Treasures of October

Why Children in Church? and Training Children to Be Included in Church at Passionate Homemaking

Ten Steps to a Smile (or, How to Light Your House for Nearly Free) at a path made straight

A Season of Repentance, Remembrance, and Renewal at The Homeschool Post

8 Habits of a Happy Homeschool Mama at A Ten O'Clock Scholar

Solving Sibling Squabbles at Raising Olives

Top 5 Worst Things About Parenting a Large Family at Amy's Humble Musings

How to Fall in Love Again at (In)Courage

Living a Lifestyle of Hospitality at Pursuing Titus 2

Bible Time - Navel Gazing at Large Family Mothering

Bible Time - Prophetic Parenting at Large Family Mothering

8 Ways to Sabotage your Homeschool at Heart of Wisdom Blog

Deep and Complete Contentment at At the Well... In Pursuit of Titus 2

Mommy Likes Me Better: A Parable About Serving God in the Church at Pursuing Titus 2

Mommy's Toolbox - Order at Large Family Mothering

A Few Random Things

I wanted to take a minute to post about a few random things that are new in our world, but don't really deserve a full-time post. Here's a few snapshots of life lately:

• Nathan is now totally daytime potty trained! For a while, it was more like I was the one potty trained, as I would be the one reminding him to go sit on the potty, which he dutifully did when I'd ask... but take no actual initiative of his own. But now he willfully goes and sits on the potty whenever he knows he has to go! Sometimes he does need a little reminder - I'll say, "Nate, why are you doing that funny dance?" and he'll say "I don't know... Oh! I have to go potty!" He's reliable both at home and out and about, so we're all very happy :-)


• Guess what? After all my polling and tweaking and excitement over my new blog design... I won a professional blog makeover by The Design Girl, from Tonya at Safe in HIS Arms!! I had to laugh at the irony, but I am really so, so excited! I've been looking around at Danielle's other work, and am so looking forward to having a custom, one of a kind, beautiful blog made just for me! Now I just have to narrow down my theme choices... its really hard - there are so many beautiful themes out there! Hopefully it will be in the works within the next few weeks... and maybe I'll have to do another fun giveaway to celebrate... hmmm....

• We have a LOT coming up in the next few months. Between now and January, we've got 4 birthdays and a wedding! One of which is mine. Not the wedding, obviously. I feel like I'm about to officially enter adulthood - I'm turning 30! You'd think having 5 kids would make me feel like an adult, but that hasn't really done the trick. It still feels like an out-of-body experience when I think about saying "I'm 30". Didn't I just graduate from High School?! (actually, self, that was almost 13 years ago.. yikes!) But apparently, 30's is the new 20's, whatever that means. So its all good ;-)
  

• And just as a really random note, for any of you who enjoy a nice Coke-A-Cola every now and then (or, perhaps, more frequently, such as someone-I-won't-name-whom-you-all-know-very-well) but are worried about the HFCS ("high fructose corn syrup" - its really bad for you, and is in, oh, just about everything), did you know Coke made in Mexico does NOT have it? It has regular, plain 'ole sugar. I found some in the international aisle of Kroger. In a nice old fashioned glass bottle, too - how fun! Michael and I shared it and both agreed it was yummy. I thought it taster "fresher" than American Coke, not so "syrup-y", but perhaps that was just a mental thing.
  


• I will confess that I have gotten REALLY bad about exercising. *sigh* That and a few too many Cokes (who, me?!) has sort of hindered the post baby weight loss thing I had going on. For my birthday I've asked Michael for an iPod and some spending money to get some good running shoes and support garments. I'm eager to begin running again... the energy in the fall air makes me awfully restless. I'm also just going to go ahead and BUY a DVD of "The 30-Day Shred" so that I don't have to keep checking out from the library, only do it for a few weeks, and then have to return it and wait in a 30+ person hold list to check it out again. That makes for slow results, to say the least!

My little ones have woken up, which means I'm on duty again. I've got more to share, but those things will have to have their own posts, soon to come!

Milestones!

