Heart of My Husband

2012-01-19T17:25:00.002-05:00

If you've ever shared a bed with your baby...and really, what parent hasn't? Then I think you will find THIS to be HILARIOUS. Enjoy your day! :D

2012-01-19T00:05:00.003-05:00

Feeling sad tonight. The kids are having a really hard time with the move (well, two of them) and it's taking a toll on my husband and me. One of our children is night waking 2-3 times a night screaming as if he's being hurt terribly and it takes forever to calm him down. The other is crying several times a day asking to "go home" and throws a fit when we tell him we are home. He's too little to understand.

It doesn't help that we have mattresses in our kitchen and plastic blocking off half of our house while floors are refinished so I know things will calm down, but it's hard to see our little ones hurting, esp when we ourselves are struggling to find comfort amidst so much change.

Clinging to my Jesus tonight who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Come soon, Lord Jesus.

2012-01-18T10:17:00.003-05:00

There's nothing like those first toothless grins, "goo"s, and awesomely adorable baby rolls (both on the thighs and the movement :D ) oh yes, and the first baby giggles to make one forget the pain with which the child was both grown and brought forth and nearly desire* another one. I said nearly. As in almost. As in, HAHAHAHAHAHA ;-)

*Good thing we are not the ones in control of the timing of such blessings, no?

Fear Not

2012-01-09T23:00:00.002-05:00

Have you ever noticed that when angels appear to men/women in the Scriptures they have to comfort them by telling them to not be afraid? This never had much impact on me until my oldest son saw a female angel on top of someone's Christmas tree this Christmas who was very beautiful and said angrily, "Mom! That's not an angel! Angels are men! And where is his sword?!" :)

But the young lad has a point. There's a reason the angels have to comfort those they come in contact with: they are warriors! Messengers of the Most High God. They are not looking for friends: they are fulfilling a purpose.

I wonder what the LCMS would look like today if our clergy and leaders behaved this way? Moreover, I wonder how many children would stay in the church if their pastors and parents exercised their authority in such a way?

Our job as mothers is not to coddle and make friends: it is to rule our homes while our husbands are away with a firm and loving hand. Our authority is given by Christ and when we wear it respectably, our children will not only understand what authority at home is: but also will understand and respect authority in both the right and left hand kingdoms.

Many children who do not have authority figures at home that they "fear and love" would probably be afraid of a painting like this...not my children. My children shiver with excitement over a warrior angel that is willing to fight for them.

May every faithful Pastor and Dad garner the same response!

And mothers: may we serve faithfully in such a way that we teach our children to fear and love God and their father.

Freak Show

2012-01-09T21:45:00.002-05:00

Yes I have 4 children.

Yes, they're all mine from my one and only marriage.

Yes, they're all boys.

No, I'm not "trying" for a girl.

No, none of them are twins, for crying out loud they're all over a year and a half apart.

Now can I please finish my shopping in peace?

The Grocery Store

2012-01-07T11:16:00.003-05:00

It's a familiar scene. You're walking through the grocery store and you hear it: the all too familiar squealing of an angry toddler. You cringe thinking of all the times you yourself have been there and feel empathy for the mother. You try to continue with your shopping when she rounds your corner. However, the look on the mother's face isn't of concern for her child or fear of being seen or even of embarrassment over the ruckus, but instead is one of anger. Her eyes have mastered "the look" and she is nearly shaking she's so angry over her toddler's selfish antics. She mutters threats, practically spitting, and you wonder how long it will be until she grabs the child from the cart and hauls her off to discipline her.

How many times have we ourselves been in this identical situation? I'm not talking about the situation of the viewer but of the mother herself with the screaming child.

About a year ago I read the Duggar's first book "20 and counting" and was shocked when I got to a part that confessed how Michelle and Jim Bob had struggled with anger issues when they had all little children. I was shocked because their demeanor on TV is always so soft that I could hardly imagine them even scowling, let alone yelling or grabbing their child is a harsh way. But I was relieved.

When I had one child I would look with pity at those mothers who obviously needed a parenting lesson. I would smile my way through the store and even when my child was the screaming one I would smile sweetly at those passing and continue exercising calmness.

But now I have 4 kids under 6. Wait, let me rephrase that, I have 4 boybarians under 6.

Anyways, so back to the grocery store scene except this time it's me with the screaming toddler. Oh yes, and my baby is screaming too in the sling. My preschooler is grabbing things off the shelves and shoving them in my face alternating with bolting down the aisle to race his K age brother. I'm losing patience trying to get the two oldest to stop racing as they cut off an elderly woman while my toddler reaches up from the seat in the cart to hit me and I nearly drop the baby in the sling. I'm quickly reaching my boiling point.

And then I look down and my baby smiles a quick smile. Quick but huge. Time stands still.

Now before you think this is about to turn into one of those "cherish every second" posts, keep reading, because you couldn't be more wrong.

Once there was a famous writer who, when asked if he loved writing, replied, “No. but I love having written.”

I paused in my anger and saw that smiling baby and suddenly felt a pang of guilt. Why was I so mad? No, I mean obviously trying to control 4 monkeys in a grocery store is enough to raise anyone's blood pressure, but why was I mad ?

Deep down the reason anyone gets angry over anything is because they feel the situation they are in is not justified. They feel they deserve better. They feel they are being wronged.

I realized in that moment the reason I was so angry was that I felt I did not deserve to have to deal with naughty children. I felt they were wronging me. I felt I deserved better.

The only person to ever be right in their anger was Christ. He truly deserved better when he went into His house and turned over the tables of those selling in the temple.

But you, my friend, you and I are sinners. What we deserve is far far worse than anything we can imagine. Yes we are saved and therefore in God's eyes deserve only love and blessing, but we are still sinners while on this earth, still in constant need of a savior, still able to fall away.

Therefore, repent. Next time you find yourself angry at your kids use it as an opportunity to repent over your own sin, realize that what your kids are doing is a result of being sinners as well, and give thanks that even though you both deserve what you're getting and far more, Christ instead gives you a washing of rebirth, His body and blood, Holy Absolution, and His Word for your strengthening, salvation, and joy.

Then sigh and carry on.

Oh, and when that sweet old lady at the check out smiles at you and tells you to enjoy every second because it passes too quickly, remember what that famous writer said. There is no reason to guilt yourself into enjoying your work. No one approaches a mechanic and chastises him to enjoy every second of his work, so why people feel the need to say this to a mother is beyond me. Are there moments of absolute joy when parenting? Of course. Usually at the end of the day when you can tuck them away and smile that you survived another day without eating them. (I'm kidding Grandmas, calm down ;) But the real joy comes not in the daily grind of parenting but in HAVING parented. A job well done.

So roll up your sleeves, put on your work boots and apron, and carry on friend, carry on.

God's Country

2012-01-04T17:14:00.003-05:00

One morning I awoke before anyone in the house (very rare indeed) and began happily mixing up some pancake batter. I was pondering this and that and making a mental list of things to accomplish that day. I was so busy in my mental game that I didn't notice I was being watched.

No matter, leave it to the child to notice. My then 4 yr old came out of his bedroom sleepily rubbing his eyes and said casually, "Hey Mom, I think that doe wants a pancake!" Then he chuckled. I spun around to see a GIANT doe standing on our back steps with her head cocked to the side as she watched me mix with what appeared to be great curiosity. I tried to offer her a pancake but she decided she'd rather run back to her group. :)

After 2 1/2 years of living in the rural plains I understand why they call this area "God's country". I hope and pray when we become busy in city life that I am able to keep all the "important" things I have to do in perspective and remember to not take things so seriously.

T minus

2011-12-29T18:59:00.002-05:00

One week until move day.

Celebrated 3 birthdays this month in our house, one to go.

Extended family has been visiting all week, lots of fun and food.

Someone better wake me up and help me realize I need to stop procrastinating. We're about to move across the country and I'm sitting here like nothing's about to happen!

I need chocolate.

It has come to my attention...

2011-12-04T21:57:00.002-05:00

that my family will be moving. I prefer to keep details limited on this way too public place, but I am thankful to be a Pastor's wife and know that the Lord is faithful and calls his servants when and where He pleases.

Please pray for us as we make this transition.

If you've never...

2011-11-26T23:20:00.003-05:00

seen this website, I highly recommend it.

www.bulkherbstore.com

I love all the teas available (Dr. Cinnamon is SO yummy!) and am a fan of using herbs and natural remedies when possible and this website has so many resources available for that type of research.

They also have cool tea sampler kits available for Christmas presents :). Enjoy!

Giving Thanks

2011-11-21T21:26:00.003-05:00

Warning to readers: honest (albeit negative) assessment of pregnancy, birth, and pp period follows: perhaps do not read if you are sensitive to this topic as of now. (Though I promise it ends in Gospel :)

You'll have to excuse me for my lack of posts lately. Ever have those times in your life where you feel like you just have nothing to offer? Where you feel like it takes enough energy just to do the basics of household and family care let alone to do any extra character building (children OR yourself!), Bible reading, organization, etc etc?

You know, the further I get into this baby having gig and family growing gig the more I find myself pondering the sheer difficulty of it all....wondering (not in a poor me kind of way for really, I'm not trying to whine here) why it is that the Lord has allowed the journey of what should be the most glorious of times with the trauma that accompanies every stage. Now if anyone points me to Adam and Eve I'll roll my eyes big time. I know the reason but... I guess I'm lamenting it. Sinner and Saint, at all times...my husband said last Thursday during our weekly Bible study that when a child is baptized he is baptized into a war. That imagery really hit me hard. Because I feel it more than ever in this time of my life of growing, birthing, and sustaining babies.

It's not enough that we gain 25+ lbs, get kicked in the ribs for 9 months, lose sleep, pee all the time, lose more sleep, get heart burn, have strange pregnancy dreams, have round ligament pain, have low back pain, have pain everywhere, get gawked at and questioned and touched by strangers, and wonder every second of every day if our little one will make it safely to the font...but THEN we have to endure hours of agony as we push the child out, again wondering who will be alive on the other side.

But the weeks following the birth can be even worse. I had my best birth yet and still I dealt with the normal after birth contractions for days, bruising and deep pain from baby's head, engorgement, a delayed pp hemorrhage, the emotions of getting to know this tiny new person and all of his needs and trying to keep him warm, happy, and safe in a household of brothers, and coming to terms with my new family size and mentally getting past the trauma of labor and transition and delivery.

Needless to say I was so excited to go back to church this past Sunday and prayed fervently that the Lord would help my children behave so I wouldn't have to drag children out when I still have to be careful about healing. The children were perfect. Seriously. I was almost distracted BECAUSE they were GOOD! lol.

But then my husband gave one of the best sermons I have ever heard. Seriously. The Gospel reading for the day was the Lord separating the sheep from the goats on the Last Day. I shivered at the thought and teared up. Oh Lord: I am weak, I am lazy, I am a doubter, and I despair over the curse women must endure...Lord have mercy.

I waited to hear about what I failure I was.... for when have I fed or clothed you Lord??? Imagine my joy when instead what I heard was mercy for those that ask, "Lord, when did I clothe you or give you a drink?" and instead law for those that declare with boasting that they did all of those things and trust in their own works.

For it is not about boasting in ourselves, but boasting in Christ. HE is my strength. HE is my joy. HE is my peace. HE is mercy, love, forgiveness, and that warm embrace that I need when my world seems scary, full of too much change, and I just want to curl up in my Daddy's lap. But most importantly, HE is the fulfillment of the law. His works are my works, His mercy is my mercy, and His life is my new life.

So I may be a bit scattered for a few more weeks while I adjust to my new family in one of the busiest times of year. I pray you all are doing well and staying healthy as these dark days of winter come. May Christ truly be our light and joy in the weeks to come.

Melt Down

2011-11-14T21:00:00.002-05:00

In the past couple of months our home has gone from this:

To this:

It started about a month or two before baby boy was born. Our youngest began to have meltdowns nearly every 10 min. Teething? Mama's bulging belly? The fact he was getting closer to 2? Who knows...

But here we are 10 days pp and I'm at my wits end. All three of our older children...OK actually its our oldest and almost two year old...are an absolute wreck. Our oldest has suddenly decided he's "angry" with every single thing we ask him to do or every single time we tell him "no" or don't give him attention the second he wants it. He's tantruming, making faces, and declaring how angry he is with us. And our near two year old has suddenly become addicted to treats and asks SERIOUSLY a million times a day for sugar in one form or another. If we tell him no (which we do 99% of the time) he throws himself on the ground and SCREAMS. We've tried correction, putting him in a chair in the living room until he can calm down, and distracting him. But seriously this preoccupation with sugar is about to make me go insane. And of course he has to know where I am at ALL times and when I try to rest in my room wants to be on my bed climbing around.

Parents with 4 or more little ones, how do you cope? How do you keep from yelling? The Bible tells us over and over how important self control is, how important it is to not drive our children to wrath, and how important it is to live in love and gentleness. I want to raise our children in calmness and dignity. One of my favorite quotes goes like this:

"An irritated parent comes across as a bully rather than a dignified authority training for the child's good."

I always want to be dignified, calm, in control of my emotions, and loving. I hate yelling at my children and the affect it has on them. I see that it not only elicits an emotional response from THEM, but also causes them a great deal of tension and frustration and anger. More than anything I want to parent in a way that deals with the behavior in a responsible way that will actually concentrate on their heart and bringing them closer to the Lord instead of bullying them into proper behavior.

So please, tips from you mamas with more experience!

All in a day's work

2011-11-05T21:19:00.002-04:00

Fun things I did this week:

Monday: My husband and I made halloween shaped pancakes and then played soccer with the kids.

Tuesday: Washed every piece of dirty laundry in the house and cleaned out the basement storage room. Hey, we all have our own definitions of fun ;)

Wednesday: Took down the "no match" basket of socks and found most of their matches, made paper airplanes with the kids, gave the kids a bubble bath while blowing bubbles for them to pop, scrubbed every inch of kids' bathroom while they played in the tub.

Thursday: vacuumed and mopped whole house, took kids on long walk, went out for dinner

Friday: visited with a friend, gave birth to a baby, ate pizza. :D

2011-10-30T22:42:00.002-04:00

Tonight I watched an episode of "Sister Wives". When I first saw previews for this series a couple years back at its beginning I was appalled. Curiosity eventually got the better of me and a few times in the past couple years I have watched an episode here or there.

Tonight's episode featured some concerns about the relationships of the children with each other and with their "mothers". As I watched two feelings came over me. First, understanding.

I grew up in a blended home. I was too young when my parents first divorced to even know what was happening, but by the second divorce I was in school and I remember the feelings of embarrassment and confusion, of loss and isolation. This understanding I felt was of a picture of family gone wrong. Sin is so dirty it has this awful way of pretending to be good. And marriage, as it was designed to be, goes wrong, and both pictures are pictures of idolatry and selfishness.

The second feeling was something I didn't expect. Sympathy. When I first saw the previews I was filled with a sort of righteous indignation at their blatant and appalling distortion of such a wonderful gift. But being a stay at home mother, a pastor's wife, a home schooler, and any other label that is a minority of the norm has a way of humbling someone. So instead of wishing I could wring their necks and preach the law to them I found myself just feeling sad. Sad for them, sad for myself, and sad at our entire miserable sinful existence.

And towards the end of the episode, when the father let out a sad laugh and said, "I suppose I'm just like millions of other parents out there just trying to figure out what on earth to do with their kids." I actually laughed and muttered, "you are, you're so not alone" because I too have been feeling lost this week regarding the behavior of one of my children.

I believe the family in Sister Wives is lost. I ache that they do not know Christ as the one Triune God that has died for their sins and rose victorious over sin and death. I see them parade their "love" for one another all over the TV screen and I cringe because I know that God's design for marriage: one man and one woman, was meant to reflect HIS love for His ONE bride, the true church. I suppose it is fitting for this Mormon sect to practice this way since they believe in many gods and their own personal divinity. At least their way of life is an honest picture of who they are and what they believe.

But at the end of the show this verse came to mind:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

(1 Timothy 2:1-4 ESV)

I am sad for the way this family is living. I am even more sad that these types of shows are designed to create acceptance of ways of life that are contrary to God's Word. But in the end may that sadness cause us not into pharisaical self righteous behavior over somehow thinking they are so lost and we are so right and holy, but instead to repentance for our own sin and constant despisal of God's Word and gifts. And then, may we, in humility and love, turn to concerned prayer for those we know who are not saved by God's grace.

How to tell if you're nesting.

2011-10-26T15:12:00.003-04:00

1. You decided to make muffins for breakfast and found yourself putting 3 dozen extra muffins you made into ziplock bags for breakfasts after baby arrives.

2. 33 degrees sounds like perfect weather to back the van out of the garage, bundle up the kids and send them out to play, and then go nuts with the vacuum on every inch of said van's interior.

3. You've washed and dried and folded and put away every last piece of clothing your family owns except what's on their backs and packed suitcases for everyone for while mama's busy pushing the new baby out. You even hauled them out to the newly cleaned van and have them "just so" in the trunk for quick drop off of kids. Then you re-vacuumed because your 3 yr old got into the van while you were putting the suitcases in and left a foot print.

3. You went down to the basement storage room to put away a donated winter coat that won't fit anyone this season and came out an hour later to a completely rearranged, re-inventoried, re-stacked, and reorganized room.

4. You fed your family salad, crackers, cheese, and deli meat for lunch because you were too busy putting away 4 lbs of meat loaf, a large ziplock bag of meatballs in spaghetti sauce, and a large ziplock bag of sloppy joe meat that you have whipped up for meals after baby's arrival.

5. Your husband hides in the living room when he comes home for lunch and the kids are playing downstairs with no hint of even asking for food because that vacuum found its way to your hands again and you're beating the kitchen floor into submission.

And the final way to know if your nesting:

Your husband says, "I can tell you're at the end of your pregnancy because you're going nuts. I mean, going nuts CLEANING." Nice recovery dear.

Now I think it's time for an entirely new kind of nesting all together.

One of those days.

2011-10-16T18:31:00.006-04:00

If only the little fish had known his only purpose in his vocation was to be humbled.

My baby won't sleep: night time or nap time and he's in this terrible hitting/throwing/kicking phase. Once upon a time I was a mama with only one little lad and I never yelled and had all the time in the world to train my little guy into model behavior. Now I'm physically and mentally and spiritually exhausted and find myself snapping at him and treating him as if I was his twin instead of his dignified mama.

Every night I go to bed begging help and pleading for forgiveness and wisdom only to be awoken to be eaten and beaten by three little boybarians. Why do I get the feeling the only thing these boys get from me is the bad and any good produced in their actions comes only from Christ alone? Oh yea, cause it's true.

Little Glimpses

2011-10-15T21:50:00.002-04:00

I'm two weeks away from 38 weeks. It was 38 weeks that a very dear friend of mine lost her baby just this spring. There was no warning, no weeks in the NICU, no ultrasounds revealing serious problems, no sickness...only a very healthy beautiful baby boy that the Lord called home in an instant while his mama prepared for him.

It's safe to say that with age and slowly increasing wisdom (experience) comes that ever growing realization, sometimes overwhelmingly so, that we are not as young as we used to be and that at any moment our life could go all Job on us.

A few days ago I started reading this book. I was deep cleaning my room and found it in a stack and the title caught my attention. Who can't use more grace 4 weeks from the terror of labor?

Anyhow, one of the first sections spoke of Martin Luther's famous line, "We are beggars this is true." that he scribbled out on a piece of paper on his death bed.

Tonight my husband took our children for a drive to scout for deer. While he was gone I put away laundry in each of their rooms. It was getting dark fast and, since I'm not all alone too often, I started feeling panicky in the quiet house. What if they get in an accident? It took a matter of seconds for me to see in my mind a cop knocking on the door and the terrible news a bad accident would bring. Call me neurotic but I quickly picked up the phone to see if they were close to getting back. After chatting for a couple minutes my husband was home and my three boys were mauling me. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Some think the journey of a Christian is about going from darkness to light. Progressing. Becoming closer to God. Sinning less. Trusting more. Doing more good works. But as a mother with a growing family, a body growing older while still continuing the work of growing and birthing children, and children growing up in need of more and more instruction...I am constantly and daily reminded more so than I ever was as a child of my desperate state. A state that does not improve. A state that leaves me just as much as ever before....helpless. Scared. In need.

We are beggars this is true.

I know the pain I am getting ready to face. I can only hope and pray it doesn't involve the horrendous trauma it has in the past. But all of these little glimpses and reminders of the end result of sin (death) are all the more reminders of the true end result thanks only to the mercy and sacrifice of Jesus: Forgiveness. Redemption. Salvation. Love. The end of tears and sin and sickness and fear. Forever in the arms and loving embrace of our Father surrounded by all those who have gone before us.

A night out-quiverfull style

2011-10-08T22:59:00.003-04:00

Curtain Opens to a family of 5- soon to be 6- "relaxing" on the couch.

Scene 1:

Son 1 uses Father as jungle gym.

Son 2 cuddles into mama trying desperately to get comfortable around her bulging abdomen.

Son 3 is threatening to throw baby doll at Son 2, making him squeal and elbow Mama's belly.

Father: It's 3:42...what are we going to do for the rest of the evening? How are we going to make it to bed time?

Mother: (offers half-hearted laugh and sighs) I don't know.

