the international sex trafficking industry. This is not victim-less. It is the exact opposite of victim-less.)

Sometimes I'm crushed knowing that there are millions of children wasting in orphanages...just waiting. That there are too many like him, unwanted by those who should love. That if every Christian would care for just one child in addition to their own through adoption, foster, or sponsorship programs, there would be no more needy children in the world.

Sometimes I think about my sin, the sin of my kids, the utter futility of it all apart from the Hope we have in Christ...the hopelessness that many faces I see are expressing every time I leave the cocoon of home and venture out into the world. Sometimes the seeming hopelessness of it all makes me feel cynical.

Sometimes I go outside for a moment - to move the laundry around, or take the trash out - and just stand there and breathe and pray. And yes, sometimes, cry out, "Where are You in all this mess?"

Sometimes I feel this brokenness - the brokenness on the other side of the world, right here in my city, maybe even right across the street from my home - and can't believe that I spend entire days obsessed with the minutiae of my household, my life, my kids, my me-me-me, all the time.

Sometimes I'm a little tired of getting called names. I've been called liberal, because of my heart on compassion. I've been called conservative, because I'm a stay-at-home-mom and homeschooler. I've been called emergent, because I think the Church in America has really dropped the ball on a lot of things in the past century. I've been called a fundamentalist, because I take Church authority, doctrine, and theology pretty seriously. I've been called legalist for some of our choices. Name-calling, over single points within huge issues, that are all just a part of who I am in Christ...who He is shaping me to be.

I think we mere mortals tend to zero in on itty bitty things. I do this all the time. Maybe because thinking about it all is just so overwhelming? So whatcanIpossiblydo? So maybe that's where this name-calling comes in. I see it, I hear it, I receive it, and let's be honest: we all do it from time to time, even if only in our quietest, most secret inner recesses of our hearts.

Zeroing in is a little easier on me. I compartmentalize. I call it my calling, my occupation, my season, whatever. And these things are all true: being a homemaker is my calling, and I believe it is a high and holy one. And my dream come true. Being a momma of littles and a teacher to my brood is my season. Yes, and amen. And I love this job, and believe me, I'm not searching for anything more significant, because this job is not too small or low for me: on the contrary, it feels much too big. At the bare least it is far bigger than I can accomplish without the Help of One who never fails. I don't need more. Sometimes I want to turn my head away from more...to unlearn the hard things and feel "Leave It to Beaver" peaceful in my daily striving to be a good and Godly wife and mom.

But when the weight of this brokenness presses down on me so hard that breath comes shallow...

...when I trace the curves of tummies round with fullness (rather than worms), these peacefully sleeping babes in cozy beds in a warm home, and I feel like screaming in anguish "This isn't fair!"...

...when the neighbor we had such good intentions of loving well in small and practical ways dies suddenly, leaving behind a wife-shell succumbing to Alzheimer's and adult children with broken marriages and hearts...

...when there are hurts in a loved one's heart that I can do nothing to stanch or alleviate...

...when Husband, children, and I all alike fall prey to same dadgum sin struggles, time and again...

...when my thoughtless words wound...

...when I can see my daughter fighting - warring with her own personal Wormwood, warring with everyone around her, warring with me - and then finally break down in shuddering sobs of repentance...

then I remember...

All of this is why He came. All of this...this mess we make and the mess that we are...is reason enough to celebrate His coming. Was He really born on December 25th, and did the Magi really come that night? Of course not. But friends, He came. And that is worth setting aside a month to ponder and pray over the mystery of Emmanuel, God incarnate and God with us, to thank Him and worship Him and glorify Him. To connect-the-dots through God's Word together during evening family worship, to remind ourselves again and again of the story woven throughout The Record of all time, how all of creation groaned and awaited and rejoiced and exalted when the Word became Flesh.

He came because we need a Savior. He came because the only answer, the only hope in all this world, is a Redeemer.

The answer to brokenness is Christ. The answer is Christmas - Jesus given to us. Merry Christmas, indeed, my friends.

Read more: Love this, The Entire Christmas Story in One Verse

Watch more: grab a kleenex...

Stepping Heavenward

2011-11-30T14:26:00.003-05:00

"My dear Katy...I wish I could make you see that God is just as willing and just as able to sanctify as He is to redeem us. It would save you so much weary, disappointing work. (p. 25)

You acknowledge that there has been enmity toward God in your secret soul and that one of the first steps toward peace is to become reconciled to Him and to have your sins forgiven for Christ's sake. This done, you settle down with the feeling that the great work of life is done and that your salvation is sure. Or, if not sure, that your whole business is to study your own case to see whether you are really in a state of grace. Many persons never get beyond this point. They spend their whole time in asking the question:

Do I love the Lord or no?

Am I His or am I not?

I beg you, my dear child, if you are doing this aimless, useless work, to stop short at once. Life is too precious to spend in a treadmill. HAving been pardoned by your God and Savior, the next thing you have to do is to show your gratitude for this infinite favor by consecrating yourself entirely to Him, body, soul, and spirit. This is the least you can do. He has bought you with a price, and you are no longer your own. 'But,' you may reply, 'this is contrary to my nature. I love my own way. I desire ease and pleasure; I desire to go to heaven, but I want to be carried thither on a bed of flowers. Can I not give myself so far to God as to feel a sweet sense of peace with Him, and be sure of final salvation, and yet, to a certain extent, indulge and gratify myself?...' But, I reply, this is no matter of parley and discussion; it is not optional with God's children whether they will pay Him a part of the price they owe Him and keep back the rest. He asks, and He has a right to ask, for all you have and all you are. And if you shrink from what is involved in such a surrender, you should fly to Him at once and never rest till He has conquered this secret disinclination to give to Him as freely and as fully as He has given to you...

But as soon as you become one of the Lord's by your own deliberate and conscious act, He will begin that process of sanctification which is to make you holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect. He becomes at once your Physician as well as your dearest and best Friend, but He will use no painful remedy that can be avoided. Remember that it is His will that you should be sanctified and that the work of making you holy is His, not yours. At the same time you are not to sit with folded hands, waiting for this blessing. (pp.86-87)

The only true way to live in this world, constituted just as we are, is to make all our employments subserve the one great end and aim of existence, namely, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." (p. 94)

Just a few excerpts (emphasis mine) of my favorite passages on this, my fourth time through this beloved novel by Elizabeth Prentiss.

"Stepping Heavenward," if you are unfamiliar with the book, is written in the style of a personal journal by a young lady named Katherine. It begins in her teens, an unsaved girl with Godly parents, and chronicles her journey both in growing up, but more importantly, growing in Christ. A dear friend gifted me with this book (and I have since gifted it to several others, pay it forward, you know) and she warned me that in reading it, I would often feel like, "How does this woman know exactly what I am thinking? how I respond to things??" Forewarned, and duly noted. The majority of the takeaways from the first half (or possibly more) of the book come from others' counsels to Katy, as in the case of the three excerpts above.

If you're interested - and this book is a keeper, dog-eared already and I've had it barely 6 months - the book is available from CBD (here you go) or from the website above where I linked Mrs. Prentiss' biography. I don't recommend ordering this one from Amazon, simply because of some of the reviews of the different covered books saying that there are occasionally omissions of text. It's also available from Lamplighter, if you prefer hard-cover books.

Random things from all over

2011-11-29T10:04:00.005-05:00

This boy might become an engineer. His X-Wing fighter, straight out of his own brain, with no help from anyone.

The night before Thanksgiving, I had just finished making one of my dear husband's favorite chocolate cakes. He walked up to that cake and said, "Ima cut you."

Thanksgiving Day! Our full Thankful Tree that we had talked about each day of November.

First Thanksgiving with my family in many, many years! Got to see so many folks. Little Man loved hanging out with one of my cousins' little boys, close to his age, who looks like an Eloise Wilkins child.

This girlie kills me. We watched Beauty and the Beast the other day and in the beginning when the Beast flips out on Belle because she went into the West Wing, Little Lady very self-righteously said, "He needs to learn to peek (keep) self-control." Ha!

We got to see so many cousins that I haven't seen in years, and some of us had never met! Whew, 2 mommas and 7 kids! :)

My beautiful cousin, Elizabeth!

When my sweet MIL came to visit the day after Thanksgiving, Truett came too; LM was obsessed with the "Doe-dy." I keep forgetting he's not used to dogs like the big kids are, since Tru had to relocate when LM was still a teeny guy.

Handsome big boy...

Little Man's face cracks me up.

Sweetness.

"Oh, hi. I melt hearts into big, goopy puddles. How's yours feeling right about now?"

"Oh, so you give me a cookie covered in green sprinkles and expect me NOT to make a mess with it?"

Whew, life has continued to find me in the winepress for the past few months. I love to look at the photos that capture the sweetness and the peaks of each day. Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse.

An awfully big mouth...still good for apologies

2011-11-27T15:13:00.004-05:00

I mentioned in my last post that I recently read through my entire blog archives. It was a very humbling experience.

You know how some moms say, "Oh, I used to know how to be a perfect mother...until I actually became one"? That's sort of how I felt reading through some of my older posts. I actually winced and flinched as I read my ramblings about homemaking and child training as a mature (ha!!) mom of a two year old (who I honestly thought was strong-willed, which simultaneously makes me want to laugh and cry now), and one of the easy-peasiest babies in the world. I seriously look back at those days and go, "Who do you think you are, Lauren-from-three-years-ago? What on earth do you know about this stuff?"

It's funny, because two weeks ago, I was shaking my head in embarrassed amusement and thinking, "Ahhh, I've come such a long way." And it's true that I have. Not arrived in any sense, and mostly feel farther away from the finish line than I did then, but come a long way still. And really, I was feeling pretty good about all my growth and progress.

And then I stuck my foot in it.

A couple of weeks ago I posted something on facebook with really and truly pure and good intentions. But in part because of the sensitivity of the subject in general and in part because of the frightening speed of the downward spiral of the discussion, the post "blew up" as we say. I quickly deleted it, and shook for about a day. I was literally nauseated and sleepless for almost a week, as I contacted individually many of the folks involved in the post's discussion.

As I prayed and pondered over the...debacle. I think that's the best word for it. As I prayed and pondered over the debacle, and talked with 2 ultra wise friends about it, I began to realize how poorly I had considered the issue from other perspectives...how graceless my well-intentioned disclaimer could sound...how the source (me) of the link would affect someone's perception and interpretation of the article, and the intent of posting it...

Well, I was just...gutted. Horrified. Mortified. Aching. See, the discussion had made me a little angry, I'll be honest. Well, more than a little angry, even. As one of my aforementioned friends said to me, no one likes to be misunderstood. The way she said it so gently gives the image of someone meekly saying, "Oh that's not how I meant that." But my reaction would more likely conjure images of Jerry Springer guests, wildly flailing all four limbs and shrieking, "YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!" while a massive bodyguard physically restrains them.

In the midst of all this, I read an article on The Resurgence (and I can't find it now to link it, sorry) that said that we judge ourselves by our intentions, while we judge others not even by their real-life actions, but by how we perceive their actions.

The aftermath was agony. I had been judging myself in the scenario by the intentions of my heart, which when you're dealing with other folks' hearts...well, that's really not fair is it? To simply say, "I didn't mean it that way, suck it up and move on." As I pondered over the issue, and read and read and read again the discussion (which I had copied and saved), I began to see how hurtful it was to some folks. Not how hurtful it *could be*, because I already knew how hurtful it had been, so I must say how hurtful it was.

Because no matter how much my intentions were good in the beginning, the whole thing was - I can confidently say - handled extraordinarily poorly on my part. This grieves me deeply, to know of only a small handful who I've spoken with who were hurt: in those three hours in which the link and discussion were on facebook, how many others saw it? How many more were hurt and remained silent?

So. If you saw it at all, I'm sorry. Deeply, truly, emphatically remorseful. There was nothing lovely, nothing to recommend anyone to Christ about the whole thing, and I earnestly regret it and humbly beg forgiveness.

Who are we really?

2011-11-19T22:50:00.008-05:00

Not in an introspective sense. I just mean generally, who are we?

I recently (well, over the past few weeks) read back over my entire blog, from the very first entry to now. It's funny how it's evolved over the past 3 years: not to mention that I have changed the name 3 (or maybe only 2?) times, and the whole entire URL once (so far), when I began, it was 98% pictures and stories of the children and our family life, 1% funny pictures, and 1% serious stuff.

The ratio has sort of changed, hasn't it?

Partly that's because my time is a little more scarce. I use our family blog to record things, and recently that's been mostly what I feel like the Lord is teaching me in any given season of our lives. And so the posts with pics...are severely lacking. As are stories and photos of us, since I mostly do that on facebook now, especially since even my Mama has joined. (And pictures are ridiculously easier to load on facebook than blogger, sheesh.) But for those who are not on facebook, or don't know much about us from the archives of ye olde blog, I wanted to catch up. Without further ado, here's a recap with some of the most recent pics. I said I was only going to put - my very favorite - of each of us, but I just couldn't choose. :)

First up: the Love of my life, Husband.

The phrase "love of my life" was invented for men like him. He is...beyond description. Loves Jesus. The best daddy. Romantic. Funny. Strong. Hard-working. Encouraging. I could go on, but it's all just mushy love stuff. Husband is a pediatrician in a group practice and he works his tail off. He also helps to lead a Bible study for medical students and disciples young men throughout their medical education. And also, he's incredible. Okay, I'll stop, seriously this time.

And lets me take lots...and lots of pictures of him. This is his "I'm humoring you, but I'm not going to let you take a serious picture yet again" face.

Next up is our first born, known here as Wild Man.

Wild Man is around 5 years old and he is totally in love with his daddy. (Above, fishing at the beach.)

He's a pretty typical first-born perfectionist. ;) He's really careful and deliberate about most things. He's in kindergarten in our homeschool journey and excels at memory work and mathematical reasoning type stuff.

But he's also goofy and silly, just like a little boy should be. He's an amazing big brother and so helpful to all of us.

He loves Georgia football, and he's a pretty fun kid to have around. ;)

Now we come to Little Lady, who is around 3.

My Little Lady is a sweetheart of a girl, and pretty much a girly-girl with an older brother. As in, she'll take you down with a light saber, and then go lovey on her baby dolls.

Little Lady loves having school at home with her big brother and me and is happy as long as I keep her busy. No just sitting and coloring for this girl! She flies through everything I give her and immediately asks, "What can I do next, Mama?"

So really, she's sort of fearless, and a little bit of a troublemaker. I love this about her, knowing and trusting in faith that as we shepherd her little heart, God is going to make her so stinkin' stubborn for His Kingdom purposes.

And she loves her baby sister more than words can say.

Third down the line we come to Little Man, who is about 18 months old. And always smiling.

He is such a sweet little boy (or "Leetle Boy" as his daddy calls him) and is a rough and tumble all boy kind of dude. By far our snuggliest babe yet. He jabbers a lot, and the best we can tell, he's fluent in some language that's a hybrid of Vietnamese and Ewok. Think that will count on college applications?

And so in love with his Daddy. Little Man is pretty independent; when we're out in public he requires man-to-man coverage, because he will flat out take off and never look back. However, at home, he usually just wants to be wherever his big kids are. He's an awesome eater, although he sometimes likes to tease you and play like he's not going to take a bite.

Unless there's funnel cake at stake.

Finally, we come to the newest arrival, our sweet Girly Whirl, who arrived in the summer of 2011 (before we hit the awful July and August heat, praise the Lord).

Girly Whirl is sweet, snuggly, and oh so precious. She is too cute for words in her little winter hat.

And she will melt your heart into a big goopy puddle when she makes this face at you just before busting out a million dollar grin. She's snuggly and chatty, and sugar and spice and everything nice.

Girly Whirl has been a really easy baby thus far. The best word to describe her is content: loves to be held, loves to sit in her bouncy/bumbo, loves to lie down and play, eats well, sleeps well. It's been a huge showering of God's mercy in giving us such an easy-tempered baby in this crazy season of 4 five and under.