This week, Judah passed two milestones! His first tooth is finally up through the gum! That explains the sleepless nights we've been enduring. He celebrated that night by sleeping 9 hours straight! He didn't repeat that performance, but it was a nice rest while we had it. The second tooth isn't too far behind - I can almost feel it!

Secondly, he's finally mastered hands and knees crawling! He's been trying it out tentatively all week, and today is the first day he's really been consistent. Here's a demonstration for you!

And, while I'm a bit biased, I do happen to think he's the cutest little chunk on four limbs!

Wordless Wednesday - Noodle Sandwich

Gratititude

26. breastfeeding

27. rocking my baby as the darkness surrounds us

28. my feet entwined with Michael's as we sleep

29. flannel sheets on cool nights

30. the cool, vibrant blue of fall skies

31. garlic

32. steaming oatmeal

33. rest

34. His Sabbath

35. Psalm 27:1

A Song for Saturday

Another beautiful song, straight from Psalm 62. Enjoy!

My soul finds rest in God alone,
My Rock and my salvation,
A fortress strong against my foes,
And I will not be shaken.
Though lips may bless and hearts may curse,
And lies like arrows pierce me,
I’ll fix my heart on righteousness,
I’ll look to Him who hears me.

O praise Him, hallelujah,
My Delight and my Reward;
Everlasting, never failing,
My Redeemer, my God.

Find rest, my soul, in God alone
Amid the world’s temptations;
When evil seeks to take a hold
I’ll cling to my salvation.
Though riches come and riches go,
Don’t set your heart upon them;
The fields of hope in which I sow
Are harvested in heaven.

I’ll set my gaze on God alone,
And trust in Him completely;
With every day pour out my soul,
And He will prove His mercy.
Though life is but a fleeting breath,
A sigh too brief to measure,
My King has crushed the curse of death
And I am His forever.

O praise Him, O praise Him,
hallelujah, hallelujah,
O praise Him, O praise Him,
hallelujah, hallelujah,
O praise Him, O praise Him,
hallelujah! hallelujah!

Our Updated Schedule

Now that we've been back to full-time homeschooling for a few weeks, I've ironed out some kinks in our daily routine. To refresh your memories, here's the... slightly over-ambitious schedule I posted before the school year got started. Yes, let's all have a big hearty laugh together at the innocent, hopeful confidence I had, just a mere 2 months ago!

Every time I read it, I get so inspired by Managers of Their Homes (MOTH), try to piece every little detail of our days together, and then realize the same thing - while I LOVE the method of MOTH, and the structure a schedule provides, an extremely detailed "every minute filled" schedule just does not work for us. So I've been tweaking, and things are going much more smoothly and relaxed as we find our rhythm.

On another blog I read (I forget where, I apologize), this style was referred to as "Hard Stops". Certain things have to or just do happen at certain times of the day, such as meals, naps, etc. After putting those things into a set structure, everything else just sort of "flows" around them. For us, we just follow the general order of things, and whatever we accomplish is what we accomplish.

Some days go wonderfully, and alot gets done. Other days, there are interruptions everywhere, but we just pick up where we left off and "do the next thing". No worries about what gets missed, we'll just get it done another day. Its much less frantic and hectic, and much more peaceful!

My "hard stops" include school starting at 9am, lunch around 12:30pm, Nathan's nap from 1-3 pm, and dinner at 6:30 pm. And honestly, even those "hard stops" aren't terribly set in stone. ;-)

Here's how a basic day looks for us now:

In the morning, my current goal is to myself out of bed before 7:30. Judah went on a long sleep strike that has left me in a deficit. Not to mention the fact that it is darker and colder, which are all perfect conditions to stay in bed as long as possible! However, once I finally get some rest, I would like to resume waking earlier again.

8 am - Kids up, do their before breakfast routine
Breakfast
After breakfast chores
9 am - School begins!

