Just when almost all of our snow was gone and we were thinking gardening thoughts, we got hit with 12" of snow and high winds over the course of 2 days! It was quite the storm! We lost power from around 6:00 A.M. until 11:30 A.M. Thankfully we have a fireplace so we got a fire going and hung out by the fire for the morning and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows to eat. The power came back on just as we were getting mostly through roasting the hot dogs. I kind of enjoy a good storm like that - makes some good memories! So we're back to snow piles, mud puddles, and lots of water as it starts melting. It's supposed to be in the 50's by Tuesday so I'm sure it will be melting fast!
Friday night of the storm (when it wasn't quite done), I brought some snow inside for the kids to play with (and eat). They enjoyed it quite a bit! I used some food coloring and made it different colors and they made things out of it. We also mixed up some milk, sugar and vanilla to eat some "snow cream" which did taste quite a bit like liquidy ice cream that's really cold. You basically use 2 parts milk to 1 part sugar and a little vanilla (I just guessed on the vanilla). It was quite good and the kids enjoyed the treat! Anyways, that's the latest here! I'm really looking forward to real spring!
Here's some pics of our indoors snow party!
Our 3yo's creation
One of our 5yo's is obsessed with fires. The red is his bonfires.
If any of you are like me, you have different aches and pains that crop up. With having 6 kids and especially with having a 1 year-old to hold and carry during my day, I've been finding quite a few aches and pains cropping up in the last year. I now have plantar fascitis (pain on the bottom of my heel). I also have had low back pain off and on, shoulder pain off and on, a hip that sometimes pops out of socket for a second and other assorted odd pains here and there. I also haven't been as good at exercising in the last year+ with the busyness of 6 kids. I've had the thought at times that maybe I should do a better job at exercising to help me out. On the momys e-mail list I'm on, I had seen someone recommend a book called: "The Core Program: 15 Minutes a Day That Can Change Your Life" by Peggy Brill. I put it on my wish list on paperback swap (see my link in the sidebar) and a little bit ago, the book came up as available so I ordered it with my swap points I had.
I just got the book a few days ago and started reading it right away. The basic idea of the book is that in order to have healthy, pain-free bodies we need to keep our body's core muscles (from the top of the backbone down to the bottom of the backbone) etc. strong and with doing this our bodies will stay in proper alignment and we will have less discomforts popping up. The author is a renowned physical therapist who has had pre-med classes and has a practice treating women. The book is written for women addressing their different needs. I have read many testimonials on amazon.com about what her book has done for people with different pain issues.
I really was helped by her test she had where you stand and look at yourself in the mirror to see how you measure up in posture. She had you look to see if your head was straight, shoulders level, distance from your arm to your body the same on both sides, hands with palms facing your body instead of facing back, hips the same height, knees the same direction, feet even etc. When I did this I was amazed to see that my right shoulder (the weaker side that I don't hold the baby on) was definitely lower than my left shoulder showing a muscle imbalance there. There was definitely a difference in the space between my arms and my body. My palms were turned the wrong way. I definitely show an imbalance in my muscle groups and can see how these things could be affecting some of my pain problems.
I've only done one day of the exercises so far but really enjoyed it. It doesn't take just 15 min. at first as you learn the exercises, but I can see that it will go much faster once I'm good at them. They really are different, but really good exercises. They're almost all done lying down. She uses many isometric exercises (where you're pushing or flexing muscles without physically moving a lot) which are very good. Her abdominal exercises are really good as well. She says that doing crunches or exercise like that for abs can be bad in that they can contribute to urinary incontinence. She has better exercises of abs that isolate different abdominal muscles. All in all I think I'm going to get a lot out of this book and hopefully be feeling better soon!
One little note, there are a few references to things you may not want unmarried girls reading - benefits of the program that would be a bit graphic for an unmarried girl to read.
If you need some work on your body, check this out at the library if you can and see if it might help you out!
A little while ago I had my 35th birthday. It was a really special day. I generally don't have great anticipations with my birthdays but the Lord truly blessed me on my birthday this year. These were the special blessings from my birthday:
My parents visiting from Wheaton and my mom offering to make me whatever I wanted for supper for a special birthday meal!
Attending a new Prayer time with some new friends I've recently made since moving to this area. They knew about my birthday from our church bulletin and made me a cake and each had cards for me and one new friend even had a present for me. It was wonderful fellowshipping and praying for each other during this time!
Watching my children watch me in anticipation of my blowing out a bunch of candles. The event itself isn't that exciting as an adult, but seeing all their excited faces for me was so sweet!