Her newest love is her exersaucer (thanks GiGi and Pop!) and she's kind of unbelievably active in it for such a young age; I have a feeling she will keep us on our toes when she becomes mobile!

Finally, we get to me, the Mama, the only one with my real name on the blog. Oh, which is Lauren, not Mama, although you'd never know it if you hung around our house.

I almost never look like this:

The above pic was taken when Husband whisked me away to the mountains for a long weekend in October. I slept a lot. :) And had time for crazy extravagant things, like curling my hair.

There are around 11,000 pictures on our computer, and about 7 of them are of me. Most often, those pics (and I in real life) look like this:

Or some other variation of the same. I love babywearing; it's so sweet to have either Girly Whirl or Little Man (or sometimes even Little Lady) snuggled up to me, and during GW's first few months it was 100% necessary in order for me to continue life as normal-as-possible for the other children. I like baking and sewing, both of which are precious luxuries to me these days, but I get lots of creative kicks having fun with art and cooking with the kids in homeschool. I am a bookworm, and (to Husband's chagrin) read in bed every night before falling asleep. And I love, love, love Jesus, and I am so in love with my crazy busy and sometimes challenging life.

Well, there we are in a nutshell. If nutshells have lots of pictures, anyway. To cap it off, here's the most recent pic of all 6 of us that someone snapped for us when we went to the county fair a few weeks ago. (You can't see GW, but I promise she's in the ride-mama, as the kids call my carriers.)

Symbol-by-Symbol Instructions

2011-11-11T00:31:00.001-05:00

Just because my sweet friend-in-the-computer LeighAnn asked...well, that and I thought that other people might be mildly curious and/or too shy to ask, I decided to do a quick-quick-quickie little typing tutorial on how I made each symbol for our Jesse Tree. (I briefly considered getting out at least the crafting tools/equipment/materials and taking a new pic of them, and then realized that was ridiculous.)

So, if you need to catch up on the why of a Jesse Tree Advent....calendar? banner? We just call it our Jesse Tree. Anyway, here's a permalink to my previous post about it.

So to get started on your leaf symbols exactly the way that I did them, you'll need

lots of felt (small pieces, even scraps will do in most cases) in lots of colors, including a white sparkly felt
puff paint in glitter-gold, glitter-silver, glitter-green, glitter-blue, black and brown
cotton balls
ribbon scraps and wonder-under (for Joseph's coat of many colors)
small sequins for embellishments
burlap
microfine glitter in white/silver/gold (any of these will do) and black
silk rose bud
wheat stalks and spray acrylic
red yarn
small piece of card stock (I cut up one of my personal stationery cards)

So, I realize this is a long list, but other than the silk rose and the wheat, I already had allllll this stuff in my sewing and crafting stuff. For each photo, you'll see 6 to 7 symbols; below the photos I list the items in order from top to bottom, then left to right. The specific instructions for each symbol are beside the number description. All of these symbols were glued to the felt leaves using either Tacky Glue or Fabri-Tac, layering the elements of each leaf as necessary to achieve the desired final outcome. For almost all of these, I just eye-balled my design as I was cutting it out with embroidery scissors. If you're not artistically inclined, you could always sketch them on paper and them cut out your felt like a pattern, but it will more than double your completion time. If you get stuck on the shape of something, or what something ought to/could look like, just google it! :)

Now let's do this thing!! ;)

(1) Stump, for Jesse Tree: cut stump out of felt, embellish with black paint to make "bark," green for a leafy twig, and outline with gold

(2) Earth, for Creation: cut blue circle, embellish with green paint for continents, outline with blue

(3) Apple, for Adam & Eve and fall: cut red apple with bite missing out of felt, paint stem and leaf; alternately, you could use a leaf from the stem of your silk rose and just glue it underneath the apple on the felt leaf

(4) Ark with rainbow, for Noah and the flood: cut ark shape out of brown felt (refer to Answers in Genesis for a more realistic Ark shape) and paint lines with gold to make it look like 3D; use a scrap of rainbow-print ribbon, folding/mitering it in 4 to 5 points to make the rainbow arc over the Ark. Top ends of your rainbow with cotton ball clouds. Alternately, use puff paint to make a striped rainbow; paint on leaf before attaching Ark.

(5) Tent and camel, for Abraham and Sarah: cut tent shape out of burlap (or brown or tan felt) and embellish with gold paint. Add small sequin stars above, or use puff paint in silver to dot stars above tent (stars are integral to that day's Bible study). Cut camel shape out of tan felt, outline with gold paint, and paint a blue saddle on him.

(1) Ram, for Isaac: cut ram shape out of white felt and embellish with silver paint around his body, gold for horns, and black for nose and eyes. I used a stretched out cotton ball that I sprayed with spray-adhesive and then sprinkled with white and gold microfine glitter to cover the bottom half of his body, sort of to demonstrate how the ram was supernaturally supplied to Abraham.

(2) Ladder, for Jacob: cut ladder shape out and outline with brown paint. Embellish with stars.

(3) Coat of Colors, for Joseph: THE toughest one for me. I used ribbon scraps, pinned them to a piece of fabric from the other side of the fabric to get them aligned properly, and then applied wonder-under (which is an iron adhesive) on the other side of the ribbons. Flip over, remove your pins (if you pinned it correctly, that is). Then cut out a coat shape (I did mine in 3 pieces to achieve the perpendicular stripe appearance of the sleeves), and embellish with gold paint. There are other simpler ways to do this, like using a scrap of colorful fabric from a previous project, or even painting the whole thing.

(4) 10 Commandments, for Moses: cut out 2 tablets from cream felt, outline with gold paint. Use black paint (or a sharpie) to write Roman numerals 1-10 on them.

(5) Scarlet cord, for Rahab: cut a short length of red yarn and put a square knot a little bit from each end. Swirl or loop decoratively to glue down to leaf.

(6) Wheat, for Ruth: purchase some dried wheat from the floral department of any craft store. Check carefully to make sure your wheat isn't buggy. Cut off several stalks and take them outside and lay them on newspaper. Spray the daylights out of them with spray acrylic to help seal them, so they won't get buggy, letting them dry completely between coats. I probably did a total of about 15 coats, spraying them from several different angles to get down into all the nooks and crannies.

(1) Horn of oil, for Samuel: Cut horn shape out of cream felt. Embellish with gold paint, including some drips of oil.

(2) Harp, for David: Cut U-shape of harp out of brown felt, and outline with gold paint. Use gold paint to draw harp strings.

(3) Crown, for Solomon: Cut crown out of yellow felt, and outline with gold paint. Use small sequins to embellish crown with "jewels."

(4) Rose, for prophecy: Purchase a small, lightweight silk rose and cut stem off shortly below bud using sturdy wire cutters. Glue to leaf, slightly curving felt around the back of rose bud to help the glue adhere and hold on tight. Use a spare silk leaf from the bottom of stem to cover up cut end of rose on your felt leaf.

(5) Raven, for Elijah: Cut out bird shape from black felt and beak from yellow felt. OPTIONAL: I also cut out a wing shape from black felt, sprayed it with spray adhesive and then sprinkled it with black microfine glitter. Use silver paint for his eye.

(6) Whale, for Jonah: Yes, I know now it was a fish. {smile} Cut whale (or fish) shape out of gray (or other desired color) felt, outline with paint. Embellish whale with blue paint for his spout.

(1) Scroll, for Isaiah: Cut a small rectangle of card stock and curl top and bottom ends using a toothpick as a guide. Glue curved ends in place if desired. Write the names of the Messiah on the scroll.

(2) Bible, for Jeremiah: Cut 2 small rectangles of white felt and one slightly larger rectangle from brown felt. Layer white rectangles inside the brown to make pages. Glue them down almost entirely, except for the edge. If I had this one to do over again, I would do a cross and/or "Holy Bible" on the outside with gold paint, and use black paint or a sharpie to make a double column of teeny squiggle lines on the page that is open.

(3) Lion, for Daniel: Cut a mane out of brown felt, and a circle of tan felt for the lion's face. Layer pieces together, and use brown paint to illustrate lion's face.

(4) Trowel and bricks, for Nehemiah: Cut bricks out of brown felt, and small trowel shape out of gray felt. Outline bricks and embellish trowel with a small dab of "mortar."

(5) Praying hands, for Zechariah and Elizabeth: The easiest way to do this is to cut 2 hands and arms out of flesh-colored felt and lay one on top of the other. Outline with gold paint.

(6) Angel, for angels: Cut angel's robe out of white felt, and a wing shape (or 2 wings) out of your white sparkly felt. Cut out hair shape in desired hair color, and an oval and 2 hands of flesh-colored felt for a face. Layer on the leaf: wings, face, hair and hands, then robe. Embellish and outline with paint as desired.

(1) Mary praying, for Mary: Mary is 3-dimensional. Cut an oval and 2 arms and hands of flesh-colored felt, some bangs from brown felt, a light blue mantle and a darker blue robe with longish sleeves. Layer on the leaf: face, bangs, robe, and mantle. Fold sleeves up (as of arms bent at the elbow), and trim length as needed. Glue hands together, and then fold out arms, glue arms to Mary's body, and then fold sleeves up over arms and glue down. Paint her face. You also could skip the 3D part and have her praying with flat hands clasped to her chest.

(2) Tools, for Joseph: Cut out brown hammer and a handle for the saw from brown felt, and a saw blade from gray felt. Layer and then outline with silver and gold paints.

(3) Dove, for John the Baptist: Cut out dove shape from white felt, and a small beak from black felt. Paint dove's wing feathers with silver paint and outline.

(4) Sandals and staff, for shepherds: Cut out 2 sandal shapes from cream felt, outline and paint the thong-part of sandal with gold paint. Cut out shepherd's crook from brown felt, outline with gold paint.

(5) Star, for the New Star: Cut out star-shape (whatever you prefer) from white sparkly felt, outline and embellish with silver paint.

(6) Manger, for Jesus' birth: A multi-layered symbol. Cut out flesh-colored circle for baby Jesus' face, a yellow circle for halo, and white sparkly swaddled body. Paint over yellow halo with gold paint; when dry position and glue behind head. Glue head to body. For manger, cut out any desired manger shape (I used another project as inspiration) from brown felt; cut thin fringe strips of yellow for hay. Affix baby to leaf, tuck some hay behind him and around him; glue down thoroughly. Attach manger on top to give appearance of him being in it.

(7) Chi Rho: Cut out Chi Rho from white sparkly felt and outline with silver paint.

Whew, so there you have it! :) When we store our Jesse Tree symbols and banner, I fold the banner carefully and place in the bottom of a paper-line plastic storage tub. Then I stack each leaf-symbol wrapped individually in a single layer of tissue paper (yes, takes forever, but so did making them, and I'm willing to protect them), and finally, I tuck cedar sachets into several places in the storage tub. I hope this pseudo-tutorial was helpful to anyone who would like to begin celebrating this tradition but didn't really know where to begin.

Preparing for Christmas

2011-11-09T15:41:00.006-05:00

According to sitemeter,the majority of the visits to my blog lately have either been through pinterest or google. What are people searching for? Jesse Tree and Advent symbols! (Well, and monster cookies.) So I thought I'd do a little repost from the archives.

Using the Jesse Tree Advent tree is just one part of how we are celebrating Christmas in a redemptive way in our home. It has been a huge blessing to us the past 2 years, and I can't wait to do it again! The Bible study/devotions (we use them as our curriculum for our evening family worship) begin on November 26th, so if you start now, you've got plenty of time to build one for your own family to use this year! :)

I'll be adding a little note into the original post in italics. Without any further ado...

For our wedding, some sweet friends of us (and hubby's mentor), gave us an amazing book called "Treasuring God in Our Traditions" by Noel Piper. In it, she shares - among other things - how to make Christmas a truly blessed and Christ-centered holiday for the whole family. I knew pretty much immediately that when we had children, I wanted a Christ-focused Advent calendar to help us count down the days to the 25th. But I didn't know where to start!

I had the idea in my head to write/create my own. But I just stalled. It was tough! I happened to mention it to one of the women at church this past winter, and she shared with me that the Women's Ministry had actually created an Advent devotional called a Jesse Tree. It was the first time I had ever heard of any such thing, although since then I seem to see it everywhere. So this is not a first, but it's goooooood. My friend graciously made copies of the devotionals and visual aid/symbols for me to use to make our own.

So the name "Jesse Tree" comes from a passage of Scripture in Isaiah, that proclaims and prophesies that someone descending from the line of Jesse will rally the nations and be our hope. In our church's Jesse Tree, there are 30 daily devotionals beginning on November 26th, and ending Christmas Day. Each day has a symbol, so you add to the tree every day. The devotionals begin with Creation, and go through the Bible and Jesus' lineage to show God's faithfulness and promise, and how all of Scripture points to Jesus as the prophesied Messiah.

(Just a side note, if you're interested in doing something similar, you can check out Ann Voskamp's ebook "The Glorious Coming: A Jesse Tree Advent Celebration" for only $16.)

Okay, so in addition to the daily devotionals, here's what I started with:

This (^) is a xerox copy she gave me along with the daily devotionals; I'm not sure how they did their Jesse Tree - it sort of looks like a bulletin board kind of deal, but I'm not positive. But I pretty much made all of my symbols nearly exactly what is pictured here. Remember, I'm crafty, but not creative. ;)

Anyway, so first I decided how big I wanted our Jesse Tree to be. I knew I wanted a felt banner that we could reuse year after year. So once I figured out the overall size (27"x36") I wanted for the banner (and I actually used some old-school cross-multiplication to determine the size of the tree and leaves, WOOT for algebra!), I made my banner (^).

I sketched out the general tree shape on tissue paper, pinned the tissue paper to my brown felt, cut it out (this took forever), and sewed it to the banner (took even longer). When I sewed the banner together, I left a 1.5" pocket at the top to insert a dowel rod. (I'll hang the banner once I get my dowel, and put some sticky velcro dots on the back of each "leaf.")

You could also do this as a no-sew project using a really sturdy craft glue like Fabri-Tac, available at JoAnn's, Michael's, and Hancock.

Then I cut out 29 leaves (^), because I knew I wanted 2 of the symbols to go directly on the tree or banner.

Then I got to work! The majority of the symbols are done using colored felt (I had a bunch anyway from another project I had previously done), and embellished with fabric "puff" paint. If anyone has any specific questions about how I created a particular leaf symbol, just ask in a comment. :) Okay, so I'll say what each of these are for, going top to bottom, then left to right.

(1) Stump, for Jesse Tree; (2) Earth, for Creation; (3) Apple, for Adam & Eve and fall; (4) Ark with rainbow, for Noah and the flood; (5) Tent and camel, for Abraham and Sarah.

(1) Ram, for Isaac; (2) Ladder, for Jacob; (3) Coat of Colors, for Joseph; (4) 10 Commandments, for Moses; (5) Scarlet cord, for Rahab; (6) Wheat, for Ruth.

(1) Horn of oil, for Samuel; (2) Harp, for David; (3) Crown, for Solomon; (4) Rose, for prophecy; (5) Raven, for Elijah; (6) Whale, for Jonah.

(1) Scroll, for Isaiah; (2) Bible, for Jeremiah; (3) Lion, for Daniel; (4) Trowel and bricks, for Nehemiah; (5) Praying hands, for Zechariah and Elizabeth; (6) Angel, for angels.

(1) Mary praying, for Mary; (2) Tools, for Joseph; (3) Dove, for John the Baptist; (4) Sandals and staff, for shepherds; (5) Star, for the New Star; (6) Manger, for Jesus' birth; (7) Chi Rho.

And here are all the symbols, on the tree (^)! I went from top to bottom, so that the kids will be able to see the tree filling up as we near Christmas Day.

I'm so excited to begin this tradition with our family. Thanks for letting me share it with you!

Hope you enjoyed the trip down memory and crafting lane! If you're interested in getting a copy of the daily devotionals, please let me know.

**Edited to add that I completed a symbol-by-symbol written explanation of how I made each leaf for our Jesse Tree. You can find it here if you're interested!

