STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!!

You may think I am addressing myself in an effort to loose the baby weight...although that would be good, I am actually addressing my second, who I affectionately call Little Bit.

It started with the serious call from my oldest,"Mommy!!! "O" is feeding the baby....

cookie dough!"

YES!!

Cookie Dough!!

She got the stand mixer bowl out of the fridge and was eating it in the living room. Yes she did somehow walk past me (I swear I am not negligent!) and had sweetly piled a handful of cookie dough on the rug in front of "J". I will admit it.

I freaked out.

I mean she is six months old. Salmonella and milk products are a lot scarier then. SO, no despite everyone asking, I did not get a picture of chocolate dribbling down my babies face or the fists full of mushy raw cookie dough.

Sigh.

Really I just heaved a big sigh thinking of it.

Yes, she had consequences.

No, it did not prevent another escapade.

Later she found the can of icing that had been hiding in the back of the fridge from

who knows when.

Yes, she had consequences.

No, it did not prevent another escapade.

I found her head in the fridge and asked in that Mommy threatening voice,"'O', Are you eating icing?!"

To which she replied, "NO! Mushrooms." She likes raw mushrooms, so I am OK with that. But as she closed the door she said, "I just dipping dem in icin..."

YUCK!

SO I look and sure enough there are little bits of black mushroom entrails in the icing can.

That was right before "K" came home. So we were through with escapades for the day.

But today we started over and this time I took pictures.

I came out from putting the baby down to "O" crying, "I got it in my eye, it hurts it hurts!!" So I rushed around the corner to find her in the pantry with the bag of Splenda tipped over. Yes it spilled all over her face. So I grabbed the camera on the way to the bathroom to wash out her eyes and off her face. She was hurting, but not enough to stop licking as much as she could off her mouth and wherever her tongue could reach!!

She did not like me taking her picture!

Yes, there were consequences.
Will it prevent another escapade, we will see...

Faith of a Child

Well my ear has been bothering me. Its been clogged and I haven't been able to hear out of it...not good when you've got a baby crying in the other room.

So tonight as :A" was heading to bed, she informed me that I needed to go to the ear doctor.

Flash back to Sunday. Our pastor, mentioned during his sermon that we often use God as back up when option 1 doesn't work out. He used a headache as an example. Those in more desperate situations don't have other options. When they have a headache they pray first and hope and expect an answer to their prayer for healing, and usually see it! Then there are those of us, with so many advantages and options. We have a headache, we reach for the Tylenol. Tylenol doesn't work we each for more. That doesn't work we cry "Oh Lord heal my headache!!"

Pastor challenged us to make God the first option!

Now back to tonight. I told "A", "Well honey why don't you pray for mommy's ear."

She asked why and I said, "Cause God is big and able to heal and doesn't cost any money!!"

She got shy and wanted me to help her so this is what we said:

Me: "Dear Jesus"

"A": "Dear Jesus"

Me: "Please make Mommy's ear all better"

"A": "Please make Mommy's ear all better"

Me: "In Jesus Name"

"A": "In JeSUS NAME"

I put that in all caps because that is what it sounded like to me! It suddenly became really loud!! I told "A" that God heard her prayer! She was so giddy! She kept covering her mouth and giggling. I explained to her that now she knew God really hears her prayer cause he answered one! So she literally, immediately prayed for her white, medium sized, fluffy, poodle dog that is a girl, and comes with a collar with the name sally written on it. In Jesus name amen. Whew.

yeah.

Can't fault her with non-specific prayers!

I guess now we will learn the lesson of how God doesn't always answer our prayers right away.

Unless there's something I don't know Lord!....

Things To Come...

I really enjoy spring time. After fall, spring is my favorite season! Partly because we might have a few days of pleasant weather before the inevitable 4 month long heat wave called summer here in central Texas, and partly because of the promise of things to come!!

We have a garden so spring just screams new life to me, and sinse we live in Texas we have been able to enjoy the fruits of our labor through winter here.

See thIs worn out broccoli!

We didnt even collect the last of it florets and it will give us more I am sure.

The spinach the girls have been enjoying, in fact, for lunch today!

Now on to the promise of things to come!

Here we have beautiful blossoms that will be growing into peaches! We are very excited because there are lots of blooms!!

Arent they so pretty and delicate looking!

This is my Valentines day present:

Lemon trees! I drink lemon water all day long. I lurve it!

And I love the smell of lemons...breathing in, breathing out...imagining the smell...mmm.

Thirst is overcomming me!!

These little buds are the beggining of lemons....YAY!