Father: Hey, maybe we should drive to (enter town's name an hour away) so we can get snacks and breakfast stuff to take to the conference with us and then we can get pizza while we're out.

Mother: (Knowing the hotel has a fully stocked hot breakfast and there are still some left over snacky things in the pantry from the last grocery shopping trip she could bring in the car for the boybarians) GREAT IDEA!

Mother happily gathers diaper bag and gets ready to go while imagining a night without cooking and cleaning up the kitchen and trying to entertain 3 boys while it's raining out.

Scene 2 opens with family in the car.

Father appears to be trying to have an important discussion with Mother.

Son 3 (21 months): MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM!

Mother: (to husband) sorry dear. (Turns to son) WHAT?!

Son 3: HI!

Mother: Hi son. Now please be quiet. (turns back to Father)

Son 3: MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM!

repeat entire hour drive.

Scene 3 opens with Family arriving at pizza restaurant.

Father struggles to carry Son 1 (who has fallen asleep in the car) and Son 2 into restaurant through pouring rain. Mother lags behind carrying Son 3.

Mother and Father settle children into seats and try to resume important conversation.

Son 3 pops up and down in high chair like a jack-in-the-box while Mother tries to talk and sit him down at the same time.

Son 1 sits in Father's lap trying to cuddle/wrestle him as he wakes up wired.

Son 2 sips from a giant cup the waiter brought him spilling on himself every few sips while mother tries to help him and hand him napkins.

Mother and Father try desperately to not grow frustrated as their conversation takes a back seat.

Finally the family rises to leave and the owner of the joint catches Mother with a big grin.

Owner: (with way to big a smile) Aww, so how long now until that little blessing is finally here?!

Mother (struggling with son 3 and struggling to smile) ohhh, about 5 weeks now.

Owner: Wow! So soon! That's so great!

Mother (knowing owner had been watching the entire dinner while mother and father struggled with the three boybarians and seemed to enjoy it far too much): Oh yes, it certainly is.

Family rushes out to car in rain while mother and father take turns strapping 3 kids into carseats. Father goes to walk around car to his seat as Mother tries to climb up into full size van. She slips on the wet steps and completely wipes out on the ground.

Mother: (staring down at giant belly) COME OUUUUTTT!!!!!!!

Scene 4, grocery store.

All attempts at conversation have ceased as Mother and Father walk tired through the store. Children turn heads here and there looking at all the wonders.

Suddenly the children are models of perfect behavior.

Son 3 happily babbles to himself as he sits nicely in cart.

Son 2 walks next to mommy: Mommy, can I hold your hand?

Mother: Aww, sure, I love to hold your hand.

Son 1: Look Mama, pumpkins for trick or treating. Those are cool. (Son 1 continues on without even asking for one of the said pumpkins.)

Seeing that the pumpkins are only 1$ and the children don't have anything to carry for trick or treating, Mother looks at father questioningly. Father nods agreement.

Mother: Which color would you want if you could have one?

Son 1: Orange?

Mother hands pumpkin to Son 1.

Sons 2 and 3 begin happily squealing and shouting out their preferred colors.

Family continues on 3 pumpkins heavier and Mother then sees a bin of matchbox cars on clearance for 84 cents each. Father nods approval and Mother again treats children to their selections of the cars.

Children, thrilled with the unexpected treasures, romp through the store shaking their cars inside their plastic pumpkins.

Mother begins feeling crampy from her fall and begins to complain as she walks.

Suddenly a whole family of church members (including 3 generations) comes around the corner and greets Mother and Father. The children begin their excited chatter about their treasures and fun evening out.

20 Min later shopping resumes.

Finally Mother and Father have gathered what they needed (after retrieving the pumpkin and car from the floor a million times during shopping for Son 3). Family turns into check-out lane and unloads goods.

Father: (to mother) Are you OK?

Mother: Yea, my back just hurts.

Father: I'm sorry dear. Let's get you home.

Son 3: PUNKIN! PUNKIN! RACE CAR! RACE CAR!

Son 1: (to cashier) Look! We got new pumpkins for trick or treating! Mine is orange. I can't wait to trick or treat! I'm going to be Captain America. But my brother wants to be Captain America too. So I don't know what we'll do about that 'cause we only have one Captain America costume. But Mama will figure something out!

Son 1: RACE CAR! RACE CAR! RACE CAR!

Cashier sweetly hands each child back their respective pumpkins and race cars then turns to Mother.

Cashier: Hoping for a girl this time?

Mother: (smiling politely) It's a boy.

Mother notices adjacent line's shoppers chuckling and laughing at her announcement and smiles politely to them as well.

Cashier: ohhhh woooowww.

Mother: Yes, think I should invest in some padded walls?

Cashier, relieved, laughs.

Mother and Father exit store as quickly as possible.

1 hr later the family is finally home.

Mother tosses leftover pizza on the counter with purse while father drops large armload of grocery bags.

Mother: At least the kitchen is clean.

It's happening

2011-10-01T21:41:00.002-04:00

Today was a bad day.

At bed time my oldest son asked me to pray a "special prayer" aka not our Luther's Evening prayer or prayers we read from our devotions once they were in bed. Normally I pray thanking God in a list for each of the things we were able to do that day (the good things so they go to bed thinking about the fun we had) and then asking His protection through the night and that everyone would have sweet dreams. I end by asking the Lord to continue to strengthen us in the One True Faith unto life everlasting.

Tonight I prayed a prayer of repentance. In near tears I begged God...forgetting my children were even listening...to forgive me for being "such a bad mom". I confessed my inability to be patient all the time, my inability to show them His perfect love all the time, and my inability to not be completely selfless in my care for them. I asked the Lord to please forgive my sins and to give me His strength and wisdom so that I could respond in gentleness and love instead of being cranky and snippy. Finally I asked God to protect us and ended the prayer as usual.

When I opened my eyes my oldest son was staring at me in disbelief. I looked up at him (he sleeps in a top bunk :) and he said quietly, "Mom? Why would you pray something like that? You are NOT a bad mom. You are a good mom....a very good mom. And mom, everyone gets cranky and has bad days, and even when you're angry and cranky I love you and think you're a good mom."

In that moment I saw Christ, caring for his mother even in the agony of His death.

My son is growing up. But not only is he growing physically, but God has been faithful in His Baptism of my son and indeed is growing him in his faith, despite all of my failures as his mother. From the mouths of babes God has prepared praise and you know, earlier today as I was grouching at my toddler I lamented internally how much less patience I have for him than I did for his oldest brother...how much less I hold him...how much less I can give him. And then I saw his oldest brother holding and comforting him minutes later and realized it's happening...my son is maturing in his faith. God is faithful. Thank you Father!!!

There's no place like home

2011-09-29T13:21:00.003-04:00

Utopia (juːˈtəʊpɪə)

— n
	( sometimes not capital ) any real or imaginary society, place, state, etc, considered to be perfect or ideal

[C16: from New Latin Utopia (coined by Sir Thomas More in1516 as the title of his book that described an imaginary island representing the perfect society), literally: no place, from Greekou not + topos a place]

2 Corinthians

Our Heavenly Dwelling

5 For we know that if kthe tent that is lour earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, ma house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent nwe groan, longing to oput on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on1 we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal pmay be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, qwho has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

6 So we are always of good courage. We know that rwhile we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for swe walk by faith, not tby sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we uwould rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to vplease him. 10 For wwe must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, xso that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Alas, utopia, where dost thou dwell?

I have searched high and low for thee to no avail.

I searched in the city with its streets full of noise,

Only to see sinners flaunting their material joys.

Alas, utopia, where dost thou dwell?

I have searched high and low for thee to no avail.

I have searched in the country where men work the fields,

Only to find sinners obsessing their yields.

Alas, utopia, where dost thou dwell?

We are all searching for you to no avail.

We build our homes in desired locations,

hoping and praying it will make us righteous while we serve in our vocations.

Alas, utopia, earth is NOT your home,

sinners abound in every state, every home,

no running or hiding,

no city, plain, or wood,

can escape the wickedness we try so hard to avoid.

Utopia, Utopia,

we wait for you with yearning,

But the sin that encompasses us, Christ only is capable of destroying.

So while we mothers worry and fret: wishing for a utopia our children to protect,

We need only look to Christ, our true protection, who clothes us in HIS perfection.

And we can stop our searching, our hiding, our running

and stop our judging, our trying, and pointing.

Instead: rejoice, wherever we live

for Utopia lives within us

and gives us what is His.

For two years I have lived where few live. There are no movie theaters, malls, candy colored parks, or stores filled with toys. Though the drastic change was terrifying, it was thrilling. Finally, finally I could keep my children from the streets filled with children who cursed, wore their pants around their knees, and made out in the malls. I could keep them from advertising, from endless materialism in their faces while we drive streets filled with stores, and keep myself from temptations of ease and laziness (Mother's Day Out, fast food, etc etc). Now, surely I could promote righteousness in my home.

Two years later my home and heart are filled with sin. Now we just add loneliness to it. But a lesson has been learned. Sin cannot be avoided. Works do not create righteousness. Christ does not love my family more because we don't go to theaters and make our bread from freshly ground wheat. He does not love me less when I splurge and buy frozen pizzas and give my kids chocolate just to break up the monotony.

6 So we are always of good courage. We know that rwhile we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for swe walk by faith, not tby sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we uwould rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to vplease him. 10 For wwe must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, xso that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

And how do we please Him?

2 For in this tent nwe groan, longing to oput on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on1 we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal pmay be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, qwho has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

Oh Happy day. We please Him by being clothed in Him. We are clothed in Him by HIS gifts of Word, Baptism, Holy Communion, and Holy Confession/Absolution. He makes us good because He alone IS GOOD.

We seek to obey God's commands because they are His Word and we love Him because He first loved us and produced love in us. But what pleases God is that we are clothed in His Son.

So whether you are raising your children in the heart of New York City or on the plains....whether you are able to stay at home or are working away from your family: may God's Word dwell richly in your home and may you and your family find solace in His Church where you are fed and forgiven and made righteous with HIS righteousness.

Sin is Like a Poopy Diaper

2011-09-26T13:57:00.000-04:00

1. It always stinks worse coming from someone else's family.

2. When you smell it, you don't actually want to take care of the problem- you just want to get it away from you.

3. Instead of changing it right away, sometimes we wait to see how much worse its going to get before we have to deal with it.

4. Yours never stinks as bad as everyone else's. (I'm speaking metaphorically here. No adult diapers here... yet.)

5. Sometimes someone needs to just tell you that you stink before you realize it.

6. When you do realize that the stench is you, you are so abhorred that it took you so long to notice and embarrassed that everyone else probably smelled you too, that you decide to wallow in it a while longer.

Not sure if there is much of a point to this post. Just know that I've tried hanging metaphorical air fresheners around my whole life, when what I've always needed was a change. So glad am I to have moments that remind me that I have been changed. I've been remade. And when all I want to do is kick, roll, and fling myself around, I have a God who cares enough to pin me down and clean me again...

2011-09-20T15:25:00.002-04:00

It's the final 8 week stretch and I wish I could give someone else I know, love, and trust full reign of my household and children until about 2 weeks after the delivery. Really, I'm a brainless mess just trying to remember where I put the butter.

OK, so not the beach retreat I had in mind for confinement, but at least I could be alone with my thought.

So here's a list of things I can think of to help a woman survive the last 8 weeks of pregnancy...and please feel free to share yours.

1. Stock up on marshmallows and chocolate chips. Oh, and Goldfish.

2. Make a list of your favorite educational videos and keep the remote close. It's amazing what kids can learn from a well made documentary!

3. Laundry. Laundry is about as mindless as it gets while still being extremely productive. There's nothing like pumping through 5 loads of laundry to give you a feeling of self accomplishment while also giving you a "good excuse" to keep sending the kids off to entertain themselves. Because hey, if they keep whining at you they can always help! (Which just the threat of is always enough to send them running in our house.)

4. Chocolate. But this time for mom.

5. Buy one of these. And one of these. I've never owned a mop until just a month ago when we "bought" this (second link) with our credit card points. The vacuum we've owned our entire marriage is a giant dyson that was great when we lived in a carpeted house, but now that our entire upstairs is laminate flooring, it was doing nothing but kicking dirt all over the place! So I discovered these and not only are they each super tiny and lightweight but I can keep them both in the same small corner of my kitchen where at a moment's notice I can zip around the upstairs with the tiny but seriously STINKING POWERFUL vacuum (the suction on that thing is downright amazing) and then just as quickly zip around with my steam mop that only uses water but steams it out with such efficiency and such a high temp that it kills bacteria while getting even the toughest grime off the floor instantly. These are a nesting woman's best friends.

6. Make that date night you've been saying you and hubby should go on for the past year. In fact, make as many as you can, one every other week for example, until the baby comes. Even if it means putting the kids to bed early and having hubby bring home some take out and a movie or take out and a game of scrabble. Scrabble can be fun :D.

7. Get excited about something that's happening in the somewhat near future AFTER the baby is born (say for those of us due sometime before Dec 1, Advent and Christmas). Start planning for those things in these last weeks and bring on the festive mood now (in your mind at least) rather than later so you have something to distract yourself with. Go ahead and write and address the Christmas cards so they're ready, write out your lists or go ahead and get the gifts together to send out to family, etc.

8. Put those awful pregnancy books away. Seriously. Labor is what it will be, no amount of birth plan writing will actually make your birth turn out that way. Just go in denial mode and see #4.

9. Exercise. Burns off stress and improves circulation for the thing we're not thinking about (see 8).

10. Read an actually GOOD book that has nothing to do with the thing we're not talking about. And read to the kids too. It will give all of you some down time.

OK, that's it. Now I'm going to eat a chocolate chip cookie and take a nap. :) Made possible by: mandatory quite time. Another good idea each day leading up to d-day. :D

How to Feel better

2011-09-18T22:49:00.002-04:00

The scenario goes something like this:

Mom wakes up grouchy.

Mom begins getting breakfast, changing diapers, and looking at the daunting list of chores and tasks to be completed.

Kid 1 carries out minor act of rudeness.

Mom snaps at Kid 1.

Kid 2 falls and cries way harder than necessary.

Mom rolls eyes but tries to appear mildly sympathetic.

Kid 3, seeing Kid 2 is in a whiny mood, takes advantage of the opportunity and kicks Kid 2. Kid 2 squeals like a piggy while Kid 3 (the baby) runs away laughing.

Kid 1 says, "juice mom" while shoving the glass towards Mom and Mom turns and screams, "I'll get the juice when you learn to ask for it like a polite human being!" and storms out of the room.

I had a morning like this a couple days ago. All day Kid 1 acted like Kid 1. He was his normal 5 yr old self, generally showing sweetness and concern but mixing it up with moments of apathy and downright meanness. But as the day went on his moments of apathy began to make me boil. I'm not sure why I picked him to pick on that day. Perhaps because he's the oldest and it's easy to pick on and expect the most from the oldest. But as the day went on I became so in tune to his moments of sin that I was ready to drag him to the church for some serious private confession.

My husband came home and, seeing the anger on my face braced himself and asked me what was wrong. Turning away from him I caught Kid 1 in yet another moment of selfishness and screamed at him to go inside. Then I blew and began ranting to my husband about all the terrors of a 5 yr old boy. I went on and on. He listened quietly, smiling discreetly at times at my descriptions of his childish behaviors, and tried to be compassionate and encouraging. He reminded me that Kid 1 would certainly grow out of several of his childish behaviors and told me I was doing a fantastic job. He hugged me and then offered to take all the kids outside so I could have some peace and quiet. Eventually I followed him out and happened to see Kid 1 back to sweetness. He was gently helping his baby brother while smiling and encouraging his preschool brother.

It was then that a pang of guilt hit me. It wasn't Kid 1 at all. It was me. I was upset about something that in prayer I didn't feel like God was answering the way I wanted. I was feeling confused, ignored, and stuck in my sin. I was feeling like the reason God wasn't answering my prayer the way I wanted was because I wasn't asking right, praying hard enough, being convincing enough, wanting it enough, etc etc.

The law for the Christian is funny like that. On the one hand it can lead you to abhor yourself and others, seeing everyone as doomed and evil and causing anger to build further and further at your inability to please God with your works. You love God, you rejoice in your salvation, but still you fall back into your sinful nature of wanting to be in control. And so when things don't go your way, rather than repent and rest in the knowledge of God's ultimate understanding and wisdom in answering your prayer the way He sees fit, you try to take matters into your own hands, control the situation, and when that fails, try to control everyone around you into perfection too.

Suddenly I blurted out to my husband that I was sorry. I confessed to him what I was really upset about and how it had caused me to respond to our son.

God wants us to come to Him with all of our desires and requests...even the ones we're not sure are good for us or maybe are even a bit selfish. As Christians when we present our requests to God we ask in faith, knowing and trusting that if it's not what's best, God will protect us. And when we feel frustrated, ignored, impatient, and find ourselves wanting to control our situation and those around us, I think the best thing is to offer an earnest confession (without wallowing in it as if confession were some kind of good work that merits the absolution that follows), receive God's grace and forgiveness, and then let the kids and yourself have some candy and processed food and have a family movie night.

At least that's what made me feel better the other night :).

2011-09-12T22:39:00.004-04:00

Do you ever feel as a mom like you wish you could curl up in your Mommy or Daddy's lap and just be safe again? Do you ever wish you could be free from the judgements of people around you, free from the constant worry of trying to raise Godly children, and free from always being the one protecting and providing? To be a child, warm in some jammies, knowing that Mommy and Daddy have it under control?

Of course no one's childhood is THAT rosy all the time. I mean, I don't even remember a time when my mom and dad were under the same roof, but I was very loved and protected and growing up in my daddy's house was a place of love and stability. And as the years stretch on and every single day is a day of worrying, trying, and being needed all. day. long....and into the night...it makes me yearn for the comfort of my father's arms.

If I really think about it though, my childhood was quite rocky. Actually, the details of my childhood would most certainly exclude me from, if I were young and single, the rights to marry into a "more pious" family, you know, one where the parents have high standards for their home schooled kids. But when you're a kid, rocky takes a lot to recognize. And as a kid I would have thought we were quite a family. To me it was normal, I didn't know any different. And above all, despite all the custody battles and other TV worthy nonsense that happened, there was love. My dad would have given his life for any of us at any moment and we all knew it. And most importantly, he saw to it that we were all lined up in the pew Sunday after Sunday.

But now he's gone. And with him he took the stability and the unity. One by one my siblings have left for different churches that "spoke to them" more than the faith we were raised in, some don't go to church at all. I am the only one that remains. And now, going "home" involves an empty shell of a house that only holds memories.

I've tried to make sense of this. Why God puts some of His children in families that have 12 amazing children that all stay in the faith with a mom and dad that relish each grand baby that comes, visit each child all year long, and provide warmth and a table full of food whenever each child comes home...and some in homes where despite the brokeness, they stay in the faith and have to figure out, without any proper example, how to raise their own families in the environment they wish they had been raised in.

But today I was spending some time in prayer. I thought of Noah and the faith it required to build the massive ark. I thought of Elijah when God fed him with the ravens, led him to help the widow and her son (which always struck me as funny that after calling down fire from heaven he's led into the middle of nowhere to help a meager widow and her son) and came to him in the whisper instead of the other mighty signs that came his way. I thought of God leading His people out of exile and I thought of God's line of questioning of Job, "Where were you when I walked on the waters of the deep?" I thought of the parting of the Red Sea, the incarnation, the crucifixion and resurrection and ascension. And then I thought of little me, here in a no traffic light town doing my best to raise 3 children and grow 1 child and struggling as I do it in isolation with no external family support. And I felt humbled. I happened to be praying while sitting in a chair in the backyard as the children played and it was extremely windy. I closed my eyes and pretended to be Elijah with God's presence coming in the wind and suddenly I felt that same peace as I did in my daddy's arms.

I long for help. I long for friends. I long for a run to the chiropractor or grocery store that doesn't involve having to pack for an all day trip to go. I long for parks and malls and fellow homeschoolers I can meet with to keep the journey from feeling so overwhelming and serious, who can help lighten things up a bit. But my Heavenly Father knows all of this and when I look at history as given in the Word of God I have to sit back and laugh at myself and my worries and instead of allowing myself to wallow any further, I go and start another load of laundry. Never underestimate the calming power of mindless chores :). There's nothing like doing the dishes, folding laundry, and scrubbing toilets to keep yourself from thinking too much.

So if you're feeling alone, if you're feeling overwhelmed, incompetent, and in need of a good hug: have a good cry and then make your own list of all of God's amazing works throughout Scripture. What sweet comfort to remember that the same Heavenly Father that creates faith in each of our little ones as they are baptized is the same Heavenly Father that spoke our earth into existence, held up waters for His people to cross with His own hands, and indeed allowed Himself to be born into human flesh for the salvation of the world. And this is the same God that watches over you and comforts you in your time of need. So relish and run to confession and absolution, to the Sacrament of the Altar, and then keep on keepin on. May God have mercy and keep us as we struggle to be everything to our needy little people.

*It came to my attention while reading through this that my sentence structure and grammar leave much to be desired. But I'm tired and pregnant and I don't really care. So, if you need the practice, you can print this out and correct all of my errors. :p

I am a Mother of Boys

2011-09-10T23:13:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine was chuckling over a poem she read in a book called "I am the Mother of Boys" and I decided to write my own based on the idea:

I am a Mother of boys.