Seeing my 4yo son cry because he hadn't gotten me a present! That was the best present he could of given me - caring for me that much!
Seeing a beautiful double rainbow in the sky during cake time! What a neat reminder that God keeps his promises in our lives. I can count on him in the coming year!
Here are some pictures of the beautiful rainbow out our window!
If you're read my recent blogs, you've read about how I've been trying to get more of a biblical focus for our whole day. God shouldn't be put into one part of our day but be present and active in our whole lives. One aspect of this that I've been thinking about more is the role of play and toys in the lives of my children.
If God is the focus of our day, my thought on young kids and play is that play is a way for them to act out living God's way and a way for them to learn about God's world. Their focus when they play shouldn't be just selfish enjoyment of toys, but of playing with toys in a way God would be pleased with and using them as tools to learn about how to live and learn in God's world.
For example, legos and building toys are good for them to learn construction and science skills - they're learning about God's world with them. Little people, Thomas trains, other character toys can be used to show how people should interact with one another. Hitting baloons around is fun and develops muscle coordination and can be beneficial, but if done selfishly it is more of a harm than a benefit.
What makes a toy beneficial or not? In Psalm 119:37 the Bible says: "Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things." What makes it something of worth? I believe it's not in what is being played with but how it's being played with. If a kids is selfish and screaming at others who come near their toy, it's definitely a worthless toy at that point. But if they're talking nicely to those who might be bothering them and playing with the toy in good ways, there is worth in that toy.
My kids and I were discussing different toys and how to use them to not be worthless things. Since we have a boat and like to go waterskiing and tubing and all in the summer, the kids like to pretend play like they're waterskiing. We talked about this and how you could pretend you're teaching someone else to waterski or making someone else happy with your boat. We talked about not waterskiing in a boastful way acting like you're the best at it, but rather in a praising God for the joy of waterskiing. Now can little kids get this attitude? Maybe not right away, but with repetition of these concepts over time, they can learn that serving and loving is the way to play and live.
The other day the kids were driving their trains around on the floor and I was thinking about how I could turn trains into something beneficial to others. I started telling them about Bibles and countries who don't have Bibles. We recently had read a children's fiction book about a boy smuggling a Bible into Russia on a train so they were pretending that their trains were bringing Bibles to people who didn't have them. Then another day the were pretending their trains were carrying corn that had been harvested (we had recently picked corn from our garden) so I encouraged them to pretend that they were bringing the corn to people who don't have much food.
Of course one way the children will do this more naturally is if they see us living some of these things out in real life. If we're praying for the poor and giving things to them, if we're praying for the people with no Bibles, if we're using our possessions to benefit others, these ideas will be caught much easier.
One other main key of doing this is that you need to be involved and around when the kids are playing. If they're just sent off to play all the time without interraction with you as a parent, you'll miss opportunities to encourage them to play in good ways. I do send them off to play at times during school but I try to be around other times when they are playing to encourage good playing. I can't say I see the fruit from a few times of doing this yet, but hopefully over time my children will become less selfish with their toys and begin to see the right focus in play.
Lately I've been struggling with lots of different issues with the kids. I'll spare the details of their negative behaviors and issues but I've been feeling quite down from feeling like their attitudes and behaviors are going downhill. I'm praying that as we get into the school year and into Bible Study consistently that God's Word would bear fruit in their lives. In the meantime, I've been caught (and they've been caught) in a negative downhill spiral.
Just tonight the Lord showed me how my attitude towards them and their behaviors has been hindering their change and improvement. As I've been frustrated with them, I've started using more negative tones with them. I've spoken negatively about them to others. I've said negative statements about the frequency of their bad behaviors. All these things have been counterproductive.
Tonight this came to me as I was trying to get my twin 4yo's to clean up their room. They do this every night after supper and oftentimes it's a big struggle while other times they do it well and are done in a short time. Tonight was one of those nights where they just seemed to stand around and fiddle with this toy or that toy and never really get around to actually putting something where it belonged. I was getting frustrated and was telling them to pick up. I was debating in my mind what to do and had hesitated long enough contemplating my negative mindset towards them when one of the twins put a toy away. I burst out into an enthusiastic cheer which caused his twin brother to pick something up and put it away bringing a cheer for him. Suddenly in about 2 minutes the room was picked up to the sound of my cheers.
