Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Natives are Restless

Yes, the Natives are so restless... we all are!

The weather has been gray and rainy every day. Thunder and lightning has kept us awake at night.

Where can I find vibrancy in this dreary world??

Ah ha! What is this? 







He did this war paint all by himself.






Photobucket




Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Maternity Session

 baby, baby, BABY!

Are you a girl or a boy?






and then, she {snapped}

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Scavenger Hunt

1. Decay (old/ abandoned)

2. Groups of Three

3. Kitchen

4. Things that make you go "hmm."

 5. "Me Time"
This item was by far the most difficult but my husband gave me this idea - isn't he sweet?






Monday, March 28, 2011

Saturday, March 26, 2011

The new string mop

I resist change with a passion, and today's change was no exception. I have to admit that when the specific change is my idea I think it's great but when someone else suggests it, that's another matter all together.

This was my husband's idea... and he has a really good track record for having awesome ideas

But good track record or not I was willing to bet that this new scheme wouldn't work. See, this time I knew what I was talking about. I was raised with a sponge mop and they work miracles! Even a wimp like me can wield it fast enough to mop the entire kitchen before the kids realize what's happening and run in to see if they can slip and slide before mom chases them out with her amazing speedy cleaning machine (or someone falls and gets a huge goose egg, whichever comes first). I'm not interested in change. I'm happy the way I am.

So anyways, he came home with the Thing about two months ago and I haven't touched it.  Until today. Company was coming (about 20 people) and he really wanted the floor to be clean so he showed me why his mop works better than my old Speedy Sponge and then he left me alone with the String Thing and my thoughts as I tried it out:


This is stupid. It's not going to work...


this twisting and wringing is such a pain.


Oh. it does work...


Wow, it's doing a really good job.


There is no denying how sparkly and clean this floor is!


What else can I mop? 


****I may or may not have been mopping at the party****


                  *******

So...

The down side is that I have to admit he's right again.


The up side is that we had 20 people over so I get to mop again!













Thursday, March 24, 2011

Make em' laugh

 Yesterday was my baby boy's birthday...



Well, he's not exactly a baby anymore :) 
He really wants to be big- in fact he's always wanted to be big! 
He rolled over for the first time when he was two weeks old, 
he started crawling when he was two months old, 
and he walked across the room when he was six months old! 
And he has not slowed down since... sometimes I forget that he's still a little kid! 
Yesterday I planned to share a few of his sayings but I ran out of time.

So here are some of the things that keep me laughing:

One chilly Sunday morning when he was about 18 months old, we headed out the door for church. As I put him in his car seat I said you look sharp! He replied No, I cold!

A couple months before his second birthday I handed him a picture book and said Would you like to read this? He replied No tank you. Is just pictures.

Whenever I asked him if he was stinky he would respond Nope, how ‘bout you?

When he was sad he would say "My boy is so sad"

A couple months before his 3rd birthday he said 
Mom, let’s not make the van jump like a Monster truck, let’s stay on the ground.

I tackled myself and hurt my thumb!


The day after his 3rd birthday he asked  Does supper make the sun go up, or down?

I knew Daddy when he was Superman.

I hurt my feelings all by myself!

Hey Dad, I’m Spider man! ...I need a little help.

 I’m almost a big man! When will my voice get weird?

A snake never hissed up to me before.

I'm so hungry I could eat a sky scraper! But that would not be healthy.

My husband told him that cleats make him run faster. He asked "Does fire shoot out the back of them? That would be super awesome."




And my all time favorite from a few months ago:

I guess my hypothesis was wrong... I don't know everything.




And at dinner this evening when he was served soup that he doesn't care for he said 
"I wasn't born for this."


Happy Thursday everybody!





Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Give me Five!


 My biggest boy is turning five today! I really can't believe it. Five years old. That seems so big. 
He has always wanted to be five, it's his favorite number (is that normal?) and he is my favorite firstborn son.
He has grown so much in the past 5 years... not just in size... and I think my heart has grown because love filled my heart the moment I held him for the first time... and I love him so much more now!


24 hours old.
1 year old-  already makes speeches!
Blue dog!


2 years old!
3 years old!




4 years old!


Happy Birthday, silly boy!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Motherhood in the Trenches

Confession:
I am way too easily overwhelmed!