I awake every day to kisses served with a side of tackles.

Instead of planning one breakfast,

I plan three,

and hope that will hold us to snack time before lunch.

I am a Mother of boys.

I can throw a football,

stir a pot,

talk on the phone,

and kick a ball back and forth with the toddler all at the same time.

The laundry baskets fill up twice as fast because mud and boys go together like moms and coffee.

I am a mother of boys,

The trees are our jungle gyms,

the pews are our monkey bars (and strong magnets for whacking our heads),

and every rock is a precious gem.

The importance of a good stick is never to be underestimated and provides a way better teddy bear to sleep with than anything soft from the store.

I am a mother of boys,

One tear from me invokes untamed urges for my little men to make mama better,

to hurt whoever hurt me,

and to provide whatever antics will reduce me to tears of laughter.

I know the name and purpose of every piece of construction equipment,

study animal habitats and preying habits,

as well as what they eat and how they defend themselves.

I am a mother of boys,

Every day I seek to provide the tools for these untamed boybarians to grow up just like their Daddy:

strong and capable,

curious and creative,

compassionate, intelligent, and critically thinking,

always able to defend the weak and be a source of calm stability,

and most importantly,

servants of the Most High God unto life everlasting.

I am a mother of boys, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

2011-09-05T22:18:00.003-04:00

This Sunday's Gospel text included the following:

Who Is the Greatest?

18 tAt that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you uturn and vbecome like children, you wwill never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 xWhoever humbles himself like this child is the wgreatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Strangely enough this text had been on my mind earlier in the week. As my family grows our stickoutness in town does as well. While in the grocery store the checker (the mother of the owner of the store and well established person in town) commented loudly and smuggly wanting to know if I "realize" how busy my life will be with FOUR children. The general distaste for children being anything other than a couple of cute trophies that can be passed off to one of the three babysitters' houses in town by 6 wks of age so that mom can go on to do something worthwhile in town makes me want to hide away like a hermit. So, this text was on my mind and I was thrilled when I heard it from the lectern.

As the text was being read, however, my littlest bumped his head on the pew and threw himself down on the floor and began rolling around sobbing. Immediately a few things went through my mind: 1. What are the members thinking? Great: this proves to them even more that I can't handle 3 let alone 4 kids. 2. Why are kids so loud and uncontrollable all the time?! 3. Why can't they just sit still and behave so that I can enjoy the service?! And 4: Why do I keep doing this to myself? Having kids is so inconvenient!

I was chin deep in my pity party when my husband-pastor took the pulpit and began. I would quote for you directly but he hasn't posted his sermon yet ;) but he began with a hard look at the reality of children's place in our society: a society that murders and contracepts children to their graves (!) instead of receiving them as just as important as an adult. Almost any Christian can admit that killing by abortion is wrong, but I was so proud to hear my pastor speak up for contraception as the same thing. However, what came further into his sermon caught me off guard. He went on to explain that as adults we are so wrapped up in our own lives that from the moment they are born we are busy trying to make our children more like us. And yet what does Christ say?

"Whoever humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

I was stunned. Such a simple but profound point to be included in that text. Children are annoying. They are troublesome. They are loud, selfish, prone to tantrums, greedy, whiny....and helpless. And that helplessness they know all too well. And undisciplined child may tantrum and throw fits to get her way, but she does it because she knows she is not capable of caring for her own needs. Even this proves her helplessness. No one needs to teach a child their state of humility because every time their belly growls or their throat runs dry, they are reminded.

Suddenly I felt a rush of compassion for my little man who was still laying on the floor sulking. He had not hit his head that hard at all and knows that tantruming to get attention will not work in his favor. However, as I saw him laying there my heart swelled with joy.

The world may not like your children. And they may make sure you suffer as you continue to have them and not only "inconvenience yourself" as they'll pretend to be concerned about, but those around you as you "fill up land fills" and add to the carbon footprint/global warming nonsense they see as threatening their 2.3 children. You may feel that tension raise in your neck as you try to make everyone see that you are just as capable of being a good mother to 7 as they are to 1, but when you begin to pressure yourself and your children to perform at adult standards for the benefit of those around you, remember Christ's words and perhaps instead of feeling embarrassed next time one of your children acts out in public, you can smile proudly and use it as a chance to remember God's amazing grace.

Adults are not any less sinful than children, we're just better at hiding it. Yes it is important to train children to reverence in church and obedience to God's (and your) commands. And yet, as kids are kids, we can take opportunities to see their humble state, be reminded of our own, and rejoice in a Heavenly Father that gathers us to His bosom and loves us with a love so fierce that he was willing to give His own life for us.

Sweet dreams everyone. :)

Christmas in September

2011-09-03T12:25:00.002-04:00

OK so our Christmas traditions need some serious revamping and I need help.

First: Immediate family. My husband and I each grew up in 5 child families that had enough money to spare. Christmas morning was full of presents for each child that were store bought and included large gifts of bikes or computer games, etc. I vividly remember the massive mountain of presents that awaited us each year as we ran down the stairs.

The problem:

A. If our dear Lord should continue to bless us with children in the next potential 16 or more years of fertility I may have left, this is a completely unreasonable expectation for our own children to have. And even if He does not and we are blessed with the 3 (hopefully soon 4) children that we already have, it STILL is an unreasonable expectation on a one salary Pastor's income.

B. Since we are homeschooling and our children won't have to go back to school just a few days after Christmas, I want to take advantage of the full 12 days of Christmas. I've heard of various families ideas but the few I've heard weren't reasonable for us. Big, budget minded families: how do you celebrate the 12 days of Christmas with your families??? I don't want to just shower my kids with gifts on the first day, I want to find a way to make all 12 days special: with or without gifts. Do any of you have ideas of how to make this time of year special without the commercialism involved in the showering of gifts? I remember the disappointment that would accompany Christmas as a selfish child if I didn't get exactly what I wanted. I just don't want that distraction for my family. And yet, I want them to look forward to it as a very very special time of year that stands out from all the rest. The memories of my childhood and my dad's face as our faces lit up with all the gifts will never be forgotten. Even though it involved the spending of massive amounts of money, I knew how special Christmas was each year because of how nuts my dad went.

C. One thing further: I know the actual celebration for St. Nicholas is...Dec 6th? I want to celebrate that day in some way as a way to teach my children about the REAL Nicholas and take away from the silliness of the American idea. Ideas?

Second: Extended Family:

Both of our families believe very strongly in gift giving. It is expected. But it's also enjoyed. I've tried to tone it down each year and yet, as I shop, I get so excited as I see things I think my siblings, parents, or grandparents would like that I just can't help myself.

The Problem: As a result, every year of our married life we have gone into serious debt each Christmas on our credit card. This cannot be any longer. We have a total of 8 siblings, 3 sets of parents, 2 sets of grand parents, 3 God children, one set of God parents, and a few friends and extended-extended family members that we buy for. I know I could hand make...and I've thought of multiple ideas for this. One year I sent out home made soap to everyone. That was one idea that actually was good for everyone. But the ideas that work for fitting everyone and the large range of age are few and far between. And usually I'm either pregnant or nursing a little one as Christmas approaches and also trying to figure out gifts for my own children as well as baking for all the neighbors/church members. Unless I literally spend the entire year making gifts for each individual to fit their needs, the ideas that match everyone aren't many. So, ideas?! lol

This year with a baby due beg/mid Nov we plan to take a picture of the 4 boys and frame it to send to everyone. But I want something a little more to add to it. Last year my sister sent a honeybaked ham to every family on her list. What an awesome treat it was to get this huge ham in the mail that was ready to eat!! I have no idea how much those cost though and I have a feeling it could be too much. My goal is to spend about $30 on each family.

Let the brainstorming begin!!

Attn readers: I'm a complete fraud

2011-08-31T23:32:00.005-04:00

Things I have let my children do or have done myself in the past year:

1. Eat chocolate chips and marshmallows for snack...more than once.

2. Eat pop tarts, sugary cereal (and no it wasn't homemade granola with a few two many tsp of sugar added), eggo waffles, and several other convenience foods for breakfast....also on more than one occasion...more than two as well.

3. Take toys to church.

4. Take food to church.

5. I now hide a giant bag of gummi bears in my purse every Sunday. You should see how angelic my children are during the sermon as they sit with their hands out in their laps and I put one gummi bear at a time into their waiting paws :D.

6. Gone days without reading to my kids because I just don't feel like it.

7. Dumped an entire box of goldfish crackers on the kitchen floor to get my toddler to leave me alone. It worked. Though my husband was curious why he wasn't hungry for lunch that day :).

8. Felt so frustrated that I burst into tears, yelled loud enough that my throat got raw, and locked myself into my bedroom for 5 min peace (separate occasions ;) .

9. Talked on the phone with a friend for more than two hours in one conversation instead of doing something enriching with the children while I made them go play without me.

10. Let my husband take my children, all three of them, to see Captain America in the theater. Yes, the PG-13 adult version.

Here was the result:

And now, several weeks out from seeing the movie, multiple times a day my 1 yr old says in the toughest voice he can muster with great enthusiasm, "HEROS! SHOOT! CHICKEN NUGGETS!" haha, that's right, Daddy even got them fast food chicken nuggets to eat while they watched the movie and they LOVED them.

Actually, we probably eat fast food about twice a month, sometimes more.

Friends, I am not pious at all. I don't know what I'm doing in my pathetic attempt to raise Godly young men. I don't wear long skirts all the time, or even close now that it's been so stinkin hot all summer, and sometimes my shirts are tighter or lower cut because it's what I have and my 5th time pregnant shape is not as small as it was the first go round. I try to keep my home extremely organized and free of clutter often not because organization is good but because I'm lazy and don't want anything more to add to the mess.

And every day, even with the sweet knowledge of sins forgiven in Jesus Christ, I wonder how on earth I'm going to get through another day in this sin infested muck of a life......

On Christmas Eve while on my husband's vicarage, I was standing in the back of the sanctuary after the candlelight service talking with my husband and his supervising pastor. Suddenly I realized my oldest, who at the time was just shy of turning 2, was gone. I spun around and my heart about stopped. Thank the Lord I had my camera on me to take a family picture with all of us dressed up and I snapped what I saw.

He was all alone, completely unprovoked and thinking he was not being watched.

I am a complete fraud....aren't we all? Oh but thanks be to our Triune God in heaven that HE is not....and the faith He bestows in each of us through Baptism is not...it could not be anything further from it!

Let the Children Come to Me

15 oNow they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, theyprebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them to him, saying,q“Let the children come to me, and rdo not hinder them, qfor to such belongs the kingdom of God.17 sTruly, I say to you, whoever does not treceive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. (Luke 18:15-17)

My children have not yet learned the art of hiding their sin and appearing pious. One minute they are tender and sweet and the next they are screaming and clawing my face, falling on the floor in a tantrum, or outright disobeying my commands with fervor. And you know, sometimes that's what I love most about them. They show it like it is and relish forgiveness after rebuke with such joy....and then usually turn right around and tantrum all over again. sigh.

So attention any fellow Pastor's wives with little girls who may be possible wives for my little men one day :D : we might be a far cry from pious, but thanks to our Amazing God who drowned each of us wretched ones in the waters of Baptism, we are redeemed and loved and desire so fervently thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit to continue the fight each and every day to serve the Lord with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our strength. And if you should come to visit us, we will try real hard to love your as ourselves. :D

And then I blinked.

2011-08-17T23:16:00.005-04:00

Three little boybarians went up the hill, who cares about the pail of water? They all fell down, from wrestling around, and ran up to try it again.

Today I took my 3 boybarians to the park after an hour of making them run laps around the outside of the house did nothing for their innate propensity to use every last ounce of energy to attack one another. OK, so I didn't really make them run laps around the outside of the house, however, they basically did just that with their scooters, push cars, and bicycles.

So up we got and oft did trot as fast as we could caper.....The park involved the usual antics of mama pushing the three boys on the traditional swings, followed by mama running in a circle whilst I pushed the oldest two on these swings that hang on either end of a balance, followed by a million hearings of, "Mama watch this!" which are usually followed by mama needing to comfort someone...

To old dame dob... Around the 10th "Mama watch this!" a request came for me to play hide and seek. I closed my eyes where I stood and began to count. The littlest man became instantly excited, rushing to me and counting out loud with me. Being that he is quite the counter at 19 months he happily counted to 20 in a shrill voice while I stifled my laughter. Then the hunt. My 3 yr old was easy to find. After about 2 minutes he couldn't take the intensity of the whole situation and burst out from his hiding place squealing in laughter. I did my best to act shocked and amazed and congratulated him on his mighty hiding abilities.

...who had to patch HER OWN nob with vinegar and brown paper. My two littlest ones and I turned our search to my eldest. I turned in a circle in the center of the small park in confidence looking for a glint of his t-shirt so that I could continue to pretend that I had no idea where he was hiding before jumping up behind him and making him squeal in delight. I circled and circled and the smallest little flutter entered my chest. "HMMMM, WHERE COULD HE BE???" I said loudly, hoping to elicit a giggle. Nothing. I checked all the usual spots, scanned the area again, checked to make sure his bike was still there, and called, "HMMM, WHERE ARE YOU?!" Still nothing. For a couple minutes longer I searched and then, while chiding myself for being so silly as to worry, I called out his name followed by asking where he was. Around the 3rd or 4th time of not getting an answer I started to get mad. I began to explain in my calling that I didn't know where he was and he should show himself. Finally, the game was over and in my best Mama's-in-charge voice I demanded that he show himself. I heard a muffled, "I'm trying Mama! I'm trying to come!" I spun around in the direction of the call when a glint of blue caught my eye: high, high UP IN A TREE!!!

Way up in the top of a VERY tall Christmas tree type pine tree was my 5 yr old son. Of course. Where else would he be?! Let me tell you I was laughing so hard I was nearly crying. This was the first time, OK, second (but the first was this tiny wimpy newly planted baby tree) tree he successfully climbed in his young life and there he was nearly out of sight. In a matter of seconds he was down on the ground looking like he was ready to run off to college.

When this summer began I had a pre-schooler. He couldn't ride a two wheel bike, he wouldn't put his face in the water, he couldn't read, and came crying to me at the slightest scraped finger, toe, or noggin. Today I am presented with a man stuck in a 5 yr old body. In one summer he, without my help mind you on all counts, can now ride a two wheel bike, swim like a fish completely under water (including "diving" down in the shallow end to retrieve sunken toys and jumping off the diving board into the deep end), read all his easy readers, and kisses his BROTHERS booboos while rubbing his own.

I have a feeling I'm going to need a lot more vinegar and brown paper.

For everything a season

2011-08-13T21:39:00.007-04:00

My entrance into adulthood started with a crash. In one 400 mph moment of ripping metal and shattering bodies, my father flew home to the arms of the Lord 15 days before my 18th birthday. At the age of 18 I dug around the crash site (over a mile long) trying to help my step mom recover personal effects from the plane and his body. Along with body parts including a finger, some teeth, and flesh, about 12 inches down in a hole of mud next to where his body had been found, we, actually my Pastor, found something we never expected to find.

My father was the greatest man I have ever known in my entire life. You think you had a great Dad? Mine was better :). My Dad came to all my class parties, every field trip I asked him to attend, was at every gymnastics event cheering me on as if I were an olympian, and every night he tucked me in, just me, one on one (even though he had to do this with 4 other kids), and called me "sweetie-doodle" as he did. He showed up at school randomly to have lunch with me. He talked about me and each of my siblings to his law partners and assistants as if we were the best kids in the world and were smarter and more capable than any of their kids. He didn't let my mom have custody of us because he couldn't bear to be away from us. The imprint on my soul caused by the horrendous tragedy of his death will never go away, not until the Lord wipes away all my tears.

That entrance into adulthood was a good lesson about life's realities. As a child it's easy to gain a sense of entitlement. Especially when you have such a doting father. And a powerful father. But death doesn't bow down to earthly wealth or power. Satan and his bastardly ways know no bounds in this earthly hell he tries to create. The American way is full of entitlement. We fight for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and we think that whatever makes us happy is our right. For the Christian, God can certainly use Satan's bastardly ways to His good. For in death and destruction we are reminded of what we fully deserve in our sin and that no amount of self entitlement can allow us to escape death's clawing fingers.

Life is full of seasons. The only thing we are entitled to as fallen sinful creatures is death, destruction, and damnation. It is only through Christ and His mercy and grace that we go from heirs of death to heirs of eternal life in paradise. And yet, while in this life we will continue go through highs and lows.

Are you in a low right now? Have you lost a baby? Are you far from family and friends? Did you follow the call with your husband only to wake up in a place completely alone and void of friends and those who care...even in your own church? Are you and your husband struggling so much that you're struggling to connect? Is death staring you in the face? Then stare this in the face:

On that cold December day, after hours of digging and searching, my Pastor put his hand over a foot down into a hole of mud he had randomly dug next to where what was left of my dad's body had been found. And with all the color drained from his face followed by a look of absolute joy, he lifted up the cross that had been hung around my father's neck with only 3 inches of the chain remaining but the cross shiny and unbent.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see—
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
I need Thy presence every passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
The world tells us if you're sad something is wrong. You must do what needs to be done to make yourself happy again. But I'm learning that sadness, though not fun, is a part of life in this fallen world. It's a part of life and Christ, a man of many sorrows, knows it all too well. Tonight if you are alone, in pain, and feeling like this season of sadness and isolation will never end, point yourself to the cross of Christ, glory in His glory of death on the cross and His raising from the dead. You are not dead, you are alive in Christ forever. Your sadness and isolation will be for but a time and then all those in Christ will be raised up never to be sad or alone again. Come Soon Lord Jesus.

How UNCLEAR is our vocation, Lord!

2011-08-11T22:00:00.002-04:00

During the endless parade of baby showers I had while pregnant with my first child, one of the comments I grew weary of hearing well-meaning "experienced" mothers say went something like this:

"Babies don't come with a manual, but my how you'll wish they did when yours is born!"

I don't remember wishing that. In fact, I thought I was pretty good at the taking care of baby gig when I had just one child. I nursed, baby wore, and co-slept with the best of them. But now, as I prepare for my fourth to be born and am surrounded by curiosity and movement and dirt, I'm wishing for an entirely new kind of manual...a MOMMY manual!

I'm about to have 4 kids 5 and under and I still feel like I'm scrambling every day. Oh sure, you feed them, water them, change them, give them hugs and wash their clothes....but what about the rest of the day?

For 21 years my days were ordered and scheduled. I went from a private preschool to public school to college. Every day I followed an ordered schedule and when I wasn't in school our busy family and extra-curricular life kept me busy. So now that I'm "just staying home", I feel lost.

At the sem it was easy to not feel this way. I kept busy with very dear friends, parks and malls, and moving five times in four years. There was always something to do. Now, I guess I'm a "real" grown-up in the real world. And when you live in a place with no friends, no malls, no parks (with anything more than a metal slide and a few swings), no shopping, no play dates, and no extracurricular activities (Karate? Nearest studio: 2 1/2 hrs)...I guess I'm trying to figure out what this vocation should entail. I'm not trying to complain. I feel and know that I am so blessed. But seriously, I'm completely stumbling here.

In my confusion I bought a book called, "Managers of Their Homes". It is an in-depth book on how a "good Christian wife" in particular, one who home schools, should order her days. It suggests a detailed wall chart: one strip for each person in the family, with an entire day's schedule in 15 min increments. You use post-it notes for each increment so it can be changed as the child grows. Oh my word. I actually tried it...tried to come up with a daily schedule for 3 little ones 4 and under (at the time) that would order their (and my) every movement for the entire day. You know, one that included such things as art, literature, music time....yea, you can peel yourself off the floor now...what a disaster. Oh sure it was fun for a day or two...the kids were mystified by my constant switching from activity to activity. They loved the constant attention and being told what to do. But within a few days two things happened: 1. Mama was so completely grouchy and burnt out that I wanted to run away to an easy "real" job. 2. The kids became so overly needy I couldn't peel them off of me. During the scheduled times where the children would be told to play in their playroom or quietly on a blanket with some books they were listless and cranky. In just a few days they forgot how to play, how to explore, and how to be alone.

That wasn't the only problem with a "well ordered day". Inevitably the baby would start teething and need a nap at an unscheduled time. One child would have an explosive poop and need a bath and outfit change in the middle of the morning. Or the phone would ring and a friend would need some time talking to another human being over the age of 4.

So I gave up. The book was purposely hidden in the back of a bookshelf and the schedule was ripped up. But now, a year later, I still feel that restlessness at the beginning of each day. And inevitably I sigh as my husband prepares to leave and when he asks what's wrong I say, for the millionth time, "Just trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to do today."

Somehow the days pass. Because the laundry calls, the poopers poop, the floors need vacuuming....but I guess I feel edgy. Where is this going? What is it supposed to look like? For 21 years I was told what to do and when to do it...but for quite a bit longer than that, God willing, I'm responsible for ordering the FULL day of however many children God gives us. And right now, I just can't figure out what that's supposed to look like!

The 50's

2011-08-10T13:04:00.002-04:00

I've come to the conclusion that the 50's housewife had the answers to all things. Oh to be her. For example:

What's for dinner?