Now we finally have some strawberries growing. This has been a two year process of getting one or two random little bitty strawberries that we always have to cut in half ( we must share you know!)...ugh. But these are looking promising!We also have blue berry and black berry planted. We will see how they do! We planted some grapes along the fence so I am really excited to see how that goes!

The veggies are just in the beggininnig phases but here is some corn we planted, We just planted a little and then we will plant more later so it will last us longer!Here is our surprise! We put the pumpkins we carved for halloween out to watch them decompose.

It was very intersting to our girls. We put them in the empty planter we hadn't used last summer. Well guess what we have growing!!??

Pumpkin! What a neat lesson for the girls to learn: that ultimatEly death leads to life!

Hmmm... all of creation does point to heaven doesn't it!?

So as we prepare for the commemoration of our Saviors death and then resurection, all I have to do is look outside to be reminded of the promise of things to come!

7 Little Things That Make Me Disproportionatly Happy!

Heather at Want What You Have posted this and I love it!

We all need to think of these things especially when we get in the habit of thinking of the things that bother us, which, ahem...would never be me!

1. When My husband really really smiles, which is rarely caught on camera cause those are always posed. But this smile comes with an awesome laugh that anyone who knows him would recognize. In fact it has happened that someone heard him the next aisle over in a grocery store and came looking for him. It is the best and no matter how I am feeling it evokes at least a smile, if not a full laugh!

This is K when we were dating and is the closest I could find to the real thing!

2. When I use my creative juices to make something! I love making things, whether it's an outfit for one of my girls or decorative letters or something educational like -- I love it! I feel so accomplished and like I have done something useful and beautiful which is the best feeling ever!

This is the easter dresses I made for the girls out of womens skirts. One was a quarter at a garage sale then I found the matching one at goodwill for like 4.00 which is more than I normally pay but it matched! I was so pleased with how they turned oit!

3. Baby kisses. I love having a baby that I can kiss all over! I love love love baby kisses! And now she is getting big enough to give me baby kisses by grabbing my hair on either side of my face and pulling me toward her and usually my nose ends up somewhere close to her mouth and she just laughs...oh makes me want to wake her up just so I can get some!!! Well. Almost...

This is actually "A".

4. "O"s antics. Although these antics can sometimes drive me up the wall... most of the time they provide great laugh therapy which I need! There is nothing like seeing her look sideways out of her big blue eyes because she knows she is doing something that will make me laugh.

5. Serious conversations with "A". I love discovering how deep she thinks.
Whether it about how she will marry daddy when she grows up so she never has to leave our family, or the eggs that are inside her that will grow to be babies someday (yes I told her that casually one day when she asked how babies get inside...we even looked up pics! How did I know how wonderful she would think that was!) or whether it is about the house in heaven that Jesus is preparing for us: "Will it have pictures on the wall too? Will we need a fridge? Will we drive cars? Will there be a grocery store?" These moments of quiet conversations with her are like medicine for my sometimes weary mommy soul!

6. Finding bargains! I have to agree with Heather on this one! I LOVE finding bargains! I love when we find something we have been wanting at a garage sale for chump change!

Little things like a barbie watch that "A" had been asking for everytime we walked past the watch section at walmart: Garage sale for a quarter.

Nice Tommy Hillfiger shirts for "K" to wear to work: garage sale for fifty cents.

Ceramic Hair straightener I had been longing for: $19.99 with a $10 off coupon to be used on my next shopping trip to Walgreens. (and it works well, I tried it as soon as I got home!) YIPEE!!

7.The family routines we have made.

-Like sittting outside on a blanket in the cool evening while "K" plays his gutair and sings worship songs. We really do this and I love it!

-Like "A" asking every night at dinner, "What was your favorite part of today?" And we all answer in a particular order too!

-Like the silly songs we have made up for almost every routine or phrase we have to say repeatedly:

"Its Night night time, Night night time..."

"The only thing that goes in your mouth is food and drink..."

Well I was singing them as I typed but it doesnt translate well....

My Two Cents

So we don't watch much TV and yet I am surprised at how much negative coverage I have heard and read about the mother of octuplets.
And it irks me.
So I thought I would give my two cents.
The reason it bothers me is because I feel it is another attack on life...and I will tell you why.
Sure we may not agree with her choices.
Sure we may think she is irresponsible.
We may think she is a little off her rocker...
But would the media be giving such a hard time to a woman who seemed as equally irresponsible, crazy and made repeated mistakes resulting in 14 consecutive abortions!
NO!
Because it was her choice, and after all, we live in a pro-choice nation and she may have made bad choices but she has the right to terminate her pregnancies if she wants to...

