A Day in the Life of a Lego Guy

Benjamin and Allen's first Movie Creation

Christmas tomorrow!

I know tomorrow is December 23 but it is our Christmas day! We wanted to get to our out of state family and still have one whole day with just the 5 of us at home. So, we asked Santa to come early. Tonight's the night! I am excited and calm at the same time. I don't have any expectations that I have looming over me. That was yesterday. All things are ready!

Expectations

I have realized today that my expectations are often quite silly. Well, truthfully I realize this many times and then go right back to the silliness that I came from! Anyway, today's silly expectation that I am letting go of is the one that says I must finish school by lunchtime in order to get everything taken care of. The one that says we can't take breaks and jump back in where we were after the break is over. Right now, obviously, we are all taking a break!! It feels quite lovely to sip my candy apple hot tea and type a few thoughts and read a few thoughts of my friends! Now I have 3 more minutes to see if we can jump back in where we were!

questions

Tonight Jeff asked Benjamin, "How many questions can you ask in an hour?" Benjamin, who just bought himself a new watch, replied, "I don't know. Let's time it!"

Moses and God sure went round and round at the burning bush! Here we have God telling Moses, "You are the one I want. I'm going to use you to deliver my people from their oppression." Then Moses says, "Who me? Why me? They won't believe me. I can't speak well enough." (Notice all the me in his responses.) It was like telling God, "You don't know what you're doing." Moses must have been overwhelmed, shocked, and scared. Isn't that how we feel when God asks us to do something out of our comfort zone? Our response is often, "You want me to do what? Are you sure? There are certainly many areas where I know God has asked me to be his servant. He says, " I want you to nurture and train these three boys to be men after my heart." To be honest, sometimes that seems like a more daunting task than leading the Israelites across the desert. But who am I to compare my task with any other task given to any other person by God. We all have something God is asking us to do. What will our answer be? Do we trust that God is faithful to give us everything we need to fulfill the task he has given? Or do we get stuck on what we believe our abilities will allow us to do? It comes down to trusting or not trusting in God's ability to use me for His glory. It may be scary. There will be days filled with heartache and others full of joy. I will most certainly reach the point again of thinking I can't do this. It is then that I will remember - I can't! But God can!

High Tech Bible Study

I really enjoyed my bible study today! I decided to do something different. Instead of sitting down with my bible, I used biblegateway.com to read from and pulled up my word processing program to take notes as I read. I would read a little and when a thought or question popped in my head I would switch over to my document and type away. Typing is faster for me that writing and I don't have to worry with paper. I really enjoyed studying this way. It really helped me develop my thoughts and meditate on what God was showing me.

Giving Attention To My Thoughts

Writing gets my thoughts going. So many thoughts swirl around in my head begging for an audience or at least some time to be pondered over but slip away as the next pushes its way to the front. This is a cycle that continues when I refuse to give my attention to something. You see, I read somewhere that attention means "setting my mind to whatever I'm about." That means choosing one thought above the others, saying one better or more important than the rest. I dare not choose one thought over another! Yet that is just what I am asked to do by my Lord. God tells me through the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3,5b "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh... we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." I must capture each thought and decide if it is worthy of being thought and if it will help me obey Christ. Philippians 4:8 says I am to meditate on whatever is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and/or praiseworthy. So, here is my checklist! Many times though after filtering out thoughts that will not help me to obey there are still many thoughts fitting that checklist still whirring through my head. What can I do? I can ask God to guide me in choosing which thought to give attention to at the moment. James 1:5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." So, I will be doing more asking for wisdom to chose which thought receives my full attention. After all, when I seek God above all else I receive His peace. He wants that for me! Already it is as if I hear him telling my thoughts, "Peace! Be still!" So, I"m off to think on my thoughts one by one as God lines them up!