The Tipping Point

2011-11-04T14:36:00.004-04:00

I had been a mother of 3 for approximately 4 and a half months when I found out - surprise! - I was going to be a mother of 4. Consequently, much of our {very} brief time as a family of 5 was sort of a blur.

I have said for several years now that it takes me about a year to adjust after a new little one is born. Some women transition seamlessly into motherhood, easily adapting and flexing when new treasures join the brood, figuring out how to feed all the mouths, wipe all the bottoms, prepare all the meals, wash all the clothes, teach all the school, clean all the things, and maintain all (most) of the sanity.

I am not one of those moms. I spend at least half of the first year of each child's life in pajamas, just trying to keep from falling too far behind on all the goals. So by the time I got to the point as a mother of 3 where things would have been normal, I was enormously pregnant, wearing support-hose, and trying to make sure everyone had a decent birthday celebration before I gave birth again. Girly Whirl was born exactly a month and a half after Little Man's first birthday.

So perhaps my voice and experience as a mother of 3 is not the most sound, but I've had more than a handful of friends ask me lately. And the funny thing is, I know a lot of people who are currently expecting their third baby, so I wanted to jot this down, because it was true for me and might be for others, and I want to encourage you:

Three is the tipping point.

I understand now why a lot of families have 3 children. Because buddy, when you get to 3, for at least the first part of that first year, you might feel like you just can't get (not to mention stay) caught up. Especially if Thing 1 and Thing 2 are still pretty young and close in age, because you're in the throes of child training. And as a mother of little ones, I can assure you that things would be a lot simpler many days if my name tag read, rather than "Momma" as "Referee." Whew. Then they get bigger. And louder. And the discipleship needs grow more complex. All while the 3 year old is being...well, a three year old, and the baby is crying because he has been waiting for you to change his diaper for quite a little while now.

The three-kid phase was tough for me in other ways, though, ways that are really bigger in a different sense. Really hard and humbling ways. Because even though I have long been the girl trying to impart a sense of freedom to other women and moms about how you just can't do it all, I had still been trying to do it all. And three was when I had to start saying no:

No: I can't bake all our bread anymore. Not right now.

No: I can't cloth diaper these days.

No: I can't help lead Bible study again next year.

No: I can't cook every meal from scratch every single night.

No: I can't make baby food this time around.

No: I can't get to the gym, might as well cancel the membership for a little while.

No: I can't keep my home Martha-Stewart-white-glove-clean like I used to.

No: I can't blog frequently anymore. (Although that wasn't the real reason for my huge hiatus, but true nonetheless.)

{Sigh.} I had been telling other women and moms, "It's okay to say no - you can't do it all," but it took a while for me to believe that was true for me, too. And it was hard for this chick.

But, something else I have said - and really truly believe - is that our time is our most valuable currency. And just like if you spend money on one thing, then the money is not available to spend on something else, I had to choose wisely where I would spend the time that I used to use on the above things.

Everything is an exchange: every single thing I do, means I am not doing something else, or sometimes 4 or 5 something elses. I must weigh and choose, to be sure that the things I am doing will be worth the "not" of something else.

Even now: writing right now means that I am not folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, finishing a sewing project, or working out. Those are just the first 4 things that popped into my mind as I glanced around my quiet napping house. So my "no I can't bake all our bread anymore" was because I needed (kneaded? ha, oh puns) that time for other, more pressing things. Maybe it was school, or snuggling with big kids, or going for walks, or sitting down and reading with the kids, or taking a shower...or anything else that I realized was more important in that moment during this all too short season.

But I must tell you this secret, this secret about the tipping point:

Oh. So. Worth it.

When you get beyond your capacity, you have no other choice to rely on The One whose strength never fails. He never faints, nor grows weary. You press on, and press in, and trust in Him, who promises to be near to you.

You see these little faces that look like your own, and feel warm, wiggly bodies, and wipe away salty bitter tears, kiss boo-boos, rejoice in fruit and growth in their hearts, play silly games, read books a million times, and tuck them in bed with tears in your own eyes when you suddenly look one day and realize how much more of their bed they take up than they used to. And yeah, maybe you don't do all the things you used to, and maybe you don't take a shower for three days in a row, and maybe it's been weeks or months since you had a good long chat with a friend, or worked out, or read a book with chapters in it or dusted your ceiling fans.

But friends, this is what your time is for. As the saying goes, the days are long, but the years are short, and this - these hearts and souls - are what your time has been given you for. So saying no to all those other things, when my world tipped and all the extras spilled out, wasn't so bad: it meant saying yes to these other jobs that I won't have forever to do. I don't get them forever.

My oldest, my firstborn, the one who named me Mama...is huge. I can hug him without bending down - how much longer until I am reaching up? He doesn't really need to hold hands in parking lots, because I can trust him to stay close. And yet I can still close my eyes and see his red, wrinkly face breathing for the first time and smell his yummy newborn smell. I am nearly a third of the way through the time that most parents have with their children before they are ready to spread their wings. A third of our time together is gone into vapor that I never get back.

I can bake bread and dust daily for the rest of my life: I can only play Legos for a little while.

Here's the other thing about that tipping point: it only feels like utter madness for a little while. Just understand - if you're feeling the crunch from a recent arrival, or expecting another little one - that chaos is the new normal, and you should be fine. :) Now, as a mother of four, our house is pretty nuts from kid-up to kid-down. And pretty messy around the clock. But now I don't flip, I just smile and say, "Why, oh why, is there a sock on the kitchen counter?" Because it won't be there forever, you know? We'll settle into our routine and rhythm as a family of 6, and then one day - God willing - it will be disrupted again to make way for another little Thread. And that's awesome, because this is what my time is for.

So my closing thoughts...first, when you hit your own tipping point have a little grace for yourself, and be okay with saying no when you need to.

And the other thing is...don't be too quick to assume that you've reached your utmost capacity just because you're in the utmost chaotic season of your family. This for me is when the youngest is younger than 6 months, and I feel like I can safely say, the oldest is younger than 6 or 7. You might have a completed biological family, but in my humble opinion, the time to make that huge (and possibly permanent) decision is not when you still have a wee baby in the home, and mom's hormones are insane and everyone is sleep-deprived. Those conditions are not conducive to logical thought. Though the flip side to that is that we all have God-given capacities, and while His Word says that blessed is the man whose quiver is full, He doesn't create us all with the same sized quiver, yes? ;) People always assume I'm pro-big-families, when I'm really just pro-families, period. There is a difference, and Kevin DeYoung said it much better than I can. :)

Never meant for this to get so long. {blush} Hoping that if you stuck with it, it was an encouragement to you.

The pressure's on!!

2011-10-19T20:13:00.001-04:00

I love pressure cookers. Just like the crock pot, they are a homemaker's true friend. I kind of think that pressure cookers and slow cookers are BFFs, you know? Opposites attract, and balancing out each other's differences. So a pressure cooker works to cook food super fast, but without rendering chicken into rubber like its high-tech cousin, the microwave. Lock the lid on, turn up the heat, let the pressure build up inside = results in a fraction of the time.

There's this post that I love, this post that I come back to and read over and over - this post about how sometimes there are so many external stressors and pressures in our lives that we feel like we're living in a pressure cooker. But as she says in the post, the pressure in our lives does the work when we let it.

I was telling Hubby the other night that I sometimes feel like our children live in a pressure cooker too. Always being together - this homeschooling that keeps siblings in one anothers' faces and spaces all the time - well, it can certainly bring out many (infinite) opportunities for discipleship that we might otherwise miss out on while our children are still so young; all their ugly comes bubbling right up to the surface and we see it every time, rather than them getting old enough to learn how to hide it. You know, like we grown-ups do.

I do realize that my kids (like anyone) need a little downtime and time away from one another some times, but getting them away from one another is only treating the symptom - the shouting, or the snatching, or the hitting - and not treating the disease: sin and folly bound up in our hearts.

So I feel like I live in a pressure cooker: kids fighting, crying, wanting; phone ringing; things breaking; fridge emptying; homemaking and housekeeping beckoning; husband and children needing.

I recently met with a friend, one of my mommy-mentors, and she gave me this excellent perspective on our children's hearts: How, until they are saved and possess the Holy Spirit themselves, we are their mediator. I began to chew that over in the days following our momma-time, and I started thinking...How many times a day does the Holy Spirit convict my heart: Whoops, that wasn't very wholesome talk to build them up. Yikes, that was a sharp tone of voice. Oops, thinking unkind things about that driver in front of me. Oh, not submitting with a glad heart to Hub's decision about this thing...

The list.goes.on.and.on.

And until my sweet babies have and are attuned to this Voice of God, that is my job for them. So if some audible voice were calling me out for my every sin all day, I'm sure that it would feel relentless! If some other person were responsible for rebuking me for every offense, I bet they would feel like lamenting that some days all they do is correct-correct-correct all the live-long day.

Sound familiar, mommas? ;)

So, while Ann Voskamp says that for us - the saved believers listening to that Voice - we must simply submit, and let the pressure do its work...for my children who are also living in a pressure cooker, I must simply submit...and persevere and do my work. Cooking them is often my cooking, if you get my drift. :)

And the pressure is on.

{Sincere apologies for awful pun.}

Would you forgive me if I shared an actual pressure cooker recipe with you? :)

ps - Look!!! A reasonable-length post from me about something serious on my heart!!! Write it on your calendar, it's not likely to happen again for a while. ;)

Monster Cookies

2011-10-12T14:17:00.006-04:00

With many thanks to my friend Aleasha for giving me this recipe. :) Aleasha is an awesome friend, wife to a brilliant doctor, mommy to three lovely little girls, and a homemaker/chef extraordinaire. But when it comes to blogging...well, you're sort of dropping the ball, hun. ;) Not like I would know anything about slacking about blogging, right???

Okay, so Monster Cookies. These are pretty much to die for. The best cookies

E-V-A-H.

We had some Monster Cookies for the first time when my mother-in-law got us some frozen cookie dough from the Cookie Man. (The Cookie Man, apparently, sells boxes of frozen cookie dough, already in cookie-patty-portions, out of a van. Which sounds very much like the beginning of an episode of Law & Order or something, but the cookies are amazing.) So we had the Monster Cookies and pretty much fell into ecstasies of "Ohmygoodness, these are the best cookies E-V-A-H!!!"

I have since found out that Paula Deen has a recipe for Monster Cookies, but they have moderately healthy stuff in them, like raisins. {Psh.} No, these goodies from 'Leash are the real deal. But heads up: this is the lunch-lady-sized version of the recipe. As in, take a deep breath, and in advance, no, I didn't make a mistake: these really ARE the right proportions of ingredients (and yes, there is no flour in this recipe). I gave the instructions as I had to follow them based on limitations in size of my equipment. The recipe can easily be halved. :) But I don't plan to ever do that, as you'll see when you get to the end.

Monster Cookies (full recipe)

1 pound butter, softened

4 c white sugar

2 lb (one bag) light brown sugar

12 eggs

1 T vanilla

1 T light corn syrup

8 t baking soda

3 lbs peanut butter

In bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy, then beat in sugars. Add eggs, one at a time (stopping to scrape down bowl as needed) until well incorporated. Add vanilla, corn syrup, and baking soda. At this point, I had to stop my mixer and put half of the butter/sugar mixture into a separate mixing bowl - you can use a kitchen scale to make sure you're being totally precise, if you're into stuff like that. (I have a Kitchen-Aid Artisan. Maybe if you have a larger capacity bowl to a stand mixer, you wouldn't need to do this?) To the remaining mixture, I added half the peanut butter and beat well. Then put the peanut butter mixture into yet ANOTHER separate mixing bowl, move the other plain sugar/butter mixture back to stand mixer. Beat in remaining peanut butter. Transfer the second peanut butter mixture to the first "batch" of peanut butter mixture bowl and stir well by hand. You should now have all the dough in one large bowl, mixed and then stirred to a uniform consistency. Eat a huge spoonful of this now, and thank me later. ;)

Then, divide your dough thus far into the 2 enormous mixing bowls as evenly as you can. For this next step you'll need in total...

18 cups old-fashioned oats (takes about one huge and one small can of oats, maybe a smidge more)

1 pound semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 pound M&Ms

1 pound peanut M&Ms

1 pound peanut butter M&Ms

Stir, by hand, the oats into the dough, then the candies. You can use any candies you like (like Reeses Pieces), or plain peanuts if you prefer. Really, the recipe is totally customizable to your own tastes, as well as what you have on hand. So I just added half of each of the above into the 2 mixing bowls holding all the wet ingredients, make sense? I wish I had taken pictures of each "now move this stuff here" step so it would make more sense. The next time I make a batch of dough, maybe I can do that and come back and add those pics in here. :)

Okay, see this? These are the biggest stainless steel mixing bowls I have, and they are also the largest I ever seen at a store that sells products for home use. Perhaps you can find even more mondo ones at restaurant supply places, but y'all: it takes 2 huge mixing bowls just to hold all the dough!!

Drop dough by the serving-spoonful (I just use the serving size spoon that goes with our flatware, although you could certainly go bigger), onto ungreased cookie sheets. Cook at 350*F for 12 minutes. They should look just set in the center, but don't overbake! They don't brown, so you can't judge by that. Just keep a close eye on them; these cookies aren't quite as special if they get too crispy.

This pic is of the first 2 I baked...next to Husband's hand. Holy cow. I had scooped them out with a measuring cup, I think. These were so big that I didn't feel like I could take them anywhere, or freeze them due to their size, so I dropped down to the serving-spoon after that.

I freeze most of my cookie dough, no matter what kind of cookies I make. Then any time sweet Hubby or kids (or me, with my mega-insane sweet tooth) feels like a hot, yummy treat, we can pull out the exact number of cookies we want to bake and go to town on them without all the mixing and clean-up work! :)

To flash-freeze remaining dough, drop by the spoonful onto wax-paper-covered cookie sheets and gently pat into a thick, round cookie shape. (Don't flatten them, but pat down any rough edges that will chip off easily when frozen.) Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until hard, then transfer to ziploc bags. You can bake them from frozen (just a few extra minutes), but I like to let them thaw a bit first. The dough also keeps well in the fridge if tightly covered. Makes approximately 85 cookies scooped with a serving spoon.

Hope you enjoy them!

The problem with devotion based on emotion

2011-09-20T16:06:00.008-04:00

I do not want to write this. I do not, I do not, Sam I Am.

I don't like writing stuff like this for a couple of reasons. First, I don't want anyone to feel like I'm passive-aggressively calling them out. (Which I'm not. Really. The Lord teaches me things, and then I journal/share them.) Second, I don't like writing about stuff like this, because I haven't arrived. I don't do this perfectly, or even moderately well sometimes. And I don't want to come across as self-righteous or sanctimonious. Because I don't feel that way. I feel like I'm processing verbally (it is still verbal processing when it's written and not spoken, right?), and recording this journey to remind myself of later, and also to challenge and encourage people who may be struggling with this very thing.

Third, I don't like writing about stuff like this, because it seems like every time I do, my own personal Wormwood starts hitting me hard with fastballs, curve balls, and maybe even a stop ball here and there. And I do mean actually hitting me with them, not just throwing them in my general direction. {sigh} But as I've said before, I don't always choose what I write about: He Who is the author of every word does. Without any further ado...

I became a Christian in college. While I was dating my funny, intelligent, movie-star-handsome-ohmygoodnesswhyisheeveninterestedinme-boyfriend who is now my husband. Shortly after I moved out of my parents' house and into the dorm, shortly after my first taste of true freedom and independence, shortly after I met the man of my dreams, I encountered Christ in a real and personal and exciting way: Through weeknight praise and worship services, with dim lights, and charismatic speakers, and emotionally stimulating music. Everything was a-MAY-zing. I was on a Jesus-college-boyfriend-freedom high.

Until the bottom fell out. Which it did, periodically, over the next few years. I even remember lamenting then, that "grown-ups" don't get to enjoy the same kind of praise services that college students do, because there just isn't anything like that happening at the average church in the suburbs, you know? Where you go on a weeknight and sing for an hour, listen to a 30-minute sermon, and then sing again, for hours...until the band starts to pack up, which it usually didn't until the crowd started to dwindle. (I feel like I need to add a footnote/disclaimer here, but it might handicap the point I'm trying to make...so it will come at the end.)

