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The Little Guy

August 1, 2010 in Family, life, siblings with 0 Comments

Since this blog serves as a baby book for the kiddos, I thought I would take a few posts and remind myself about each kid over the past few months. I’ll start with the baby since he officially turned 16 months old this past week! Its hard to believe he’s that big already! =)

Justus: Some of your favorite things this summer are: Reading with your sister (who is actually starting to read…a little…but we’ll save that for her post =) )And having tea parties with the other sister
You have also started making this face right before you have to go to the bathroom. You come find me, scrunch up your nose, and start sniffing. I’ll ask you “do you need to go poo poo?” and you’ll shake your head yes. I have yet to put you on the potty to go though. You middle sister did the same thing at 15 months and anyone who knows her knows how that has turned out for us. So you still go in your diaper, but usually as soon as you are done, you go and bring me a diaper and continually say “biper, biper, biper” over and over again until I’ll stop and change you. Your sisters never cared if they were poopy, but you certainly do!You recently learned to climb up that bunk bed ladder. Mommy was quite surprised when I walked in the room to find you on the top rung of the ladder. 15 months is too early to learn such things! But your motto is “anything your sisters can do, you can do too.” Which means you have figured out how to climb to the top bunk, up onto the trampoline, on top of the computer desk, onto the couch, into the car and car seat, and so much more. But you do it all with a smile. Sometimes that smile makes it hard to discipline you!You also are quite the cuddle bug. You LOOOVE your white blanket and just giggle with excitement whenever I say its time to go get it from your bed. You have to have it over my left should before you’ll lay down your head and cuddle before bedtime. I need to take pictures of this one day!

Overall, you are just our happy go lucky, free spirited, rambunctious little boy whom we love whole-heartedly. We couldn’t imagine life without you! Happy 16 month birthday little man =)Here is a little video of our little man at 15 months old! Its just a lot of him playing with the things he likes. Enjoy =)

Differences

July 27, 2010 in life with 0 Comments

The girls were up ahead taking care of the dog. Dog sitting has been one more thing that has shown their nurturing/mothering tendencies.

The boy was falling behind as he focused on gathering as many sticks and logs as he could find. My hunter/gatherer who gets loved on quite a bit by his nurturing sisters. Sometimes the differences between the two genders is extremely obvious.

Afternoon Plans

July 20, 2010 in Family, life, siblings with 2 Comments

Our trip to the pool was canceled due to little man’s slight fever when he woke up from his nap. The next best thing to a pool? A bath tub of course.The girls wanted the tub really full so they could practice their swimming moves. They decided little brother should just play with mom during this “swim”.Little man was not putting up with being left out of all the fun. After a brief conference, the girls decided he could join them on two conditions.

He had to pretend to be a mermaid
He couldn’t poop in the tub. I’m happy to say, Justus makes an excellent mermaid and all gross substances stayed in his body.

Vacation

July 13, 2010 in life with 1 Comment

Seven days of traveling = lots of fun and lots of pictures. I won’t bore you with all of them =) But here are the highlights!

I drove up to Iowa with the kids after the wedding. Since we started the trip from OK, the drive up was a bit shorter. 10 1/2 hours after beginning our trek, we got out at my little sister’s house to discover that her husband ROCKS! He built a little room in their basement for the little man to sleep in. If you have babies, you know how annoying it is to sleep where they can see you. I wish I had pictures of the room, but I was so excited about it, I forgot to take any pictures of it! Needless to say, it was the best thing ever to be able to roll over in the middle of the night, say “no, no. night night” and since Justus couldn’t see me and protest, he would lay back down and go back to sleep. I think that little room saved my sanity =)

I spent 5 days with my little sis and a few days at my older sister’s house. We got to celebrate mom’s b-dayPlay, play, playAnd just have fun with all the cousins and my sisters. The drive home took almost 14 hours to complete. Luckily my oldest is in heaven if she gets to watch TV. About hour 10 she stated “I love driving in the car. I get to watch movies all day long. This is the best!” Elliana, on the other hand, said “mom, I need to tell you something.“ This was about hour 10. “I REEEAAAALY like airplanes.”

About hour 12, I completely agreed with her =)

To see the rest of the pictures, watch the slide show below or click here.

Sometimes Life forces you out of Hiatus

June 29, 2010 in Family, life with 8 Comments

3 days from now my girls are going to be flower girls for the very first time! See how cute they look in this picture…

After nap today, the youngest daughter came out looking like this.

Guess she found some scissors in her room

Should be some GREAT wedding pictures this weekend.

Any suggestions on how to make this flowergirlish? And don’t worry. There will be pictures posted of the wedding. I’m dying to see how we’re going to recover from this one!

Its a First =)

June 27, 2010 in budget, frugal living, life with 3 Comments

Okay, have to admit. I’m pretty proud I pulled this one off. So proud I had to take a break from my blogging hiatus to show you =)

Everyone told me they were easy to make, and I never believed them. But its true. My very first attempt at making home made tortillas. YUMMY!!These and some home made bread were both finished today. Its amazing what I find time to make when I’m out of grocery money for the week!

And just because I’m proud of my first tortillas, I’ll include another picture =)

Hiatus?

June 22, 2010 in life with 0 Comments

Hiatus: suspension: an interruption in the intensity or amount of something

My blog is broken, our computer is broken, my camera is broken…I think this calls for a Hiatus for a few weeks.

Actually not even sure if this post will publish (lots of computer issues lately!), but if it does, know that my hiatus from blogging begins today. Whenever everything is fixed and I’m settled from a summer of travels and busy schedules, I’ll return to the blog.