After this I thought about how often I get negative when if I could just keep finding the good things they do and keep encouraging them in these things, they might start doing more and more good things and the whole tone in our house would change. We as moms really do set the tone of the house. Satan so wants to speak lies to us about how bad our kids are and how they'll never change and they keep getting worse and not better until we believe it and start treating them in that negative light. God wants us to encourage the good we see, dilligently and cheerfully train and correct the bad, and pray for their weaknesses and trust him to do his work in their lives.
None of this is something I haven't known, but boy I sure needed this reminder tonight! May we lovingly encourage our children in God's ways.
1.) The player starts with 8 random facts about herself.
2.) The person that has been tagged must post on her own blog, her answers and post the rules first.
3.) Then the player must pick 8 people and tag them and also leave them a note on message that lets them know, that you tagged them. You can write who tagged you on your blog also. (I think I'll randomly tag 8 and not bother posting names here...)
Here are my 8 random things:
1. I'm the youngest with 2 older brothers and my dh is the youngest with 2 older sisters
2. My dh works at home - he sells ink refill kits and other printer ink supplies at www.encoreink.com. He's also taking a medical transcription course online to supplement our income
3. My wonderful next-oldest brother lives about an hour away- hopefully I'll be seeing him soon at a lake around here!
4. We love going to the lake with our boat to go waterskiing etc... - I waterskied this year again for the 1st time in 3 years I think. 2 of the last 3 years I've been pg and the other one I was too busy with all the kids to go
5. I've met 2 of my best friends in this area through online e-mail groups
6. I taught Spanish for 3 years in a Christian school before having children and staying home. I hope to use my Spanish teaching in the homeschool community.
7. I play the piano fairly well and played the violin when I was young. I recently got a violin someone is letting me use so it's fun to pick that up again.
8. I have way too many flies in our house right now.
My husband and I started a new date night tradition this week. We've never been good about having dates with the logistics of a large, young family. Instead of having a weekly date night out, we decided to start having a weekly date night in.
After we get the kids in bed (hopefully a bit early) I set up a card table in our bedroom and put a table cloth on it and a candle and got a dessert. This week we had banana splits (except with banana chunks) in our fancy ice cream dishes. We have this question book for married couples that has a lot of different questions to ask each other and talk about. This week's question was to list 5 (or more) milestones in your married life. It was interesting reminiscing about previous years and the things that have happened!
It was a little tricky getting the kids down to bed and all. My oldest son tends to stay up later and read out near us so I told him he needed to read out there by himself. Also my 6yo dd wants us near her when she goes to bed so I needed to try to get her to let us be a little farther away in our bedroom (really not very far away from her at all). So it was a test in patience as it took a while to get them settled, but hopefully wtih consistency it will go better and we'll get more time together!
Anyways, it was a neat way to have some extra special time together and hopefully we'll find ways to make our dates in creative and fun!
Often before bedtime we read a chapter book as a family. Oftentimes the younger children get a little restless and disruptive during this time. It often has been very difficult to get the reading done with everyone listening.
Tonight I decided to have a little "family meeting" before we read the book. I explained that we were going to read our book and they needed to prove to me that they really wanted to hear the book by their actions in order to stay up to listen. Otherwise they would be sent to bed.
I then proceeded to demonstrate proper listening and improper listening. I had my husband read a little and re-enacted their behaviors or acted properly in turn and then asked them if I was listening properly or not. They all thought it was pretty funny to see mom rolling around wildly on the floor like they do for improper listening! Sometimes one of them will be silly and just start laughing to another child to get them laughing back and forth so while my dh was reading, I started to laugh for no reason at my children. Anyways, you probably had to be there to get the whole scene, but the re-enactment certainly helped and they sat much better tonight. My dh did have to cart 2 of them off before the chapter was done, but all in all things were better.
Do you have those moments? Those moments when everything is going wrong and you feel out of control or like everyone is out of control? Today it was during garden watering and weeding time. I was outside with the kids after breakfast to get the weeding/watering done. I started in with some kids getting the hose and the buckets. Unfortunately we're one hose too short to water the farther back garden so we need to fill 5-gallon buckets and bring them close to those areas and pour the water onto the plants.
So what do you think happens when you get a hose, buckets and 5 children ages 2, 4, 4, 6, and 8? I think you all know what a 2yo does with water and buckets. He scoops, dumps and pours back and forth between containers to his hearts content! What do 4yo twin boys do with it? They grab the hose, pull it around, fill their containers, dump them anywhere they feel like it - sometimes on plants, sometimes on the fire pit, sometimes too close to someone, or just dump the whole 5-gallon container of water for fun. What does a 6yo girl do? She bosses, screams at them (even if what they're doing really isn't that bad), and creates quite the scene. The 8yo tries to help amidst all of this but also gets frustrated and complains about the younger siblings and tattles a lot. What does mommy while trying to weed while this is going on? Get very frustrated and get upset at the wrong people sometimes or the right people sometimes but not deal with the situation in love.
