Thankful, Toothless Thursday

Thankful, thankful, thankful today for...

...a dear, lovely woman from church who invited me and my children to her home for the morning, to talk and encourage and share amazing homeschooling books and resources with me.  SO thankful for bags of books waiting to be poured over and studied and read.  We LOVE books here at this house!
...a chance to see a great friend of ours in a musical tonight (while the kids slept and my gracious in-laws stayed at our house!) and the fun of being at the theatre.  So good to laugh and enjoy the show.
...a quick Starbucks date with my hubby before the show.  I find that the more kids we have and the older they get, the more we have to be intentional to carve in time to talk.  Just having an opportunity to sit and talk is such a gift.  Thankful, too, that I still love to be out to coffee with this man I have been out to coffee with for over eleven years.
...Ella, who responded to my prompt during a prayer time this morning, "Jesus help me today to be..." by saying, "a blessing in your eyes."  Where did that even come from?  So precious and sweet, especially after her many times of staring me down defiantly when I ask her to do something she doesn't want to do.
...the laughter of my children and of our family.  Tonight, after a particularly trying and tiring afternoon, laughter was truly a medicine for my soul as my husband imitated a Dora dance move (to the song, "Boingy Bing," the most annoying song we have ever heard in our lives...you parents with Dora-loving kids probably know exactly what I mean!!) and my kiddos joined in and I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.
...watching Sophia dance and clap and smile as we sing our Scripture memory verses these last few weeks.  It is beyond precious.  She is starting to understand more of the world around her, too, saying "mama," "dada," "Ella," and "all done," which actually comes out like, "ahhh...duh."  Cutest ever.
...Micah's excitement over losing his first TOOTH!!  I truly have a "big kid" in my house with a cute, toothless grin smiling at me.  Proud mama. :-) (His other, adult tooth is already in behind the hole, which is why it's a bit hard to see.)

...Also thankful today for God's assignment for MY life, which looks different than his assignment for OTHERS. (I'm sure I will blog more about this in the near future.)  I am learning, learning, and still learning about how to be comfortable in my own, mama skin.  Doing what I feel called to do, what I feel convicted to do, what I am gifted to do, even if it is different from the other mamas around me I so deeply admire.  Today, I want to be thankful for what I have been called to do and not look to what I am NOT doing.  So much freedom for me in this.

What are you thankful for today?

Recipes of the Week: THREE Easy Dinners

It's been a bit since I've posted a recipe, so I'm going to make it up to you all by giving you an idea for THREE nights of dinners.  I did this a couple of weeks ago and it was SO nice!  I put a bit more work into making dinner the first night, but then I used the leftovers from that dinner to make dinner the next two nights.  It was easy, yummy, and so nice to just have a three-night plan for dinners!  Wish I did this more often.  I love new, easy recipes, and I love using my crockpot, so if you do, too, then this is for YOU!

Here is the meal plan...

Night One:
Balsamic Chicken - in the crockpot (recipe below...SO yummy)
Mashed potatoes (I made 5 pounds of the red potatoes...did you know that if you use red potatoes, you don't have to peel them??  Brilliant!  I just mash them with milk and butter.  For our dairy-free family currently, I mashed them with non-dairy butter and rice milk and even my hubby didn't notice the difference!)
Garlic Carrots (Recipe HERE.)
Fresh bread with olive oil

Night Two:
Balsamic Chicken (just throw in a skillet and reheat from the night before)
Spaghetti (or any kind of pasta)
Steamed Broccoli (I often cheat and just throw a frozen bag in the microwave.)
Garlic Bread (I always make my own on french bread or whatever bread I have with butter, garlic powder, a little garlic salt, parmesan cheese, and parsley.)

Night Three:
Shepherds Pie (using the leftover mashed potatoes from Night One!)
Salad or Vegetable Side (I literally think we just did frozen corn.)
Rolls


Here are the recipes you need...

Balsamic Chicken

4-6 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
2 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 onion thinly sliced (not chopped)
4 garlic cloves
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 T olive oil
1 tsp each: dried oregano, basil, and rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
ground black pepper and salt to taste

Pour the olive oil on bottom of crock pot.
Place in chicken breasts; salt and pepper each breast.
Put sliced onion on top of chicken.
Add all the dried herbs and garlic cloves.
Pour in vinegar and top with tomatoes.