Dinner and Dessert in one!

How do you get the dishes done, groom yourself, and get your husband's attention all at once?

Hold the newly cleaned pot just so for time in front of the mirror. By positioning yourself in front of the window where your manly man is doing his manly things you win the added benefit of him seeing your beauty....or the pot that he's hoping is holding his dinner. :) A smile and a song doesn't hurt either.

Finally, how do you keep your children smiling, obedient, and constantly pleasant?

Live when white sugar, butter, and bleached white flour were all the rage and cake was appropriate at any time. Ignorance is bliss.

Reality

2011-08-04T23:44:00.002-04:00

I have now almost completed my second trimester of pregnancy and I'm struggling to come to grips with reality that in a matter of a few short months we will have yet another son in our home. I'm struggling because it seems like it was just yesterday that my third child was born. Our third son's birth rocked our worlds...first because of my near death experience, second because the adjustment from 2 to 3 kids was the biggest adjustment yet, and third because going through such a life-changing experience the weekend that we found out my husband's mom had a very far progressed cancer while living sooo far from family really really challenged our ability to rely on God alone for comfort and strength. The adjustment from 2 to 3 kids was so hard because for the first time we realized just how scary and hard life can be...how in the blink of an eye one of us could be gone, and there could be no family near to help...that sin's effects can hurt us....cause death and destruction and pain. It's one thing to KNOW this in your brain and another to apply it to your own life and realize its meaning is for you, too.

Most mornings I wake up and go to roll quickly out of bed only to be stopped by the heaviness of my abdomen. In shock I stare down and then think, "oh, it just feels heavy...there's no way I can be this far along." Then I pass a mirror and have to stop and look again...where on earth did that belly come from?! Then I see the calendar...and realize that as the weeks melt together we are only a matter of time from meeting this new miracle...another WHOLE person...with his own personality, his own beautiful eyes, his own cuteness, his own opinions...and I'm in awe.

Am I scared? Yes. I'm scared because as a soon to be mama with 4 little ones I know what another child means. I know the struggles (at least up to K age :) that are to come. I know the long nights, the tears, the frustration, the exhaustion, the healing from birth...but also the inexplicable joy that is to come. I cannot wait to hold this little person inside of me. I cannot wait to smell his little baby smell, kiss his little wrinkly cheeks, and look into those deep little baby eyes. I cannot wait to see his personality unfold, to see him explore and grow, and most importantly, to see God grow his faith from the font. This little man will be amazing. I know because my God is amazing. And that, my friends, makes this journey...each and every time...worth doing...over and over as many times as God will allow. This little man kicking inside of me...this one unique person.. is God's very handiwork. He cannot be replaced nor duplicated ever. He is God's treasured creation. He is a miracle and I cannot wait to meet him!

This pregnancy takes on a whole newness to it...a newness that delights and thrills me...we are no longer naive...we are confronting reality, confronting what is hard, and knowing that it is still GOOD. So, so good. :)

Boybarian

2011-07-30T13:06:00.003-04:00

For you, Webster.

Boybarian: N. Male child with no inhibitions, sense of mortality, or lack of energy. The world is his playground.

Balance in the Home school

2011-07-25T22:44:00.003-04:00

One of the biggest struggles for me as a home schooling mom to children who are too young with way too short of an attention span to really put in much book work or sit-down learning time has been how to fill our time in a worthy manner....a manner where at the end of the day we all can feel like we did something of value that day and didn't just go from one mess to the next.

When I had just one little man I was a super overachiever. I never left him alone and before he was two I was doing activities and lessons with him all day. I remember while writing thank you notes once, I had him perched on the table with an envelope of his own and a pen and let him scribble while I chattered on about the mail system and eventually wrote his name and address on it for him to see :). I talked his ear off before he was old enough to even say Mama and thought I would always have all of my children with me as I instilled brilliant wisdom into them all day. hahahaha

Now I still try to parent like this as much as possible, because I believe the best way for a child to learn is to be around his parents and for them to constantly be talking to their children about what they do and why. BUT....with my 4th son on the way, all of whom will be 5 and under when he is born (and 3 will be 3 and under :) that's fun to say) the action requires a little more of my attention and time. Oh man, just the DIRT requires all of my time! Yes, you know, the stuff from outside that they insist on rolling in from the moment they get up and tracking into my house!!!

So I often feel quite a bit of guilt as days pass where I feel I never had a really valuable conversation with my kids or good moments of teaching. You know: doing crafts, projects, etc...talking to them as I do things rather than trying to hide so no one asks if they can help (because help inevitably means way more mess and much less accomplished). I used to be so good at that. But now I'm tired. And busy. And thankfully I have some amazing friends with way more experience at this parenting thing than I (and home schooling!) and they are quick to affirm that even though good conversations with our kids and reading to them are extremely important...very often the best thing is to just let them be! And when I finally stopped hovering, they became much more content and curious children as they weren't constantly requiring of my attention and ideas.

That being said, I am trying to find balance. I'm trying to make sure that each day I give each child at least 5 min of my undivided attention. A chance for him to show off a skill and me to brag on it, a chance for him to tell me a tale in all it's glorious and exaggerated detail and me to act extremely interested :), or a chance for me to pull a child aside for him alone to be able to help mommy with something fun like baking cookies. In addition I'm trying to do ONE good project with the kids per week. Something that I take time away from my morning to do something fun FOR THEM. And I'm trying to make it something that will provide entertainment for the week to come. So here's last week's project...any of you mamas out there that have some further ideas please share!

Monster Truck Rally Track :)

We made home made play dough for the mounds covered in assorted dried beans and mulch. The kids loved pressing the beans and mulch into the wet squishy play dough that I painted a thin layer of glue onto. The track is colored duct tape. The ramp is folded up cardboard with a play dough support and the corners have dried rice glued down for off-roading. :) After this picture was taken we added three podiums in the center for the winning cars :)

Thank you Beatrix!

2011-07-17T10:10:00.002-04:00

So last night I was reading Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" to my 5 yr old and my 3 yr old. I was feeling quite proud as I read because, you know, this is one of those "good books" that "every child should read".

As I read I was impressed by such words used as "fortnight" and "dreadfully frightened" among others. The sentence structure begged to be praised. I sat thinking how wise I would be to go through our book collection and rid it of all the "silly" children's books, only keeping such treasures as this.

Then the story ended.

My 3 yr old seemed distraught. "Mama, I want to take this book to bed with me." "OK" I said and handed it happily to him. "Mama, never-mind, I not want to take this to bed with me. It's scary. Mama, a bad guy gonna come and get me and bake me into a pie!!!" Huh?!

And so the conversation went with me trying to remind him that rabbits are animals that are sometimes hunted for food and indeed, cooked into a pie. Whereas little boys are no such thing. If a little boy is naughty he needs to be reprimanded, but a "bad guy" has no power over him because Mama and Daddy and ultimately Jesus will of course protect him.

He was not convinced.

Thankfully he was distracted by his big brother's antics enough after we left the room that he forgot the story and quickly went to sleep without so much as a bad dream, but I have to admit it has me wondering if perhaps Beatrix is the one that needs to go! ;)

2011-07-15T13:37:00.003-04:00

Law. Our fallen nature despises it. Under it we are crushed: left worthless...fit for nothing but to be cast into damnation forever. For it is the law that shows us what we really are and what is truly sin.

Gospel. Our fallen nature, on its own, despises it. For to hear it proves we are in need. Worthless, fit for nothing but damnation...and in need. But even worse: there is nothing we can do of ourselves.

Ahh, but our fallen nature is NOT on its own! For while we were yet sinners, while we yet despised God, He died for us. He died for us and by filling us with Himself, took away our sin. He took away our despisal of His love and perfection in the face of our own imperfection.

And so now a war wages within us. On the one hand we, as baptized and redeemed children of God, love and yearn and chase after with all our might (that is, the might GIVEN to us) the things of God. And yet, on the other hand, our fallen nature, still fighting within us, continues on in its despisal of needing and of not being good enough...of being worthless.

And so we run, we run with the strength given us in our baptisms, to God's gifts of Word and Sacrament where we consume Truth and sin is driven out.

As mothers we know this struggle all too well. For every day we see in our own children the war being waged within. As adults we are far better at hiding our sin. But with each screaming fit and shouted acclamation of disobedience, we are reminded of our own state. And this...for me...very often causes despair. If I myself am in such a sinful state, how can I possibly raise these children to be Godly? How will even one of them be saved?

And so it goes...never enough. Weakness. Frailty. Fallen sinful self. I am not enough.

It's no wonder then, with all the trials that children bring, that some say being open to conceiving children is your choice, it's supposed to be a blessing, not a law.

They're right about one thing. To God it is a gift and a blessing. Be fruitful and multiply. A command. A blessing. A gift.

But to our fallen nature, it is a curse, which causes us to beg for a choice against what was commanded as a gift...for our own good. For once again in our fallen world and selves it shows us our sin, shows us our worthlessness, our weakness, our needs (financially, energy, etc) and our frailty as some women come close to death even in childbirth....shows us what our fallen selves are truly worthy of alone...death.

Thanks be to God that our salvation and the salvation of our children is not up to us. As parents we weep not only over our own continuous sin, but over the very visual and audible sins of our children. These can either cause despair, or they can cause us to repent. We repent, gather our children for prayers of repentance, and rejoice that God alone, in all His perfection, mercy, and love, loves us with a passion and a fervor that even we cannot muster for our OWN children. If we desire the salvation of our children, how much more does God??

And so, the war goes on. And as we receive however many of those blessings as God gives, we, with the nature given us in our Baptisms, quickly dress our children and ourselves and RUN to the gifts given to strengthen us in the fight against ourselves and the devil and the fallen world around us. And then we rejoice. We rejoice that in Christ we are not only strengthened in our faith and indeed given the FREE gift of salvation and forgiveness of sins, but that the salvation of our children is indeed in the hands of the same One who has saved US. And He is surely faithful to save!

Raising up boys.

2011-07-13T21:49:00.003-04:00

On Sunday morning I was going through my usual cleaning routine. I love to clean on Sunday mornings before Divine Service. Call it preparation for my own cleansing by Jesus' body and blood. I get this energy buzz thinking about the service and feel like every inch of my house has to be SPOTLESS before I go! Anyways, I'm leaning over using the hose to get some larger crumbs up and start panting. You know, being a giant preggo and trying to bend over to the floor for too long has its down sides ;). So suddenly my 3 yr old rushes up and says, "Here Mama! I do it for you! You need rest!" I smiled so broadly at him and said, "Oh my strong little man! Thank you!" He very proudly rushed to my aid.

I often struggle with how to figure out raising all these boys God has (and continues! :D ) to bless our family with. Especially since we have chosen to home school, I wonder what it will be like to raise these boys while their Dad must be at work. I have hesitated to offer letting them help me in the kitchen or with laundry or any other "womanly" task worrying that their time would be better spent playing in the dirt or in the garage hitting nails with a hammer. And then one of my sweet little men ran to my aid and I realized not only how valuable having my boys learn skills around the house is both for me AND my house, but also how to be more creative in making these tasks more gender appropriate for their roles in life. Not that Mama will pretend to be a damsel in distress to get their help, but rather I hope to boost their manliness by teaching them that a real man works hard in ALL areas of life, especially when it comes to providing for the woman he will one day love.

Barbarians

2011-07-06T10:39:00.004-04:00

Last night in a fit of a wild man dream (whatever those may be: I don't know, wrestling apes in the woods? Fighting off a whole hoard of black helicopters with only his bare hands? I digress...) my husband somehow managed to pull down our entire window of blinds onto my head. For the first time in weeks I was in a very deep sleep and had not awoken to use the restroom. I rolled over and demanded to know "what on earth" he was doing. He mumbled something unintelligible as he fought with the blinds to rehang them. I was so irritated and so mad that this barbarian was not only disturbing my sleep but indeed was such a barbarian :).

After nearly 7 years of marriage I still am constantly amazed at the manliness of men. What amazes me about this odd breed is the amazing strength that allows my husband to do things like manhandle the garage door when I back into it and break off the metal beams for the millionth time (no honey, the garage is fine today :). I am amazed at the suddenness and loudness with which they can have manly outbursts when it comes to protecting their family or children (thank you honey for protecting us from that beast of a dog on our family walk). And, for those few good men that God has raised up (like my own amazing husband), I am amazed at the fierceness with which they refuse to stand for anything but Truth: in our home, the church, and the world around him.

It a society that tries to neutralize gender roles by feminizing men and adding masculine traits to women, I am thankful that my man knows what it is to be a man....even if that means getting a blow to the head occasionally ;) while he dreams about defeating an entire army one-handedly for the sake of his family.

A Ringing Endorsement

2011-07-02T09:53:00.000-04:00

It doesn't take a lot of time perusing this blog to notice that it can get a little heavy sometimes. (Really? I know. I'm as shocked as you are.) So, when I'm feeling blue, misjudged, or just a little on the edge (nearly everyday) I open my favorite book. The Bible. And then I open:

There is just something about reading all of the crazy things our foremothers did that makes me feel better about my life. I can come alongside James Lileks and judge past mothers with gracious chapters like, "Beat the Crap out of 'Em; Ads from the golden age of corporal punishment," along with sections on bowels and "easy to fix formula" which the author purports also appeared in the Anarchist's Cookbook years later.

Seriously, I received this as a gift from a friend after my baby was born and I laughed so hard I cried and about peed my pants (which I guess after the third kid doesn't mean as much). It is a book every humor-needing mother should own and read under the assumption that one day our children and grandchildren will read the same book about us. ("You used drop-side rails on our crib? What?! It's a miracle we survived...")

Terms of Endearment

2011-06-27T13:47:00.000-04:00

I'm writing this post for a friend who brought to me a struggle that we all know too well: measuring up.

And I want to ask you this: as a mother, what is your goal? To endear your children and your friends to yourself, or to seek to endear them to Christ?

There are so many different types of women. Some women wake up at hours I don't even know exist (except when I'm nursing a newborn) and seem like they must have had 20 cups of coffee when indeed they've had none. They go and go, their homes are perfect, and they single handedly lead every children's program at church along with responsibilities in the community. They seem like the perfect woman. They're dynamic and perfect. And we, with our old used clothes and many little ducks wandering around us are left wondering...how can we possibly measure up?

On the other end of the spectrum are women like me. We crawl out of bed well after the children have risen and thank our husbands yet again for getting up with them and letting us have a few extra winks. We beg the Lord to give us strength and wisdom to somehow get through the day as we mentally check off the long list of things that should be done...along with the leftovers from yesterday. We throw our hair into a messy ponytail hoping maybe today will be the day for a shower but first there are diapers to change as the children maul us the moment we walk out of the room with a million requests and complaints, the laundry from last night that didn't get moved to the dryer to be run again, the dishes in the sink to take care of, and meanwhile our little ones are asking mommy for some cuddles and stories. So, we wipe off our soapy hands and sit down on the couch to begin reading....and reading....and reading. By the time story time is over there are more diapers to be changed, and the washing machine is beeping it's completion while child 1 asks for second breakfast and child 2 asks you to come outside and help him ride his big boy bike. Child 3 is in need of a morning nap and some nursing. And so the morning goes.

By the time hubby comes home for the day 13 booboos have been kissed, 8 diapers have been changed, that load of laundry has been dried but is dumped on the bed waiting folding and putting away, a new set of dishes is waiting in the sink....but the kids have been read to, one is SO much closer to figuring out how to ride his bike, and they've done a million odd jobs around the yard and house with Mama and learned how to pull the legs off of a grasshopper (no, Mama did not teach them this one). Mama has picked up a million toys and had them dumped out again behind her. She has cleaned the toilet only to have the preschooler miss a little and spray the floor and seat. She has swept the entire main floor twice, only to have the toddler let the dog in who just finished rolling in a pile of cut grass and was all too happy to shake it off while running a lap through the house.

She has fed a million meals (I swear my kids are part hobbit), changed a thousand outfits (I think my baby's clothes self produce filth), and still the house, herself, and the children look the same as they did when father left for the church. But something amazing happened here today. Mama knelt down nearly every 2 minutes, equalling 240 times, in an 8 hr period, to look her children in their eyes and TALK to them. She has answered why the grasshopper stopped moving and indeed won't try to hop away anymore. She has comforted fears of incompetence at not being able to ride without training wheels quite yet. She has explained to the preschooler why it's not a good idea to teach baby brother how to climb up onto the kitchen table so he can swing from the light and to the toddler why it's not a good idea to throw things at the spinning ceiling fan. And in all of these conversations she has done her very best, with the help of God, to show love, compassion, mercy, and proper discipline where it was needed. She has spoken of God, of what a wonderful provider Daddy is, and has given the children the stability and protection and consistency they need.

And so I ask you: In your daily life do you desire to endear the world and your children to yourself by worrying and fretting over: perfection in appearance both of yourself and your home, how much you can accomplish on your to-do list, how many pictures you can post on facebook of the new dress you just sewed...for every girl in your family and your sister's, and making sure you post on your blog about the awesome new children's program you came up with for your church? While none of these tasks are bad in and of themselves, we as mothers should constantly be asking ourselves our motives. For our most important job as a mother is not to endear the world to ourself through our amazing ability to be perfect and "busy"....but to seek to endear our children and friends to Christ. And this is done through humble service within our given vocation. You might have the energy of a toddler on caffeine pills (if so can you please tell me your secret?!) and you might have far more gifts and talents than I do. So today I will repent at my desires to be like you, coveting your energy and attention from the world, and I will ask the Lord for wisdom and strength yet again to continue to serve MY family and the specific, unique individuals he has placed in my home for me to serve. And I will beg that somehow, though all my failings and inabilities, I will be able to, with His help, point them to Christ.

"Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." Psalm 31:30

HOMH: in the kitchen III

2011-06-23T23:15:00.005-04:00

When I first began my journey to healthier eating I was a college student. I had gained the lovely "freshman 15"...plus maybe a couple extra...and I was desperate to figure out what was TRULY healthy eating. To me, healthy eating involved things like white ("plain") bagels, "wheat thins" for a snack, etc. Then, one day in a pinch I wandered into a "Whole Foods" grocery store...I walked around in absolute awe. First off, the produce section! WOW! I mean, who takes all that time to not only put out the most gorgeous produce I'd ever seen, but where was the plastic wrapping?? And oh my, is that a dish of samples I see?? As I walked around I saw a sign: it was a list of ingredients not allowed in any products they sell. I memorized a few of them and went back to my dorm to look them up.

Now, 8 years later, I don't have the time (being that the nearest Whole Foods is um, a very long time away) OR the money to shop in such a beautiful store where you COULD come out without spending a ton of money, but it's just too much fun not to. So I went back to another Whole Foods (during our time at the seminary) and wrote down the entire list of banned ingredients...and, they all had 1 thing in common: they are additives put into packaged foods. Huh. But wait, what on earth am I (and my kids!) supposed to eat without packaged foods?! And good grief, I can't afford all that HEALTHY ORGANIC food!!! So: I began to make a list of foods that did not fall under the packaged category that would not only be safe, but HEALTHY for my family:

Meal Foods:

Poultry

Pork (for sausage and such check labels, there are brands at even W@lmart that don't contain BHT)

Beef*

Chicken

Turkey

Fish

Brown rice

Potatoes

Pasta (My favorite brand is Barilla Plus as it's not just semolina flour, but made with lentils, chickpeas, etc.)

Quinoa (This should have been FIRST on the list! Soo yummy and if you buy in bulk, esp online, you can find it extremely affordable.)

Vegetables of any kind :)

Fruits of any kind :)

Oats

Eggs

Cheese

Milk

Yogurt (Pour 1/2 a gallon of milk into a crockpot and turn onto high for 1 hr. Turn off crockpot and swish milk around some. Make sure it's not warm but not hot enough to burn you. Scoop out 2 cups of milk and put 1 cup of plain yogurt in. Gently stir around and then add slowly back to milk left in crockpot. Stir gently, replace lid, wrap entire pot with towel and leave for 18 hrs (plus or minus a few hrs in either direction won't hurt anything) And viola, you have a huge pot of no additives, no sugar or fake sugar, no food coloring, super cheap, healthy yogurt! ) Oh, and for a super yummy breakfast, pour this over some homemade granola and top with frozen blueberries :D-Thanks Joy!

Seeds

Nuts

Awesome kid-friendly snacks:

Apple slices, a scoop of peanut butter ( Buy the natural kind that has that awesome layer of oil on-top. Put in your sink, stir really well. Yes, the first time will be super messy, but if you do it really well the first time it will stay soft EVEN in the refrigerator!) and a non sharp knife. (I give my son a little soft cheese spreader that is rounded but no sharp edges.) Let them go to town spreading pb on the slices. Raisins are a great addition for "ants on a log" :)

Home-made trail mix: raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds...OK and sometimes I sneak in some semi-sweet chocolate chips :) sugar may not be healthy in large amounts, but it at least isn't extremely toxic like food coloring, preservatives, and many artificial flavorings. ANNNND...maybe I also slip in marshmallows :D

Popsicles: 100% fruit juice, frozen with a stick :)

Cheese: stick, shredded, cubed, whatever.

And here's the thing: creativity when you're dealing with REAL foods is easy. I like to make smiley faces on a plate with a random assortment of things from raisins, orange slices, peanuts, etc and even the pickiest eater will giggle and eat.