The highs were so high! But, oh, the lows. In the lows, I beat myself up - I didn't want to pray, or read my Bible, or tell people about the Jesus I love. I went to church, put on the happy face I thought I was supposed to, "Yes, everything's great!" I felt like I was suffocating inside. One day it would just...lift. My desire to pray magically returned, I felt connected to Jesus, I felt the comfort of His presence near me. Then, I was super-Jesus-girl again: engaging, super spiritual away messages on instant messenger (the precursor to facebook status updates and twitter, of course) and the whole nine yards. Until the rains came. Repeat.

I remember talking to a woman who helped lead one of our college group retreats about this. I remember her telling me, "Honestly, some days I don't feel like submitting to my husband. Or being selfless. Or preparing meals for my kids, or dealing with the car line at their school. But I do - it's my job that I've been called to." That stuck with me. I thought that my relationship with Jesus was defined and determined by how close I *felt* to him, so I thought my "highs" were my holy times, and that the times I felt far from Him were aberrations of sin; my shortcomings and wickedness coming to bear. Or even worse: sometimes I felt like the lows were really normal life - the questioning and the fear.

The heart truly is deceitful above all things.

We cannot trust our emotions to gauge our heart's alignment with the King, nor should we allow them to dictate the depth of our devotion and practices.

Sometimes, I feel like Jesus and I are BFFs. Like we are holding hands and skipping through a meadow filled with wildflowers, and cartoon bunnies are hopping around our feet while unicorns graze in the distance. And there's a rainbow, with an actual smiley face on it, singing something like, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor." Wait, no. That's not holy enough. The rainbow is singing "Oh, How He Loves Us." And there are balloons. And chocolate.

Then, other times, I feel like I am in Mordor, trudging towards Mount Doom.

Alone.

And I'm surrounded by Orcs on all sides, and Gollum is sneaking and skulking around behind me, making my kids disobey in wildly record-breaking innovative ways, and waiting for a chance to bite my finger off just to steal my ring...or as the case may be, the joy I have in my marriage.

Here's the thing: is He less my Savior when I am in Mordor? Does the responsibility that comes with knowledge of His breathed Word change when my fickle heart feels less affectionate and inclined?

Sometimes I don't feel like praying or reading my Bible, but I do those things, because He beckons to me - He exhorts me to remain in the vine, and to call upon Him. There is something to be said for discipline and obedience. After all, now I too don't always feel like being selfless or preparing meals, or teaching school, but I must or the wheels fall off. If I neglect my duties to my family because of my personal feelings about my responsibilities any given day, we're in trouble in a hurry. If I neglect to nourish my soul by pursuing the Father even during the times I don't feel like it, well, the wheels fall off in a very different way.

There are times that are sweet, and times in life that are hard. Times when I feel Him near, and times when I am crying out, "Where are You? Don't leave me alone here!" The real troublesome part of this is that we acclimate very quickly to both the meadow and Mordor. At first, it is not difficult to praise or to plead. But I see in myself a tendency to be in the meadow and saying, "Oh, look at the bunny!" instead of beholding the radiance of the Son. Or to be in Mordor saying, "It's hot, and I'm tired and all these Orcs smell horrible and I'm just generally totally over this, so I think I'll distract myself with {insert your own personal vice here}," instead of faithfully pursuing my call and duty, trusting that the Father's hand is gently guiding and sustaining me even though I may feel utterly abandoned.

I don't really know how to wrap this up (except, perhaps, to solicit prayers for brevity? it seems that my garrulousness has gotten the best of yet another post). I guess I would just want to remind myself, and encourage anyone who may read this not to trust your emotions as a guide, not to mention not to seek out emotional stimulation from a spiritual experience as an indication of its trustworthiness. I would encourage and challenge us all to an obedience and self-discipline that will cause us to behave in Mordor in the ways and habits that come easily to us in the meadows. That we may not be like a shallow riverbed, which rushes clamorously during heavy rains and quickly dries out in the drought, but that we may be like deep, still waters.

Lord, please make me deep waters.

And now, my footnote from earlier: praise Him that I have grown and now understand how many different ways there are to worship - even that our every act is our worship. Even more thankful that I understand that my worship of my God is NOT about my emotional response to the worship time or service. However, I am grateful for those times that, yes, do still come. And I am grateful, as always, for the Church Body we worship with and the ministers and musical artists who lead us in such soul-stirring times of singing, whether it is ancient hymns and organs, or bluegrass bands on Sunday evening.

Thoughts on Homeschooling...

2011-09-16T10:03:00.003-04:00

...from someone much wiser than I.

I'm following Ellen's lead, and posting this here so I'll be able to reference it later. (On second thought, I'll probably just print it out and stick it in my home management notebook in the homeschool section. That probably makes me sound really organized, but please don't buy into the illusion of bloggy moms looking perfect through your computer screen. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. I could write a whole book about the past few days in our home.)

Digress much? I also decided to post this here because I have several blog friends/followers who also homeschool, or are considering it, and I thought you might find the article interesting. Although as Ellen pointed out (or I think you did, right?), this article can easily translate to Christian parenting, all schooling aside.

I would say more about my thoughts about this article except that: (1) I'm still sorting them all out; (2) It would only be gilding the lily; (3) I feel like apart from my own convictions I don't have a homeschooling leg to stand on, only have a kindergartener and pre-schooler in my class; and (4) my kids are trying to kill each other over some matchbox cars. Again.

Here's the link to the original article - Homeschool Blindspots. Actually, my bad: the article posted by Josh Harris was an excerpt from an even longer article found here. Regardless, I decided to copy and paste the article I originally read here in case the links ever go dead.

This is a LONG read. Took me a seriously long time. Wait until you have time, or visit it in short chunks throughout your day - whatever works for you. :) But either way, it's worth the time invested to read and ponder.

Exposing Major Blind Spots of Homeschoolers by Reb Bradley

In the last couple of years, I have heard from multitudes of troubled homeschool parents around the country, a good many of whom were leaders. These parents have graduated their first batch of kids, only to discover that their children didn't turn out the way they thought they would. Many of these children were model homeschoolers while growing up, but sometime after their 18th birthday they began to reveal that they didn't hold to their parents' values.

Some of these young people grew up and left home in defiance of their parents. Others got married against their parents' wishes, and still others got involved with drugs, alcohol, and immorality. I have even heard of several exemplary young men who no longer even believe in God. My own adult children have gone through struggles I never guessed they would face.

Most of these parents remain stunned by their children's choices, because they were fully confident their approach to parenting was going to prevent any such rebellion.

After several years of examining what went wrong in our own home and in the homes of so many conscientious parents, God has opened our eyes to a number of critical blind spots common to homeschoolers and other family-minded people.

1. Having Self-Centered Dreams

The reason that our dreams for our children are so vulnerable to crashing is because they are our dreams, imposed on our own children. As homeschool parents we make great sacrifices and invest a great deal to influence how our children turn out. The problem is that love for children can be lost in love for personal success as a parent. Our concern for ourselves ends up overshadowing our love for our children.

When my oldest son was 18 he developed habits of disrespectful communication and I had to ask him to leave my home for a season. Needless to say, my wife and I were devastated by the discipline we imposed. In the first month he was gone we wept each day for him. We were grieved that he was now unprotected from the junk from which we had worked so hard to shelter him, but more than that, I was heartbroken that my dreams for him and our family would no longer come true. I remember speaking the words to him - "Son, you've ruined my dreams." You see, I had a dream for my family and it involved adult children who lived at home humbly under parental authority, and who would one day leave home to marry, after following my carefully orchestrated courtship process. But now, my son had gone and "messed up" my perfect dream. Nothing is wrong with dreaming of good things for your children, but the truth was, my dream for my son was mostly about me.

In hindsight, what was particularly grievous was that I was more worried about the failure of my dream of "success" than the fact that my son and I had a broken relationship. Although he did come back and was restored to us 4 months later, it still took me years to realize that I had contributed to the damaged relationship.

It is only natural for parents to have high hopes and dreams for their children. However, when we begin to see our children as a reflection or validation of us, we become the center of our dreams, and the children become our source of significance. When that happens in our home it affects the way we relate with our children, and subtly breaks down relationship.

2. Raising Family as an Idol

When we allow the success of our family to determine our security or sense of wellbeing we are seeking from it something God intends us to receive from Him. I am describing idolatry. If homeschoolers are not careful, family can easily become an idol.

At times in their history the Israelites worshipped idols. They didn't always forsake worship of the living God - they merely served other gods with Him. Sometimes they simply made an idol of something good. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they elevated issues of holiness higher than the very God who declared them holy (Mat 12:1-8; 23:24). An idol is anything other than God in which we seek security and fulfillment. It may be something biblical or good, but if it has the power to determine our wellbeing, we have elevated it higher than God meant for us. As those who are devoted to our families, and therefore invest a great deal of time, energy, and heart, it is easy to elevate the family too high.

A great problem with idolatry is that idols require sacrifice, and we end up sacrificing relationship with our children for the idol of the family. When we elevate the image of the family, we effectively trade our children's hearts for our reputation.

3. Emphasizing Outward Form

Preoccupation with results often leads to emphasis on outward form. When we are preoccupied with achieving results it is natural to admire the results others seem to have achieved with their children. We like the way the pastor's kids sit reverently in the front pew and take notes of their father's sermon, so we go home and begin to teach our children to sit reverently and to take notes. What we don't know is that the pastor's kids conduct themselves with reverence and attentiveness not because he "cleaned the outside of the cup" and simply drilled them to do so -- he lived a genuine love for Jesus that was contagious, and watched as the fruit was born (Matt 23:26). Parents are destined for disappointment when they admire fruit in others and seek to emulate merely that expression of fruit in their own children. Fruit is born from the inside -- not applied to the outside.

Imagine that the fruit you desired was the edible variety, so you went out into your yard and planted an apple tree. Just suppose that one day, while you were waiting for the apples to begin growing on your tree, you caught a glimpse of a neighbor's apple tree. You noticed in admiration that its branches were laden with big, luscious apples. What would you do? Would you run to the produce market to buy some apples, then go home, and in the dead of night, tie them onto your tree? If you did, the sight of your tree might really impress your neighbors. But that is not what you would do. You would likely go to the neighbor and ask how he cared for and fertilized his tree to produce such fruit. It is the same with our children - luscious fruit will be born from what we put into them - not from what we tie onto them. As a matter of fact, in no time, the fruit that we put onto our children will rot and fall off.

In the homeschool community I have observed that there can be a great emphasis on outward appearance, whether it is dressing for excellence, modesty, grooming, respectful manners, music style, or an attitude of sober reverence in worship. Some even take their children down a country path of humble fashions, raising food, and making bread. Nothing is wrong with any of these things, but we must be careful - we can model for our children outward changes and easily fall into molding their behavior and/or appearance, while missing their hearts. In some circles emphasis on the outward is epidemic.

A friend of mine, a homeschool mom, just passed away of cancer. In the week before she died, I asked her if she had any regrets in her life. She told me she wished she had baked less bread - she said if she had it to do over again she would buy bread and spend more time with her children. She had invested time and energy in pursuing the "path" because she thought it was part of the spiritual homeschool package.

Let us not forget that Jesus came against the Pharisees for their preoccupation with what they felt were legitimate expressions of spirituality. They measured holiness by what was avoided and by what would be seen by others (Mat 6:1-2, 5, 16; 23:5-6, 23-28; John 7:24). The Pharisees were earnest in their religion, but they were preoccupied with outward expressions of holiness rather than hearts of humility and love (Micah 6:8) that would bear genuine fruit. I find it fascinating that in the gospels there is not one mention of Jesus coming against immodesty, even though among his followers were prostitutes and the like. Jesus emphasized cleaning up the inside while the Pharisees were the ones preoccupied with cleaning up the outside. We must ask ourselves: Which are we more like - Jesus or the Pharisees? Even now do we justify ourselves, insisting we emphasize cleaning up both the inside and the outside?

I know that some react strongly to these assertions, so let me emphasize that I do want my wife and daughters to adorn themselves modestly. God did address it once in the New Testament (1Tim 2:9), but we must ask ourselves, is it possible that we have elevated modesty, or other issues of outward form, higher than Jesus did? If he only mentioned modesty once in the epistles and never mentioned it in his earthly ministry, but instead emphasized the importance of a changed heart bearing outward fruit, should we not follow his example and concentrate on reaching our children's hearts? Because He did address it in the first epistle to Timothy, let us teach our children the value of keeping private that which should be, but let us be careful of thinking that just because they look moral on the outside that they have God's values on the inside. Concurrently, let us also be careful of measuring everyone else's enlightenment by what we have decided is modest, spiritual, or holy.

4. Tending to Judge

In setting standards for our family, each of us must work through a process of evaluation and analysis to decide what is safe, wise, or permissible. Once we become convinced of our personal standards, not uncommonly, it follows that we believe they should apply to others as well.

The Pharisees belittled others who didn't hold to their standards. We have gone their way when we judge others. It is easy to miss this area of pride because we may not express our judgments "arrogantly"; we may instead wrap them in compassionate-sounding words. Arrogance wrapped in concerned tones is deceiving.

Pride is so deceptive that we won't know our judgments are even judgments. We will think we are just making observations and feeling pity, when in fact, we are looking down on others from our lofty place of confident enlightenment. It is a high view of ourselves that allows us to condescend to and belittle others in our mind. And if you already knew all this, be careful - pride will even cause us to be amazed that others didn't see what was so obvious to us.

Typically, when we belittle others who don't measure up to our standards, we will also imagine others are judging us. Consequently, we will find ourselves frequently being defensive. We assume that others will think lowly of us for some perceived inadequacy, so we offer unsolicited explanations and clarifications for us or our children. For example, let's say we walked past a TV at Sears and saw something of interest - when we tell others what we saw, we are careful to clarify that we saw it at Sears and weren't watching a TV at home. If we live under fear of judgment, not only will we tend to be on the defensive, but whenever we are in a public setting where our children might be "watched," we will put pressure on them.

When pride is working its work in us, we sincerely believe our personal opinions reflect God's utmost priorities and standards. What we believe to be our "enlightened" perspective becomes a filter by which we gauge others' spirituality, and therefore limits our options for fellowship. We develop a very narrow definition of what we call "likeminded" people, based on the outworkings of our values and opinions. Now we are on a path to exclusivity when we will no longer associate with those who will be with us in eternity. Is it possible we have lost sight of fellowship based on love and devotion to Jesus, and have substituted personal standards and a narrow view of Christian liberty?

There are several serious consequences of raising children in a home marked by pride and judgment. Children may grow up also judging others. Or, they may hide their real values, acting as though they embrace our values, when, in fact, they are simply seeking to avoid discipline and lectures at home. Or, they may see the shallowness of our legalistic faith that consists primarily of "avoid this, wear that, attend this," and not be attracted to it in the least.

5. Depending on Formulas

Homeschool parents often take a formulaic approach to parenting. Committed to achieving results with our children, we look for formulas and principles to ensure our success. Knowing the Bible is full of the wisdom and promises of God, we look to it for its self-working principles and promised methods. Yet, there's a problem with that. We are commanded to trust in God, not in formulas (John 14:1; Ps 37:5; 62:8). There is a monumental difference.

Trust in formulas is really dependence upon ourselves to carry out a procedure correctly. But anyone who really understands the grace of the gospel knows that we cannot take personal credit for any spiritual accomplishments. We are totally God's workmanship (Eph 2:10; Phil 2:13; 1:6) and everything good in our lives is a gift from Him (James 1:17). We can do absolutely nothing by ourselves for which we can take credit (Eph 2:8-9; Gal 6:14; Rom 4:2; 1 Cor 1:28-31; 2 Cor 11:30). Yet many of us lean toward a formulaic mentality, because our fallen natures are drawn toward self-reliance. We want to feel that by our own efforts (works) we have achieved something that will make us acceptable to God - by nature we are legalistic.