Cook on high 4 hours; serve over angel hair pasta.  (I cooked on low for 8 hours...worked great.)


Easy Shepherds Pie

1 pound ground beef (I always use ground turkey)
1/3 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (does anyone really know how to pronounce this??)
8 ounces frozen mixed vegetables (such as carrots, peas, corn, etc.), thawed
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar (optional)
1 16-ounce package refrigerated or frozen and thawed mashed potatoes (but I make my own)

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Place the beef in a large skillet and cook over medium-high heat until no trace of pink remains.  Spoon off and discard any fat.  Stir in the ketchup and Worcestershire.  Add the vegetables and cook, stirring, for one minute.  Spoon the beef mixture into a baking dish.  Mix the cheese (if using) with the potatoes in a bowl and spread over the beef.  Bake until heated through.

ENJOY!

Thankful Thursday

It is 8:24, and my oldest son (who usually is asleep at 7:00!!) snuck out of bed to say hello.

We just listened to a worship song together that I found online that he hasn't stopped singing since church last week, and now he asked me to do Thankful Thursday before he crawls back into bed.  How can you say no to that?  Oh my sweet son.

This is what he is thankful for today...

- I am thankful that I am still awake.
- I am thankful that Dorothy got home safely in Wizard of Oz (family movie night tonight).
- I am thankful for family.
- I am thankful for friends, especially Chuck.
- I am thankful for Spotlight.
- I am thankful I have pajamas to survive and so I'm not cold.
- I am thankful that we have food.
- I am thankful that the movie Chichin-Itza Pizza was really good.

This is what I am thankful for today...

- I am thankful for a home day.  It was a perfect, cold, wintry day to wear a warm sweater and slippers and stay home all day doing chores and schooling and potty training.
- Even though I spent a lot of my day wiping a runny nose and cleaning up potty accidents, I am thankful that I get to be home with my kiddos to do the day-to-day life with them, even if it's wiping their boogers away when they are sick.
- I am thankful for our family movie night tonight.  We just finished reading the novel, The Wizard of Oz, so we watched the movie as a family and I loved watching their little faces take in the wonder of that movie.  So fun.
- I am thankful to have this blog to capture some moments that I don't want to forget...like that Sophia's top tooth poked through first, that she climbed today on top of Ella's dress up trunk, that the boys leave their Legos out on their schooling table and build EVERY day whenever they have free time, that Ella wears her Cinderella shoes around the house and insisted on wearing pajamas today (which I let her because we are potty training and she is changing her clothes 8 times anyways), and that my boys ask me if we can have "tea time" every afternoon because that means a special treat and some read-aloud time.  I want to remember that they all love taking their turns rocking with me on the chair at bedtime and that the boys are almost always asleep just moments after their heads hit their pillows.  I want to remember Ella's dramatic singing of "Oh, Come, Let Us Adore Him," at bedtime and then giggling at the end as our mouths make the "Lord" sound.  And I want to remember that Zach and I can't stop talking about how amazingly cute Sophia is.  (Oh!  And that Ella successfully flushed her undies down the toilet today.  Seriously.)

This really is a beautiful life.

What are you thankful for today?

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I always tell myself (and others) that I love being a stay-at-home mom.

I love children...I love being at home...I am called to this...I am thrilled with my place in the world.

But this afternoon, as I disciplined a tantruming son, mopped up a toddler's potty accident from the floor, and hung half my body over the side of my fussy, non-sleeping baby's crib trying to help her get to sleep, I asked myself why my heart was so grumpy.

"Don't I love being a mama?"  I ask myself.  "What is my problem then?"

And then it hits me...a convicting question to both my mind and my soul...Do I only love being a stay-at-home mom when all is going smoothly?  When my children are giggling, when they are happily painting, when I am calmly stirring soup for dinner, when the baby says "mama" for the first time, when my children play kindly together?

Am I a fair-weathered fan?

Because today, as my baby is refusing to nap, and as my two-year old is newly potty training, and as my six-year-old-son throws mean, hurtful words at me, my patience is growing thin and my spirits are growing heavier.

I do not want to just love being a mom when all is well.

I do not want to only be thankful when my children are obedient and the toys are picked up.

I do not want to only smile when my baby is napping and my two-year-old goes potty on the toilet.

I want to live and breathe and mother in contentment and joy and gratitude...when my son is saying, "I love you," and when he is yelling, "I will NOT be snuggling with you the rest of the day!"