So there it is. Cook with real ingredients. If you don't understand a label, don't buy it. I try to buy only things with labels like a shopping list instead of a science experiment. You won't believe how cheap it really is.

Oh, and for a previous commenter: :D

Easy Stove-top Macaroni and Cheese:

Melt 2 TBS butter in pot on med to med/low heat.

Mix in 1 generous TBS of whole wheat flour to form paste

Once paste is bubbling slowly begin adding 3 cups of milk slowly. Add a little, stir until mixture thickens again, add more, etc until all milk is added. Remove from heat and dump in your favorite cheese (about a cup and a half): if you need it to taste more like "classic" boxed stuff for pickier eaters then at the start use processed cheese like Velveet@ or American with a little cheddar. Put lid on pot and let sit until the cheese is all melted. Stir well and pour over cooked noodles :). As your eater gets used to this recipe you can slowly replace the processed with real cheese. But even using processed is better than a box with lots of food coloring and preservatives.

*Don't buy into the only lean lie. Good, fresh beef is healthy: lean AND fatty. And another thing: there's been a big kick lately in the health food world of buying "grass fed" beef. Have you seen the movie "Food Inc."? Well, they would love you to believe that every package of beef you buy from major suppliers comes from cattle that are penned in their entire lives standing shoulder to shoulder in mud eating corn they can't digest. Sigh. I have seen those feed lots with my own eyes...and I have also spoken to ranchers that send their cattle to them: good ranchers, ranchers that care very much for their cattle and indeed spend months on end each year waking at all hours of the night to be "midwife" to their cattle who are giving birth. And after talking with them and others, my husband and I discovered that most cattle spend no longer than two weeks of their entire lives at those lots. The rest of their lives they wander the wide open plains. Oh, and even the so-called "grass fed" beef has to eat other things in winter, you know, when all that grass is buried under feet of snow. The good ranchers feed hay, alfalfa, etc. So my advice: if you want good beef, go to your nearest local meat store. Meat markets almost always carry beef from small ranches (where the cattle are most likely to spend even less time at a feed lot) that are either local or very close to it. And the one I shopped in at the seminary had prices only pennies above grocery store beef. Or, of course, you could find a local farmer/rancher and buy a quarter/half, or whole if you have money to burn ;) -hint: go in with a friend- and have it processed any way you want. Then you can see how the cattle live and how long they spend at a feed lot (if at all) before slaughter.

HOMH: in the kitchen.

2011-06-21T23:02:00.003-04:00

OK, one of my absolute favorite things to do in the kitchen is to mill grain for flour. There really is nothing like truly fresh wheat flour to be turned into anything from cookies to muffins to a beautiful loaf of bread for my family. To explain the health benefits consider this:

Let's say I take a beautiful, fresh head of romaine lettuce and, with some new type of technology, am able to take out all the vitamins, minerals, and even even everything in the lettuce that would make it perishable. Then, to make you feel like you're still getting something "healthy", I inject some synthetic (that means fake-laboratory made) vitamins back in. Would you eat it?

Well, that's what you're eating every single time you eat flour that has had the most healthful parts of the wheat removed and synthetic vitamins put back in. (Any flour other than 100% whole wheat flour.)

Unfortunately, it goes further than that. Let's go back to the lettuce example.

You're at a salad bar. One bin was just set out as you walked up. The lettuce is still dripping from being rinsed and is beautiful and dark and crisp. An employee walks up to take an empty bin and underneath a forgotten bin is revealed. Instantly you can tell it has been there for days. The lettuce is all brown and slimy and dead. I don't have to ask you which one you would eat.

Well, this is a demonstration of the difference between milling your own flour or buying 100% whole wheat flour off the shelf at the grocery store. See, the moment you mill wheat berries the oils from the wheat germ cause the flour to begin to go rancid. This means that with every moment, hour, day, and week that passes, more of the nutrients are lost. So you can imagine how week or more old flour would not be as good a choice as flour that has just had its nutrients released.

Soooo...where do you start?

1. Hard White Spring Wheat. I have tested and tried many types of wheat berries and this type is truly luscious. It's protein and gluten count are high enough to create amazing loaves of bread without using additional gluten and yet its taste is so mild that you can easily replace all wheat in a recipe for chocolate chip cookies without complaint from your family!

In fact, after several years of not using white flour at all, I made a batch of cookies with it and no one in my family would eat them! OK, they ate them, but they all complained and after 1 cookie each, the rest was thrown out! Now, as I am always looking for the best deal, I have searched high and low for a bulk bucket of wheat that I can reap the benefit of savings while knowing I'll have it for a long time to come. And as long as you only mill it as you need it, these berries would most likely keep your lifetime or more (so long as you keep the lid closed so they're protected from critters and moisture). So, here's the source :). A 45 lb pail including shipping for less than $70!!! In case your wondering: For every cup of wheat berries you mill, you get 1 1/2 cups of flour. So the yield for 45 lbs would give you bread, cookies and muffins for a very long time...and plenty to share with friends! Oh yes, and don't forget that if you mill in large amounts you can freeze it for up to 3 months without it going rancid! The company I linked to has the best rates of anyone I've found, so if you have another source let me know!

A break is just that: broken

2011-06-20T11:31:00.000-04:00

Recently I saw a post on facebook that went something like this: " So excited to go ___ today! And even though I'm sad to leave my children all day, I know that this leaving them makes me a better mom because it makes me miss them and happy to see them when I return!"

I felt three things in rapid succession: 1. Jealousy. 2. Anger. 3. Sadness

The jealousy part is obvious. When I read it my husband had just left for the church and I had three little men climbing on me all talking at once. I imagined what it would be like to, well, you get it. But on to the other parts:

Anger. Immediately after feeling sorry for myself and then just as quickly shaking those thoughts away in embarrassment and repentance, I grew angry. Angry that the same message that is paraded all over O-ville (think Chicago) in infiltrating much closer to home.

And sadness... that women are buying it.

Here is why that particular break is broken: What troubles me is not the first sentence. I myself am looking forward to a day soon that my husband is blessing me with to do something while he cares for the children. What's troubling is the second sentence.

"I know leaving them makes me a better mom because it makes me miss them and happy to see them when I return." What is the being a better mom reliant upon? Her feelings. In this sentence she says that how she feels when she returns (happy and in a state of missing her kids) is what makes her then be a good mom.

Unfortunately it doesn't end here. Because for her if the answer to being a better mom is her feelings being in a state of happiness and relaxation (resulting in missing the kids that need and therefore end up exhausting her when she's with them for too long), she will, inevitably, get exhausted again, and therefore, need another break from them. And what's really going on is a divide that gets greater each time. Because as she takes a break, she gets more and more used to being away from her children, and happier because of that break.

Mothers, hear this, what makes you a GOOD mother, a WONDERFUL mother is not how you feel, how relaxed you are.......or...even how much you feel that you enjoy your vocation. What makes you a wonderful mother is that you are there. Where does your rest come from? From whence does your strength come? What truly grants you happiness and peace?

The only type of "break" that truly MAKES you a better mother is the type that is commanded here. And even if that prayer time is interrupted a million times by little intruders, you can run to worship. And...even if you don't hear a word of the service, hopefully you hear these words: "Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins." And may the God of our salvation heal that break and instead forgive your sins and selfishness, strengthen and refresh you with His own true self, and equip you for the GOOD work that you do...each day...each hour...each second.

Nothin special

2011-06-16T20:26:00.003-04:00

Once upon a time I was top in my class. OK, 7th, but in a class of nearly 700 I'd say that's at least good, if not pretty good. I once aced Calculus. I once wrote the first 4 chapters of a novel that I received an A+ on in my college writing class. I once won first place in a swim meet as a freshman in high school against a group of seniors and juniors at a very elite school. I once got up in front of over 5,000 people to speak at my high school graduation. Twice I graduated Magna Cum Laude.

I once had a teacher tell me that it was a waste of my education to attend a Lutheran University and that what I should really be doing with my mind was going to med school. And then, if I so felt the need to serve, he said, I could do something amazing like volunteer time on a ship to go abroad to help those in need. I still remember looking at him in all my ambitious, carefree youth and telling him that I didn't care about prestige or money or proving myself...all I wanted to do was learn more about my faith and serve in the church. This teacher even tried to change my mind on graduation day.

Fast forward 9 years and I am sure this teacher today would try to console me for my utter failure as a human being. I have to admit...I still shake my head and wonder how I...the daughter of a successful lawyer and politician who raised up his daughters to be successful leaders...am a stay at home mom.

Today there is nothing about me that should stand out. My lack of personal reading in the past 9 years has lessened the sharpness of my mind. I have not kept up with Greek. I have no time...or interest anymore...in politics. Child bearing and lack of sleep have smudged the beauty of youth. But even more: I am a failure of public education. Not only did I not find my one special thing to excel in or chase after that would make me stand out career wise...but I am dependent on my husband for my daily bread. In the eyes of the world I am a dependent failure who would not even have the first clue what to do with myself if my husband were to be taken from me.

Galatians 6: 9-10: "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."

I never found my niche. I did well in many things, but never well enough to earn prestige or recognition for long. And in college, while I chased dreams ranging from the Deaconess program to signing my life away to the adventures of a missionary, a man vied for my attention and eventually told me that in prayer he had become convinced that God intended for us to marry. He was right.

So, I put aside my goals and ideas to go on the fast track to graduation. Pulling 19-21 credit hr semesters, I graduated in 3 years, along side my husband...with babe in the womb.

And that is that. Here I sit with my 5th (4th living) child in the womb and watch my own children in their childhood bliss. And I wonder if my children will be anything special to the world. I hope not. Not in the fame and prestige and recognition realm anyways. Even a mother of 19 children...who used to stand out for her smocked handmade dresses and endless hrs of parenting young children has changed to a well dressed, thick make up, very busy with social engagements type of woman.

The world and its schools desire for a person to seek after fame and fortune. Here at home, I hope my children will learn to seek after the joy that comes from doing good by loving and serving one another. For one day we will reap our reward in seeing our Savior face to face.

blah

2011-06-10T15:56:00.003-04:00

Forgive my lack of energy or thought. I have had multiple ideas for posts, all of which seem profound while I'm thinking them...but the energy it takes to write them out...not happening. We arrived home from our vacation last Friday and I immediately began packing. Our rental house sold out from under us while we were gone at our district conference and we were given a few weeks to get out. Sunday was out day. So for 36 hrs-beginning seconds after arriving home from our 18 hr car ride-I packed and cleaned like mad. After church a whirlwind began of moving back over to the parsonage. It was an absolute wreck over here. So, for the past week I've been unpacking, trying to catch up on laundry, trying to put winter clothes away and get out summer clothes for the kids, and trying to clean up the continuing construction zone that is all the repairs that still need to happen. On a happy note, I can feel baby move several times a day now :) I love that. So, forgive my lack of luster, perhaps I'll be more brainy later or perhaps brainy is gone for awhile. Either way, I'm still here. now im taking a nap.

Bliss

2011-06-03T22:04:00.004-04:00

We've been out of town for nearly two weeks. It was positively lovely. Our last vacation (other than pastor's conferences-which as much as one tries to pretend is a vacation: it is not) was a year ago. I suppose this will be the case again since we just used our entire two weeks for one trip. When your call is over a thousand miles from the nearest family members, that's bound to happen.

So, we took our time making the long drive and stopped to see a family member and her husband in one state and dear friends and their children in another state before landing at the in-laws for 5 days. On the first stop we stayed in a hotel for two nights. I love hotels. I have very fond memories of a trip my family would make every year while I was growing up in which we stayed in a very nice hotel complete with indoor and outdoor pools (and water slides!) and an amazing ice cream parlor right off the huge flashy lobby. Oh, and did I mention it was only a stone's throw from Disney? Anyways, those trips were some of the happiest moments of my childhood because for those 4 days each year my blended siblings and I really got along and our family reveled in the joy of being away from the stress of life.

So, even though our trips are not to theme parks, do not involve hotels that cost more than $60 (and that with us standing at the desk acting like we're dealing on a used car), and the pool is usually an over-chlorinated small deal...I still walk into the hallways, breathe in that hotel smell, smile as my kids race down the hallways barefoot just to feel the carpet underneath their feet in the cool hallways, and even flip on the TV to cartoons while I let them *gasp* jump on the beds :) And for those moments I pretend that I'm still a little kid under the love and protection of my family.

And then, after two nights when our money runs out and we're desperate for home-cooked meals, we revel in the love our families and friends shower on us as we take away their spare (or kids'!) bedrooms, eat their food, mess up their houses, and bring sticky fingers and lots of noise. And...I find myself rejoicing that we will hopefully always be a one income Pastor's salary family...because no high priced vacation in the world can beat the memories we just made with those we love the most: our families and families in Christ.

It's a conundrum I tell you.

2011-05-15T23:51:00.003-04:00

Today was confirmation Sunday in church. While readying the little men for church my eldest decided he had no interest in going. It went something like this:

Son: Mom, I don't want to go to church.

Mom: Why not?

Son: I want to stay home and play.

Mom: Well I want to hear God's Word.

Son: Noooo, I don't want to be around people! I want to play at home!

Mom: I understand sometimes we would rather not be around a bunch of people, but all of those people want the same thing: to hear God's Word and be strengthened against the attacks of the devil. Here, listen to this: (grabs Bible, opens to Ephesians 6)

I read Ephesians 6: 10-18 and paused on each piece of armor explaining which part of the service we are given each piece and how we can use each piece in our fight against the devil. Anything having to do with swords and fighting greatly excites my sons so suddenly they saw church in a whole new light :). I also should include at this point that while in the shower this morning I fervently prayed that God would give me the strength, wisdom, and patience to deal with each of my children before and during Divine Service.

Mom: So you see? All of the pieces of the armor of God are things God blesses us with while in His house. What a wonderful gift God has given us! The evil one can never win the day, just like David needed only God to beat terrible Goliath, so we need only the gifts God has given us to withstand the evil day. Besides! Today is confirmation Sunday! Today you get to see one of God's other gifts! A young girl will receive God's body and blood for the first time!

Son: Mom, how old is she?

Mom: um, I'm not sure, maybe 12?

Son: I think she's 13. Mom, when can I have God's body and blood?

Mom: um, well, first you have to learn your catechism like we've been working on. Learning all about what we believe helps you to stay strong in the faith of what you are receiving so you always believe.

Son: Mom, I already believe that it [the bread and wine] is God's body and blood for the forgiveness of my sins. It's not fair. I want it to be a special day for me too!

Mom: It IS a special day for you! As believers we ALL celebrate together when another one of God's children is able to receive His gifts. And we'll all get to have cake together after church to celebrate such a happy day.

1 hr later during Rite of Confirmation:

Son watches intently, mouthing the answers to the questions Pastor asks confirmand.

Finally it nears our turn to approach the rail and Son turns to Son 2 and whispers, "Hey, maybe if we ask up there Dad will give it to us! He really should give us God's body and blood!" Son 2 happily agrees with his brother's every idea.

Thankfully he kept quiet at the rail in silent observation.

Here ends the story.

I want to say I fully understand the tradition of waiting and the reasons behind it. I believe children need to be instructed in the faith, be able to profess their sin and need for forgiveness...be able to examine their fallen state and in faith declare what gifts God has given them for that forgiveness.

That being said, I never expected to have a very young child make that profession and beg to be fed.

However, my amazing Pastor has this amazing ability to do what is best for ALL of his sheep. To give a child so young, that many do not see as truly being able to comprehend or truly believe such a gift, would be truly offensive to some and cause question about why we do not allow just anyone to commune. I understand this and agree. And so he comforted me with the knowledge that our son's faith is going nowhere. And regardless of if God allows him to live long enough (may it be so!) on this earth to receive that gift or not, our son has been washed in the waters of Holy Baptism, made a child of the Heavenly Father, and is in the hearing of God's Word both in church on Sunday and at home. It is a gift beyond human understanding, and though I wish my son could receive it sooner rather than later, our Heavenly Father has provided all my son needs for salvation and faith in His Word and Baptism. Thanks be to God!

Book Recommended

2011-05-13T15:44:00.003-04:00

So every once and awhile something new comes out from CPH that blows my socks off. Well, friends, this is one of them:

The BRAND NEW Children's Story Bible is, in my most humble opinion, FANTASTIC.

My husband came home brandishing our family's copy of this most prized possession about 3 weeks ago and in that time everyone in our family has grown to LOVE it. The illustrations are mind blowing, absolutely gorgeous. And, they are not for the faint at heart either. One particular illustration of people drowning in darkness during the flood sparked long conversations between my 5 yr old and I on sin and it's effects. Amazing.

However, what is more amazing, is that the stories are the ACTUAL text from the ESV...though I believe my husband used the words "slightly modified"? I have not been able to tell how it differs, then again I have not taken out my ESV and compared them side by side. Before each story is the chapter and verses each story is quoted from. Before each story is a short explanation to read to children about what they will hear. And THEN, on the side bar of each story is a "Questions" "Do" and "Pray" section in which you can ask the child comprehension questions (my kids love these!), have a short activity (which some are as in depth as building an ark out of a shoe box, some are merely another question to ask), and then a short prayer that we have our children repeat after us.

I cannot say enough. It is hard back, very sturdy, and a necessary addition to any Christian library!

Hockey Boy Speaks

2011-05-07T15:47:00.002-04:00

My hockey boy LOVES to talk...no...seriously...sometimes we can't make him quiet if our lives depended on it.

We had one such encounter with a couple church members today. It went something like this:

Member 1: Wow, your kids sure are growing up fast! The last time I saw baby boy he wasn't even walking and now here he is running!

Mom: yes and I sure am glad for it, he'll be a big helper by the time his next sibling is here!

Hockey boy: Oh yes, see, here's our baby! (points to mom's little bulge, lifts shirt before she can stop him and plants a big wet one on the tummy) Mom says she thinks it's a boy, but I want a SISTER! I LOVE sisters and I really think this one is a sister!

Member 2: is that so?

Hockey boy: oh yes, Daddy says we can have a girl when we give him LOTS of boys (note to self, keep mommy and daddy's silly teasing between mommy and daddy when little ears are not around) but I say we have ENOUGH boys and I think mommy needs to have 89 girls!!!

Member2: oh my, that's a lot of girls! (looks somewhat questioningly at Mom)

Mom (grinning mischievously): "Oh, you think 89 is big? He's actually dropped it quite significantly...he used to tell me I was going to have Six hundred and sixty six girls!" (and no, we did not teach him that number, he came up with it all on his own)

Members chuckle and Mom quickly changes the subject before more of my skin is bared to members of our church or more of our jokes are shared.

Note to self: Have talk with son on appropriate behavior in public: from not revealing skin to not talking about reproductive habits. sigh. ;D

Schedule of a 5yr old boy:

2011-05-02T22:59:00.003-04:00

Who shall remain anonymous:

6:00am: My eyelids fly open in a fury of movement as I realize the sun has INDEED begun to peek up over the horizon. This means IT'S LIGHT OUT. And we all know that if it's light out it means I'm allowed TO GET UP.

6:01: Charge out of bedroom and race down the hall like a herd of elephants to go potty.

6:02: Charge back down said hallway (all this time running by baby brother's room) and tip toe into Mom and Dad's room. Go to Dad's side of bed to avoid certain wrath (Mommy sure likes her sleep) and ask in not so quiet of a whisper, "DAD! I NEED FOOD! CAN YOU GET ME SOME JUICE?"

6:03: Dad mutters, "Go sit on the couch and wait for me, I'll be there in a minute."

6:03-6:23: Perform flips off couch, run laps around room, do a few headstands, crash a few toy cars.

6:24: Dad comes out, gives first breakfast (granola bar) and juice, and collapses on couch in exhaustion while I run circles around the living room while eating.

6:25- two little brothers wake up and join in first breakfast.

6:25-7:30 My brothers and I play tug of war over toys and run laps around living room. I usually like to spend my morning seeing how loud I can make them squeal.

7:30 Mom wakes up and gets mauled. We like to tackle her.

7:30-8:30: Mom and Dad take turns hiding...er, taking showers and grooming themselves before Dad goes off to work. My brothers and I continue to wrestle, though usually by now between Mom and Dad's bedroom and our own across the hall. Acrobatics on all the beds a must.

8:30: Dad is out the door and Mom desperately tries to come up with a plan to make it to lunch alive.

8:30-12pm: Eat second breakfast, wrestle, eat third breakfast, scale walls, eat first snack, run laps around backyard, eat second snack, race bikes around unfinished basement, eat first lunch, play soccer in the living room using balloons. And somewhere in there Mom reads to me...if I'll sit still for it. I also like to do my math book sometimes and when Mom is very determined she makes me do phonics lessons.

12: Dad arrives home and for some reason Mom looks teary eyed. She says they're happy tears.

12:05: Second lunch. This is my first meal of the day where Mom MAKES me sit at the table. The rest of my previous meals have been eaten while running in circles.

12:07-1:00 Wrestle with brothers, fight over ride on toys, play a rousing game of bumper cars.

1:00: Mom makes me lay down in my bed. I tell her, "Im NOT TIRED! I WILL NOT SLEEP!" She says, "I don't care that you're not tired and I don't care if you don't sleep, but you will lay here and pretend to sleep until Mommy says quiet time is over. Every little boy needs time for their body to rest so they can grow big and tall and strong like Daddy."

