Two

Two sets of hands, 

Two sets of eyes,

Two friends,

Two smiles,

Two opposite personalities,

Two imaginations,

Two souls...

Two precious little people that fill my heart with joy!

Spirited Riders

When I was a little girl, I was horse crazy. 

When I was a teenager I rode horses all the time and would have lived at the barn if I had the choice! 

Then gradually life shifted away from the barn. I began art lessons and work in the city, 

I married my childhood sweetheart and we started a family together. Change is part of life and I can't even express how happy I am with my little family.

But you know, from time to time I would feel that pang only a horse lover (who hasn't ridden in 6 years) would understand ...

Which is why I was overjoyed when my husband bought me riding lessons!

So, I went to the barn on Saturday and I rode

Fine Chocolate. 

I know what you're thinking "Abi, how in the world did you manage to get the horse with eyes closed??" 

I know, I've wondered the same thing many times.

 My 2 year old daughter loves the idea of her mother riding a horse named Chocolate,

even better, I told her that Chocolate's friend is named Fancy. "Fancy!" she exclaimed "is she pink?"

Well, sorry, but no. Life is full of disappointment. 

She might not be pink, but she IS pretty!

 The weather was windy. I mean really windy, like jumps being blown over and little tornadoes swirling around the ring. We've had a lot of rain and Choc had not been ridden in a while so my trainer decided to let Choc run around the ring a little before I hopped on... good call. 

That horse flew! She bucked, she snorted, she splashed through the mud like an Australian Brumby with Jim Craig hot on her heels. 

You can imagine how I felt as I took the reigns... but she was as gentle as a kitten. We had a fantastic ride and I left with a smile on my face (even though my legs might be a little sore).

All this reminds me of something I read from Rachel Jankovic on little girls & emotions

We tell our girls that their feelings are like horses-beautiful, spirited horses. But they are the riders. We tell them that God gave them this horse when they were born, and they will ride it their whole life. God also set us on a path on the top of a mountain together and told us to follow it. We can see for a long way- there are beautiful flowers, lakes, trees, and rainbows (We are little girls after all)! 

When our emotions act up, it is like the horse is trying to jump the fence and run down into a yucky place full of spiders to get lost in the dark. A good rider knows what to do when the horse tries to bolt- you pull on the reigns! Turn the horse's head! Get back on the path! We also tell our girls that God told us if we see one of them with their horse down in a mud puddle spitting at people who walk by, it is our job to haul them up, willing or unwilling, back to the path. The ways that this has helped me as a mother are pretty obvious, but I will share them anyway if you will bear with me. 

First of all, the horses are not the problem. There is nothing wrong with emotions.
If we have a rider who is woefully unprepared to control her horse, well then, we had better start with some pretty serious riding lessons. Anticipate moments that might be hard, when the horse might bolt, and help them learn to anticipate it too. Take a break to say "Hey sweetie, we are going to the store, but we aren't going to buy any toys today. If you start feeling like you want to fuss about it, what are we going to do?" Wink. Encourage. Give lots of praise when you see her overcoming little emotional temptations. Be right there with her as she learns to recognize what is happening. Little girls can be scared out of their minds when their emotions charge off with them. They need the security of parents pulling them back up.

The goal is not to cripple the horse, but equip the rider. A well-controlled passionate personality is a powerful thing. But a passionate personality that is unbridled can cause a world of damage. If you see a lot of passion in your little girls, don't be discouraged. It is just a wonderful raw material... But don't treat it lightly either- runaway horses can be a very real threat to your little girls.

I can't wait to use this illustration with my little girl... and you know, it just might help my little boys too!

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!

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!

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 :)