I want to be ready for the challenge that is mothering...the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I want to rejoice and be glad in each.  For without the hard, the good would not be as sweet.  And without the ugly, it would be impossible to see the beautiful.

Mothering cannot be for fair-weathered fans, for each day is bound to come with a plethora of joys and challenges and laughter and tears.

And I want to be ready for it all.

I want to be REJOICING in it all.

For this IS my calling, this IS my place in the world, and I want to treasure and embrace each and every day.

The Trauma and Blessings of the ER

In the six and a half years of being a parent, I have only visited the emergency room once.  (Last year Sammy had the stomach flu and was extremely dehydrated, needing three days in the hospital to recuperate.)  But I have never had a screaming child and a race to the ER for an emergency.

Until today.

This morning, as I was scrambling eggs and stirring potatoes and mixing probiotics into water cups (AND talking on the phone), my daughter pulled a giant mug of hot tea (that I had just poured) down off the counter onto herself.  It was one of my worst mommy moments to date.  She was screaming, I was screaming, and my husband (who happened to be off work today...praise GOD!) was trying to rush through a poopie diaper in the other room.

After a call to the pediatrician and a frantic and tearful run through the house to get ready to go, my precious two-year old and I bundled up against the bitter cold to take a trip to the emergency room, where we discovered that she had a second degree burn on her arm.  We waited, we snuggled, they wrapped her arm, and they sent us on our way.

And she is okay.

Honestly, I think it has taken me longer to recover today than Ella.  She was such a trooper.  After arriving at the hospital, she just talked sweetly to the nurses and counted the fish in the emergency room's tank.  She was lovely.  And I was just swimming, swimming through the guilt and the "what-ifs" and the trauma of the morning.

So I learned a few things today....

Accidents happen.  Emergencies happen.  They just do.  It is life, and it wasn't anyone's fault.  Believe me, I was having that "worst mother in the world" feeling, but I know that sometimes, things just happen.

Also, we are beyond blessed.  It could have been so, so, much worse.  From a huge mug of tea, my daughter had only ONE burn on her arm.  It could've been her face, her head, her whole body.  How thankful I am that it was just her arm.  And we have access to amazing medical care, with insurance and doctors and nurses available immediately.  What a privilege.

And life goes on.  My sweet, precious, two-year-old had the most traumatic morning of her life today, and guess what?  She woke up from her nap smiling, she requested a trip to the library, she giggled and laughed and did her sweet-crazy-Ella-thing and she just moved on contentedly.  Ah, the beauty of a toddler.

It is no secret that Ann Voskamp is one of my most beloved authors, and I have learned from her about the "ugly beautiful."  The counting and naming of gifts even in the midst of the hard and the ugly.

So today, I am thankful for dressing for my child's wounds.  I am thankful for a hospital fifteen minutes from my house.  I am thankful for tylenol.  I am thankful for arms to hold and comfort.  I am thankful for insurance.  I am thankful for my responsible six-year old who willingly jumped in to take care of his baby sister while we were changing and preparing Ella for her car trip to the ER.  I am thankful that life goes on even after a traumatic morning such as this.

Life is short and good and really, there are many, many worse tragedies in life than this.

So today, even though I wished I could crawl back into bed and start the day over, it still continued on.  We still did life and did family and loved and laughed and made our way through the day.

And now, the house is quiet, I have a new cup of tea in front of me, and I am so, very thankful that my one-in-a-million Ella is okay.

Thankful Thursday

Micah's Gifts
I am thankful for...
...Mommy.
...noodles.
...God.
...the people who created the Wizard of Oz book (the classic story).
...my family and my friends.
...that we are not poor.
...that we don't have to live in a place with big, creepy bugs, like Brazil.
...that I'm almost done with my math book (Alpha).

Sammy's Gifts
I am thankful for...
...the Rookie Perplexus ball.
...our library books.
...that Daddy is coming home tomorrow from Washington, D.C.

My Gifts
Today I am kind of a mess.  I am getting through the day, but I am needing much grace and perspective, which I am thankfully working towards.  My hubby is gone all week for work, and although the kids and I have been enjoying our week together, I miss my other half.  I know that God did not intend that we would do parenting on our own, and my heart aches for the many women out there that are single moms.  What strength and courage they must possess.  I am thankful, today, to be married and to most-of-the-time not have to do this parenting thing alone.  I am so thankful for my husband and all he does for our family and the ways in which he loves our children and supports me in my passions and emotions and callings.  Immensely grateful for him, and I am so thankful that he is coming home tomorrow!!  Yay!