1:15: Man cub is fast asleep.

3:30-4:30pm (you thought Mom was exaggerating when she says we literally wrestle ALL MORNING...how else do you think a 5 yr old STILL takes 2 hr naps every day?!) I wake up and come out groggily, usually somewhat grouchy. Mom gives me first afternoon snack.

4:00: Commence wrestling.

4:30: Mom either takes us out in the backyard to play or takes us on a walk so I can ride my bike. She says I need to "blow off steam" so I screech my loudest train whistle sound the entire time.

5 pm: Dad is home and again Mommy has tears in her eyes...she sure does cry a lot. She says again they're happy tears. Mommies are so weird.

5-8pm: me and my brothers wrestle with Daddy on the floor, wrestle with Daddy on the trampoline, and wrestle more on the floor. Dinner. Run laps around the house. Jump on the beds. Get vitamins, brush teeth, read Bible stories (Mom insists we sit still during this, but as soon as Daddy closes the book we practice our flips on the beds.) And then Mommy and Daddy sing to us and tickle us.

8pm: I tell Mom and Dad, "IM NOT TIRED, I DONT WANT TO SLEEP" Mommy and Daddy say, "I know you're not tired, you don't have to sleep, but you have to lay here until the sun comes up so your body can grow."

8:01: I'm fast asleep.

6am: repeat.

And now you know why his Mommy loves her life so very much :D

When the going gets tough

2011-04-28T17:20:00.003-04:00

The tough get going. And it's true! Because otherwise you just sit around wallowing (teaching the littles in your care to do the same) and you all sit around like a pathetic mess.

This week we were due to move back into our parsonage. The mold has been removed according to removal sources and though demolition was extensive in the basement, the main floor living area was minimal. We decided to move back in to get some much much needed normalcy again. The church agreed to begin rebuilding and the very necessary other things that needed updating. The list was extensive and pricey but our church is amazing.

Well, it's funny how things change. Of course all along we've been praying for wisdom from the Lord and His providence and care over our children and our church during this mess with the house. So we also prayed that if the house was dangerous for us, the Lord would make that known. Monday we did a walk-through with some members of council and elders to assess the damage. We were in there for about two hours while our children played and reveled in their very missed home with the furniture they're used to and all the toys. EVERY. SINGLE. surface had been cleaned and sanitized: I'm talking from the carpets, furniture, stuffed animals, and bedding to the oven, counter tops, floors, and walls. The crew that removed the mold worked continuously for 4 weeks. So it's all good right?

Sigh. Within hours of being in the house our middle child had the tell-tale rash on his right cheek that we had thought was a normal fixture on his little face. It looks like a red circle, part dry skin, part eczema. But for 4 weeks it has been GONE. In a matter of hours it was back. By the next morning he was having breathing troubles and by that evening he sounded as if he had whooping cough. I was up with him all night going back and forth between going to the ER and staying home, opting to stay home only because keeping his head elevated and giving him ben@dryl got him to sleep and helped his breathing. By the next morning his breathing troubles only worsened so we rushed him to the clinic and indeed he was in the middle of an allergen induced asthma attack. It was so scary. His oxygen levels had dropped to 89 and his entire belly was retracting with each breath. 5 breathing treatments later and some hefty oral steroid doses, our little guy was stable and at home.

Our little guy has had no prior breathing problems and is not officially asthmatic. Our care provider said all the signs pointed to him being exposed to something too toxic for his little body due to the rashes he had broken out in. She asked what in the past 48 we had done out of our normal routine. I told her about the walk-through and she immediately said to not take him anywhere near that house again. She said she didn't care what the mold removers said, there was still something in that house. I told her we were waiting on the final air tests to come back and would let her know.

Sure enough the results are in today and though the original type of mold they found is now lower, a totally new kind has gone through the roof high. The mold service is baffled and will be returning to the house to begin tearing down more walls...now upstairs where our bedrooms and living space are. (Before though the levels were highest in the boys' bedroom they believed the source to be in the basement and the spores to be being fed into their room through ventilation. They now know there has to be mold upstairs since the basement is stripped to cement.)

So though the end was in sight we now have to start over again. Thank you so much Lord for giving us clear answers to stay away and keeping us safe from moving back in.

So though I would love to throw a child sized temper tantrum that we have to stay in a house with minimal furnishings and even more minimal toys or things for the kids to do, today I rejoice that our church and our family have been given answers as to why a simple walk-through made our son so sick and answers on the safety of the parsonage. We are so very thankful for our amazing members and their care during this time. They have been nothing but compassionate during a very frustrating and annoying process. Even if they hadn't been I would have understood because I myself was frustrated, annoyed, and questioning our need to be so drastic as to move out. And yet, God answered in a big way as to the toxicity and need to be away and so now we wait. We will have to be very patient with the church and it's funds to deal with such a mess that insurance is refusing to cover. We are just so thankful to have a rental that is healthy for our family.

And while we wait, the going get tough and....get to the laundry :) I must say, learning to get organized and keep the clothes off the floor when you have two small child sized dressers for a family of 5 has been interesting but I have found how easy it is when you just hang everything up :) The rest is folded up in small boxes on the closet floor for easy access.

Oh yes, and it makes it even more fun when the family is switching from winter to spring clothes and Mama is switching from non maternity to maternity...yay :D

So my advice for the day: If times are tough, confusing, stressful, and unsure: do laundry, dishes, and straightening/organizing. It's amazing what doing simple and admittedly mundane tasks can do to keep the children feeling at peace and Mama feeling semi in control. Home is where the heart is :) And a heart with God is a heart at peace. Thank you Father for your love and grace.

Running on Empty

2011-04-22T22:31:00.004-04:00

"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7: 21-24)

Sometimes the impiety of my children-born of my own flesh-amazes me. We sit in the pew and in minutes all of the lack of control, all the barbarian wildness, all of the absolute rebellion toward anything GOOD and HOLY rises to the surface. I sit trying to think one step ahead, reaching quickly with one hand to catch the falling baby while the other hand darts to catch the toddler's shoe he has just managed to get off and is trying to chuck at the lady's head in front of us. One word whispers to the preschooler to be quiet "or else" and the other word warns the toddler of mommy's sure wrath if he asks me for a drink ONE MORE TIME. Moment by moment I wage war like a General trying to ascertain the enemy's move: trying to outsmart, out move, and out talk the little boybarians set on doing just enough to keep from getting due punishment but just enough to have fun at all costs rather than let their little impious selves be drowned in their sin and raised to new life in faith each and every time the Word of God falls on their ears...which they are also bent on not having happen.

And then the preschooler stops his antics long enough to notice yet another candle being extinguished in the Good Friday service and whispers to himself, "Good Friday is so so good." And then he happily belts out the words of the Lord's Prayer to "tell Satan that he has not won, he has lost because Jesus does not stay dead, Jesus wins the day!" The toddler for one moment sits perfectly still as a moment of the reading catches his ear and in that moment, faith is in his eyes. And the baby settles in my lap and, looking up at the stain glass of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, says, "Jesus!"

In my children I see all of the impiety, all of the wretchedness, and all of the sin...that first existed and still exists....in me. But it's loud...in my face....mocking me....for all to see. And I'm just better at hiding it.

Why does it bother me so? Why do I get so angry I can hardly see? Why does the fact that I have missed yet ANOTHER service because my mind and mouth and hands were so busy, draw me to tears of despair as the service closes?

O Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?

When the service is the only time you hear God's Word...the only time you say the Lord's Prayer....the only time you say the creed....the only time you hear God's Word...o wretched sinner, what do you expect?

My own impiety amazes me. The excuses, the utter embarrassing laziness. All week I busy myself too much to spend time reading God's Word...too much to read it to my children...too much to pray and sing and hear. And then I expect to show up to an hour long service, be filled up with God's Word enough to make me feel good about myself again so that I can go home and keep living in such utter neglect. And when that doesn't happen because my children are so utterly loud, I am left furious that THEY would keep me from God's Word.

"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." Romans 7: 25

Praise be to our Triune God that He does not leave us in our filth. For at the end of my wrangling and war, when I am beat down, angry, and feeling lost...it is then that I drag myself to the altar of God and there He pours His blood down my throat and gives me His flesh for food. There God indwells me and creates in me the desire for more: more time in the Word, more time loving, more time serving, more time repenting, and more time seeing my children for what they REALLY are: dearly loved children of God...forgiven, made new: pious, holy children of our Heavenly Father.

I know that I will continue to neglect the study of God's Word at times. I know I will continue to neglect reading, singing, and praying with my children at times. I know that I will continue to show up to Divine Service running on empty and angry at myself and my children as we struggle our way through one measly hour. Praise God through our Lord Jesus Christ that our salvation is not through us...not through our piety...not through our devotion...not through us spending enough time in the Word, conjuring up enough faith on our own, or being sorry enough when we fail. Salvation and faith come through Jesus Christ and Him crucified for our sins... a free gift, given in love and mercy, for those who fear Him.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

A blessed Good Friday and may we all go in peace.

Garlands of Grace

2011-04-15T23:27:00.007-04:00

I want to share this link: www.garlandsofgrace.com (for some reason inlaying the link was not working) that a fellow author on this blog pointed me to. For quite some time I've wondered about the whole head covering in church thing. After wrestling with it for awhile and getting counsel from my husband and other pastors I realized it's not something to put as a law onto anyone. Rather, for a woman to decide to cover her head in church is something personal between her and her husband: a further sign of humility, femininity, and even thankfulness that God has blessed women with a covering of protection in the form of her husband who is her head and representative of Christ in their marriage.

The thing I like about this company however is how discreet and lovely and feminine these coverings are...not like a large hat that would be a distraction or seem like more of a statement. I don't want to wear them to get attention or to make anyone else feel threatened, merely as a quiet sign of thankfulness to my husband for his headship and to Christ for the worldly protection He has given me.

If you're curious, I bought:

under "Classic coverings": Suzannes delicate lace

under "one of a kind": Ceciliys crocheted blossoms (watercolor blossoms color)

: and Katherine's petite garden

I still want: all the eyelet ones under the one of a kind and Katherines heirloom lace...along with a few others :) Aren't they lovely?!

2011-04-10T15:59:00.002-04:00

A dear friend of mine just held her baby for the first and last time yesterday. We all so joyfully awaited this new addition with her after she has suffered some very hard trials in the past years and then, just days from his due date, the Lord took their sweet little boy home to heaven.

I was so overcome with grief for her that I could scarcely think or breathe or sleep. I was so angry with God. How could he take her sweet baby after she has already endured so much??

I dragged myself to the church we're visiting today fighting tears the whole time and turned to see a tiny new baby boy being brought to the font to be baptized today. I swear he looked just like my friend's baby boy. Yep, I lost it. And yet in that moment I am pretty convinced I heard the triumphant shouts from Heaven. Satan, oh you bastard, you think you can win, you think death is your victory over the Lord and His saints. Well, you could not be more wrong. Today one sweet boy entered into the Father's Heavenly Kingdom through Baptism, and one witnessed that Baptism from the arms of His Heavenly Father who holds that dear child while his mother is here.

The sermon was delightful. The reading was about Lazarus being raised and the sermon spoke of how Jesus "ruined" every funeral he attended by raising the dead to life. It was a triumphant declaration of life, of how the same thing that happened at Lazarus' funeral indeed happens at our own...though our Lord does not raise us to life again on this earth at the moment of our funeral (for as Pastor said, Lazarus was raised to declare the power and authority of God in Christ) indeed life is declared as the saints march into heaven. Christ has come! Christ has Risen! Christ Will come Again!! And when he does, all the dead in Christ will rise and there will be no more tears. Amen and Amen.

Sweet baby S, you will be so dearly missed. We hate for our own sakes that you had to leave so soon. Lord have mercy on his family, have mercy on all mothers with child, and bring all your saints, both those that must leave so early and those who endure the fights of this life for long length of time, together again very soon!

COME SOON LORD JESUS!

Nothing

2011-04-06T10:06:00.003-04:00

Well, our visit to the city was a complete waste of time on Monday. The pediatrician the children were supposed to see was too busy to grace us with his presence and so a PA came in, looked at the kids, said, "yep, it looks like they're suffering from some allergies" and wrote them prescriptions for zyrt.ec. I was not amused. I told her I was pretty sure she did not realize the extent of the situation, and that my children were not just suffering from allergies (which they've already tested negative for) but indeed suffering the effects of living in such levels of dangerous mold that if left unattended can grow in their lungs and even cause cancer. She got cocky with me questioning my knowledge before leaving us in a tiny room for a half an hour. When she returned she had orders for chest xrays on the boys. I took the prescription and orders and never went back. I called up our clinic here and told them what happened, they were furious, and our care provider here is getting us referrals to a pediatric pulmonol0gist so the children can be examined properly. I have no idea how long it will take to get them in.

As for the house, still no answers. They're still searching for all the sources, the cost of removal, and what all will be done to fix not only the mold but also all the structural problems with the house. The church really wants to fix everything they can but only time will tell how much that will be and when. A voters meeting has been called for a few weeks from now to start answering those questions.

Im learning this is just part of the life of a Pastor and his family. We take with glad hearts the things offered us and try to live in humbleness and humility when it's not what we expected. I'm still working on that one. I suspect I always will.

Humility

2011-03-31T16:11:00.003-04:00

We had a bit of a crisis yesterday. Ok, kind of a big crisis. Some very very dangerous mold at high levels was found in our parsonage after a test was performed earlier this week due to some flooding in the basement. The test was done as a precaution.

Well, ironically enough it wasn't the basement that has the worst of the problem, but the upstairs. It's an airborne mold that is invisible and odorless. Aspergillus. We were ordered to evacuate immediately by our children's pediatrician and the children will be going in Monday morning for an apt with him to be sure the mold has not taken up residence in their lungs (which worse case scenario would require surgery on all three to remove it).

One minute we were trucking along on a normal schedule, laundry, dishes, school work, and trying to find things to occupy three busy boys and the next we were homeless just trying to figure out where to sleep and what to eat....and whether or not all of our children will be facing surgery in the near future.

Our home will begin the process of removing the mold on Monday. It could take a couple weeks, it could take several months. It could just take removal/cleaning/rebuilding of a few walls, it could take complete demolition. We won't know until further tests are run on the house.

Our church has been amazing. We slept over at a friend of mine's house last night (not a member) but now, just 24 hrs after we found out we had to evacuate, we have members meeting us at the parsonage in 1 hr to help us move into a new house! Ok, so not new, new to us ;) It's much smaller than the one we're in now, but we didn't need all that space anyways. I have only seen the outside but what I have seen looks cute. It's only one street over from our church so that's nice too. The church is renting it for us until our parsonage is ready for us again.

So after we found out a little bit ago that we were moving tonight I sighed and said to my husband, "Isn't it strange that we are moving into ANOTHER house that we have never even seen...that we keep just getting told where to live?" He smiled and said, "I suppose it's good for humility. We gladly receive the gifts offered to us."

Well said Pastor, well said. I am beyond thankful for our amazing members and church and fully trust in our Lord Jesus Christ to preserve us through this time.

P.S.- It's time to put my hair in a pony tail, put on the work clothes, and trudge through this thing as mightily as possible. yay. :)

2011-03-27T21:58:00.003-04:00

Are you feeling old lately?

Are you struggling wondering where your 20's went...or 30's...or 40's....or more?

Are you sad at where your life has taken you? Feeling like your life is passing and the Lord has led you to a place you did not want to go and therefore you will never accomplish what you thought was important?

OH man, why dost thou put so much importance on what the world offers? Think on this:

This life is but a time in the womb, growing you in the protective and life giving waters of your Baptism, so that finally, oh finally, you can be birthed into the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father to spend your days in true happiness. The womb might be tight, dark, and uncomfortable. The garbled noises and jolts might not make sense. But true life, light, and joy unending await you on the other side.

So snuggle up, enjoy the remembrance of your Baptismal waters and revel in the faith that holds you: you are but an infant awaiting life eternal.

At eye level

2011-03-25T00:11:00.006-04:00

When we had only one child to play with, one child to discipline, one child to do laundry for, and one child to wake up with, it was really easy to be an "attachment" parent. I wore him and slept with him nuzzled to me until he was 7 months old. And then, when he preferred to play on the floor to being worn all day, I was on the floor with him...and he still slept with us. Where I went, he went. What I did, he did. If I was doing dishes, he was plopped on the counter next to me. If I did laundry, he was pulling out all the clean clothes from the basket and dumping them on his head. It was a glorious time I will treasure forever.

When my second was only 2 1/2 months old we moved back to the sem from our vicarage congregation and our financial situation was bad. My husband worked 40 hrs a week in addition to being a full time 4th year sem student and I was nannying for a 9 month old baby in addition to needing to care for my newborn and 2 year old. It was terrible. I cried almost every day because I felt like I was always neglecting someone and too often it was MY children in order to care for the little girl I was watching. Thanks be to God my husband and I grew some brains and after two months of this we went into the financial office at the sem and applied for more student loans. We were already several 10's of thousands in the loan dept so what's another couple in the grand scheme of things? My husband quit his job, I quit my nannying. Another family with two older children needed a place for them to stay a few afternoons a week so I agreed since my two would be napping anyways.

But as I look back, that's where my parenting was forced to change. I went from one child in a place where I had no friends and nothing to do all day but be with him to 3 children (for two months) and a VERY busy schedule...from the food coop run, clothing coop run, grocery shopping, receiving and pick up of the little girl I was watching, and then receiving and pick up of the two older kids, and, this was the fun part, weekly Bible study with dear friends and play dates galore.

Another child later and I wonder what happened to the mom I was. It's like since I can't be that "perfect" attachment mom I've given up and gone to the opposite extreme. I'm exaggerating of course, but when you go from co-sleeping and babywearing to moving your child to a crib by 6 months and being quite fine with plopping your baby in his exersaucer...I guess I feel guilty.

When did I stop having my kids help me with all my chores? When did I stop wanting to really BE with them all day instead of barking at them a million times a day "go play!" while I hide in the laundry room?

I don't know, I guess somewhere between the sleep deprivation of 2 waking children every night and 3 rowdy boys...one little one dumping the laundry was cute, 3 is obnoxious.

But today my 2 yr old was crying about something. I couldn't get him to go away with the usual distractions. Suddenly something tugged at me and I dropped to my knees and gently pulled his chin towards me so I could look into his eyes. That was all it took, he realized I was REALLY listening and he stopped crying. I found myself unable to get up as I really looked into his eyes and spoke with him. When did I stop really looking into my kids' eyes?

So for the rest of the day I made the goal to get down and really be at eye level with each child when I was speaking to them or they were speaking to me. OH. MY. WORD. Try it for a day...what a difference it makes in both your parenting AND their behavior!! We may not all do laundry together, I may not let ALL THREE boys splash water at the sink with me when I do dishes, and I may only co-sleep for 6 months now instead of over a year but today my children saw my eyes and knew I was really hearing them and making sure THEY really heard me...it was accountability on both sides and I'm going to try and make this my new form of attachment parenting where other areas are lacking. For a mother of several littles it's the best I can do for now.

You know you're a pastor's wife if:

2011-03-18T23:13:00.004-04:00

1. Upon your husband's graduation from sem you were excited to buy a large deep freezer for 2 reasons: 1) those ranchers in your country church that like to tithe in beef 2) buying in bulk when sales arise.

2. You find yourself calling your husband "Pastor" to your mother and the lady at the checkout counter because you're so used to doing it around all your members.

3. You tell your husband to put on his clerical for the labor drive to the hospital so if you get pulled over there's no questions asked.

4. You don't give up anything for Lent because you're giving up your husband instead.

5. The best housewarming gift you were given upon moving to your new parish was a giant roaster oven for all the potlucks and open houses.

6. Everyone thinks it's cute to give you cookbooks for Pastor's wives as a gift for just about any occasion.

7. Or they give you another decorative wall cross.

8. You flinch every time the phone rings after 7 pm.

9. You worry as the birth of your next child approaches and he has a member nearing death in the hospital.

10. You find yourself questioning your previous hatred of church nurseries. :)

What are yours?

On Location

2011-03-15T20:14:00.004-04:00

So you're husband is about to be assigned his first call or you've been living as a Pastor's wife for 30 years and thought you'd be in a totally different place than you are. You may LOVE where you are...you may hate where you are....but:

"I guess the thing is, feelings, all of them, are OK. Emotions are fleeting and always changing. God does not insist that we are happy all the time, nor does He insist on us being sad. Whether we are happy or sad we can take comfort that God is bigger than emotions, bigger than circumstance, and if we are living to serve in our vocation that God called us to we can rejoice in the freedom that the very God who formed us in our mother's womb and knows our every need before we even utter it is the one in control of our location. Right?"

This was a question I posed to my husband (though perhaps not in that exact wording as it was quite a long rant :D) last night as I wondered if it was ok for me to sometimes be elated with our location and others be sad at missing family and friends. I always felt instant guilt over being sad because GOD sent us here!

He assured me that our feelings of our station in life are irrelevant when it comes to God's love for us. While we seek to be grateful, as stated before emotions are fleeting, but God's love and provision are forever to those He loves.