Fun Things

Fun things I did this week:

Tuesday - buried legs and feet in the sand at the park with Allen and Charlie

Wednesday - taught kindergarten Bible class

Thursday - spent time with friends planning for GRACE

Friday - played in the sprinkler, made a "waterslide" for the boys, watched Benjamin's first performance in a play (He did great!! He smiled and sang and knew all his motions!), and got ice cream with the family, saw a beautiful sunset

Saturday - spent the whole day with my family except when I napped


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Take It Easy On Me

There is a song with those lyrics in them. However, that is the only part I can remember. They are the ones that speak to me the most. Especially since my mom reminded me to go easy on myself. Which I am learning to do more often, mom! Yet it is a struggle for me still. So I plan to follow my holiday thriving plan from Christmas which starts with embrace imperfection and goes on to leaving one thing undone each day on purpose. With school about to get started up again and summer frolicking about to end, I need to remember to not push myself to the point of a breakdown. I must stop and have fun each day. So, I am planning to do just that and document what fun I have each day. It may be a list at the end of the week to share with you or maybe I'll post it each day. I may be having so much fun I forget to share!! Anyway, let's see what tomorrow holds.

My God Will Deliver and Guide

My God will deliver and guide me. Even on a day like today when it feels like I must be the worst parent in the world. I am not giving specifics but it seems like two of the kids are needing a lot of training in specific areas and the other poor child, who we keep forgetting to do his eye exercises with, is seeing two of most everything again. And we were so excited when he began seeing one of everything on Thursday!!

It is not any fun getting crazy irritated with your kids. I am supposed to be spending this day loving and enjoying them. Reading together and playing together. I have been loving them but with training more than the fun sitting down and cuddling stuff. It is so hard to move past the irritation when it gets this bad. But as I sit and write I am reminded that God is bigger than this. I have irritated him like this many times and he still cherishes me. He stuck with me and waits for me to grow and takes the time and great effort to change me into a better person. I choose to do the same for my children. I choose to take this difficult day and fill it with love until we go to bed tonight. I choose to get myself calmed down and let God fill me with his love and patience. I choose to seek God's wisdom in shaping and molding my children. And I choose to begin right now in prayer!

Lance the Dog

This is Lance! He also came home with us this morning. It took him awhile to warm up to us but he seems quite happy now. He and his brother wrestle and play.

This is Rex!

This is Rex! He came home with us this morning. He is the more bossy one often taking his brother's toy or trying to get the attention for himself!

Routines

Summer is such a hard time to have a routine. You know I planned on having a lot more school time than we have had. Guess I didn't plan very well. The kids are happy about that. But I do sneak things in and try to use our everyday activities to teach them new things. Like this adventure with the dogs.. We will be learning about hard work, preparation, responsibility, and the rewards of these characteristics. Don't you think these are so much more important than learning which bear is the largest in the world? Sometimes I forget that the most important lessons for my children are those that teach them how to be more like God, how to be pleasant to be around, and how life works better when we behave well and work together. I will be spending a lot more time on that this year. Don't think I will neglect reading, writing, and arithmetic! We will get it all in. And we will use it in our day to day activities! I really want us to explore life and experience our surroundings and events!

Back to the routine idea! I don't like routines! Coming up with them isn't the problem. It is doing the same things over and over again. I can come up with routines and schedules and I can follow them for a while but then life takes over along with my desire to have fun and the routine gets left behind. Then I start to notice that chaos creeps in. We've been so busy having fun that we don't know what to do with ourselves. We thought we didn't need to drink that water as much or eat like we should until we start snapping at each other and forgetting what we wanted to do for fun in the first place. That's when we realize that we've got to reestablish some kind of routine. So, that is where we are right now. I have made a routine for us. Between getting enough water, doing Allen's eye exercises, watering my plants, and going on trips I have to have a plan to keep it all going! So I have made one! Let the calmness of routine, mixed with fun of course, begin!

Dogs and Life

Well, here we go on a new adventure! In a couple of weeks we will be dog owners! And are we going to step in lightly with one dog? Of course not, we are jumping in with two German Shepherd puppies. If it were only Jeff and me, we would not have a dog. We have had our adventures dog sitting in early marriage and quickly decided we are not a dog couple. But then came the kids... Those three boys full of life and energy who all want a dog or an animal of some kind. For so long we told them no because the yard was not fenced and we were certainly not having an indoor dog. I had even begun to think about a hamster or gerbil. But now that we have a fence and partly because our kids never begged for the dogs, we have decided it would be fun for the boys.

Jeff has never had a dog that he really remembers so I think he is a bit nervous about what to expect. He and Benjamin will be building a dog house tomorrow. Isn't Jeff ambitious and courageous!? And we will be reinforcing the fence to make sure our dogs stay home! Also the boys will have to learn to keep their toys put away so they don't get chewed on. Then there will be learning how to train the dogs. And I am sure we will have many fun adventures to come! I'll let you know how the dog house building goes.

