A good trip to town for groceries (20 minutes away)
Grandma taking us out to Burger King and the kids playing well in the play land with no unruly kids there (mine included)
Finding ds' shoes that he left at our church's "lake lot" Sunday
A sense of ministry with a needy family in town - new friendship with this single mom and ideas for helping them out
Good conversation with my dh while out driving to town - finances doing ok with our business at home, discussed our upcoming trip over labor day to see friends back in the Twin Cities where we used to live
Great time of the kids singing hymns / Bible songs while I played the piano. It got us all out of a negative mood and into an attitude of praising the Lord.
Reading the Bible to my 6 young kids successfully. Feeling like they're actually listening when I read and listening in church as well!
Successfully getting supper-type meal ready for lunch without my dh around with all the kids helping nicely. This process often ends with kids fighting or teasing as they're a little unruly before mealtimes.
Lo's
The dog waking us up at 4:30 A.M. yelping because of the rain. He does have a kennel / shelter but we've had so little rain since getting him, he's not used to dealing with rainy conditions.
Teasing, mean attitudes in some of the children in the morning.
Letting go of our jogging stroller while keeping a good hold of our dog's leash when he saw another dog and then realizing the 2yo had rolled away down the hill and was going off the side of the road and into the weeds and he tipped over into the weeds. Oops - BAD mommy moment. This happened as we were just arriving at my new friend's house in town. Oops!
Finding out a great friend of ours may not be moving closer to us like I thought she might be able to do. They live about an hour away right now.
All in all I'm grateful for this day and all the Lord can teach me through it. I'm especially thankful for his grace through my struggles in parenting and that he can work through any situation!
We have been so blessed in our living location and people we've met since moving into our place this summer. We only live on 1/2 acre with no shade trees (although we transplanted 2 that are fairly small). It's great for gardening but doesn't have much else. All around us is vacant land. Behind us and on either side of us are Christmas trees. Across the street from us is an apple tree on some land where there are just a few garages that someone owns who doesn't live around here. Diagonally across from us is vacant land that someone from our church owns who lives elsewhere. On his land there are a number of apple trees with lots of apples on them.
We hadn't seen anyone coming to take any of the apples and checked to see who owned the land. We saw the owner who attends our church today and asked about the apples. He only takes a few for the dear and otherwise they're free for the taking! We made one large ice-cream bucket-full of applesauce already from the apples. I LOVE homemade applesauce and am so grateful to have such great trees with great apples on them! I'm surprised they're already ripe and falling off the trees!
We also have continued to go to another new friend from church's house who has tart cherry trees. We've made the best cherry pie filling / cherry topping from them. What a blessing to have these wonderful trees to be blessed with their fruit even though we don't have the land that we want yet to have our own trees and homestead fruits! God has been so faithful to us!
We've recently changed churches (long story). The new church we're going to so far seems to be a good fit for us. It's out in our rural community so the people who attend are primarily rural farm-type people. I love being around people with the same country interests we have!
One family who we met recently also homeschools and has a number of children ranging from already graduated and married down to around 5 years old. They live only about 5 minutes from here. Last Sunday they invited us over to their place to pick cherries (tart cherries) from their cherry trees and go swimming in their pool. We were happy to accept the invitation! So tonight we drove over to their beautiful homestead. They have a beautiful place in the woods with 37 acres. The yard area has a nice large garden, at least 10 apple trees, 4+ cherry trees, grapes, flowers, the pool... The Lord has blessed them greatly. They are debt free and love to give of the abundance they've been given.
The kids loved the cherry picking and of course had a BLAST swimming in their pool. They were so excited all day looking forward to it! We enjoyed chatting with the parents. We were invited back to pick more cherries as they said they have all the cherries they want and others have taken what they want. We're always invited to swim when we come! They even said that when they're on vacation we're welcome to come use the pool!
How neat it is to see a family blessed by the Lord, walking in his ways, and giving of what they've been given! Though I don't have the abundance they do, I pray that I will be as giving of what I do have to others. We all have many ways we can serve and give to others as we follow God and his guidance each day!