And I didn't realize that I could overcome it 'till Rachel Jankovic gave me a good kick in the pants
shared some wisdom in her book 
"Loving the little years" (I mentioned her chicken story earlier). 
She writes: 
For a few months in the middle of the wet, gray, rainy part of winter, I had two nursing infants and two toddlers- three out of four in diapers. It was physically, as well as emotionally, intense. I can remember around this time taking the garbage out and just standing outside the door taking some deep breaths, getting ready to go back in. (When taking the garbage out becomes a "destination," you know you are really in the trenches!) It was somewhere around this time that I realized I had better strike the word overwhelmed from my vocabulary. God gave me this to do. I may not be overwhelmed about it. I can try as hard as I can, and maybe fail sometimes. I can try as hard as I can and fall asleep at the dinner table. I can try as hard as I can and be completely burned out at the end of the day. But I may not be overwhelmed. Actually, I may very well be overwhelmed, but I may not say that I am overwhelmed! The words have a very real power over us. If you say it, you allow it for yourself. You give yourself that little bit of room to say "But I can't!" When God gives us children, it is work that He is giving. Work that comes with huge attendant blessings and bonuses, but work nonetheless.
So imagine yourself delegating a task to someone (your children come to mind!). Imagine you are asking them to clean up a room. You can see the work that you are giving them. You know that they need to pick up the dress-ups, the plastic food, and the books. You also know that what you are asking is well within their abilities. Now imagine one child looks at it, takes a deep breath, and dives in. But the other picks up one piece of food and then lies down to cry a bit about all the rest of them. You know as a parent that lying down and whimpering about the tasks does not get it done. It makes it harder, slower, and more difficult in every way. The child who is really working faithfully will see progress, will see that the task is do-able. The child who is feeling sorry for himself will never get past that emotional low without some intervention. 
Do you see yourself in this? When you get up in the morning and the house is a mess, and the kids are being a little edgy, and you didn't get to the grocery store, do you like to drape yourself across the work that God gave you and whimper? Or do you just dive in? Do you like to dwell on the discouragement? ...But God loves a cheerful worker. I am still frequently in over my head. Actually, most of the time! But deciding to not wallow in that fact has removed one of the biggest obstacles to my work- my own calculations of how hard the job is.
I am sure that I still say "overwhelmed" from time to time but it is no longer that little crutch for droopiness that it once was to me. In that same early and intense phase with the twins, I developed the 20 minute rule. If things started seeming really out of control, I would look at the clock and note the time. Then I would tell myself that in twenty minutes this would be over. If I just kept my head down and did the work, twenty minutes was all I needed. And actually, it was true. Twenty minutes is enough time (if you are moving quickly and not moping) to change three diapers and one complete outfit, discipline one disobeyer, tuck two people into naps, and sit down to nurse the other two. The storm would have passed in twenty minutes if I was cheerfully getting things done. But that moment when you first discovered the blowout (and all the rest)... well, that moment. What was it? A moment. It passes. But when it passes, you will be very glad if all you did was work right through it. The super intensity will almost always be over in twenty minutes!


Well, I hope that was as helpful to you as it was to me!







 Now I'm going to go clean up the plastic food :)



Morning Prayer



Now another day is breaking,
Sleep was sweet and so is waking.
Dear Lord, I promised you last night
Never again to sulk or fight.
Such vows are easier to keep
When a child is sound asleep.
Today, O Lord, for your dear sake,
I'll try to keep them when awake.
                                                  ~Ogden Nash

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

 1. Camera Phone

 2. Camera

 3. Shoes

4. Chair

5. Imperfection

Check out Ashley Sisk's Scavenger Hunt and a lot of other creative people @ Rambling's and Photos.


Friday, March 18, 2011

Losing my head(er)

I can't go on living this way! My blog desperately needs an update but I can't decide what to do. The orange owl was my personal touch and I felt a little twinge of regret when I took him down.

I even thought about using him to make something new. If he was on paper I would tuck him away under my bed for old times sake (along with all the other meaningful things I can't find under there).
But I digress. Thinking up something cool and artistic that defines this blog is so perplexing that I didn't sleep a wink last night... or maybe that was the cup of coffee I drank too late in the evening. Hmm...

Anyway, it feels so wrong to post photos while the site is under construction but I can't resist. I filled up a cf card today in my attempt to capture the perfect shot for the header and I ended up with...



are you ready for this?



More photos of my kids!

Surprised? Yeah, I didn't think so.

But they are super cute!





And at least now you know that I'm working on it.
I'll start as soon as my Tech Savvy Husband comes home!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Important Announcement

***Official Announcement***

This blog is under construction.
(that's my excuse for why it looks so weird)
Construction begins tonight and will conclude
some time in the future
(because I know nothing about making a cute blog).
We will proceed with extreme caution.

Thank you for your patience.

~ Management

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Thankful Heart

Yesterday was such a good day... everybody was (mostly) cheerful, we worked, we learned we played... 
I even got to work out!



My little guy discovered the "ball" in the sky
(he didn't believe me when I told him it's called the Moon)

My big boy discovered a new hiding place...

I felt like a really good mom. So happy and thankful for everything in my life.



But that was yesterday.



Today is cold and rainy. 
I'm sore from that awesome work out.
The pile of dishes and laundry makes me feel guilty.
My kids didn't take good naps and they are really, really grumpy.
I taught them Philippians 2:14 "Do everything without complaining or arguing" 
(between you and me, I don't think my 1 yr. old was paying attention ;)
I keep reminding them to be cheerful and thankful... but what about my own heart? 



Makes my think of a Chris Rice song I listened to when I was a kid...


"Oh, why do the good days end?
Makes me wonder now
With the way I feel
If yesterday was even real
And why, oh why do You seem so far away
Could it be that I’ve gone too far this time
And can I make You change Your mind, oh...
Why should any day,
Be like today?


Do I wallow in my insecurities?
Do I trust what my feelings are tellin’ me?
Or do I rest in the promise You made me
That You’ll never leave?
Oh, today my heart believes
That the truth remains
You never change
Your love for me is still the same, oh...
Why can’t every day,

Be like today?"







Sunday, March 13, 2011

Scavenger Hunt

1. Vanishing Point

2. Square Crop


3. Under

4. Welcome to the Jungle

5. Calm
I love my big sister... and coffee! We worked together on this one :)






Friday, March 11, 2011

Refreshing

If there is one thing I've learned about my kids, 
it's that they can turn anything into a good time...



even something as simple as drinking water!


I love that about my kids.


Well, except when they're bubbling. And even then I have to admit they're still pretty cute :)






P.S. If you want to have a truly fun read, check out The Pioneer Woman:  "Ten Important Things I've learned about blogging." I know that was a random P.S. and I apologize for the inconvenience.