I am thankful for real friends and to be able to honestly say to them, "Today, I was becoming unglued," and to hear them say, "That's okay."  I am so very thankful for this Unglued book I am reading right now.  I highly recommend it.  Isn't it true that we all have unglued moments from here to there?  How amazing to have a resource to learn how and why we become unglued and what we can do about it!  And today, after my unglued moments, I am thankful that I can apologize to my kids for being a mess, and I have the power to put it behind me and to move forward to create a new pattern and environment for our home.  Just because I had a rough hour does not mean I have to continue to have a rough day.  (Can you tell I am trying to tell myself this?)  Always, always thankful for grace and for second chances and for fresh starts, even when our "ugly" flares.

This week a woman from my church offered (more like, insisted) to watch my children for me to have a break. I couldn't think of any other time that someone has offered to just watch all my children for me to do whatever I want to do.  Who does that?  She graciously watched my children for three hours while I filled my cart (alone) with fresh fruits, vegetables, and deli meat, ate a sandwich at Potbelly (my favorite), read my Bible, listed some gifts in my gift journal (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, always on my mind...), ordered a soy latte from Starbucks, and started a novel.  I literally didn't know what to do with myself, but I did enjoy the time to breathe and pray and sing and soak in the sunshine, and just have a still spirit.  (And I am majorly taking mental note to do this for a young mama when I am older...what a gift!)  So I am thankful for this gracious woman and for this alone time.

I am so thankful to be homeschooling, I am thankful for such a happy baby, I am thankful for hot tea, for freshly washed sheets, for a playdate with good friends, and for flowers in a vase on my kitchen counter.  I am thankful for Legos and my children's creativity and for their love of books.  I am thankful for Scripture set to music and for our family memorizing verses together, along with our church.  I am thankful for this life as a mama at home with my children.  And I am thankful that we have all that we need.

What are you thankful for today?

Recipe of the Week - Blackened Chicken and Beans

Another go-to weeknight dinner idea!

It is super easy, super cheap, super healthy, AND yummy!

Here goes...

Blackened Chicken and Beans

2 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (4 oz. each)

1 T. canola oil

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup frozen corn, thawed

1 cup chunky salsa

Combine the chili powder, salt, and pepper; rub over both sides of chicken.
In a large nonstick skillet, cook chicken in oil over medium heat for 4-5 minutes on each side or until cooked through.  Remove and keep warm.

Add the beans, corn, and salsa to the skillet; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 2-3 minutes or until heated through.

Serve with chicken!

I have made a pot of rice to go with this, grabbed out some tortilla chips, and that's dinner!  Yum!

Enjoy!

Our Day to Day

People have often asked me how our days flow, and I had a specific request for a post about our schedule and/or routine...So if this kind of thing interests you...here goes!!

[I guess I should clarify, before jumping in, that this is our ideal "routine," but we hold it very loosely.  With four little kids, and with life just being life, things are always bound to come up...doctor's appointments, my husband traveling for work, holidays, trips, etc., can all change up our "normal," but this is our typical "normal" for as normal as life can ever really be.]

Somewhere in the dark, dark hour around 4 or 5 in the morning, our three oldest children wake up.  A very blurry-eyed mommy or (mostly) daddy puts on a movie for them and gives them bowls of apple slices or a banana while we try to catch a bit more of interrupted sleep with our babe.  Not my favorite way for them to start the day, but kind of a necessity right now for us and our lives (after months of trying to get them to sleep later...we pretty much are just learning to embrace their early rising time).  The kids then play or read until breakfast.

7:00ish Breakfast and our daily devotions (we are reading Jesus Calling for Kids), our weekly Bible memory verse practice, updating/discussing the calendar and schedule for the day, and reviewing the bulletin board that I change weekly (letter of the day, word of the week, flashcards of landmarks, space, states, insects, etc.)

Morning Chores - the kids are responsible to clear their place settings, put their jammies in the hamper, get dressed, brush their teeth, make their beds, and come to me to find out their one, daily cleaning chore.  This is something simple they can do to start learning how to help around the house...clearing off the breakfast table, loading the washing machine, emptying clean diapers from the dryer, helping unload the dishwasher, etc.  Then Micah does his handwriting practice (often copying Scripture).