God doesn't want us to trust in principles, methods, or formulas, no matter how "biblical" they seem. God wants us to trust in HIM!

6. Over-Dependence on Authority and Control.
Fruitful training of children and roses require a goal, a plan, and diligence in labor. However, the difference is that roses have no mind of their own and only grow as they are allowed. Children are people--self-determining individuals--and they ultimately choose how they will respond to parental influence.

No amount of parental control or restriction will guarantee that a child will turn out exactly as directed. Obviously, our training increases the likelihood our children will cling to the faith when they reach maturity, or turn back to Christ if they do enter a season of rebellion, but our training does not guarantee the desired outcome.

I know that some will struggle with the assertion that parents do not have total control over the outcome of their parenting, because of Proverbs 22:6. And I would have struggled too, ten years ago, but upon examination of the passage in question, I am convinced that it is a verse meant as an admonition of wisdom, not as a promise and guarantee of outcome. Like many of the sayings in Proverbs it is written as a statement of probability and not as a promise.

Solomon set for us a great example of balanced parenting - he admonished his young adult children and gave them commandments, but he knew that for them to honor his commands he needed their hearts. That's why he said, "My son, give me your heart and let your eyes keep to my ways" (Prov 23:26). The apostle Paul knew how much he needed the hearts of those he exhorted, and therefore told them "... although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I appeal to you on the basis of love..." (Phile 1:8-9).

If we are to have significant influence of our teenage children we must have their hearts. Winning their hearts means gaining the opportunity to influence who they are, not just what they do.

7. Over-Reliance Upon Sheltering

An over-dependence on control in a family is often accompanied by an over-reliance on sheltering of children. It is not uncommon for homeschool parents to feel that since they filter whatever their children see and hear, they will control the results in their lives. That was me for many years. I remember saying to people, "I am controlling the influences in my children's lives, so I am going to control the outcome." I was absolutely certain that my children would be exempted from significant temptation and from developing particular bad habits because I was controlling what touched their lives.

In the last five years I have heard countless reports of highly sheltered homeschool children who grew up and abandoned their parents' values. Some of these children were never allowed out of their parents' sight and were not permitted to be in any kind of group setting, even with other "like-minded" kids, yet they still managed to develop an appetite for the world's pleasures. While I've seen sheltered children grow up and turn away from their parents' standards, conversely, I've known some Christian young people who went to public school, watched TV, attended youth groups, and dated, yet they walk in purity, have respectful, loving relationships with their parents, and now enjoy good marriages. Their parents broke the all the "rules of sheltering," yet these kids grew up close to their families and resilient in their walks with Christ.

Protecting from temptations and corrupting influences is part of raising children. Every parent shelters to one degree or another. All parents shelter - they just draw their lines in different places.Protecting our children is not only a natural response of paternal love, but fulfills the commands of God. The Scriptures are clear that we are to make no provision for our flesh (Rom 13:14) and are to avoid all corrupting influences (2 Cor 6:17-7:1). It warns us that bad company corrupts good morals (1 Cor 15:33) and that those who spend too much time with bad people may learn their ways (Prov 22:24-25) and suffer for it (Prov 13:20). Just as our Father in heaven will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear (1 Cor 10:13), we rightly keep our children out of situations they will lack the moral strength to handle. Young children are weak and we are to protect the weak (1 Thes 5:12).

God understood the vulnerability of human nature when he gave the Israelites instructions before they entered the Promised Land. He told them to chase out the idol-worshipping Pagans in the land, lest His people associate with them and be drawn into idolatry (Ex 23:32-33; Num 33:51-56; Josh 23:7-13). The Israelites disregarded God's protective warning and allowed some Pagans to remain in the land. Subsequently, each successive generation of young people was lost to idolatry. God instructed them to shelter their families, but their neglect of His warnings brought pain to their children and to their grandchildren for many generations.

However, we are imbalanced when sheltering from harm is the predominant expression of our parenting. Sheltering is a critical part of parenting, but if parents keep it their primary focus, the children will grow up ill equipped to handle the temptations in the world.A child isolated from disease may appear to be of the greatest health to his parents, but the health of the human body is only proven by how it withstands an attack. A weak constitution succumbs to every germ and virus - a strong one fights them off. Our spiritual and moral health is developed and proved in the same way.

If we isolate our kids from the world until they are adults they may appear to us to be spiritually minded and strong in character. However, it is how they ultimately engage the world that proves their spiritual resilience. This is because sheltering does not transform the human heart - it merely preserves it, temporarily.

It is true that a boxer trains without an opponent until his coach decides he is ready for an actual fight. And it is true that a farmer might raise plants in a greenhouse until they are mature enough to be transplanted and face the various elements of nature. So also, we keep our children away from bad influences when they are young and need to grow unhindered in character and spiritual wisdom. The problem is that sheltering without significant preparation to engage the world fails to equip them. In fact, it may insure that they will fall in their first solo encounters.

Growing up isolated from temptation can develop a child who appears spiritually strong, but the appearance is not reality. When I was in college I moved to northern California to live for a summer in a Christian commune. I was somewhat isolated from the world and surrounded by an amazing support system of my fellow "Jesus people." I remember feeling so full of faith, so committed to holiness, and so in love with God that summer. However, the "spirituality" I felt and the level of holiness I achieved was not real and could not endure testing. At the end of summer I returned to college in Southern California and discovered that I had not developed true spiritual muscles - when faced with temptation I fell flat on my face every time. The communal environment, isolated from significant temptation, had not prepared me for the battle I would face in the world. Valid spiritual growth required that I face temptation and develop the capacity to resist it, which eventually I did. My isolation from temptation had left me like a boxer who had shadow boxed, trained rigorously, and looked good in his trunks, but had never faced a sparring partner, let alone a true opponent.

I believe that a primary reason we over-rely on sheltering is because it is easy. It requires no planning or expenditure of energy. It takes minimal immediate brainpower. we simply assess that something might be harmful and say to our children, "No." I don't know if I would go so far as to call it lazy parenting, but I will say that investing in our children takes a lot more work and a lot more time.

8. Not Passing On a Pure Faith

We've all heard it said that faith is caught and not taught. The Galatian church polluted their faith by seeking to make themselves acceptable to God with what they did or didn't do" (Gal 3:3). In the same way, we may have started off years ago with a simple, undefiled faith, but the more we got caught up in all the "works" of intense parenting, the more we moved away from a simple faith contagious to our children. It is critical for our sake, let alone for our children, that we enjoy a life-giving faith in Christ with no religious trappings added to it.

As I look back, I see that with my older children I was too concerned with how they were perceived by others. I saw their behavior as a reflection on me, and I wanted to look good. They, therefore, sensed in me a measure of pretentiousness--not the genuineness of faith that would have drawn them to me or to the Jesus I spoke about. My sincere concern for their character was overshadowed by my concern for my reputation. I have discovered that, like me, multitudes of parents want their children's hearts but live a faith that fails to completely attract them.

9. Not Cultivating a Loving Relationship With Our Children

Relationships between parents and teens are weakest in control-oriented homes. Bev and I treated our children as if they were "projects." The more they became projects, the less we had significant relationship. The less we had relationship, the more we lost their hearts. Without their hearts, the less we were able to influence them or their values. We regularly spent hour coaching and admonishing them during the teen years, not realizing that without their hearts, the best we could do was make more rules and devise new consequences. The consequences affected the outside, but not the inside.

Our Story
When my oldest son was almost 16 we let him get his first job washing dishes at a restaurant managed by a Christian friend of ours. As diehard shelterers we wrestled with whether or not our son was ready to enter the world's workforce. We knew we couldn't shelter him forever, and so finally concluded that he should be old enough to send into the world two nights a week. What we didn't realize was that he would be working with drug-using, tattooed, partiers, and our Christian friend was never scheduled to work our son's shift.

Within a month it became apparent that our son's new work associates were having an effect on him. He came home one evening and asked, "Dad, can I dye my hair blue?" After my wife was finally able to peal me off the ceiling, I laid into him, reminding him whose son he was, and that I would not have people at church telling their children not to be like the pastor's son. I explained that just because he wanted to use washable dye, it didn't make me any happier. (Note that my intense reaction had to do with "outward appearances" and the impact on me.)

Of course, my wife and I immediately began to evaluate whether we had made a mistake by letting him take the job. After an intense discussion we decided to coach him more carefully and let him keep his job.

Two months later he came home from work and asked me if he could pierce his ear. Again, my wife had to peal me off the ceiling. He thought it might be okay since he wanted a cross earring -- like I was supposed to be happy, because it would be a "sanctified" piercing. If that wasn't enough, he also wanted to get a tattoo! But it was going to be okay, because it would be a Christian tattoo!

As I was looking back on this experience several years later, something my son said shortly after he started his job kept coming back to me. When I picked him up the second night of work, he got in the car with a big smile on his face and said "They like me!" As I dwelt on that comment, it suddenly came clear to me - my son had finally met someone who liked him for who he was. Few others in his entire life had shown him much acceptance, especially not his mother and I. It is no exaggeration - in our efforts to shape and improve him, all we did was find fault with everything he did. We loved him dearly, but he constantly heard from us that what he did (who he was) wasn't good enough. He craved our approval, but we couldn't be pleased. Years later, I realized he had given up trying to please us when he was 14, and from then on he was just patronizing us.

The reason our son wanted to adorn himself like his work associates, was because they accepted him for who he was. He wanted to fit in with those who made him feel significant. He wanted to be like those who gave him a sense of identity. The problem wasn't one that could be solved by extended sheltering - he could have been sheltered until he was 30 and he still would have been vulnerable. The problem was that we had sent our son into the world insecure in who he was. He went into the world with a hole in his heart that God had wanted to fill through his parents.

Whether believer or unbeliever, those young people who are least tempted to follow the crowd are those who are secure in themselves and don't need the approval of others. The Bible calls insecurity the fear of man - it is allowing other's opinions of us to affect our values and choices.

The Solution

In the Bible we see that people obeyed God for two reasons - fear and love. King David sang of his love for God (Ps 18:1; 116:1; 119:159) and he also sang of the fear of God (Ps 2:11; 22:25; 33:8). God wants His followers to be drawn to Him out of love (Jer 31:3), and that's why it is His kindness that leads us to repentance (Rom 2:4). But He also wants us to be kept on the path by fear of His authority (Luke 12:5; 1 Pet 2:17). That's why He told the Israelites He wanted both their fear and their love; "And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut 10:12). With our children, it should be the same.

Those who have the most power to influence our hearts are those to whom we are drawn: those who succeed with our values (which is what a hero is), those who can benefit us, those who make us feel valuable, and those who have earned our respect.

If our children grow up motivated only by fear of consequence, they will eventually get away with what they can whenever we are not around (Eph 6:6). If we have their hearts they will seek to honor us whether we are present or not, and their hearts will remain open to our influence.

I refer you to the apostle Paul who modeled this approach to leadership perfectly, "Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love..." (Phile 1:8-9a). Paul's pattern with the churches suggests he understood that appeals to love were more powerful than commands and threats.

Conclusion

I am convinced that the most contagious parenting is living a heartfelt faith before your children. Fruitful interaction is not about what you do to your young people, but who you are with them. It's about having a real faith in God, and expressing it in a real relationship with a real person--not about methods and self-working principles. God intends that the side-effect of loving Jesus and enjoying the grace of the gospel will be that all people--including our children--will be touched by the Savior in us. I pray in Jesus' name that as you read these words you will experience the grace of God in a fresh and new way.

Reb Bradley is a writer and national conference speaker. Read the complete article from which this excerpt was taken here.

Pop Quiz!

2011-09-07T21:18:00.005-04:00

But don't worry - it's multiple choice. :)

What is worst:

a) I got so behind on laundry that my Wild Man didn't have any clean pajamas...again.

b) I dug out these shorts and convinced him they were cool because they have a Bulldog on them.

(never mind the fact that they're my old dance line shorts)

c) That I still have teeny-tiny shorts that I wore in my skinny-like-whoa days that I would not ever wear in public again...but I kept them just because they're my Georgette shorts.

d) My 5 year old fits into shorts I wore when I was 20. Although they're considerably longer on him than they ever were on me.

Ahhh, embracing it. :) Oh, and those 2 laundry baskets that are literally overflowing next to him are 3 days' worth of laundry, minus towels. Must resume my laundry schedule!!

Overheard in my house...

2011-08-27T10:11:00.004-04:00

My sweet, amazing husband is giving me a morning off. Not only that, but he has taken all 4 kiddos with him to go shopping. For them. When the 3 oldest will all have to try stuff on.

Whoa, right?

So anyway, we talked about what that would mean in terms on when to leave, what to pack, what to expect, how to navigate having 2 babies in a store if he didn't want to wear one of them, etc. I told him I would pack the bag for him and help him get everyone out the door, and they could plan to leave just after breakfast. (Which, moms with only littles know that "right after breakfast" is usually a minimum of an hour after the last fork and spoon are set down, because everyone must be dressed, pottied, diapered, baby fed one last time, etc.)

So then the following conversation happened:

Him: Okay. But I really need a haircut too. So after I get back tomorrow morning, I'll go do that.

Me: {Uncontrollable laughter.}

Him: What?

Me: Ohhh, you think you're going to get back here while it's still morning. That's adorable.

And now, I'm off to have a deliciously long time alone in the Word, and a delicious coconut mocha from St*rbucks. Hope you all have an equally refreshing weekend!

Book giveaway results

2011-08-22T17:05:00.003-04:00

Thanks for your sweet comments - I wish I could send one to everyone!! Watch the video for the winner. :)

(I hate random number generators, so I did it this way instead. For your entertainment.)

The Lasts

2011-08-15T00:12:00.005-04:00

This is why I don't nap. Because today I took a nap, and now it's a quarter past midnight, and I'm sitting here wide awake. And man, am I going to be hurting for it tomorrow.

But the good news is you win out of this deal!

Around Mother's Day I was in Lifeway and this book caught my eye...

I picked it up and quickly read through it in the store, and then started digging through my purse for a not-completely-used-up kleenex to dry my eyes. What a sweet, sweet story! It's all about how we often don't know when the "last time" is that our children do something, and how the author wishes she had/plans to in the future hold on and cherish each moment.

I started thinking about all that we've already seen pass along, and what may soon be gone forever: the way a child prays (or in some cases, refused to), the way she used to bonk her head to mine as a baby, the way he says "brecktiss" instead of breakfast, Little Man's mid-play snuggles...everything has a last time. What if we are not - for whatever reason - blessed with more children? Will I remember the magic and wonder of feet pressed against my abdomen and those tiny stretches?

Living amidst the laundry and the toenails, it can be easy to not cherish each little moment. It's hard - eight weeks in - to cherish the middle of the night feeds which just 6 weeks ago were my favorite part of the day. But one day soon, it will be the last time my Girly Whirl needs me in the middle of the night. Will I know it? Will I feel it in her tiny wispy breath on my neck that it's our last quiet night alone together before she moves on to the next growing-up thing to do?

This morning I walked Wild Man to his new Sunday school class - the kindergarten class, oh my stars. I have always sworn that I would not be a helicopter mom, a hoverer, especially with goodbyes around my children's peers. Partly because I know they love me, and we have lots of sweet and affectionate time at home, and I don't need the validation of squeezing expressions of love out of them in front of their friends. Also because I want to be sensitive to how embarrassing it can be for kids - I don't want to embarrass or exasperate my children needlessly, because how is that loving and full of grace towards them? Plus, as children grow and parenting needs shift, I have no doubt that I will occasionally have opportunities to embarrass the britches off of my children with plenty good reason, so I'd rather not do so when it doesn't have a stake on their training and discipline, you know?

So I walked him to his line for his class, reminded him that we'd come get him after Sunday school just like always even though his class was in a different place, etc etc. (The boy is his daddy made over, and doesn't do change very easily.) I got a smile out of him, though, so I was satisfied. "Love you bud," with a gentle chuck to his belly, "See you after Sunday school." "See ya, mom."

