this will have to do for now...

i have had 426 different blog post ideas. and yet...have not had time to post them. then i get around to posting and there's so much to catch up on that i change my mind. thus the last post of just pictures.

school started and things got busy. we're not even IN school. but extra jobs picked up, lifegroups started, weddings, a humungo women's event, little things here and there filling ALL the time up.

i love each thing, but it gets to be too much! i'm still striving for THIS.

so last week i quit my mother's day out job. and we're hopefully going to be dropping a few other things soon. and i'm sooooo looking forward to the time here. everyone is happier when we have our schedule at home, and there's time to BREATHE.

unbelievably my middle baby turned 3 this week. that's no longer baby.

i have this weird thing when my kids get further along into the year they are in...they seem HUGE for a 2 year old. or huge for a 4 year old. but once they are officially the next age, they seem little to me 'for a 3 year old'. i realize neither rex nor gus could be considered small by any standard, but suddenly gus seems a little 'littler' to me, now that he's officially 3.

he's fiesty, that one, and we did NOT want to mess with a toddler bed when i was pregnant with leo...or when i had a newborn. after much thought we decided not to fix what wasn't broken and just get another crib. we bought a bunkbed over a year ago...saying we'd put it up when he was 3. well ta da! i know better than to jinx it...but so far...

pictures...real post coming...

good plan

well i gotta say i've stuck with that 'bible time' thing and it has been so fun. and productive. nice when something works! a few days ago we learned "do everything without complaining, phil 2:14"...gus's version is "do everything without whining" ;-) kevin was home for lunch one day and said he didn't want to go back, and rex straight called him out on it and quoted the verse. boo ya.

i've been meaning to come up with a more specific schedule for our days at home. today i finally started one and it worked great.
7-8:30 boys wake up, eat, get dressed, brush teeth [rex sleeps later...gus plays his little "twain compoota" while we wait on him]
8:30 bible time
8:45 color/worksheet/something at the table while i wash breakfast dishes
9:00 play
10:00 snack
10:15 chores
10:30 play
11:15 lunch
11:45 boys clean up room
12:00 gus nap

then rex and i hang out...do some more school work type stuff...clean up...sometimes watch a movie or let him play his leapster.

it's been a GOOD day.

a few pics to prove it.

working on 'homework'

yeah he's wearing a head band. he's awesome. i also just noticed he's using his right hand. thought he was a lefty. make up your mind gus!





boys are weird.



look at all these teeth!!




another reason things have been going well, is i've been implementing some duggar rules. i know people talk a lot of trash about them, but i love me some duggars. they do a great job with those kids! i got to go see her speak last week, and she had some FABULOUS ideas on things to do with preschoolers, discipline-wise. i keep meaning to type my notes up...and i will....but seeing some nice results! my favorite is replacing 'yes mam' with 'yes mam, i'd be happy to'. oh my word it's so cute and cheerful. love it.

waves

i often notice our life moving in waves. waves of super easy, every one gets along, organized, simple and lovely. we look at our kids and think, "how did we deserve this?"
ah....
...often followed by waves of stress, general unrest, busyness, chaos and "omg. did we create these monsters? didn't we use to like them? "
agh!!!!

what generally happens at the end of one the 'bad' waves...is i pout for a bit. "things are so hard! i screwed all this up!"... then i snap out of that and decide things are bad because i let them get that way, and i shape up. i work harder at our routines. i take more time for myself and kevin. i'm more consistent with the kids. i work hard at fixing the things that had gotten out of control.

and i stick with it.


for a week or two. or sometimes a month.


then i start to slack again...something stresses me out and i let it effect me. i let the kids notice. they start taking advantage of me not being totally on the ball and start acting out. then i'm stressed that they aren't obeying. i'm working so hard to referee some days that my house gets trashed. and if you know me at all you know i hardly function if my house isn't as clean as i like it. then kevin gets home from work and i'm frazzled, no dinner, and i'm asking for help because the kids are whining and i didn't finish what i wanted to.
he must love that!!;-)


agh! how did it get out of control so fast?!
so i pout for a day. then i decide to snap out of it.
and another wave starts.
so i get a plan.
and when i get a new plan i'm always sure it will last. "this time we will not sink back into that nutty life we were living!"
maybe this time it will.

if you didn't see this coming....i started a new plan.
because your attitude determines your altitude[insert cheesy poster of killer whale leaping out of the ocean]. bahahaha. i hate that saying. but really, i can get a BAD attitude. and it's contagious. but i can also have a good attitude, and that's definitely contagious too. especially with the kids.

part of this past 'bad wave' was the boys fighting. a lot. and part of my new plan, is bible time on the couch in the mornings. i have my coffee and my 3 still pj'd boys...and we get their little bible and read. and then we work on verses, and we pray. and THAT my friends, is a good way to start the day.

so far we've done 2 verses. verses we've learned before, but i want to keep track of which ones they know so i started over. i was going to do a verse a week, but they learned it so quickly i think we'll do two.