Morning Activity - this varies depending on what day it is.  On Mondays, our plan is to go to the library, and on Wednesdays, we do a little craft (again, pretty simple activities that often relate to the season...i.e., painting pumpkins, making handprint turkeys, cutting and creating a Christmas paper chain, etc.)  The other days might include a playdate, grocery shopping, a doctor's appointment, a monthly field trip with our homeschool group, or just staying home and playing and catching up on chores.

11 or 11:30ish - Lunch

12 or 12:30 - Girls take naps and we do our schooling!  Every day, Micah has a lesson in math and language arts, and we usually do either science or social studies, or sometimes both.  Sammy works weekly on his alphabet book he is creating, and I usually let him choose other activities while Micah is working on his work. (Some of Sammy's activities include puzzles, pattern activities, counting to 100 with the abacus, practicing cutting, using the Tag reader, playing map/geography games on the computer, etc.)

We are usually finishing school around 3 or 4, depending on the day.  Every once in awhile, we have an afternoon playdate, or we have an errand to run, or the kids just play while I fold laundry and start making dinner.  On Tuesdays, Micah has his Spotlight (children's theater) class, on Wednesdays, I am attempting to get the house ready for our weekly small group that takes place after the kids are in bed, and a couple times a month, I am trying extra hard to be on top of dinner and chores since I will leave for book study with my girlfriends.

5:00 Dinner

6:00 Bedtime Routine - Family worship time (if we are on top of it), bath (if they need it), books (I always read aloud a chapter from whatever novel or biography we are currently reading), prayer, and songs

7:00 Bedtime!

I have an awesome husband who is crazy-supportive of me being a stay-at-home mama and of us homeschooling, so he is super helpful with chores.  After the kids are in bed, we work together to do whatever went undone throughout the day, putting away clean laundry, doing dishes, cleaning the kitchen from dinner, washing our cloth diapers, sweeping the floor, etc.  This also gives us a chance to chat about our days at the same time as trying to keep up on the housework.

Around 8 or 9, when we don't have evening plans, we relax on the couch by watching a show on Netflix, a movie from the Redbox, or occasionally playing a game.  

In a perfect world, around 10, but more realistically, around 11, we make our way to bed ourselves to get some much-needed rest for the day ahead.

Other things...we have found that it works really well to pick up toys twice a day, right before lunch, and right before dinner (or right before we leave the house).  This way, I am not worried about whatever messes there are in between because I know they will get picked up at a certain time, and I am a believer in kids making messes with their toys!  (That's what they are there for, right?)  Of course there are exceptions, but this general routine of clean-up works well for us.  

Also, there are many things thrown in to the day that aren't "scheduled," of course, like diapers, nursing my babe, discipline, sibling squabbles, phone calls, reading books, cleaning up from toddler messes and big curious minds, etc. :-)

Feel free to ask questions...my life is pretty much an open book!  Hope this helps answer questions about our life and how we roll.

Happy Monday and Happy Scheduling to you all!

Thankful Thursday

Sammy's Gifts...
...my movies
...everything in the whole world
...my library books
...the Leappad
...Mario

Micah's Gifts...
...Mommy
...lunch today
...Daddy
...Tomb of the Fangpyre (a Lego book)
...Ninjago Official Guide book

My Gifts...
...a full basket of library books that my children could spend hours reading
...relief for my sweet Sophia, who has a double ear infection
...Ella's infectious giggle
...Sammy's sleepy snuggles
...new bath-time foam soap from Christmas that brought my kiddos much joy
...watching Sophia crawl around the house (there is something about a crawling baby that is so cute)
...the six of us gathered around the table at dinnertime
...my children's excitement over roasted potatoes
...our amazing church family
...the book, Unglued
...chocolate covered strawberries
...time to relax at the end of a not-so-great day
...a fresh start tomorrow with my slate wiped clean!

What are you thankful for today?

A Bit of Crazy Mixed with the Good

Everywhere I go, people comment on how I have my hands full.

Or how I must be busy.

And I never totally know how to respond, so I usually just smile and agree and say, "We are blessed!"

But I must confess that today, I definitely felt busy.

It was a non-stop, multi-tasking, hard-core mothering kind of day.

And yet, at the same time, it also felt so very normal.