The octomom as she has been called (even thought she has 14 children not just 8) I guarantee you was given the option to "reduce" when it was discovered she had multiple babies growing inside her, but she didn't. She chose life.
We do live in a pro-choice nation after all.
So.
That's why it irks.
My two cents, that's all!

Sisterly Love

I took this photo in the middle of the night last night, hence the off-centered aim!

I couldn't see where I was aiming!

The flash makes it look like its the middle of the day but it wasn't!

Aren't they sweet!

Aaahhh sisterly love!

Can I Do It?

I hear this question all the time, and if I am on top of things I say yes. If I am feeling rushed and not living in the moment I say no and something along the lines of "Please leave the kitchen (or where ever) so Mommy can get this done." And that is a lost teaching moment!

Annelise was cracking eggs into bowl, scrambling them in the frying pan by 18 months. She watered the yard with Daddy and helped with yard work...like really. She did.

Unfortunately, Olivia did not have the same experience. With the addition of another child I lived less in the moment and more in the future. By that I mean I was thinking of all the things that NEED to be done, of all the things I HADN'T done, instead of being there in that spot when she wanted to crack an egg, or wanted a hug, or needed a prayer said, or wanted to see if she could do it...

***Oh Lord, how much have we lost in all areas when we wast mind space thinking of what is to be done or hasn't been done...

Martha welcomed Him into her home.
She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word.
But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me."
But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;
but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10: 38-42***

Although I have tried to foster independence in most areas of their lives: they dressed themselves and put their own shoes on by the time they were 2, they usually help in some way with all the cooking...so YAY I have done somethings right!!! There are many things I had intended to do as a young mother with just one, that have slipped to the wayside as 2 more came along...


But I have been re-inspired!


As many of you know, we plan to home school and I have been rereading about Maria Montessori and her education philosophy. One of her famous quotes is that a child says "Help me to do it myself".


I love it!

One of the first activities she advocates for young children are called practical life activities. What does that mean? Real life activities you would do in ... real life!


So as a mom who feels always behind, why do I not offer more "practical life" !?


Folding, washing tables, dusting, washing dishes, setting the table. These activities are introduced to toddlers in a Montessori environment.


Having work to do makes children feel like they are contributing to the family, and an important member because of it. These activities are often repeated over and over by the child because they have a need to master it, and the repetition helps build concentration in the meantime.


So the other day I set up a dish washing station right next to the kitchen. I have a dishpan full of warm soapy water, a smaller bowl of cold water to rinse and a towel to dry. They LOVE it! And I don't have to clean up their breakfast dishes!!

***Lord help me to sit at your feet, the only thing that is necessary, and not be distracted and worried about so many things. And when my children sit at my feet, help me to see that they are needing to be taught...and I can't teach them well unless I am at your feet!***

"A" Wrote A Story

"A" drew a picture and then asked me to write down her story. So this is what she said word for word!

Once upon a time, there were two little birds sitting in a tree. One was a big one, one was a little one.There was a little girl named Marrissa who loved birds. She loved big ones, little ones, pretty ones, all kinds of birds. She had a brother named Sam.

One day Marrissa called her parents. She said, "Mom! Dad! Come look at these pretty birds I found!" So Marrissa's parents and her brother came outside and looked at the tree but didn't see the birds. So Marrissa said, "Look kind of to the left and then to the left." And then her parents finally saw the pretty birds.

Sam still couldn't see them. So Marrissa said to her brother, " Look kind of to the left and then to the right!" And then Sam SAW THE BIRDS!

He said, "Sister, come see what I did! I put them in a box for you!" So Marrissa's parents bought her a big, pretty cage for the birds.

They moved the birds out of the box into the cage. They gave them food, water and lots of love.The family lived happily ever after with their pet birds.

The End

I did no prompting except for the birds in the cage thing. I asked her if the birds would be sad to be in a cage and she replied that Marrissa would be sad to let them go. I told her Marrissa could look at them every time she went outside to play...but apparently that wasn't good enough cause she ignored my prompting and continued with the story as she imagined it!

Also we don't know a Marrissa or a Sam.

And the picture she drew is soo cute. It even has a family dog, a squirrel in the tree and and the brother is sticking out his tongue (how does she know that's what brothers do!)and there is an airplane flying over the parents that she is disappointed with. She asked that I teach her how to draw airplanes!...

I know I am her mother and therefore think everything she does is stupendous so bear with me!!