Maybe sometime at the end of the summer or beginning of Fall? Until then, there may be a few random posts that go up here and there (computer permitting) , but nothing scheduled or regular for the next couple of months. And now I’m off to go enjoy my family. My hubby flies home today =)

Goal: no computer for awhile =)

Happy Summer to you all!!

Day One

June 15, 2010 in life, rules with 2 Comments

Day 1 of Avery learning to do her own laundry. Someone once told me once their kids could see the top of the washer, they were responsible for their own laundry. I figured that with a stool pushed up to the washer, Avery could see the top =) I knew there was a reason I loved having kids =)

My Spiritual Journey: Balance

June 15, 2010 in life, My Spiritual Journey with 3 Comments

John the disciple (as apposed to John the Baptist) =)

He is characterized as having zeal, ambition, aggressive, and at times behaves in a volatile and brash manner. He was one of the inner three disciples who were closest to Jesus as He lived on earth.

As I read about John this week, the Lord started teaching me far more about the wisdom I need for this stage of life. See John had a zeal for truth. This zeal made him a pretty black and white type of guy. He generally thought in absolutes. Either you loved God and followed him or you didn’t. If you loved God, you spoke truth. If you lied, you didn’t have Christ in you. Black and white. This zeal for truth was good, but a little out of balance. However, after 3 years of walking with Christ, love for others began to balance his zeal for the truth.

In his infancy stage of Christianity, his potential virtues were so out of balance that they became sins. Most of the disciples, and us, are wired this way. Our greatest strengths become our weaknesses when taken to an extreme. John MacArthur states ” But three years with Jesus began to transform a self-centered fanatic into a mature man of balance. Three years with Jesus moved this Son of Thunder toward becoming an apostle of love…’

The point…yes I have one!

I’ve entered a personally uncharted season of life. God has called Brent and I to do something that requires me to be a single mom quite a bit, but I’m not sure how to do this yet. In fact, I’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about how to live this new role I’ve found myself in. How do you go from single mom back to family back to single mom and back again? This week as I’ve been studying John and praying through the whole idea of balance, God has really spoken to me about the transition I am attempting to make.

What if life wasn’t broken up into “weeks where Brent is gone” and “weeks where Brent is here“. What if I didn’t try to live the extreme of trying to plan fun things and be gone and make the time pass while Brent is gone and then go back to strict schedule and family stuff the weeks he’s here? What if I allowed Christ to keep my life balanced in him regardless of the circumstances around me?

I don’t have any answers yet, but God is teaching me how to rely on Him for the answers instead of picking up the phone and just having my hubby tell me the answers =) There was a pastor visiting our church who said something to the effect of that Christians need to learn how to live with Christ as the head. We tend to live like a chicken with its head cut off. The body running around the yard saying “what do you want me to do, where should I go, what should I do next.” But the body will just keep jerking in all sorts of directions because there is no head. If Christ is our head, we just go where the head tells us and do what the head tells us. Its not hard. We just need to listen and obey and expect direction.

That image of submitting to the Head has stayed in my mind for the past few months. Balance definitely comes, like it came to John, as I walk as the body of Christ with Christ as the head instead of always living in one extreme or the next.

Balance…

Goals:

Read Same Kind of Different as Me this week. I couldn’t put it down! Needless to say, the other books I was reading didn’t get much read out of them. But I finished Same Kind of Different as Me so I’ll pick back up the others this week too. I’m hoping to finish Twelve Ordinary Men this week.
So I have one friend who said she would teach me to sew. I just have to call her and get started…We’ll see if I’m any good =)
I will work out this week, I will work out this week, I will work out this week! For some reason, if I don’t get up early and work out, I’m not getting them in. When Brent is gone, I can’t leave early to work out because of the kids and then when he’s home, I just want to be home in the morning with him in stead of leaving to work out. Ahhhhhhh. But I truly believe God calls us to take care of ourselves and our body so the workouts must be fit back in. Running twice a week isn’t cutting it =)
I’m planning on staying home a lot this week. My two older kids are currently going stupid and must be whipped back into shape. That should be a project in and of itself. So isolation is the answer so that there will be many opportunities for me to lovingly correct and discipline inappropriate behavior =) Its hard to discipline in public =)

What’s a Little Heat

June 10, 2010 in Family, life with 0 Comments

It was only 103 outside, so what did we do? Went to the zoo of course! Grandma and Grandpa were here; we had to take advantage and do all sorts of fun things!They opened the zoo up early for members so we took advantage and got there early. The good thing about early was that all the animals just woke up so they were active!Another good thing about early is that they take certain animals out of the cage so the kids can pet them and ask questions about them. Looks fake, right? Its not =)As usual, the sandbox was the favored attraction for the kids. Justus is into throwing sand right now. He just threw some before this picture was snapped. See the excitement on his face =)I liked the penguins…mainly because it was cold in there and sooooo hot outside.
I think the black bear was my dad’s favorite. He practiced his bear calls and got the bear to jump up into that log. The only thing between us and the bear was a metal grate. Kinda freaky and kinda fun all at the same time.This was just the beginning of all the fun we had while Grandma and Grandpa were here. In fact, we had so much fun, I didn’t take another picture for the rest of the week! They left Wednesday and the little man woke up from his nap, looked at me and said “Grandpa” and then signed please. When I said, “Grandpa went bye bye”. Justus replied, “Grandma?” His words exemplify all of our feelings. We loved having you here Mom and Dad! Thanks for coming and for staying so long!