What freedom, what joy, in knowing we are right where God wants us and that good days and bad, our Father's love for us does not change based on how we are feeling about life... He understands, He knows, and....GOD IS FAITHFUL!

Gardening!!

2011-03-02T23:01:00.002-05:00

So this summer will be my 3rd attempt at gardening. My step mom had a garden when I was in high school but the only memories I have of it are of her eggplant section going nuts and providing us with 10 lb eggplants for weeks on end. I now HATE eggplant parmesan. Seriously.

My first two attempts were a disaster. The first time a massive hail storm came and destroyed my corn just as it was getting tall. The only things that produced that year were my carrots and green beans...but not even enough to preserve, only to eat as we picked.

Last year the grasshoppers attacked...but before that only half of the things I planted even grew.

So you gardening aficionados, spill the beans! Can you give me your best gardening tips?

First, with a very short growing season I discovered that several things need to be started indoors this month so that by late May they're large and ready to transplant. In particular tomatoes and peppers. Any others I should start indoors?

I also want to grow kale and broccoli, is it correct that these should be grown as fall is beginning instead of now?

And how exactly do you shape your beds? Both years I've dug my rows and made the lines where the seeds are planted slightly raised. I can't do that this year because the wind out here erodes the raised beds away and the plants either fail or the seeds are blown away before they can even grow. Last year I even mulched with grass clippings, which was a joke. But does mulching with wood chips work? I mean, isn't it hard for the seeds to sprout and grow through if there's 2-3 inches of mulch on top?? Esp since the seed packets say to only plant about 1/2 in below soil level? I'm thinking the only way to keep the weeds at bay and keep the soil in check is to mulch and I have both wood and straw available, what do you recommend?

Finally, what about fertilizing the soil and watering? What are your favorite ways to do this?

Thanks :) I really really want to have a good turn out this year!

Motherhood Prayers

2011-03-01T23:21:00.003-05:00

My husband was able to obtain a Stark's Prayer book that contained the "Motherhood Prayers" for me off of Amazon and I treasure this book. But for those that are not able to find this, good news! The Motherhood Prayers are now available as a stand alone work from Emmanuel Press here!! These prayers have offered me many words on wordless nights. Thanks Emmanuel Press!

2011-02-26T23:53:00.006-05:00

Feminism. It's a word that strikes up gasps of horror from conservative confessional Lutheran women everywhere. We shake our heads as we carry our nurslings in slings and feed them organic homemade baby food while cleaning flour off of our aprons from baking bread in the morning.

And yet...I realized today that feminism is so much more than women seeking to dominate the workplace, have equal pay and be able to vote and even seek after the presidency. No, feminism is far sneakier than we give it credit for.

Perhaps I shouldn't get specific but there's a certain "Christian" woman speaker I'm thinking of. She's funny and smart and witty and travels the country writing books and group Bible studies and speaking to herds of adoring, smiling, beautiful women. I've been invited to a few of her speaking engagements, which of course are always long...and I wonder how it is that such a massive group of women can congregate with no babies present or children crawling around their knees. No, I have not attended said events because of that very reason...where are their kids anyways?

But let's get to the heart of this... let's paraphrase the idea that Christian women today just eat up: "God wants us to have our best life now." "God gives each and every one of us SPECIAL UNIQUE talents that not using would be rejecting your God-given talents and possibly missing out on opportunities to SHARE God's good news!" "God wants women to be happy, successful and fulfilled in whatever talents He gives us!" Should I go on or do you get the point?

These are the messages of mainstream popular Christian women today. And because I was raised by a politician/attorney father who wanted his little girls to grow up strong and successful...I find myself nearing a point of no return now that I'm elbow deep in littles, beginning the homeschool journey, have no time for extra church involvement beyond the bring a dish here and teach a Sunday school class there, and live in such a remote area that not even photography classes or extra opportunities to "share my talents" exist. Is this it? Is this my life...forever? Will I ever have a high paying job? Will I ever be respected in a work place? Will I ever get promotions? Will I ever write the cover article or deliver the speech that makes people bound to their feet in agreement?

Like a wrecking ball to a massive brick wall that hid all the secrets of the world, I realized for the first time in 6 years that I forfeited that "right" the moment I agreed to marry my husband. I forfeited it further the moment God saw fit to bless us with His gifts of children.

Because ladies, hear this and hear me out to the end: It is not about you. It is not about your happiness. Women, your job as a MARRIED woman is the same as it was for Eve. She was created second, from Adam, and brought to him as his friend, lover, and help meet. Your job is to find joy and fulfillment in your love and service to your Head, your Lord, your Master. And I am speaking of your earthly husband here. Because when you serve Him, the one God gave you to be His representative to you, you serve The LORD. And then, to add children takes it further. Now you not only live to serve your Lord, but to bring up His children in the fear and admonition of the LORD. Your life is not your own and suddenly, when seen in this light of utter importance, when seen in the light of such seriousness, trite things that bring "fulfillment" only to me seem so silly.

By being a slave, I am set free. By dying to myself and rejecting my own happiness and personal fulfillment "needs" I am able to find joy supreme. Because women, it would never be enough. There would always be one more job, one more promotion, one more speaking engagement, one more class, one more adorable outfit to buy, one more person we think needs us to be their light. But God did not call us to be those people's Savior. His Son did that. And it is His Holy Spirit that pours out faith.

Feminism does not just exist in women running the work place and women's suffrage...it seeps into so many other arenas. Don't buy into it's lies and promises...for it will never be enough. But when you die to your own desires and fulfillments and dreams and instead serve your husband and whatever children God blesses you with, well, true happiness will come because you've let your desires die and so every little kiss, every "I love you Mama", every loving embrace from your husband will be all the promotion you need.

Lord, I am your servant, strengthen me for the tasks ahead.

10 Things to do with beans.

2011-02-25T15:18:00.002-05:00

Beans are cheap, beans are yummy, beans are super healthy. Here's 10 recipes to save you money and time.

1. Take two tortillas and place one in a skillet that is pre-warmed on med. heat. Dump on beans (black or refried taste great). Add cheddar cheese. Top with second tortilla. Wait until you see cheese is melting and then using a spatula flip quesadilla until both sides are slightly browned. Cut like pizza and serve with salsa for dipping. Super easy super healthy.

2. Dump three cans of chili beans or three cans (or equivalent of prepared from dried) of pinto/kidney beans into pot. Add one large jar spaghetti sauce. Add 2 lb ground beef browned. Add 3 or more (to taste depending on if you used chili or plain beans) tbs of chili powder, garlic, onion, and cayenne if you like it spicy. Bring to simmer. This chili is super thick and we serve it with tostitos scoops chips with a side of cheddar. People scoop, cover in cheese, and eat. I like to mix Spicy Ranch into mine for an extra tanginess :)

3. Prepare 2 cans worth of kidney beans and brown 1 lb ground beef. Separately prepare 2 cups of brown gravy. Mix into beans and beef and add 1/2 cup of bbq sauce. Add any veggies you have on hand (For a super easy meal I like to dump in a bag of frozen mixed veggies.) Cover in spoonfuls of dough of choice. (I like to prepare a batch of cornbread dough.) Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

4. Mix together 2 cans of black beans, 1 cup prepared quinoa, 1 can of Campbell's tomato soup, and 1 jar of taco/enchilada sauce. Add corn/diced tomatoes/whatever you like :) Spoon into Burrito (large) shells saving some filling, fold, place seam side down in greased glass pan. Cover with remaining filling and sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 covered for about 20 min.

5. Bring 1 large can of V8 juice to simmering. Add assortment of prepared beans. Add onion, garlic and your favorite italian herbs. Add spinach or kale or both. Serve hot :)

6. In crock pot place 4 cloves of garlic minced, 1 cup of chopped onion, some cumin, some oregano, some red pepper, 3 cans or equivalent of Great Northern beans, 2 4 oz cans of green chile peppers if you like them, 4 cups of chicken broth, and 3 cups of cooked chopped chicken. Stir to combine then leave to cook on low for 7 hrs or high for 3-4 hrs. Once done stir in 2 cups of shredded Monterey Jack cheese until melted. If desired top with sour cream.

7. Chili for Lutherans. Dump 3 cans chili beans, 2 lbs of browned ground beef, 1 can (15oz) tomato sauce, and two cans of beer into crock pot. Add chili powder, garlic, onion and cayenne to taste. (I usually add tons of chili powder, about 3-4 tbs or more :) Dump in some tomatoes if you're the chunky chili type. My husband likes his chili served over pasta. If you're a strange midwesterner go ahead and do that. I prefer mine served with cornbread.

8. A couple packages of saffron rice mix, 2 cans of black beans, 3 tablespoons of lime juice, 1 tsp of chili powder, 1/2 tsp of ground cumin, 1 tbs fresh cilantro. Combine all but rice in saucepan and heat on med until thoroughly heated. Spoon over prepared rice, sprinkle with another tbs of cilantro. Garnish with sour cream or sliced green onions if desired. Serve with pineapple and tortilla chips if desired.

9. Bake 4 large potatoes. Place large saucepan over med high heat with oil to coat. Once hot add garlic and onion (3 cloves, 1 med). Stir in 1 can of chili-style chunky tomatoes, undrained. , 1 can of black beans (drained), 1 tsp of chili powder, 1/2 tsp of ground cumin. Cook until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat stir in 4 green onions sliced (optional). Cut an X to within 1/2 in of bottom of each potato. Squeeze ends to open potato, fluff pulp with fork, and spoon bean mixture over potatoes. Top with cheddar cheese. Top with sour cream if desired and serve.

10. Combine 2 cups cooked chopped chicken, 1/2 cup milk, salt + pepper, 1 can cream of chicken soup, 1 package of frozen mixed veggies, and 1 can of Great Northern Beans in saucepan. Cooke over med heat until thoroughly heated. Bake a batch of biscuits. Split hot biscuits and spoon chicken/bean mixture over biscuit halves. Serve. :)

Empty Tubes

2011-02-23T18:16:00.002-05:00

A dear friend was going about her day and suddenly a moment that was very exasperating for her turned into a moment of humor. She began compiling a list in her head of things that would NEVER get accomplished if she were not there to do them.

1. Her first thought was that if she were to ever go on a really long vacation she would come home to find her family wiping their bottoms with "God only knows what" because no one knows how to change a toilet paper tube.

2. Conversely if her husband were out of town she would lose all contact with the outside world because her husband would not be there to call and find her misplaced cell phone. (This one gets three lol's because the same exists in my house and I can just seen my husband's face now when I tell him my cell phone is gone again.) (Which it's not...I don't think...hmmm..)

I have to admit on a day like today this list is fun to make so I'll add some of my own:

Things that would NEVER get done if I weren't here to do it:

1. Vegetables and home made meals would cease to exist except in bean or brat form. I would come home to find about 15 pizza hut boxes stacked on the table...and floor...mixed with a few cans of soup and empty boxes of Mac N Cheese. Oh yes, and those meals I made and put in the freezer (like I've done for my husband when I leave with the kids to see my family) to get them through a busy day would have been breakfast lunch and dinner for the first 2 days.

2. We have this garbage can in the kids' bathroom that has become my husband's dumping place for my middle child's disposable diapers (youngest is in cloth). Every Thursday when we have our in-parsonage Bible study I remember at the last second to empty it or ask him to since it doubles as the guest bathroom. If I weren't here to do it I am certain it would rival Mt. Everest...in poop form.

3. You would have to dig out my couch from a mountain of crumbs.

4. No one in my family would be wearing matching socks (if socks at all) and there would just be a giant bin of socks for everyone to dig through, because apparently I'm the only one that knows how to match and put them away ;)

5. The tubs, showers, and toilets would crawl away to hide from their own filth.

Conversely, if my husband weren't around to do all his super hero things he does:

1. We would have serious financial problems because I can't balance a check book to save my life, even though I am more than competent in math.

2. The garbage might get taken out, but it wouldn't get taken to the curb and someone would have to dig the house out.

3. I woud lose the house phone, my cell phone, and all the remotes in the house.

4. The Bible reading and Catechizing would be completely neglected...I'm a sloth.

5. The children would be in disposable diapers every other day when I ran out and forgot to start the wash (that's right ladies, eat your hearts out, my man starts the diapers for me!), the laundry would never get put away because there would be no one here to impress, and toilets would never get unclogged because plungers gross me out.

And you?

I'm scared.

2011-02-19T00:35:00.002-05:00

It's been over a month since our miscarriage. My body healed quickly and all is "back to normal".

And then I was warned by a friend who happens to be my healthcare provider here that the first few cycles following a miscarriage are often "VERY fertile".

I want to get pregnant again because having your womb feel like a tomb is horrific. I want there to be life where there was death. I want to tell Satan where he can shove it and bring another babe to the font.

But now I'm scared. I feel fragile and broken (bodily). I don't want to die. No, I'm not going irrational and weepy over here, but when one has a very near death experience in child birth and then has a baby die in the womb...

Quit while we're ahead? sigh. Suddenly being pregnant isn't the baby shower pink cute maternity blouse thing it was before. It's now the throw your hair in a pony tail, put on those working clothes, and trudge through it as mightily as possible kind of thing.

And now the thought of bringing another child into our family is met with fear. I'm tired. I'm breakable. I'm getting ooolllldddd. Ok, maybe not to you but I sure FEEL old. And though every child brings immeasurably more to our family than I imagined he could, the hours also grow immeasurably more exhausting.

How sad that being a sinner means that our fear and weakness and physical inabilities can turn a GIFT from God into something to be feared and worried over. Come soon Lord Jesus.

You know you are remote if:

2011-02-16T22:05:00.007-05:00

Disclaimer: This post was written with laughter and fun (not sadness :) with another pastor's wife who lives rurally.

Ok, so lately many blogs I read have been talking about what it's like to live rurally, writing how to's on survival out in the country, etc. As I read many of their descriptions it dawned on me that while they're talking about living rurally, and I thought rural was a description of where I live, that our situation brings in a whole new kind of isolation. Then something a friend of mine said to me about where we live came back to me...

"Oh, wow, so you don't live in rural (enter state name), you live in REMOTE __".

So here is a list of how to know if you live rurally or remotely. :)

1. When you turn the radio on in your car and push the seek button the display simply looks like a slot machine rolling through the numbers. And then it stops on the one radio station available...oh yea, there is that second station that you can slightly pick up from an hour and a half away. The options? Country... which is ok cause I like country :) and one "hits of today" which I'm pretty sure are actually hits from when I was in high school.

2. When you do a Google maps of your town and click the zoom out button 3 times you see your town and one other town (or no other towns) (which is less

in population) on the ENTIRE map.

3. The nearest interstate is over two hours away in any direction.

4. The farthest church in your husband's circuit (circuit not district) is over 3 hrs away.

5. If the cows outnumber the people 100,000 to 1.

6. You have to pack a survival kit to go to Walmart...in case you break down...and the distance to walk to a town would be further than you can make it during daylight hours.

7. When your husband's guns outnumber his friends...and yours....combined.

8. When taking up hunting deer with bow and arrow sounds like a good idea...and indeed gets added to your list of things to do before you die.

9. When your 2+ hr drive to the city (that is: a place with more than 5,000 people: cause to a remoter that IS a city) looks like this:

And the #10 way to know if you are remote is:

10. When the only kids that come over to play basketball look like this:

Honorable Mention: When your friends double as your dinner :D

Now if you will excuse me, I have some bow practice to get in :D

CLASSILATIJEFFERUNTIAN

2011-02-10T22:54:00.003-05:00

It has taken 5 long years to figure this out...countless conversations with friends (both those that home school and those that don't), countless books read, countless curriculum/method reviews, countless conversations with my husband, and even more hours of prayers and thinking and pulling my hair out BUT: I think I have FINALLY reached, with the help and guidance of my husband, the way we will be schooling our children.

I call it:

THE CLASSILATIJEFFERUNTIAN APPROACH. :D

Broken down:

Classical

Latin

Jefferson

Un-school

Christian (a unit study approach of making all educational subjects stem solely from Scripture)

And when you have a spectrum that wide I know it sounds like I may as well say any thing flies, but obviously naming things like the Classical and Latin centered methods don't allow for that. But here's the thing. I think the number one rule for home schooling children should always be:

Know thyself... and know thy children.

Our first move when we decided we would homeschool was to get the book "The Well Trained Mind". We love the idea of a rigorous education that does not allow laziness and promotes not only a good work ethic, but the result of a, well, "Well Trained Mind"! We want our children to be capable, confident, and most of all, curious: able to question, reason, defend, etc. And yet as our children came boy after boy we became confused and frustrated. The type of education described by this woman and her mother left me feeling frustrated, even before we began. Because as my eldest matured it became evident other methods worked so much better at getting the results of a curious hungry learner than the methods she proposed.

So we went to the other extreme of reading about un-schooling (though my husband refused to say that name out loud and still despises the name). I had been doing some little preschool workbooks and other things that at first were fun and helpful but when my son got to the point that he knew all the letters and the sounds they made we reached a plateau. He would say "c-a-t" all day and never put together that those sounds were creating the word "cat". Nothing worked and I grew so frustrated that I decided he must just not be ready, enter un-schooling. As the weeks and months passed (this was our last year at the seminary) we kept busy with playing, coloring, reading, and playing with sem friends. We were super busy and he was 3 so all was well.

A year later after settling into our new home I began to revisit reading with him. I was horrified (slight exaggeration ;) to learn that not only could he still not figure out "cat" but indeed that he had completely forgotten many of his letters. We were back at square one. I had once had an 18 month old that made the mouth of a librarian drop open as he made all the letter sounds of the title of a children's book and now I had an almost 4 year old who knew about 14 of his letters. sigh. So we went back to our workbooks and websites and slowly the knowledge came back. And then it happened AGAIN. In half the time as the first he once again knew all of his letters and yet he STILL would say "c-a-t" all day and not figure it out. Enter hair pulling moment.

And so for the last year and a half I have been like a yo-yo bouncing from method to method, curriculum to curriculum, and even had several moments of bursting into tears and seconds away from sending my children to "real" school.

I can't tell you exactly how it happened, or where the defining moment comes into play. I can think of several that would at least shed light but to share them would make this post far longer than it is already. But through a series of events I finally finally began to "know" myself and my children.

For me I figured out that the un-schooling model left me feeling frustrated and separated from my kids. Merely providing them with tools and living side by side separate lives while they teach themselves (and I know this is not how many un-schoolers do it, but it's how it felt to me) left me feeling depressed and frustrated. I felt like every time I tried to initiate teaching I was somehow breaking the rules of unschooling. I felt like every time I wanted them to do something out of their own devices I was squashing their curiosity. It was ridiculous. And, I have to say, one of the main reasons we decided to homeschool is the desire to NOT live separate side by side lives as if we're all just co-workers with completely different things that are important to us.

And yet, the other side, the classical/Latin centered approach seemed so rigid and formal that our boys would drown under the book work and table time.

The Jefferson approach, a little closer to un-schooling and yet overflowing with reading of the classics by mom was a little better, but also had some odd rules about what to teach when rather than just paying attention to each child's readiness and content the child was able to handle.

SO. I took the good and left the bad.

For ME I have found I feel more inspired and creative when I have basic structural help/guidelines that well known curricula like Saxon and Singapore offer to take the pressure off and give us something to do on the days we either don't have time for creativity or are tired/sick/lonely/etc and just need someone else to do the ideas/planning for us. I like knowing that I can flip through each of the grade level books each year, do the lessons we need, ignore the others, and keep an eye on each child's progression with the grade levels of these books to keep me in tune with where other curricula/standards are each year. I am often blown away when I open a book to do a lesson because I feel tired and uncreative and my kids are getting into trouble rather than being "curious" and using their time wisely and then, suddenly the kids are behaving and 2 minutes into the lesson we all come up with an idea and springboard into our own lesson for the day. Having these books prompt such fun family ideas has been some of the best moments I've had as a mother with my children. Other days we truly are tired and bored and we'll merely do the lessons for days on end, not coming up with further ideas, nor hating the lessons, but relieved to have something to occupy our time during long winter or too hot summer days.

And so we have found a balance that works for us. I know it will change and grow and morph for each child but the things that will always remain the same are (1) our desire to remain in communion with our children, learning beside them, advocating for them, prodding them at times, but allowing them creativity and opportunity for their own likes and dislikes to guide them and (2) never allowing laziness or dependency to overtake a child. While we insist that each child be competent in each subject (assuming ability) we know that they will excel in some subjects and perhaps not in others. However, effort and determination and perseverance are vital and I believe will be good for them. We want each child to learn Latin and Hebrew or Greek (perhaps both) and be able to move the full loop from grammar to logic to rhetoric. I want them to not only be confident but to have the knowledge and communication abilities to back it up.

And so some days we play, some days we study, some days we do a combination approach. Some days we use curricula, some weeks we don't touch the curricula as we devour our own books and experiment in our own approach. But always the books stand by to help guide and keep us on track. I may not agree with standardized education, but it serves as an excellent marker.