Here's what our school routine looks like. Its not timed, because different subjects take different amounts of time on different days. So its just an "order of service" we follow:

• Bible, all of us together
• Geography (from ECC), all of us together
• Read-Aloud, all of us together
• Usually by this time we're ready for a snack and Judah takes a nap
  
• Isaac, Ezra, and Joel spend some time on handwriting - the two oldest copy their memory verse while Joel just works on tracing and writing whatever letter we're working on that week. While they do that, I spend some one-on-one preschool time with Nate.
• I have one-on-one time with Joel (we're working on Explode the Code, Book B!) and the big boys either do more of their independent work, or have time with Nate (they alternate turns)
• I then get Joel and Nate together to do some preschool Bible stories and coloring pages, while Isaac and Ezra work on independent work some more
• Joel and Nate get some playtime together, and I do spelling with Isaac and Ezra (they are loving Sequential Spelling, by the way! They think its alot of fun, and after only 5 lessons, I'm already seeing improvement!)
• The kids are released from school work while I check the independent work and make lunch - its usually around noon by now.
  

After lunch, Nate goes down for a nap (and if I'm lucky, Judah naps around this time, too) and we get back to work, sans little people ;-) Our afternoon school time consists of:

• Big-kid read aloud (longer chapter books)
• Science
• My one-on-one time with Isaac and Ezra, when we go over independent work. While I'm with one, the other is doing a preschool activity with Joel. Then we switch!

Then they're free until naptime is over, around 3ish. Everyone has a snack, does afternoon chores, and then our time is devoted to spending time with Michael, preparing dinner, and winding down the day!

I find this routine so much easier than trying to cram a huge variety of activities in the day for everyone. While there are things that aren't being done that I would ideally like to have time for (for example, currently, Music and Spanish are off the list), it was just too stressful on everyone trying to squeeze everything in. Two of my main goals were to have one on one with each boy, as well as letting them have one on one time with eachother, and that is being accomplished.

I also happen to think that young boys need as much, if not more, time to run and play and explore, as time spent in "academics". So we have much more of that in this current schedule, and we're loving it.

How's the new school year going for everyone else? Any major changes since you started out this year?

The Sacrifice of Parenting

I recently finished reading Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes our Souls by Gary Thomas. I enjoyed it very much, and there were a few quotes in regards to the sacrifice of parenting that I wanted to share:

"We love to talk about the blessings of our faith, about God's provision and the gifts He gives to us - but an immature believer can receive all of these. It doesn't take alot of faith to accept God's generosity! But true spiritual maturity often reveals itself during the times God asks us to sacrifice. While we find it easy to "open up" a spiritual gift, it's not so easy to lay one down on God's behalf"

"Part of carrying out our parental responsibilities requires adopting the Christian posture of humility. However "important" we think we are, we should expect that God can do even more important things through our children. It is our duty to give them our full attention and our best effort, hoping they can build on this to become influential Christians themselves. It is shortsighted at best, and the height of arrogance at worst, for fathers and mothers to become so busy with their ministries and lives that they shortchange their children, forgetting that they have a responsibility to pass on to the next generation whatever advantages they have received."

"In many ways, sacrifice defines love... Words and feelings are the cheap currency of sentimentality; sacrifice is the backbone of true, biblical love: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13)"

"Mothers and fathers, when you give your tiny infant a bath, you are washing God's baby... When you fix that hungry six-year-old a peanut butter sandwich, you are feeding one of God's children... When you hug an adolescent whom others have teased mercilessly at school, you are comforting God's teenager..."

"You could have rejected this child. You could have spurned the demands on your time, your resources, and your emotional well-being. But instead you accepted this child, through great pain you gave birth to this child, and with even greater pain you make sacrifices to love this child. Your heavenly Father doesn't miss a second of this sacrifice. He sees it all. He cries with you and He laughs with you and He takes great joy in the good work you are doing."

I recommend this book for a great view of the different aspects of parenting and how God uses them to transform us more to the image of His son, as well as how we are to impart His love to our children as a legacy for them to pass on. I was definitely challenged, encouraged, and blessed by it!

Wordless Wednesday - Tin Foil Artwork

(What I wake up to when Michael puts away leftovers at night)

A Touching Give-away

Tonya, at Safe in HIS Arms, is offering a wonderful give-away in tribute to her son, Brent, who would be celebrating his 14th birthday this year, but who passed away in 2007 at the age of 11. Please go by and visit her delightful blog, and join her in celebrating the life of Brent. And please think of a way to pass along a gift or other random act of kindness to someone else in your day!