"children, obey your parents" col 3:20
and "be kind and loving to each other" eph 4:32

i'm making them each an index card with their own verse, and putting them on the door in the kitchen. here they are practicing this morning.



i absolutely adore that gus barely speaks in sentences, but the kid can recite a verse. makes me happy.
and i'm not even making this up. they have been WAY better the past few days. sweeter to each other. sweeter to ME. ah....how i love when something i come up with WORKS!


hopefully we can ride this wave for a while.

Psalm 93:4
Mightier than the thunders of many waters,
mightier than the waves of the sea,
the LORD on high is mighty!

(in no order...some pictures from the past week or so.... )

well i can't let that post there long!

because i promised a more chipper one pronto. and i can do that genuinely, because life is good.





almost 9 months old and finally sitting up for a few minutes at a time!

other boys were about 6-6.5 months when they did this. but they were both about 10-11 months before they crawled, and this little guy is days away from being FAST.


this was a few weeks ago before his top teeth cut through. i miss those gums!


i love to capture quiet, non-forced, chilled out activities that my kids find. probably because it's not super often that i think, "wow...it's been quiet too long, better check..." and it's NOT some kind of mess. so it's such a relief to find things like these...



since this big boy COULD be going to K this week, i figure we should be more organized doing some school-ish stuff. this is not my favorite. i'd rather play. but i'm trying to do at least a page or two of stuff like this a day.





i don't toot my own horn on many things parenting...but dad gummit, i can make my kids laugh. and it's fun. i had a clothes pin on my nose saying in the squeaky weird voice that makes, "put the clothes in the bucket!" apparently it sounded funny. gus STILL says it.



btw, giving kids the chores you hate, but they love? awesome.




after a lovely turn of events, turns out my boys will get to go to mother's day out this year. today was the 1st day of school:-)


they seemed to have a great day. i got this house amazingly clean. everyone wins!

so this is gross, but it's my blog, and it's funny. so i pick up rex from his room, and he immediately says he needs to go potty. i tell him we are going home right then so let's wait...but he goes on in and apparently needs to go bad. he starts at the urinal...then i hear him say, "oh wait, i think i need to go poopoo"...and with his pants around his ankles he waddles to a stall...then he says, "oh dear lordy i think i need to go diarrhea!!"
and, well sure enough he did. but that was about the funniest thing i'd heard all day.
pretty sure they drink too much juice there.

before and after

i like to keep this blog pretty upbeat. post about the great stuff i love, because that's the stuff i want to look back on and remember.

so i've been waiting on some blog inspiration. and it hasn't all been bad,
but let's be real here folks, the last couple weeks have been rough!

i am soooo thrilled we went on vacation. that we had some really, truly refreshing "us" time. i really feel like God was using that to fuel us up for the weeks to follow it.


so this post is the before. the yuck. the not so awesome....but to be surely followed by a great post where things turned back up. (plus that illustration makes gus's creepy feet make more sense in here. )
before:

kevin's teaching job hunt has been exhausting. depressing. exciting. draining. we put a lot of money and time into this program...and really felt strong direction in each decision we made on it. so we kept on with it. and nothin'. until a couple weeks ago. FINALLY a potential job...that he had a shot at. and we were sure he had it. it was a pay cut to work at this particular school, but it was a foot in the door and we'd have taken it in a heartbeat. and when he didn't get it we were so. sad. i couldn't even call our friends and family who knew about it. we didn't realize how high we'd put our hopes in this, until they were dashed.
but a few days and we had snapped out of it.

and a few days after that i lost my sweeeeeet babysitting job. i loved watching that little girl. and the money was a bonus. the kids adored her, she was sweet, obedient and just easy to have around. plus it was fun to shop and paint toenails now and then. i didn't realize how sweet i was being paid until i started looking for another kid to take in to take her spot. average around here is less than half what i made watching her.

so hindsight, good thing kevin didn't get the pay cut teaching job!
but this is not exactly what we were counting on for this fall. we had envisioned kevin teaching, weekends off, MDO for me, dave ramsey steps getting knocked off our to do list. so all this...plus throw in a big A/C repair bill, kevin not feeling awesome, and our list of "really need to fix this" things growing.

i like change when it's fun things like rearranging furniture. or new clothes. i do NOT like change when it rocks your whole plan. but, we will roll with the punches. on september 1st, kevin can no longer get a job teaching. if we want to try again, we will have to wait until next summer, redo the program[meaning paying again]...and hope another year of job hunting will result in his dream job. (we certainly realize something could come up in the next 2 weeks. we're just praying kevin is where/gets put where he's supposed to be.)


i'm sure we'll look back at this rough patch and see what God was up to, and be thankful it all went down like this.




it's easy to have a great marriage when things are easy. when the kids obey. when the house is clean. when there's plenty of money. when everyone is healthy.
it's hard when things get chaotic.
and we've definitely had plenty of rough spots in our life that spiraled into our relationship, making things worse than they had to be.
the last month has thrown some of the biggest curve balls we've seen. but this time we're handling it differently. better.

maybe slowly, but surely we're realizing it always does work out. and we're always better for it.

so the end of this summer can be our nasty skanky feet season.
but we'll scrub up and push through, and go to bed with squeaky clean footsies.



and sleep good.
because we'll do this.

"give your burdens to the Lord and He will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall." ps. 55:22