Here's pics of our new dog, Hooper! All is going well with him. He's really quite good and training is going welll. We're getting him plenty of exercise and in-between he mostly just lies around so that's a good deal for a young dog!
My 8 -year-old ds who loves having a dog!
Dh exercising our dog! I joke that the dog is his personal trainer as he's now regularly exercising more than before!
Thankfully the dog is great with our baby and all the kids!
Today we went and got a dog off of freecycle! It was nice to not have to pay a lot of money. We got a 9mo. black lab / German shepherd mix named Hooper. He is a nice dog who was raised with children. The mom is going back to work in Sept. and doesn't have enough time for this rambunctious dog and they already have another dog as well so they gave him away to us!
We made a long drive (2 1/2 hours) to get him. He definitely needs some training work although they worked with him some. Right after we got him home my son was playing with him and he was on his retractable leash and he got to the end of it and it jerked out of my 8yo ds' hand and he was loose running around. We chased him to over by a neighbor a couple of blocks away in distance where he stopped outside the fence of their dogs. At least it gave us a chance to meet and get to know our neighbors better!
I know these next few days/weeks will be the hardest time I'm sure adjusting to him and having him get used to being here. Hopefully it won't be too hard! I'm not experienced with dogs and dog training so it will definitely be a learning experience! I'll have to post pics soon!
Many of you probably know who Nancy Campbell is from Above Rubies. (see www.aboverubies.org if you're not familiar with this ministry) Tomorrow she and her husband will be about an hour from us doing a family seminar. I'm excited to attend and be inspired in my mothering. I have really appreciated the magazines and am excited to meet her and other like-minded people out here. It could be interesting as I need to bring my whole family (6 kids 8 and under) and keep them busy all day there, so we'll see how much I get out of it!
P.S. If you do get the magazine, I had an article I wrote in there about computers and children.
This week I've been busy with a visit from my parents. They live in the Chicago area and we're in northern WI. They come up a couple of times to visit. Generally these visits go well. My parents are wonderful Christian parents who love the Lord and pray for us daily. They try to support us and help us. Whenever I give birth to a baby, they will come up for a week or two to stay and help out. They generally try to help when they're here.
Because this is how they generally are, I can tend to think that when they come, things will go smoothly, I'll have more help and it will be a great visit. Unfortunately what has happened in the past is that because of my expectations, I set myself up for frustrations. Often they'll want to take time to read their Bibles and this will sometimes happen just during that time of day when I might want a little help like when cleaning up after breakfast. Or they may decide they need their exercise and take off on a walk or trip that takes them away for a long period of time.
Now the selfish me will want them there with us all the time and will want them there to help me during meal times and all. It's like I still want my mom to serve me and help me. I slowly am learning that when they come, it's my job to serve them and not have too big of expectations of them. I struggled with that a bit today when it was almost lunch time and neither of them were to be seen and I was trying to get a meal-like supper on the table and the kids were having struggles with fighting etc. I had an inward struggle with surrendering my desire for their help and expectations of this to joyfully serve them.
They are getting older and are slowing down. They do get a little tired of the noise of our busy household. If I see things from their perspective instead of my selfish one, I can change to having a servant attitude towards them.
So much of life involves surrendering. Surrendering my selfish desires to the call the Lord has for me. I think some of the reason why I think parenting has gotten so much easier after having my first 4 kids, is that I've learned to mentally surrender to the idea of getting perfect sleep, having time for myself etc... I am content with where the Lord has me and love my job as a mom. I'm not fighting certain aspects of motherhood. Now if I could just do this in relation to my parents! May I learn to honor, respect and serve my parents not expecting anything in return from them!
This past year we started a chore chart system for organizing housework. We haven't been too dilligent about doing everything the way it was set up recently. I think it's partly because of the summer. It's too nice to be able to run outside.