And I started to walk away, but then I heard "Mama!" Every mom knows her own little ones' voices. I turned, to his twinkling grin, and nearly melted as he blew me a kiss. How many more goodbyes in front of friends will we have when my tender-heart lavishes his momma with love undeserved?

I memorized his face, blew him back a kiss, and then walked back to the worship service in a bit of a daze...carefully etching the details into memory. Cherishing this moment.

Can I spread the love? I'd like to give away a copy of this book. It's nothing terribly profound - just sweet. Really more of a book for mommas than for little ones, although my kids enjoy it as well. Just leave a comment and I'll pick a number out of a hat or something at the end of the week. Or as soon as I can, laundry permitting. ;)

** Please make sure I have a way to get in touch with you - if your blogger profile isn't public with an email option or if we're not facebook friends, be sure to leave your email address in your comment. Thanks! :)

Math and Amazement and Other things

2011-07-13T22:58:00.002-04:00

Fifty.

Including my own, I am responsible for 50 fingernails and 50 toenails, five bodies to bathe and dress every day (sometimes multiple times a day), five noses and five bottoms to wipe, two heads of hair to fix and comb tangles out of, eight hands to wash before 3 meals a day, five plates of food to be filled three times a day and then washed (not to mention the 400 bottles), 3 closets and 4 chests of drawers full of clothes to stain-treat, wash, dry, and fold (and sometimes iron), and one whole house to clean and put away all the things that seem to grow legs and willfully wander away from their proper home. Wash, rinse, repeat. Can you do the math on that? I sure can't.

Yes, I posted before that my real job - the one that I will be graded on, the one that usually doesn't have anything tangible and visible at the end of the day to show for all my efforts - is love. Speaking life (by Grace) into their heads and hopefully their hearts. Pointing them towards the Cross. And I love this often-seemingly impossible, never-ending, deeply rewarding part of my job.

But sometimes the other stuff - the toenails and the noses and the laundry - is so relentless and clamorous that it sort of chokes out everything else. When the "Will you please read me this book?" really truly - and sadly - must be answered with no, because if Mama doesn't wash these bottles, then Girly Whirl will not be able to eat, and do you hear her crying? She is hungry, baby, and Mama must do just this one little thing first...

Even now. I feel like if I don't write, I might explode. Because I am a verbal processor, and often don't know how my posts will end until they do. And I can tell that I've got something to say, but I must keep writing in order to find out what. But a kitchen full of happy-mess (the big kids and I made cookies this morning) sits behind me, and clean laundry is wrinkling in Hubby's recliner waiting for my willing hands, and I'm pretty sure I hear sounds that do not even approach "rest-time" coming from the big ones' room, and the less-than-happy sounds of a precious tiny one who didn't get all her burps out before I laid her down coming from my room...

I'm back. Hours and hours later. And I've been thinking about it all afternoon and evening. I must confess, sometimes I am a little envious of new moms, or moms with only 1 or 2 children. But not for the reasons you might think.

Really, I think the thing that made me start thinking about it all is a sweet post one of my bloggy friends wrote. Our little girls are just 4 days apart in age, although Brittany is basking (which roughly translates to breastfeeding 16 hours a day) in her first baby. The newborn honeymoon. :)

So I read that post about her daughter's first month on Earth, and I was in tears: I get it, because I feel that way too. And you don't have to spend much time surfing around bloggy land to find precious posts about any number of mundane days turned into extraordinary memories just from the simple act of recording them - writing it down. Frankly, you can probably go back in my blog archives to when I, too, had only 2 children and find some of them. :)

I honestly don't think that 4 children is a mega-family, although I'm still settling in and experiencing some pretty normal growing pains adjusting to all the math and the meeting needs times four (plus one, if you count Hubby, plus one more if I count myself). The day I came home from the hospital I described to my sister-in-law as almost an out-of-body experience: I was sitting on the sofa in the playroom holding GW, watching my 3 big kids playing and whooping it up and just generally being awesome, and I just kept thinking, "There are so many of them! How did this happen?"

But even so. The thing is that no matter how many babies you have, the wonder never wears off. I still felt the same excitement and awe at her first tiny kicks and thumps that I did with Wild Man. I still cheer and clap when Little Man learns a new sign. I still hug them long and tight, reluctant to let go.

This wonder...it never wears off.

I want to be a mom who has time to write down the sweet, everyday things that my children do on a calendar that I'll give them when they are grown. Who keeps a baby book, or even photo albums, for crying out loud. Who blogs monthly updates on my kids and the new baby's progress into toddlerhood.

But all the math and other stuff - the noses and the laundry and the bottoms - it's all degenerating me into a mom the likes of which I looked upon with horror when I myself was a new mom: the kind of mom who would stare off into the distance and say vague things like, "Colic? Yeah, I guess...one of them had it...maybe LL? No, I don't remember how long it lasted. How long has he been walking? Oh, I'm not sure...at least a month or so, right Husband?"

I take a lot of comfort in the fact that the exact day my children cut teeth doesn't matter nearly as much as my real job does, but still, I sometimes fear that when they are grown they will think it matters. The truth, though, is that while I know what the real work is, the math and all the other stuff has to get done too. And that's my job. The wash, rinse, repeat relentlessness of the daily grind for my family of six (!!) doesn't stop me from seeing and taking joy in all the real work, the little moments of spectacular life that sneak up out of nowhere, but it does take the time that I would love to use to record it all.

Nevertheless, I think this is why I take a million pictures. Probably more accurately around a dozen or so a day. (And thank goodness for data encryption on files, so I can look back at photos and say, Ah yes, LM started walking on May 6.) But I take so many pictures - and I actually am working on photo books, but progress is slow when I am literally thousands of photos behind - because I want to remember, and re-live these gloriously mundane extraordinary everyday moments.

One day, I will be old, and my babies will be cradling babies of their own. And we will pull out the photo books to see who my grandbabies look like. And while I may not have the time to write it all down word-for-word these days, I hope and pray that I can smile and say then, "I remember that day...you were..." and tell them their stories. Our stories. Of our gloriously mundane extraordinary everyday life when they were small for just a short time. And I know I'll miss these days, and I'll say then that I'd give anything to come right back here for just a little while. Toenails and all.

Breastfeeding and Dustbusters

2011-07-03T16:07:00.004-04:00

AKA, I'm proud of my pancreas. :)

I have shared - in great length and detail - the ins and outs, the practicalities and the agonies of our breastfeeding experiences with our sweet children.

I have to say, in a year's time - a whole trip around the sun's worth of growing in grace - how much my Sweet Savior has healed my heart. I still ache to be able to feed my children the way that God has designed {most} women's bodies to do, but He has shown me that it isn't His design for me. As I mentioned in the last post, my body is clearly built for birthing. ;) But breastfeeding not so much.

Do any of your parents have an old, ghetto dustbuster at their house? Or do you?

You know the kind that you turn it on, and when you first start it up, it's kinda like

VVVRRRRRRRRR!!!!

And then, once it's been on for approximately 6.5 seconds, it immediately begins to deteriorate into something more like

vvrrrrrr

Until within the first 30 seconds of operation, it sort of sounds like

VVVVVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Well, during preparation for Little Man's arrival last spring, one of my friends (who is also a lactation consultant) mentioned to me after exhaustively going through my history that based on my history and testimony, the only logical conclusion is that I have/experience something called primary lactation failure. Turns out that in fact, I do. Basically, what that means is that when I have a baby, my milk comes in (lactogenesis) just fine. More than fine, actually - I'm usually engorged up to my collarbone and way up under my arms. And I have an inhibited letdown reflex, but once I "teach" my body how to let down, even that works just fine. Too fine, actually, as I currently let down at the slightest provocation.

I will never forget...Girly Whirl being just a few days old. Sitting up in bed in the middle of the night, wide awake with tears of joy streaming down my face all glowing with wonder and waking up Husband so that he could listen with me to the first thing in my life that I could truly describe as music to my ears: thup-gulp, thup-gulp, thup-sputter-gulp...I will never forget opening a diaper and seeing the most gorgeous yellow curds that have ever graced this earth. I wanted to post a picture of it on facebook. (But I didn't, and we're all so glad, right?)

But what primary lactation failure also means is that, for completely unknown reasons, about 5-7 days after lactogenesis, my breasts close shop. Just 5 days after the above paragraph, sending all the big kids outside to play so I could nurse in a silent house...listening, praying, straining my ears...and GW only swallowing 3 times in 40 minutes of nursing. Milk production essentially shuts down to basically nothing. Well, not nothing. Just enough milk to let me know that I still have some and stain a shirt (but not soak through a bra), and when we're lucky and timing things well, I can get it into my little girl.

Basically, I'm a ghetto 80s dustbuster. My milk goes

VVVVVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

And it's oh, so frustrating. Oh, so maddening. But I continue to rest in the assurance that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. The important thing is that my daughter gets fed and grows - I am so thankful that we live in a country where formula is available and {mostly} affordable, and we have clean water to make it. And she loves her snuggle-nums, which is what we call our comfort nursing time. I am a pacifier, and I love it. When she is sad, she wants me. :) And I know that she is still getting some breast milk.

My sweet Husband and I were talking about this just a week ago, and he was asking me why it was so hard, why it is so heartbreaking. I told him that I feel...broken.

The truth is - and I don't want you to feel that I am over-spiritualizing this - but the thing is, I am broken. We all are a broken people. We live in a fallen world, subject to disease, suffering, death, and brokenness. Nothing truly functions perfectly the way that God intended His creation to do at the outset of His beautiful world. It has been marred, forever changed, and we bear the scars of sin-mutilation on our hearts and our flesh. We must live in these bodies with the daily, hourly, and sometimes moment by moment reminders of the consequences of sin. Our own specific momentary struggles, our present sufferings, are not capriciously and mindless meted out amongst Creation: they are unique to each of us, and intended for our good in a way that we cannot understand this side of Jordan. And they truly are not worth comparing to the glory that is to come.

Then, too, there is some practical information about PLF. My boobs are broken, in a manner of speaking. I am in the corner with 4% of women whose bodies inexplicably stop producing milk for our babies, for no discernible reason, on no predictable time table. I think that when Wild Man and Little Lady were babies, I really truly thought it was my fault. La Leche League and most lactation consultants don't help in this regard, not to mention "mompetition" mommies at the park. (Not my friends, this is not a passive aggressive assault on something off-handed you may have said 4.5 years ago that now haunts you, I promise. :) )

Last weekend, I googled "primary lactation failure" and came across an editorial that I feel like gives a good picture and explanation of what it's like for a mom with PLF. And so, as I often do, I started clicking related links, and I found this awesome quote from Peggy Robin, one of the first people in the post-La Leche League movement to draw attention to the fact that insufficient milk production actually can sometimes be physiologic and not due to mismanagement on the mother's part:

"Why is it so hard to believe that there really are women with low milk production? There are diabetics for whom the pancreas doesn't make enough insulin; there are hemophiliacs whose blood doesn't make enough clotting factor; there are people whose eyes don't make enough tears or whose ovaries don't make enough estrogen. Why do we think the breast is the one body part that always works perfectly?"

Wow. Floored. Will you please read it again and let that sink in?

Broken people. Broken world. Broken bodies. Broken hearts. And really, when you think about it, there's no reason outside of grace that any of us should produce insulin, clot our blood, produce enough tears, ovulate, gestate, or even successfully breastfeed. We are being held together, by grace alone. Selah, and deep sigh, and breathe amen through our tears in the hard places.

I still feel a little like Paul, but now I see Him bigger - I am learning to be thankful for my thorns. We all have our own thorns, don't we? Whether it's a thing (or an absence of a thing), a person, an illness, or a vice. Frankly, I have many thorns, and PLF is just one. And I am learning slowly to be thankful for them; they drive me to my knees, and closer to my Savior's side. They are my thorns that He ordained for me, my beautiful weaknesses that declare His sufficiency in my life.

So now, I am content and at peace to say that my Girly-Whirl is bottle-fed. :) Because my friends, she is fed. And that is the most important part of it, after all.

Girly-Whirl's Birth Story

2011-06-29T14:51:00.006-04:00

Barely over a year ago, I wrote about our sweet Little Man's arrival. I cannot believe that I already got to enjoy another sweet birth with a little treasure, who is now 13 days old. Time flies!

And, needless to say, my time is limited, so I must cut to the chase. If you remember LM's birth story (or if you just went and read it for the first time), then you know that I am a big fan of natural (unmedicated, intervention-free when possible) birth. My body - praise God - seems particularly built for laboring and birthing...shall we say expediently? :) So I get to really and truly say that I enjoy natural birth; I do not doubt that I would enjoy the results any less if I had long labors, but I know that I would not enjoy the process quite as much. ;)

Well, Wednesday the 15th I suspected that I might be in "lazy labor." I was having what I call powerhouse contractions, about 90 seconds long, but they weren't in a pattern at all. I might have 5 in an hour, and then not have any for 4 hours. It was crazy, but it was all working, and I knew it, so I tried to be patient. My mother-in-law had come to visit and help me out with the children while I tried to accomplish some last-minute nesting and cleaning, so I rested in the peace that if the baby did decide to come in the middle of the night, the children would be well taken care of!

When I woke up on Thursday, the 16th, I sort of knew in my head that it was D-Day. The contractions were intense enough that when one hit, I had to close my eyes, sway, and often hum to drown out the lovely chaos that is found in my home on any given day. But those darn contractions had still not patterned out! We had breakfast and puttered around, and I was exhausted (I'm pretty sure I contracted off and on all night in my sleep), so mid-morning I went to our room to lie down before my scheduled OB appointment. Actually, I went to try and sleep some between contractions, which I did. After a wonderful little nap (interrupted by 60-90 second contractions every 20 minutes), I got up and got dressed, and Hubby went with me to the appointment. We took bags with us just in case.

Well, sure enough, when my doctor checked me, she said, "You're about 5 cm dilated, you're definitely in real labor!" Then she said she wanted us to go straight to the hospital. {grumpy skeptical face} I had no intention of going straight to the hospital, and I know it's better to be honest with your doctors, so I told her that we would go home for a little while first. She was not thrilled with me, but I knew that even though I was obviously in labor, I was also not in "danger" of delivering within the next hour, and I was hungry. ;) So we headed home, ate lunch, played with our big kids, and put them down for naps before heading back to the hospital.

After settling into our room, getting dressed (or un-dressed, as it really feels) into gowns, getting my hep-lock (the worst part of the whole day, they had to stab me 3 times! I still have bruises), and a brief stint on the monitors, my wonderful L&D nurse set me free to walk the halls with Hubby. What a fun time we had! :) We just walked and walked, talked and laughed, and when a contraction would come, I would either walk through the mild ones or lean on him or the wall and sway and moan through them. At one point during a lap around the L&D floor, my nurse told us that the doctor was on her way over from her office to check on me, so we'd get to check on my progress thus far. I was around 7 at that point (2:30), so we did some more monitoring to check on the babe and then they turned us loose again for more walking.

I really can't say enough how much I love going through labor with my Husband by my side. He's so amazing, just the best coach and so much fun. After going through this several times, and reading some great books on natural labor, and frankly just being so great, he's really sensitive and attuned to where I am emotionally during labor. So when I was happy and laughing, he kept me laughing. When I was serious, he was quiet and serious. And calm, always so calm.

So we were off for another few hours to walk, talk, and contract. But when my doctor came back another 2 hours later and checked on me again, I had not dilated any more. I was so discouraged, but Hubs and I both recognized that the labor was progressing in much the same way that Little Lady's had several years ago, so when the doctor offered to break my water for me, we knew that there was a VERY strong chance that it would get the ball rolling and we would likely have a baby within the hour. (Both LL and LM were born within 30 minutes of my water breaking.) But regardless of how quickly it helped us reach the end point, I knew that it would most definitely make my contractions more intense, and I was concerned and beginning to feel uncertain. (Emotional signposts of labor, anyone? ;) )

Thankfully, Husband was certain enough for both of us, and assured me that breaking our water was the better decision to make. After the doctor did it (4:55 pm), before I could even stand up (my preferred position during labor), a huge contraction hit me. And then another. And another. I remember feeling antsy, going back and forth between sitting on the edge of the bed and standing leaning on Hubs as he coached me through contraction after contraction - right on top of one another for 30 minutes. Finally they began to space out a bit and I felt that familiar feeling of the baby moving down with each contraction.