And so, there you have it, the CLASSILATIJEFFERUNTIAN approach :D

5 Minutes Peace

2011-02-09T19:51:00.002-05:00

1. An electric popcorn maker + corn kernels + oil and a dash of salt= quick, SUPER CHEAP healthy afternoon snack.

2. Giant bowl of popcorn + clean (ha) floor + 3 boys + Mom dumping popcorn on said floor and telling the boys to "eat like the cows do!"= 5 minutes peace for mom with a decent amount of laughter watching said boys "moo" and lick popcorn off the floor. :D

25 Things I want to do before I die. How about you?

2011-02-07T00:45:00.003-05:00

1. Visit Alaska and see the northern lights and whales in the wild.

2. Adopt a child from an orphanage.

3. Stay at the Plaza in New York City or some other equally ritzy hotel in a suite.

4. Stay at Hotel Hershey and get the full chocolate spa treatment.

5. Write a novel.

6. Swim with dolphins.

7. Hike the Appalachian Trail in its entirety.

8. Touch an iceberg.

9. Witness the birth of a calf.

10. Go skinny dipping.

11. Visit Seattle, WA.

12. Go puddle stomping with my kids and play in the mud.

13. Eat alligator.

14. Buy a house with double sinks in the master bathroom and a huge jacuzzi tub.

15. Get my pilot's license or at least pilot a plane through take off and landing.

16. Kill a deer with my own bow and arrow.

17. Take a trip with my family on a train.

18. Go on a kayak trip with my husband.

19. Hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and then raft it.

20. Take my children to colonial Williamsburg and to see all the monuments in Washington D.C. and any other important historical places we can fit in while teaching them about the start of our country.

21. Eat at a restaurant where they serve people in complete darkness.

22. Stand up without falling at least once riding a wave on a surfboard.

23. Go hang gliding.

24. Visit at least 5 countries not including Canada, Mexico, or Brazil (already been there).

25. Love my children and husband with such joy and passion and have so much fun and adventure together that when my children grow up and leave home they want to come back to visit and play.

2011-02-06T23:03:00.002-05:00

"Then there is the.....if my husband is okay with it, then why does anyone else really care thing? "

Bikermom

This line was playing in my head all night tonight and it made me realize how silly it is that this discussion has gone on as long as it has. I'm not saying the discussion hasn't been fun or valid or made me think, but she has a very good point me thinks :)

A Response

2011-02-05T12:25:00.002-05:00

I originally wrote this as a final comment to the massive amts of comments that came after a post I thought would get merely a few chuckles, but thought I would post it instead.

I think we need to be careful when bringing the example of our Lord into a post like this. When a mother takes time away it is because she is stressed, worn out, etc. She is everything to everyone in her household and for a fallen human that responsibility breaks us down and sends us to one of two places: repentance and sorrow over our inabilities or anger and defiance at everyone else's demands of us. Stress usually comes from our inadequacy at attaining everything we feel we need to and can't, or being overworked, etc. And even though we are baptized children of God our sinful nature is constantly at war within our being daring us to revolt against the life of service.

Our Lord took time away to teach his disciples or to pray. Even when He withdrew it was usually WITH his disciples. He didn't withdraw to go fishing or have a drink at the local joint. You know? He was fully Human and got tired, but He was also fully God and did not NEED time away as a result of inadequacy, because He was not inadequate.

But we don't need to grasp at Him to try and justify what we're worried is WRONG. Because the thing is, we ARE different. You're trying to compare the President of the United States to a Kindergartener running for class president. We are inadequate sinners that should revel in God's mercy, even if that means being "selfish" once in a while. If we were perfect we would never need "me time". The only time we would need to withdraw would be for prayer and further private teaching of our children. So, as Luther would say, "sin boldly". When one is in the state of being both sinner AND SAINT we are able to punctuate every sin with the exclamation of forgiveness. When we know we are weak, when we know we are sinful, we can happily withdraw, taking time for enjoyment and pleasure alone or with friends and use that time to inwardly rejoice that we DO NOT have to be everything to everyone and be the perfect selfless servant because: CHRIST DID THAT FOR US! AMEN AND AMEN!

Tweet Tweet

2011-02-04T17:03:00.002-05:00

This is just WAY too cool. I recommend checking it out ASAP. Esp all you at home learners out there :D

Time for a Dictionary :)

2011-02-04T14:29:00.003-05:00

Mama: Goodnight, I hope you have sweet dreams!

Boy: Goodnight Mama! Sweet nightmares!

Dad explaining: (laughter) We were reading a chapter that was talking about nightmares from his book.

In the morning:

Mom: Did you have sweet dreams?

Boy: oh yes! I had the best nightmare! I dreamed that I was just a boy walking in the woods. Then I came to the edge of the woods and there were robots standing in front of me! I thought, "I'm just a boy!" So I turned into Iron Man and we all started lighting up our arms and beeping together and I was a REAL robot!!! I love nightmares like that!

Sigh part II

2011-01-30T22:48:00.003-05:00

This is our backyard. If you use a telescope, one of the ones designed to see into outer space, you may be able to see a city...where there's people...and parks...and people.

Sigh.

2011-01-30T22:21:00.002-05:00

And that's all I have to say about that.

Beating the winter blues

2011-01-27T23:35:00.003-05:00

Taped moving boxes together, painted the whole thing with paint found in the garage. Oven handle is spaghetti box cut in half and taped. Pulls down to reveal large shelf (smaller box laid down inside) for them to put small pans on that I gave them. I'm also going to add knobs to the cabinet under the sink (lids bolted into place).

The sink is a plastic bowl, pumps from empty soap and lotion, curtains are old pillow case cut and tied ( no sewing!).

Fort big enough for two eldest to sit in together, is attached to rest of kitchen with duct tape, and large fleece blanket comes down to cover.
Upper and Lower pantry for empty food boxes taped shut.

With a little creativity and a good clean this was all made for only $15 (the cost of two large rolls of colored duct tape in our small town). And I got to clean out my pantry, fridge, and bathrooms to make it :-) Oh yes, and I ransacked those boxes from moving here that are super sturdy (gotta love moving company boxes!). I guess if we ever get a call we better hope the church pays for more boxes! (As the rest have fallen victim to rocket ships and forts.)

It's not quite complete yet. I'm going to use lids to taco sauce and bolt them above the oven for knobs for the burners. I still have to put the other burner on (out of paper plates colored with permanent marker). I'm also giving the kids plastic utensils and plates, empty spray bottles and rags under the sink for "cleaning supplies" and lots more empty food boxes for groceries (milk carton, egg cartons, etc). They're having a blast playing with it and the fort on the back is their favorite part :) I also have an old phone I'm going to add to it for added play.

It took us all day to make it and the kids had a blast helping. Hopefully it will entertain them for at least tomorrow ;)

Stinky

2011-01-26T18:18:00.003-05:00

Romans: For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

This morning the children and I awoke just after 6 to attend our Wednesday morning Divine Service. As usual it was a quick chaos trying to get the three littles dressed and out the door with the myriad of things that we need even for an hour and a half away from the house:

-paci for sudden screams from baby

-cloth diapers for the baby

-paper diapers for toddler

-wipes for both

-granola bars for breakfast on the way over

-sippies for all three (haven't had breakfast yet)

-change of clothes in case of poopy blow out (on baby not myself)

-driver's license (never know when you'll get pulled over in the middle of nowhere)

-cell phone (never know when your car will break down in the 5 blocks to church and you'll need help)

-emergency lollipops for middle of sermon squirmies.

-my keys

-diaper bag and purse (which usually already contain a few of these items, but then again sometimes baby likes to go bag diving and hides them)

We arrived in one piece, car in working order, and just in time. We sat and settled and just as the service was beginning my eldest said, "Mom! {insert name} stinks!!! He pooped. You need to change him." He really did stink....bad. But the service is early and has no willing pianist or organist, so it is spoken and quick so I decided to wait and hope baby boy wouldn't fuss in order to save myself the task and not miss the first half of it. Well, that smell just got hotter and more horrible as time passed. I smelled it all the way through confession, I smelled it all the way through the sermon, and then smelled it all the way through the Words of Institution. It was at that moment that the appropriateness of the smell hit me.

"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

Filthy wretched sinner that I am.

"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

So in all our stinky poopiness we approached the Table of our Lord and as if to drive the point home the smell vanished the whole time I was standing there. And I drank deeply of our Lord. And turning refreshed, I went to change the poop where I was reminded that I cannot possibly return to the Table too soon.

Come Soon Lord Jesus! :D

Brilliant

2011-01-22T15:44:00.005-05:00

My Husband Pastor is brilliant. It had to be said. In the past week or so he has given me three new things with which to grow my brain power and better invest my time in these dark days of winter:

Item 1 I have already owned for 7 years...but it has collected dust in a corner as I attempted to find time/money to actually learn to play it. Well, I have met a fine violinist in our town who is actually (gasp!) my age. She is unmarried and was even home schooled. I can hardly wait to begin lessons with her so that I can teach all of my children to play!

Item 2 you all know about already and I am anxiously waiting for it to arrive in the mail either today or Monday.

Item 3, that's right ladies, drool and wish you were me! I will shortly be the proud owner of a L100 Martin Longbow and with lots of practice intend to be out in the fields come Sept 15 to begin learning the art of bow hunting!!! oh yea.

Am I well rounded or what?!

I Can't Remember.

2011-01-17T21:58:00.002-05:00

I had a fantastic idea for a post, you know, super original but extremely thought provoking. I remember where I was when I thought of the idea. I was standing in the kitchen washing dishes as my eldest colored at the kitchen table. I remember what shirt he was wearing. I remember what plate I was holding. But, for the life of me, I cannot remember my idea for this post!!! grrr

The thing is, that seems to be happening more and more. Another think I can't remember is words. You heard me. I had a friend over for dinner and while trying to hold an intelligent conversation with her I kept stuttering and stumbling trying to remember words that would fit in my sentences. Wow.

My husband thwarted the idea of me returning to school. More than anything I would love to study alternative medicine. However, when you live in the middle of nowhere the only options are to either do distance learning (which in this field would be pretty worthless) or travel. Yea, not an option. So instead he bought me a Kind]e. He told me I could learn anything I want without a classroom by simply reading. Sigh. Yes, I suppose, but you miss the BEST part (in my humble opinion) of the classroom experience: PEOPLE. The chance to have others be excited about the same things YOU are excited about. The chance to have other people get excited about YOUR ideas while you get to be excited about theirs. The chance to study, laugh, learn, and have your brain actually WORK instead of turn to mush as you change the millionth filthy diaper.

For 5 1/2 years I've grown, birthed, nursed, and sang the ABC's to 3 children. I've read "Goodnight Moon" a bazillion times and spent countless hours on st@rfall. There's no other way to say it, all this mothering of little ones is making me feel like a stupid worthless fool. I'm bored, I feel caged, and even making lapbooks for a new animal every week for science is proving to be gruelingly grueling.

So I'll do my best to work up the enthusiasm to read about things that no one else in my home will care about or want to hear about and maybe one day they'll appreciate all the money I've saved us using natural remedies instead of paying for prescriptions.

What do you mama's do to keep your spirits up when mommying feels so lame?

Butt-face

2011-01-12T22:01:00.003-05:00

Our eldest is hilarious. Actually, he's quite an amazing little fellow. It's perfect that he's our firstborn because my husband is the firstborn in his family and these two could not be more alike. Hockey boy is opinionated but you would never know it because he only speaks his opinions at opportune times and with the fewest words possible, ok, so maybe not fewest words possible, but come on, he's a kid.

Anyways, as he grows he constantly throws us for a loop with the things he comes up with. Apparently today he was using a word that I was guessing he had heard during his one day a week at our church's preschool. I didn't hear it the first few times he said it. Then, right before bed time he called his little brother a "butt-face" then ran away laughing.

I said in my best disapproving mommy tone, "Excuse me?! What did you call your brother?!" And he smiled as if it was the most hilarious thing anyone ever said and said, "Butt face! It's like a butt, but ON your face!!!" And then burst into hysterics. Well, I couldn't help it, I turned my head and shook with laughter. When I turned back he felt he needed to explain it again, "See mom?!" (puts hands up on either side of face) "you have a BUTT for your FACE!!!"

Well, what could I do? I told him that telling someone that they're face looks like a rear end might just make them feel sad and that if he wants to call something a "butt-face" it should be something inanimate, such as a potty. So potty talk he did. Minutes later, as he brushed his teeth, he happily chattered "butt-face" to the potty. And then his blanket. And then his pillow...

Hey, who you callin' butt-face, butt-face?!

2011-01-09T15:34:00.002-05:00

Today before Divine Service started one of the few members who knew of our pregnancy smiled and asked how I was doing. I had told her earlier in the week that I was having some complications. I had a rough night last night so I dropped my eyes and mumbled that our baby had gone home to the Lord. She immediately rose to hug me and said something that got muffled by her hair. It didn't matter though, she's in her 50s and lost a baby girl, her only girl, late in the pregnancy. I know she knows the pain and the bittersweetness of knowing your baby is free from pain and turmoil but aching because you wish for not only all the mothering moments of holding that baby to your breast but also wishing the child could experience the life we have here. I could hear her heart as she pulled away with tears brimming in her eyes and I felt truly comforted.

Because friends, I know life here sucks sometimes; I know it's a dirty filthy sin-drenched muck of a life....but I know I sure am thankful I am blessed to live it because it's in those worst of moments that my Lord's love is the most overpowering bathing of love and mercy. It's not a feeling, it's not some mushy emotion, it's flesh and blood in my mouth and going down my throat filling me with Christ's forgiveness, peace, joy, and perfection. Love in the flesh. And how can one know the true extent of love if one has not faced the darkest of times and the saddest of moments? For whatever reason it was not for our baby to experience. He or she faced a short troubled pregnancy and then death and that was enough. And our baby is now in peace and perfection for eternity.

After worship another member, who did not know of our pregnancy and is not a mother scolded me for looking sad in church. She then quipped, "Smile, God loves you." I fought back a million inappropriate responses and after hesitating decided I had nothing to hide. I said, "I'm not smiling because I had a miscarriage on Friday and am grieving the loss of our baby. However, I am happy on the inside despite our loss because I know our baby is with the Lord." Well, she looked as if the ground might swallow her and apologized profusely. And that is the other side of this coin. I may be grateful for being allowed to come into this world but just because I have a firm foundation and am brought closer to my Lord in trials doesn't mean I don't sometimes curl up and sob, "Come Soon Lord Jesus!"

So today I'm going to weep, but joy will come in the morning.

The best party ever

2011-01-07T16:37:00.002-05:00

We found out today that our little one has gone home to be with Jesus. I'm thankful that since something was wrong he or she did not suffer a long time and miscarry much later. I am also so thankful that I was allowed to carry the baby for even such a short time. I can't wait to meet our little one in heaven. In the mean time I'm glad my dad gets to be there with our baby :)

Thanks so much for your prayers and support.

Say what?!

2011-01-03T15:30:00.002-05:00

Goodnight comb and goodnight brush, Goodnight nobody, Goodnight mush, and Goodnight to the old lady....who is off drinking lemonade tea. Oh Arnold how I love thee!!!!!

Nothing too Personal

2011-01-02T13:51:00.004-05:00

I get that we live in a day and age when everything from tampons to sexual enhancement drugs are spoken about on TV as if it's something as casual and non-offensive as curtains. But has this affected us so much as to cloud our common sense on when something is non of our darn business?

After sharing some pictures of my kids with a family member, this quiet and usually non-confrontational family member complemented my adorable children and then said "Very nice family, but a girl would make it complete?"

Stunned silence.

Are you serious?

First to insult my boys as if they are not all I have ever wanted and that I would not be completely happy and fulfilled if boys were all I ever had.

Second, to ask such a personal intimate question as to whether or not I will continue to receive relations with my husband openly or whether I will block the blessings of God.

I am stunned. I am of course not at all upset with this family member. She is a dear loved member of our family and I am sure did not mean any offense, it's just amazing to me that people can say such things without thinking about the offense it can cause.

So my answer of course was:

Only the Lord knows that. We'll take as many or as few children as He chooses to give us, even if they're ALL boys. I love my boys!

The weather outside...and in...is frightful...

2011-01-01T20:33:00.002-05:00

Last Sunday my husband's family arrived. We look forward to their visits every year. They love to play cards (as do we) and the food and conversation is always wonderful. Unfortunately this year their visit came with sickness as well.

24 hrs after their arrival my husband's two brothers (college age and high school age) began throwing up. For 12 hrs straight they suffered and then another 12 hrs or so out the other end :-O. Well, at the same time my Father in law came down with a fever, body aches, and a terrible cold. I prayed we would be spared since we have already had terrible colds, vomiting, diarrhea, and body aches. Well, 12 hrs later, as my sister in law and her husband were arriving, my husband went sick . Shortly afterwards my oldest son, then myself and my middle son. However, since we had a houseful of company I did my best to fake feeling well. Though I did not want them to leave I was feeling bad that I was such terrible company and was relieved for THEM that they were leaving Thursday morning. Esp since my father in law's cold was still so bad that he couldnt sleep :(. Well, we woke up Thursday morning to a freak blizzard. There was no way with the roads out here that they could leave. However, it ended up being a great day...even though we all felt bad all of his family had begun healing. So, my mother in law and father in law helped out SOOO much allowing me to relax some.

This morning they hit the road but my middle son and I took a turn for the worse. I can't seem to keep my fever down (it's not high, not over 100) and I'm so congested it feels like my face will explode. On top of it, this once this afternoon and once two days ago I was standing in the kitchen and felt a funny sensation. I went to the bathroom to wipe away a large amt of red blood. However, both times as soon as I went to the bathroom the bleeding stopped with only tiny drops of brown old blood.

I have bled with two of my 3 pregnancies... one for 8 weeks straight (yes, red and decently heavy)!!! But all have led to healthy babies. But still, every time it's very disconcerting. This baby was quite the surprise but it's a surprise from God, a dear blessing, and I so long to bring this next blessing to the font of Holy Baptism. Please pray that the baby will be protected from my sickness and will be kept safe through pregnancy and birth. Your prayers are so much appreciated.

Merry Christmas to me

2010-12-25T23:15:00.000-05:00

Gulp.

2010-12-21T22:15:00.002-05:00

I remember reading a post on one of my favorite blogs quite while ago that really resonated with me. It was about how the author felt when older women would say to her, "One day you'll miss these days." or, "Enjoy those babies, they grow up so quickly!" She made the point that while she loves her little babes and enjoys their little scrunchy cuteness, that what she loves more than anything is seeing them MATURE. Seeing each milestone, each new accomplishment which not only works herself out of a job, but gets that child closer to maturity...both in actions...and ultimately in faith in Christ.

I have felt the same way with my oldest. For 2 years and 3 months he was my only baby. Ohhh did I smother him =) He nursed until he was nearly 2 and slept in my bed until he was nearly 1. I still carried him everywhere when he was 2 and spent my days just listening to him and his cute little ideas. He was the center of my universe.

Two traumatic births later our house is full of laughter and joy but also of busy work. And it hit me today when I snapped at my almost 5 yr old for needing something at what I felt was an inappropriate time... I've been feeling sorry for myself. I've been waiving the "oh poor me" flag because I have 3 kids 4 and under. I sleep in little spurts in the night due to two waking ones, I change about 15 diapers a day...and wash them, etc etc etc. So I've been acting annoyed. Annoyed at my kids for being...kids. "oh I'm so tired" "oh, I have so much to do" "oh I wish I could get a break" "oh I have no friends" "oh I never get to do anything FOR ME". oh you sinful self.

My children are not a burden. MY CHILDREN ARE NOT A BURDEN. They are a BLESSING. How did I get so far off track in treating them like something that poor pitiful me has to put up with?! How did I stop seeing parenting as the privilege it is and start acting like an unjustly enslaved person? How did I stop seeing parenting as the most important and coveted of jobs I could ever attain (in reality, ever be GIVEN) and instead start seeing it as the dirty work of a slave woman, a job that holds me back and gives me nothing in return?

O LORD HAVE MERCY.

I have sinned. Lord I repent. Have mercy on me.

My oldest son is nearly 5 and what I can't figure out is: when did I stop delighting in him for HIM and instead delight in him only for what he can do to help me? If he's making his brothers happy, helping me get diapers, NOT BOTHERING ME, playing ALONE or NICELY with his brothers, then I praise and adore him. But the moment he shows any 4 year oldish "selfishness" I either begrudgingly get him what he wants or snap at him. How is that showing love? How is that saying, "you are so important and special to me"? It's one thing to not be amused with true selfishness...it's another to see ANYTHING that expresses a need that you don't see as a true need as selfishness instead of as an opportunity to show your love and service to a young little person that loves you so much.

My big almost-5-year-old, you are so special to me. You have been such a mature big helper to mommy...so much more than any 4 year old would normally be. You love to help. You love to serve. You are an example every day to what I hope I can be. You are laughter and love, bubbly joy and enthusiasm. You show Christ's love in the most tender of ways to everyone in our home. I love you so much and promise to, with the help of Christ, do better.

Contest #2!!!

2010-12-12T22:22:00.003-05:00

Ok, it's time for this blog to be renamed and restarted. (see below post) We want a place to talk homeschooling, dirty diapers, being alone when our husbands go out for the hundredth middle of the night hospital call, and my inability to know what in the world I'm doing at any given moment in my role of raising children to be God-fearing individuals.

So, the person that comes up with the best idea for a new blog name will have a little Christmas present delivered from one of us here authors.

Hint: the most brilliant blog name I've ever heard is "The Rebellious Pastor's Wife"...it just fits. So help me out!