This past winter in the evening I had scheduled a pick-up time before snack and bedtime. We would pick up the house and do a few cleaning jobs at that time. With summer, we find ourselves tending to get outside after supper and stay out until it's getting late (especially with it not getting dark until 10:00). It's too hard to make everyone come in to clean up once we're outside.
Instead what we do is have picking up the house and maybe one other cleaning job scheduled as a part of our after supper clean-up. Once supper is done, the kids clear the table. My dh washes the dishes. A couple kids sweep the floor and wipe the high chair and load the dishwasher. Then they go off and pick up their rooms first and then pick up the rest of the house. They may get another job depending on the day. They must do these jobs before going outside so they're fairly motivated at this time!
It's so nice to come back in and get ready for bed with the house all picked up! Makes us feel so much better about heading into the next day! It also makes it easy to pick up if someone is going to stop by because our house is getting picked up every day.
Lately I've been re-thinking my position on letting my kids tell me about the bad things others in the house are doing. In the past, I had heard people talk about not allowing their kids to tattle and I've been kind of negative on my older kids when they've told me the bad things the younger ones are doing. Sometimes they tell these things to get them in trouble, or the things they tell me aren't really that bad or important.
More recently I've been realizing a lot of my not wanting them to tattle has been more of a not wanting to deal with their misbehaviors on my part. I've seen how this has caused my oldest son to be resentful of them because of the things they get away with. I've realized that I need to truly "crack down" on their behaviors. Typically my oldest son truly has good intentions when he tells most things. He really wants the best for them or is frustrated by the things they're doing.
I now feel bad about how I've dealt with things and have apologized to him. I'm hoping to have more of a balanced approach of letting him tell me things they do and dealing with them. I sense that as I persist in this, their behavior which has become more out of control, will improve greatly.
I also have sensed that I need to have them closer by me - especially the younger ones, so that I can catch problems sooner and am more aware of everything that is happening. It's easy to want to send them off to play together, but I'm seeing now that this has been a cause of many troubles and frustrations. So it's time to get to work in dilligently training my children, time to keep them near - not selfishly desire peace and quiet away from them while they play, and time to lean on the Lord and his wisdom.
We got out the sprinkler for the first time today and enjoyed some sprinkler fun! The leaves are finally popping out and flowers are starting to come out. How wonderful to enjoy spring! Here's some pics!
Standing in the water spray!
What a glorious day!
Running Through
Bringing mommy water from the sprinkler
8 months old today! Wearing mom's old baby clothes!
I love the view down the dirt road from our yard.
The big river is just a bit past the Christmas trees where the big trees are!
Now that we're moved in I'm looking to put up a clothesline. I haven't had a clothesline since I was a young child at home. My mom dried some things on the line, but not religiously or anything. Now that I got an energy-efficient front-load washer that gets the clothes 1/2 dry already, I'm ready to try hanging things outside. I'm fortunate that my laundry is in the entry of my house so it will be quick and easy to take it outside.
Any tips for getting something set up? I'd like to not spend much $. My dh is fairly handy and could put something together with a little direction. I'd kind of like either a T-pole type construction or a wooden design of some sort. Ideally I'd like the pole part to double as a place to hang a baby swing for my 8 mo. old. The umbrella-type lines seem fairly cheap and easy but I couldn't use it for a baby swing. Do they get enough of a breeze since there are so many clothes close together? It seems that clothes would take longer to dry on one of them than on a longer line. Anyways, any clothesline tips would be greatly appreciated!
I've always been interested in how families long ago survived and thrived without all the "stuff" that we have today. Back then there weren't bikes, legos, basketball hoops and balls, play dump trucks and sand boxes, little people and the list goes on and on! We have so much STUFF these days. We're moving again in a week and I know even though I've gotten rid of a lot of STUFF, we still have too much of it.
The other day I was encouraging my kids to play with the stuff of nature. It started by my getting down on the ground with one of my 4yo twins and helping him build a "house". We had found some moss on the ground and my twin boys were pretending it was a carpet. We started our house by sticking stuff into the moss and making "people" out of sticks. We were able to prop up some sticks for a "doorway" and from there my twin boys took off in their creativity. It was a lot of fun to watch them use sticks, rocks, and moss to construct a house!
