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...