So that was my morning weeding! When the deed was finally done and accomplished, I knew that it was time to do some thinking about a better way to get the garden watered. So that is my task. Whenever there's a time of day, a task, a situation where things tend to get out of control like that, I try to think it through strategically. What should each of the children be doing? How can they best be a help without causing a problem. If they do start causing problems, what will be the immediate consequence to prevent it from becoming a scene? What rules do I need to have for them to follow during this time?
SO - in thinking through plant watering and weeding time, here are a few things I could do. I could have set turns (3 min. or so) for certain kids to have time to fill the buckets with water (the more desired job). I could have each of them weed their own area of the garden while someone started in with spraying another area of the garden. I could have the most likely to act out children weed next to me - especially if they're not on their best behavior. I could assign them each specific plants to water so they're each going to different areas.
I haven't laid out the whole plan, but to do this I should start by listing all the specific areas to weed and water and specific tasks that need to be done to accomplish this. After I have my list of things that need to be done, I can figure out what order they should be done and who should do what and then think of how to have each of the children occupied during this time and what I should be doing. So that will be my plan - hopefully before the next time I need to water with all of them!
Other areas to strategically plan can include: mealtimes - who does what to get it ready and what will they all be doing during this time, bedtimes, chore times, school times, getting out the door and back in the door, and many other times. The idea is that whenever you find yourself frustrated repeatedly with a situation, pray about it and strategically plan how to better handle that situation in the future.
Tonight I had a big oops moment. Just before bedtime for my kids, I was enjoying our monarch caterpillars that we have and taking some pics of some chrysalises and a caterpillar that we have. I was holding the caterpillar and took it outside onto our deck to take some pics as I thought I might get a better pic there. I had taken 2 good pics and my son started to take it to put it back. I decided to take one more when the worst thing happened. I dropped it. I didn't just drop it on the deck, but of all the worst luck, it dropped through one of the cracks between two of the boards on our deck!
Our deck has trellis material all around the bottom of it so we couldn't instantly run to look for it. My husband does sometimes take it off to get things out but I wasn't sure if I wanted to ask him to get out the drill to take one off to look for a caterpillar in a dark location in the getting-dark evening. BUT I could see that my son wasn't going to take it well at all. He LOVES the caterpillars!
SO, I heard my son go in to ask my husband about taking off the trellis. I knew my husband was probably not in the mood for it so I went in and kind of gave him a look that showed him I felt really bad about it. I asked him if he could take it off for us to try to find it and went to find a flashlight. Thanks to my husband, he agreed and went to get the trellis off.
We stooped way down low (not much clearance under there) and made it over to the corner where the caterpillar had fallen through. Unfortunately we couldn't find it anywhere. My son was not happy about it.
A little bit later I went in to see him sitting sadly on a chair so I went over to him and asked him if we should pray that the caterpillar makes it and he said yes. We prayed together. It took quite a while of talking to him to get him to bed and asleep.
My main thoughts on this incident are this. Part of showing our love to our children is to care for what they care about. By caring for their feelings, even when in our eyes what they care about may seem silly, they know that we do truly love them. I could have just told him not to worry about it - we do have 10 chrisalises in our butterfly cage right now and still have one more caterpillar. But by going out of the way to try to look for it, I demonstrated that what was important to him was important, and therefore he is important to me. Even though I figured it would be very hard to find a small caterpillar in the semi-dark under the deck, the effort of caring for him and his feelings was more important than whether I thought the effort would be successful or not. Of course it was my fault this happened as well. When he looks back on the incident, he'll remember that I made a mistake and dropped the caterpillar, but he'll also remember that I cared enough for him and his feelings to go out of my way to do what I could for him.
I find that the more we say "yes" to our kids, the better. Sometimes it's very inconvenient to say "yes". Sometimes it may seem silly, or we may be busy or tired, but in saying "yes", we show that we care for them and are willing to serve them above our own wishes and desires.
I don't always respond so well in these situations, but was grateful to the Lord for this opportunity to show my son that I care for him. May the Lord grant us wisdom and strength in serving and loving our children.
Our 3yo's creation
One of our 5yo's is obsessed with fires. The red is his bonfires.
Our 1yo just loves to eat it!
Double Rainbow - 2nd rainbow to the right!