Meanwhile, as I was doing all this, my care team was quietly and quickly preparing everything in the room, so there was no stress, no sense of pressure or urgency. My doctor checked me one last time, and said everything was ready, and I could push whenever I wanted to. Well, I was ready to be done with labor. :) But in retrospect, I felt so different physically than when it was time to push with Little Man.

Nevertheless, I got into position (not what I would have preferred; I think a gravity-driven position like squatting is optimal, but they had me in what was basically a lithotomy position rocked up 45 degrees, grrrr), and began to push. Both Little Lady and Little Man had been "water slide" babies - 2 pushes and done. So I figured this one would be much the same, although I hoped to "breathe the baby out" to prevent tearing yet again. But at 5:25 I began to push...and push...and push...and it seemed like nothing was happening.

Two whole contractions (pushing for a total of 7 or 8 times) passed without even a baby crowning. I was so discouraged! I felt like I was pushing with all my might, and nothing was happening! On the third contraction, I began to feel the baby crowning (and it burns, burns, burns...the ring of fire), but still the babe was in no hurry to join us. I remember looking at Hubs and saying, "Why isn't it coming? Why isn't this working?" and he so calmly and gently reminded me that I had wanted a slow birth moment this time, and it was working. He encouraged me to keep going, and a few pushes later the head was out, followed not-so-shortly by a shoulder that had gotten a wee bit stuck.

Immediately when I felt that immense relief of pressure at the shoulders being past (5:34 pm), I sat up and reached down for my new little one. "Oh, it's a girl!" I cried as I took her from the doctor's hands and pulled her onto my chest and Hubby and I began to rub her back to stimulate her. She was a little lazy and reluctant to give us some good cries right at first, but she pinked up in no time. :) I got to hold her for a long time and talk to her. I think the first thing I said was, "Oh, I'm so sorry for yelling at you!" (pushing is intense, y'all). Then I asked my OB if I had torn this time, and she said, "Just a little - those babies just want to turn the wrong way sometimes!" It was only then that I realized that when I had reached for her I was looking at her face instead of her back. Suddenly I felt pretty proud for pushing 10 minutes, knowing that she had been OP (sunny side up).

They wrapped her up in a blankie and tagged her while my doc stitched me up, and then gave her back to me to nurse. And she did such a beautiful job - I love snuggling my babies close into me for that special and sacred bond.

Then my girl had to go to the nursery. I felt a little blind-sided by that. The hospital where I delivered follows a sort-of antiquated model and protocol of medicine, and I was more than a little unhappy about it. Have you ever seen nature shows where wild animal mothers become frantic when separated from their babies? Yup, that was me. Asking every 10 minutes, "Where is she? Why is this taking so long?" I won't dwell on that any longer. It stresses me out now just to remember it. :/

The happy ending is that my girly is here, and God is forever and endlessly gracious to us in growing our family and caring well for the big kids. He is the God of details. :) So thankful for His goodness in GW's birth day.

And then there were 6...

2011-06-26T16:07:00.005-04:00

On June 16th, at 5:34 in the afternoon, our sweet Girly-Whirl #4 joined our family. She is my most petite little sweet yet, weighing in at just 7 lbs, 4 oz, and is 20 inches "tall."

We are all so in love. Birth story coming soon.

A Job Description

2011-05-31T23:13:00.006-04:00

I must confess, sometimes I get confused.

Sometimes I think my job is mostly stuff like this:

Yup, that's a spotless kitchen. (Although it should be noted that this is immediately before our renters came for the tournament this year.)

So is it any wonder that I feel like a failure and a total bust of a housekeeper when, more often than not, the kitchen actually looks like this for 95% of our waking hours?

And that's just after breakfast. And the sink is full of dishes that you just can't see. And it's only breakfast stuff. Did I mention that I took this photo at 10 in the morning? Before lunch mess? And snack mess? And supper mess??

Or sometimes I think my job is stuff like this:

Yup, you're looking at about 3/4 of 3 loads of clean laundry. A more accurate picture would be 3 or 4 piles of dirty clothes on the living room floor, in the hope that having it that much closer to the laundry room will increase my chances of actually rotating the loads through my magical machines. But to be fair, you see that all these clean clothes didn't get put away right away. Not until the thought of not being able to collapse on the sofa tonight motivated me.

Or sometimes I even think my job is stuff like this:

Kids eating veggies. Of their own volition. I actually had to shoo them away - I must be doing something right, right??

But the truth is, my job is this.

Ahh, children playing happily together. :) But wait! There's more! Literally almost before I snapped the above picture...something insidious happened with oldest brother and the most beloved (of 3) Lightning McQueens...

And much to my bewilderment (remember, I was standing right there and I'm still not sure how it happened)...

chaos ensued.

And so there you have it. That's the real, honest truth.

This is what my job really is. Shepherding and discipling tiny little hearts full of sin. Talking them through their conflicts. Coaching them through seeing their sin, confessing it to their Heavenly Father and one another, asking forgiveness, and seeking restoration. Teaching selfish little people to love others better than themselves. Encouraging happy hearts that will work with joy, doing all things without complaining or arguing. Failing, falling down on the job, repenting of my own mountains and boulders of sin in the very same areas, asking forgiveness when I speak sharply or fail these precious little souls. Again, and again, and again.

All while both the house and cell phones are ringing, bathrooms need cleaning, and supper comes dangerously close to burning or boiling over.

Speaking of supper. Yes, I try to have it on the table at 6:30 every night. Something nutritious, something tasty, something interesting to keep my sweet Husband delighted. But supper? Is not my first job. Because most nights around 5:30, this is my view...

Obviously, this is not looking straight down. I had to lean around my 37-week very large belly to capture the precious face that belongs to those clawing hands at my knees, asking and bellowing so very intently, "Ma-ma? Ma-ma? Unnggggggg!!!!"

So this is something that God has been teaching my heart over the past few weeks or so. Really, I can trace His patience with me on this back over a year ago. I used to think that parenting...discipline...should be easy, if we are only following the formula: the principles and precepts laid out in God's Word. But sweet little children are not robots who can be plugged into a formula. And so...

I got frustrated a lot. I sighed a lot. I lamented the "hard days" to my husband at night - the ones where we had to have lots of counsels, and this Mama was running out of patient words long before lunch. I longed for our "normal days," when kids were happy, selfless, obedient, cheerful, helpful, and attuned to the Spirit. (That made me laugh just to write that. Did you just chuckle a little? Because I sure did.)

Could I even possibly begin to condense and explain and link to all the articles I read that began to chip away at my selfishness and moralism in parenting? No. But I can share with you the simple little truth that reverberates in my mind, even 100 times today, that may have been the final "click" for me. Realizing this was like dropping a 200-lb monkey off my back:

Really, as mothers of little ones, the things that we often perceive as interruptions in our day - the disobedience, the counsels, the uncontrollable desire to "help" mama, the desperate need to read a book right this minute - are actually God's purposes for our day.

So what is my job? Yes, it is keeping my home. It is meals, and laundry, and teaching school, making beds and cleaning bathrooms, going grocery shopping, thinking, planning...a thousand things that anyone could look at, evaluate quantitatively at the end of each day. I cannot belittle the great opportunity, gift, and blessing that is the work of keeping my home.

But more...so much more...

My job is love. Loving, praying, crucifying self to His purposes. These beloved 4 - soon to be 5 - hearts entrusted to my care...those are my people. My purpose. My job. My opus. Oh, that I may only do it well.

Welcome to my Circus

2011-05-16T14:46:00.004-04:00

Love these silly brothers, and how they love each other. :)

As you can see, Wild Man loves his sister (and dinosaurs) too - loves making everyone laugh, and loves living up to his wild moniker. He's my crazy, silly Wild Man.

When may we defend ourselves?

2011-05-03T06:43:00.002-04:00

This is a legitimate question. Perhaps laced with leftover frustration and hurt, but please don't misunderstand me. I really don't know what to do, what is appropriate.

As per the last random update post (which was really not that long ago), I am expecting again, and we have once again chosen the great surprise. Due at the end of June. Which means that yes, Little Man was actually still pretty little when I became "stranger pregnant," which is when your belly gets round enough that even people who don't know you can tell that you are indeed with child and not just toting a few extra pounds around your middle.

Enter the questions every time I leave the house: Wow, you sure have your hands full!! Are they all yours? How old are they? How far apart are they? Are you done after this one? Do they all have the same father? Why aren't they in school? How do you do it? What are you having this time? Haven't you figured out how that happens yet?

The list goes on. Sometimes I am full of grace and smile whole-heartedly, sometimes I am frustrated and grin with concentrated effort. Always, no matter how much I just want to pick out bananas without feeling like I must defend the mere existence of each of our children (not to mention our very personal choices regarding family), I answer calmly and peacefully, with grace. Even when I feel like snapping in two. Especially when the comments and questions come from other mothers with their own children, and speak of how they would go "insane" if they had 3+ children. I want to cover their little ones' ears and admonish them - don't you know they understand you?

What a joy this hard work is, and what a privilege to be the mother of these sweet children. Yes, there are days when my hands maybe feel a little more full than others. Days that are challenging, days when Mama is in tears well before lunch and at a complete loss as to how to address the sin in my own heart, in my little ones' hearts. Days that are hard. I could link you to about a million posts from Ann Voskamp that have spoken to me and encouraged me about this.

But more than the hard work, there is so much sweetness here in this place. {Even as I type this, a sweet little girl has stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen, and is leaning against me with her arms wrapped around my burgeoning belly, saying a sweet good morning to Mama and new baby.} And we believe we're living out what our Great God has called our family into. So even while there are days when I think I will scream if one more person says, "Wow, you sure have your hands full!" I'll continue to smile and answer truthfully, with all my heart, "We do, but we love it - we wouldn't have it any other way. They are such a joy to us!" (For more amen-ouch words on this, far better than mine, check out this sweet post a friend referred to me.)

But. When the words stop being curious. When the words are hurtful, sometimes seemingly intended to be so. When the words are inappropriate in front of my children, whose innocence I endeavor to protect. When the questions and comments cross an invisible line that no one can define but I most certainly can feel...

What then?

The other day, Wild Man was uncharacteristically quiet as we walked through the parking lot to our car, the tears burning at the backs of my eyes. He could feel that his Mama had been hurt, even though the words delivered probably seemed innocent enough to the one who spoke them. While I helped the two younger ones with their belts and buckles, he asked me, "Why was that lady being ugly to you?"

Deep breath, explain how Jesus changes us, how following the Lord makes us choose things very different from the world around us and many people don't like or understand it, grapple with explaining the extension of grace without imparting condemnation and judgmentalism to a child - a concept difficult even for adults. Talk about how people don't understand how their words hurt feelings, and that sometimes when Mama has a tummy-baby, my feelings are hurt more easily, and that's not someone else's fault.

Yesterday again, I stood in the checkout line and had the size and shape of my bottom, belly, and even my breasts discussed while the cashier and bagger (both ladies) casually disputed whether my belly contained a boy or girl. Meanwhile I burned and fumed, mustered pitiful shreds of grace and began to wonder...

We turn the other cheek. We live out a life that is hopefully radically different, different enough to shine the light of The One who changes everything and turns everything on its head. We sigh quiet, breathe deep, and answer peace again, and again, and again. We speak love. I hope I speak love.

But when is it okay to defend myself? Is it ever okay to speak up for the dignity of the human body? To show my daughter that yes, it's okay to tell someone "I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable discussing this with you"? To teach my sons to respect others by speaking up in the face of disrespectful comments?

I understand that there is a baby growing inside it, but this is still my body. If a male stranger tried to touch my non-pregnant belly, or my daughter's, I must admit I would be mighty tempted - and justifiably - to plant a right hook in his jaw. There is this inexplicable mistaken notion that growing a child removes your right to privacy, but it does not. Frankly, let's be honest - there is a notion that the more children you have, the less privacy you are allowed to have in the opinion of the general public. (Duggars, anyone?)

I want to be gentle. I want to extend grace. I want to carry and wear peace like a shield. But in situations such as these, are we ever permitted to carry a sword?

Here we grow again...

2011-04-30T10:20:00.004-04:00

If you haven't heard yet (which anyone who might still be randomly checking in here surely must know by now, right?) we are joyfully anticipating the arrival of our fourth treasure, due at the end of June. Four kids aged 5 and under - life is crazy but sweet. :) A wise friend at church says that the days are long, but the years are short, and I try to embrace and focus on that.

Wild Man will soon celebrate his fifth birthday, Little Lady just turned 3 at the beginning of the month, and Little Man turns 1 tomorrow. I can hardly believe how our quiver is filling and our little arrows are growing. ;) (Speaking of growing, please notice that tall WM - I'm 5'8" and wearing 3.5" heels in this picture...)

As much as I would love to write more (and even sitting here, the writing bug is nibbling at me - how I miss this), there is a soldier battle gone awry in the playroom that requires Mama's attention. :) However, I am going to try to begin writing and updating again whenever there is time or I can't sleep. At least one of those is bound to happen at least once a month, right?

Six months...

2011-03-11T22:50:00.005-05:00

It's strange, to have not blogged for 6 whole months. When I first decided that it was time to quit, I thought that surely I would still post monthly, just little updates and tidbits. I have waffled and struggled with my internet time still, as the Lord patiently chips away at my selfishness and self-indulgence to co-labor with me to build up this self-discipline that I need so much of. But somehow, the blogging thing hasn't been able to happen, because it just takes a little more time...and careful thought. Two things which are pretty generally in rather short supply for me these days! :)

People ask me often if I miss blogging, and the truth is that I do and I don't. I do miss journaling our lives - I feel like there are so many things that have happened that I ordinarily would have blogged, that don't otherwise get recorded and I may forget. I miss sharing photos (and recipes), and reading comments. But in the same turn, I don't miss it - the way that my mind was always thinking about what I could/should write about next. And honestly, I sort of don't know now how I ever had time. Even now, I have a mountain of things undone sitting quite literally behind me. (Our computer is in the kitchen - I'm referring to the dirty dishes. Thankfully it's just supper stuff, since I cleaned up after lunch today.)

But I did want to post some pictures of the kids - it would be virtually impossible to catch people up on all our goings-on. :) It was hard to choose just a few favorites from the past SIX months!! But I'm being as concise as possible, I promise...

(Oh, and can I just say what the heck is going on with blogger? Just doing this post made me NOT miss blogging, because the picture upload thing is different than it used to be, and I didn't have the patience to figure it out. So pictures are all kinds of crazy, but still cute, right? No pictures of Little Man just yet - blogger is making me insane right now. )

While the Iron is Hot

2010-09-05T13:46:00.003-04:00

There are some things I have been thinking about for the past few months. Hard things, weighty things. And this morning, between the sermon, and the songs, and the Sunday School lesson, God was unmistakably getting my attention. Not the tapping softly at the door kind of attention-getting. The stomping your feet on the floor, shouting, and waving arms kind of getting attention.

So I'm going to ~~strike~~ melt some golden calves while the iron is hot.

Like anything else I ever write about (besides funny fluff stories about my husband and kids), I need to throw out the disclaimer that this is my story. Not yours. No judgment, no offense.

I have known for a while that my computer time was life-prohibitive. Frankly, and honestly (and I've never held back that much from the blog before, so here ya go), I have an addictive personality, and spending time on the computer is something that I feel I may have become addicted to. I don't use that word lightly.

And really, it's not just the time spent - in minutes and hours. It's the other ways it's affecting me. These idols I've built up around myself, of feeling important when I see comments. Of feeling needed and grand.

So now, while my heart is still ringing with Truth freshly heard and before I lose my nerve and tell myself once again that it's not really that bad, I'm melting down idols.

I'm "quitting" the internet, as best as I can anyway.