My Health Adventures

I have had so many health adventures in the last few years that my head has been spinning. But after beginning to see a new chiropractor things are finally starting to change for the better. I've seen several different chiropractors in my life and even had one I really like when God seemed to point me in a different direction. I will blog about that adventure another time. This chiropractor is the husband of one of the wives in my home school group and I have already seen many great changes.

I actually started this blog as a way to record my progress or setbacks in order to better remember how things are going. It can be really hard to remember how I was doing a few days ago if I feel really good or really bad today. So, I will be keeping this blog updated as I go along in my treatments.

This morning I had a lot of trouble sitting in the pew at church. My tailbone really hurt. The Bible class chairs didn't seem to bother me though. I haven't had this problem for at least a month so it was frustrating to have it pop up today.

I wasn't as dizzy today but still felt dizzy when turning my head at times. And my frustration was hard to control when things weren't going the way I wanted them to go. For example, when the kids were trying to help me mop the hallway by stepping in the bucket with socked feet and sliding up and down the sloshing wet wooden floors of the hallway. I was expecting them to dry the already wet floor with their socked feet, not get it sopping wet!! I was able to recognize that I was getting overly frustrated and about to lay the guilt on thick. I didn't stop myself completely but was able to tone it down once I realized I didn't want to make my kids cry because they had disappointed me. I learned that when I give them a job to do, I need to give more specific instructions and not leave a bucket of water with them and then walk away!

Benjamin ate a whole plate of cut up steak for dinner quicker than I have ever seen him eat meat! Then he seemed to be revived. We didn't have any beef yesterday.

I didn't notice Allen's eyes crossing as much today. Allen looks like he is putting on a little more weight and his pants fit better. They used to fall down a bit.

That's it for today.

After Frustration, Peace

This is the day that the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Today was full of frustration but also full of recognizing God's goodness and love for me. The morning started with a little frustration over finding something to wear to worship time this morning. I have lost a bit of weight (woohoo!!) which has unfortunately made it hard to dress myself in comfortable clothes or clothes that look good on me. Anyway, right now my bed still looks like it threw up clothes. The good news is some of the clothes will not be going back in my closet which means less clutter which always makes life easier. Less clutter means more time to do the things I love to do-- like reading to my boys. It feels so good to get rid of things. More peaceful knowing things aren't stuffed in hidden places. After finally finding something to wear that I felt reasonably well dressed and comfortable in, I had a cup of hot tea and tried to prepare my mind for worship. I enjoyed talking with my oldest son about what God had done for him this week! We made it to worship, late, but got there in time to sing and adore God with a few breaks for the bathroom and quieting children.

After bible class, the family enjoyed watching the end of Nanny McPhee while our lunch reheated in the oven. But then after lunch it was time to get the house clean for small group. Jeff and I were both so tired and the kids weren't thrilled at the idea of clean up. We worked in various jobs and got it done but I felt like I was going to break down crying around 4pm. I was just so tired and had tried so hard not to yell at the kids or make them cry. Being patient and keeping your cool sure can take it out of you!!

Just before I reached the point of tears, my sweet husband said he would take the boys to get some meat at the store while I did whatever I needed to at home! He seems so tuned in to what I need to make it through my rough spots lately. Thanks be to God! I calmed down and was ready to enjoy our small group by the time they arrived.

It is amazing and wonderful to me that after feeling so frustrated all afternoon that I could feel so peaceful right now! After singing and talking with our small group I have a calm peace and joy welling up inside me. I feel God smiling and telling me to relax and enjoy this blessed life he has given me!

Here I Go!!!!

Well, here I go forging ahead into the blogging world! I have so many thoughts in my head but such a hard time getting them said , much less remembering what I was thinking in the first place, that I thought it was time I wrote it down someplace. So there, my first thought written down in cyberspace for all to see. Well, all who want to see anyway. Sometimes I wonder who really wants to hear what I have to say. But at this moment in my life I have to do something with all these thoughts. And I really need a place to come back to and compare where I have been to where I am now. Since I am decluttering my house, I figure that an online journal might be a good place to begin. So I have begun!