In between making thank you cards for Christmas gifts (with a fussy Sophia on one knee) and starting the daily laundry, Ella smeared baby lotion all over the air purifier in the kids' room, filled the potty chair with water, and probably took her clothes on and off about 82 times.  I burnt the taco soup that the boys and I made this afternoon for dinner, and Sophia continued to want to be held, refusing to take a much-needed long nap.  Micah needed direction for schooling, Sammy needed help on the computer, and Sophia's nose needed constant wiping.  Sammy had a tantrum that lasted the better part of an hour, and then, Ella decided to decorate the arm of my couch with a green Crayola marker.  After dozens of comments and suggestions on Facebook (thanks, everyone!), I had the couch cleaned and was actually quite proud of myself for keeping my cool with my little Crazy.  I was just laying Sophia down for a short evening nap when I realized she felt warm.  After checking her temp, seeing a fever, and ushering my little crew to the pediatrician's office right at dinnertime, we discovered a double ear infection.  We swung through Walgreens to drop off her prescription, ran home for a quick, semi-burnt dinner of taco soup, and tucked all the kids into their beds before whipping our house into shape for our weekly small group.  

Fevers.  Doctor's Visit.  Crayola Marker.  Tantrums.  Small Group.  Dishes.  Laundry.  Sick baby.

A full day.

But mixed into this day of crazy were plenty of sweet moments together.  Like a cuddle time on the couch where we read a couple chapters of the Wizard of Oz.  A break to eat homemade brownies together in the middle of the day.  Ella and I were swapping kisses so many times that we ended up having our own little giggle-fest.  And Sophia was perfectly content to be held on her mama's hip as I went throughout my day. We sang songs at breakfast and all celebrated Sophia's first tooth starting to poke through her gums.  The boys created a world of pretend at the doctor's office while they waited patiently, and Ella was entertained by a nickel in her pocket for an unusual amount of time.

It was such a mix of the crazy and the good.

And I realized that it was so. very. normal.

Isn't that life?  A bit of crazy mixed with the good?

We go through our days, expecting everything to go smoothly and for everyone to be healthy.  At the beginning of the day, we see a list of good intentions or to-dos.  We don't plan a 45 minute tantrum.  We don't plan a double ear infection.  We don't plan a decorated-with-green couch.  And we don't plan burnt soup.  But we also can't plan the way our hearts burst with pride when we watch a son write his name for the first time.  And we can't plan how light our hearts feel when we giggle with a joyful toddler.  We can't plan a sweet, spiritual conversation with a six-year old, and we certainly cannot plan the way the day ebbs and flows with crazy and good all mingled together.

So if I had an audience today, I'm sure some would've thought my day a wee bit crazy.

But to me, it was just a normal day.

A bit of crazy mixed with the good.

Thankful Thursday

My heart is full of gratitude today.

We had a wonderful month of December and a very merry Christmas and trip to Minnesota to spend time with family and friends.  AND I had a wonderful day.

I am so deeply thankful for the relationships in my life.  I am specifically thankful, today, for my girlfriends that I got to spend my day with.  These women have known me my whole journey of motherhood, and that is so special to me.  It is so very wonderful and safe and freeing to have friends that you feel so comfortable with that you can raid their pantry, rummage through the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and know that when your daughter squeezes a juicebox all over the floor, they won't bat an eye.  I am so thankful for mommy friends.

I am also so thankful for my nephew, Chuck, who is over tonight for a sleepover, and the special friendship he has with Micah.  They have been best of friends since they were babies, and I love watching them together.  Today they loved having snack and building Legos and banging pots and pans during our family worship time after dinner.  Like a pair of old shoes, they are so comfortable together, and I am thankful my son has a best bud.

I am feeling incredibly spoiled by our parents and family from this Christmas season and all of the wonderful gifts we received.  New toys and books and pajamas and gift cards and more...we are SO blessed.

I am thankful for time with my husband off work over the holidays...what a treat to get to be a parenting team for so many days in a row!

I am thankful for a new year, for fresh starts and for new beginnings.

This year I am praying for more peace and patience...I am excited for the work God will do in my heart this year as I attempt to hand over myself to Him and say, "More of you, Less of me."  

This is the cry of my heart.  

May it be so.

What are you thankful for today?

Letting the Pictures Tell the Stories...

Here are some of my favorite pictures from December...

I am going to let the pictures tell the stories...

What a sweet Christmas season it was!

So thankful...