I have loved blogging. It's been a sweet way to sort of scrapbook our lives for the past 2 years. I have loved journaling my heart journeys, and hearing from people the ways that my own stories have encouraged you. But - if you know me at all in real life, you've probably heard me say this before - not all good things are best things. Blogging has been a good thing. But right now, it's not a best thing. For me or my family.

So I won't be writing for a while. Not anything that I publish, anyway. And I'm sorry bloggy friends, because I have loved you and known you a little through your blogs, but I won't be reading any for a while either. I need to cut and run - I need to flee. Little children may wander away from their parents in shuffling inches, but when they see how far they've gotten from their daddy, they turn and run - back to the safety of their papa, away from any dangers. I've shuffled away slowly, and now I must run back to the Father.

No facebook. No blogs. No forums. I am running.

If you really, really need to get in touch with me please call me. If you don't have my number, you can email me. (If you view my complete profile, you can contact me via email there.) I'll still check my email at least a couple of times a week.

Thank you for loving me, thank you for sharing in our lives. It may be that one day I'll come back and start writing here again. But for now I'm running.

Hilarious Husband

2010-09-04T08:48:00.005-04:00

Little Lady is potty training, and last week at the store, we picked out and bought some lovely Tinkerbell and Princess bedecked drawers as a special reward for not needing diapers anymore. Later that night I was telling Hubby all about our day and how excited LL was about our big purchase.

The man doesn't have sisters. And these fairy tales aren't quite on his radar for his own little girl just yet. But still...

me - ...so anyway, we got some princess ones. She's really impressed with them. I was thinking about letting them watch Cinderella sometime soon, since it's not scary, and might help her get more excited.
him - Princesses...Cinderella...Which one is that? The one with Prince Charming?
me - They're all the one with Prince Charming.
him - The one with the sleeping?
me - No, that's Aurora from Sleeping Beauty. Or Snow White, too, I guess.
him - Snow White...that's dwarves right?
me - Right.
him - Cinderella's the one with the be-...no, that's Beauty and the Beast. Which one is it?
me - Wicked stepmother, selfish step-sisters, singing mice...
him - Pumpkins!
me - How do you seriously have to think about this?

Love looks like...

2010-08-31T13:54:00.007-04:00

Love looks like a cooler to me. Intrigued? :)

I hope, I hope, I hope and pray that anyone who reads my blog is blessed enough to be really loved. Really, truly, deeply, unconditionally, selflessly loved.

I am beyond blessed in this way. First and foremost because I am loved by my Savior. Also because I have an incredible husband. And parents, and in-laws, and my brother, my friends. And because, after wishing for one my whole life, I have a sister.

My brother married the most amazing woman. Ever. Seriously. Ever. I met her for the first time when I was a junior in high school, and she was beautiful and shy and funny and everything lovely. And I was naturally intimidated. My parents used to tease my brother that if he ever screwed things up with her and they broke up, my parents were keeping Marcie. :)

She even let me live with her one summer in college when I needed an apartment just for a summer-semester. I slowly became less intimidated, because I began to see that although she is still beautiful, shy, and funny, she is most definitely everything lovely.

We planned our weddings together. We've been pregnant together twice now. And while some adult women - even blood sisters - may not enjoy that sort of thing, I couldn't imagine it being any other way. There is none of that pesky selfishness and competition that so often plague us ladies. It was such a sweet thing to be able to ask one another questions, bounce ideas, and share in the excitement of such big steps in our lives together!

I really used to ask my Mom for a sister all the time when I was a kid. And wished almost daily that I had a sister to share things with. But now when I think of Marcie, and how much I love her, and how close we've become, I'm glad every day that I didn't have a sister. Because I'm afraid that Marcie and I wouldn't have what we have now if I had. :)

She is loving, and sweet, and talented, goodness gracious! And selfless. Towards everyone. Marcie gives of herself to everyone, and doesn't even think twice about it. Because if she can do something for someone, she will - no questions asked. That's just who she is. She's amazing. And we share a lot of passions.

So when I was clearly unable to breastfeed my babies, it broke her heart for me. Breastfeeding is just as important to her as it is to me, and she knew how hard it was for me to not be able to give my kids that gift. She and I are both passionate about the benefits of breastmilk for babies. So when Cannon and Little Man were born just 5 days apart, she didn't even bat an eye before offering up some of her extra melted-ice-cream quality Momma milk. I present exhibit "Chubby Thighs and Fat Bracelets" on my nevvie Bennett at around 7 months.

So here's a pic of the inside of that cooler:

And that's what love looks like to me. Love looks like my selfless sister-in-law, who is more of a sister and a friend than many people get with their blood family. Love looks like a cooler full of frozen breast milk, countless extra hours spent pumping for my babe, when you don't have to. And I'm sorry if I embarrassed you by telling everyone how amazing you are, Marcie, but I really do love you. And LM loves the milk. :)

Thanks Aunt Mawcie!!

PS - I fully realize that the thought of giving my child another woman's breast milk may be a little ooky to some folks. But really, the World Health Organization's recommendations for infant feeding say that it is infinitely preferable to give a human baby human milk, even if it's from another mother, than to give them infant formula. Little Man gets formula for the most part, but we are grateful for every single drop of liquid gold that Marcie and another friend have shared with us. :) Plus, seriously, it's human milk for human babies. I bet most of you drink milk in your coffee or on your cereal every morning, and that's from another animal. And if you've ever spent much time around cows, well, THAT should really be the thing that skeeves you out. Not breastmilk shared from one family to another. And, just please consider that if we had lived just a short 100 years ago, we wouldn't be buying formula - we'd be hiring wet nurses. Just a little nugget for thought. :)

Why Homeschooling?

2010-08-25T14:32:00.002-04:00

Although no one really asked us in light of the last post, I have had a lot (a lot, a lot, a lot), of people asking us why we have chosen homeschooling. I think that anyone who blogs who chooses home education for their children writes a post about why at some point or another. :) And so I'm really really happy to share our thoughts about it.

To be honest with you, I've been thinking about homeschooling for around 7 or 8 years now. Yes, if your math is correct, that is much longer than we have had children. In fact, it's even longer than Hubs and I have been married. And we both went to public school for kindergarten through high school. And a public university. And Hubby went to a public med school. Both our moms taught in the public school system for 20+ years. So neither of us have a personal history of home education.

But when I returned to college after taking a short break, I decided to major in Spanish. I needed a minor (a requirement for foreign language majors at my new school), and settled on education because it allowed me to graduate in the shortest period of time. But it's funny, at the time, I thought, "That will be great, though, in case home schooling legislation ever changes in our state and requires me to have a teaching degree." And then I immediately thought, "Whoa, home schooling? Where did that come from?"

Throughout my minor courses, I wrote many papers on the topic of education, several of them on home education in particular. (Which I realize seems strange, but I was two-birding my graduation requirements with my own personal agenda of researching the world of home education.) So really, based on very extensive research, I have a lot of pedagogical (educational) reasons that lead me to believe that for many families and many students, home schooling is a best-case-scenario situation. For example, kids can go at their own pace - whether they have learning disabilities or are extraordinarily advanced beyond their peer group. Students can choose to focus their studies at an early age for topics that are more interesting to them, which allows them to continue to love learning.

There are also plenty of practical reasons for home schooling. Actually, in all of my research, what leads many non-religious families to choose home education for their children is when one child had an illness that caused a prolonged absence from school. When parents saw that one school day's worth of material took their child only 3 hours to complete at home, they thought, "Why on earth are they in school for 9 hours a day, doing 3 hours' worth of work?"

Then too, are the theological ("religious", though I don't care for the word), reasons. Hubby and I take very seriously the charge to shepherd and disciple our children. Having them with us, under our wing, especially at young and tender ages, allows us to speak Truth into every moment of their lives. One of my wise friends says that our goal is not to isolate - it's to insulate our children. I've heard opponents of home education lob the accusation that home schoolers are sheltering their kids, and really, I don't understand why this is such a bad thing.

These tiny little humans have been entrusted to my care for a very short time. They are not born pure, but they are innocent. I will absolutely shelter and shepherd my tender little shoots to help them become strong plants, able to withstand the winds, rains, and storms that life will undoubtedly hurl at them. My husband learned about oral sex in the third grade. On the school bus. When he heard a sixth grader describing it in detail. If that's not shocking enough to you, let me say it in a different way: As a child of only 8 years, he heard an eleven year-old girl describing in explicit detail her personal experience with performing oral sex. My story is not all that different. We have no doubt that our many struggles as adolescents and young adults can be traced back, in part, to our earliest exposure to those sin behaviors. And I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to protect our children and their purity by doing all we can to prevent them from being exposed to that stuff at that young of an age as we were.

Of course, I realize that there are excellent pedagogical, practical, and theological reasons to send your children to public (or private school), too. Or even to send your children to a Christian school, and we have a GREAT one in town that is affiliated with our church. Apart from the fact that tuition is quite expensive, and we have quite a bit of med school debt to our names.

So really, what's our reason? What's our 'why'? The truth is that while there are excellent and noble reasons to home school, and excellent and wise reasons to choose a traditional school-house education for your kids, none of those reasons really matter to us. Not really.

We have chosen to pursue home schooling because, after prolonged and labored prayer, we feel that this is the direction that the Lord is leading our family. The answer is different for everyone, but when we went before the Throne in prayer and said, "God, show us how our family is going to honor You best, show us what You want us to do with Your children You've given to us, show us the best way to reach and penetrate our babies' hearts to make the way for You," this is the answer He gave us.

I really want to say that we're going to home school each and every one of however many children we end up having, from pre-K through high school. But the reality is that may change. We're taking it one year at a time, one child at a time. We want to be wise and discerning, we want to do what is best for each child at each level of devlopment, and above all, we want to pursue Jesus first in our family. There may come a time when we really feel that sending them to school is going to be the best choice for them, and all of us. So we'll continue to carry it before the Lord in prayer. :)

But for now, I'm trying to patiently smile in the face of all the accusations and opposition - that I'm already encountering, and he's only in pre-K, my goodness - of sheltering, lack of socialization, my inability to properly educate them, people asking me when he's going to start "real" school. And I'm content to cultivate my patience in this area, because even though a lot of our family and friends think we're crazy (and that's okay, because this isn't unfamiliar territory for us), we really believe we're pursuing what God has said is His best for our family. For now, anyway. :)

Back to School time!

2010-08-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

Last year Wild Man and I kind of played at homeschool preschool. As in, we sort of did it, and sort of didn't. Sometimes I'd have activities planned out for every day of a week. And sometimes, I would do Monday...and then just play the rest of the week. :) And then I was incredibly sick for the first half of my pregnancy with Little Man, and it was all I could do to do the things that absolutely HAD to get done, and everything else fell by the wayside.

But, we prayerfully decided after much consideration to pursue homeschooling for Wild Man's four-year-old preschool this year. I'm going to start next week, but I'm all set and ready to go. And I'm excited!

We chose to go with the SonLight P4/5 curriculum. Look at all these fabulous books!

I chose SonLight because they offer curriculum packages that are entirely comprehensive, including everything a child really needs to know. And with a package like the one I chose, they even have lesson plans. So there's no stress for me of sitting down every night trying to decide what to do the following day. Every single day of every single school week is already planned out for me! :)

Then, I found this awesome idea/tutorial for a "Homework Station" via one of my favorite crafty/sewing/DIY tutorial round-up blogs, One Pretty Thing. One Chick-fil-A drink carrier, some scrapbook paper, some mod-podge, and a couple of washed cans later, I had...

our arts and crafts/materials caddy!

The other big challenge for me was trying to figure out where to store our school materials when we aren't using them. Space is absolutely at a premium in our home. Because we'll most likely be sitting at the kitchen table for now, I chose to clean out the bottom shelf of our china cabinet for our school goodies.

On the left we have our SonLight books. In the middle are our workbooks (from Sam's $1 section at Target, etc), construction paper, and flashcards - Little Miss Me Too needs to have some "school" too, after all. ;) And on the right are our dry-erase workbooks, manipulatives, and my instructor's guide. I'll also be using our felt-board calendar set to teach days, months, weather, etc.

I can't wait to get started! :)

Children of the Covenant

2010-08-19T09:21:00.006-04:00

Today, we had all 3 children baptized. Just by virtue of the fact that we have waited four years to baptize Wild Man, it should be evident that this sacrament is an element of worship that Hubby and I labored over. Having been raised and/or established in our faith primarily in the Baptist church, the idea of infant and child baptism was a little foreign to both of us. When we first began attending our beloved church home (PCA church), we both thought of infant baptism as sort of a glorified baby dedication...with water sprinkled on top. But it is oh, so much more sacred than that.

I can't get into all of it. It truly is, like so many other things, a great mystery. But we believe God's Word and His promises there. Baptism is both a sign and a seal. It is an outward and visible sign of our consecration of the children unto the Lord, and our commitment to strive daily to tenderly shepherd the souls He has entrusted to our care. We are daily crying out for help, because we truly cannot accomplish this task on our steam! Baptism is also a seal - we are claiming God's promises that when our children make the decision to invite Jesus into their own hearts, He will bestow on them all the blessings, grace, and freedom of the New Covenant of the Lamb.

Just as when John the Baptist began baptizing people, he was symbolically washing the outside of the body to prepare their hearts for Jesus to wash them clean inside, so do we hope and pray that the seal and the covenant of our children's baptism will be just one - but a significant - part of the preparation of their hearts to receive the saving grace of Jesus Christ. If you have more questions, I invite you to read the text of one of the booklets given to us by our pastor while we were praying over the issue. Even more questions? Just ask. :)

Taking our vows (^) with some of our best friends and their daughter.

Little Man...

Right before our pastor went to pick up Wild Man, WM looked up at him and loudly proclaimed, "I'm heavy!" :)

After church, we invited our family and friends to join us to celebrate the way that Southerners always do - with food. :) Lots of it. And cake and ice cream, of course. And I promised Hubby I wouldn't stress myself out over unnecessary things, so I actually got the cake from Publix. Ahhh, learning to let go. :)

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God..." 1 Peter 2:9a

** Special thanks to my brother for taking these awesome flash-free photos during the service. :)

My Big Kids

2010-08-11T14:07:00.004-04:00

You may remember that I said on Monday that my big kids are gone on a grandparent vacation this week. It's been strangely quiet, and not nearly as productive as I had hoped.

And I am missing them.

My girl who loves trucks...

My boy who dresses up like a firefighter, with mask AND helmet, boots, and "gloves"...

My kids who pack up their play food in their Easter baskets and go for pretend picnics in the back yard...

My big kids who snuggle up to listen to a story...

And who love each other so much - despite the typical sibling scuffles - that they sometimes snuggle up in one bed at night.

Baby Jabberjaws and Little Miss Me-Too

2010-08-10T17:41:00.001-04:00

The other day, I was trying to get a fun video of Little Man "talking and singing," as I call it. But of course, as soon as I got the camera out, he got entirely distracted by the little black box in front of Mama's face. So as it turns out, pretty much the cutest thing about this video is my sweet little girl, my little mama-in-training, my Little Miss Me-Too repeating every word and doing every single little thing I do trying to get her baby brother to smile and coo. :)

(I had to use OneTrueMedia because it was a little too big for blogger to handle. ;)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Soul-gazing

2010-08-10T15:55:00.002-04:00

Now that you know that we bottle-feed, now that I've unloaded the whole good, bag, and ugly heart-open-on-the-table story about it, I wanted to share these pictures.

Bottle-feeding isn't all bad, for several reasons for us. One of which (very personal information) being that because I am so not-buxom, when I do breastfeed, my babies are completely on their side with their eyes in my armpit. But when I snuggle and cradle Little Man to give him a bottle {sigh}, I get to see his precious little face. And he looks straight into my eyes almost the whole time.

Because he eats about 5 times a day right now, that means we spend around 20-30 minutes, 5 times a day, soul-gazing deeply into one another's eyes.

(See my nose? See how he's looking right at Mama? :) Ahhhhh.)

It's like he's saying, "I know you, I love you, I trust you."

And this is my view. Look at those baby blues!! {melt and sigh}