Other activities they have enjoyed doing using only nature items include building pretend fires, building a fort out of sticks/dead branches in the woodsy area of our yard, and digging for "treasure" using sticks to dig with. We were lying on the ground in a sandy/gravelly area of our driveway and seeing what rocks and other things would turn up when we dug. What a joy to watch our children's creativity grow with the simple, free things in life! So get outside and lie on the ground with your kids and discover God's wonderful creation with them. You'll be amazed to see what creative, imaginative things they think of and do!
Jill from The Dash of Life shared her birth stories in abbreviated fashion so I thought I'd post mine as well!
I never really wanted epidurals, but my first 4 births I had them, then my last one I had a homebirth so of course no epidural there!
Son - 8 - He was due Dec. 21st so I was hoping to have him before Christmas. On my due date the stripped my membranes which put me in early labor. On the 22nd I went into real labor about 1:30 and went to the hospital. Water broke not too long after and had contractions I didn't know how to manage and started throwing up. Decided to get an epidural which may have actually sped things up as they spaced out my contractions and made them more effective (they had been piggy-backing). Started to push around 6:00 and he was born a bit later at 6:17! He was 8lb 11oz! My biggest baby so far has been my first!
Daughter - almost 6 - She was born a day before her due date. It was all very similar to the previous birth. Went into the hospital with strong labor at 1:30 a.m. Ended up with horrible contractions and vomiting after a while. Got an epidural. She was born at 6:44 a.m. and was 7lb 1oz.
Twin boys - 4 - I was fortunate to have a "perfect" twin pg! Made it almost to 38 weeks with them. I had had my membranes stripped to try to get things going earlier in the day. Left around 6:30 for the hospital after I was pretty sure I was in labor. Decided to get an epidural BEFORE throwing up since with twins, there are lots of uncertainties with the delivery and all and I had handled epidurals well before. After the epidural, they broke my water and not too long later they were ready to be delivered. They wheeled me into the "operating room" to deliver "just in case". Had about 12 medical personnel there plus my husband and my 2 friends who were lucky enough to sneak in with cameras/videocameras! Twin A was born at 10:19 and Twin B was born 10 min. later. All went very smoothly! They were 6lb 10oz and 7lb 6oz! A lot of baby! They were healthy and went home with me right away!
Son - 2 - He was my most frustrtating/longest birth. I had group B strep and they wanted to do the antibiotics - 2 doses at least 4 hours apart before giving birth. So I had to get to the hospital on the early side since I usually deliver around 4 hours after going in. Went in early Thanksgiving morning just after midnight. Stalled out my labor by getting into the tub after my first dose of antibiotics. Got my 2nd dose and was out of labor. The nurses let me sleep a bit before checking with the doc. During that time ds had a concerning heart deceleration so they wanted to break my water and possibly do pitocin to get things going. I was bummed as I had wanted to go without an epidural but was already exhausted and knowing I would have pitocin just gave in and got an epidural. He ended up being born at 11:56 Thanksgiving day with the cord wrapped tight around his neck - they cut it off while his head was delivered but he cried a little with just his head delivered! He was just fine! He was 7lb 10oz.
Daughter - almost 7 mo. - She was my first homebirth! I didn't want a repeat of the Group B strep thing which they would have automatically treated me for which I didn't agree with. I also had been wanting to do a homebirth! Here's the full story of the birth of you're interested! She was born on her due date after several days of false labor that thankfully only came during the daytime so I slept well at night. I went into labor in the late afternoon. Friends were coming over for pizza and to camp in our yard (long story - see the full version!). They showed up around 6:00 and I was getting a little stressed with 9 kids ages 7 and under running around so I disappeared upstairs while they did supper then went outside with my friends. My mil and doula came soon. Moved to labor in our small bedroom. My 2 midwives showed up at around 8:30 and 9:00 I leaned on a birthing ball and moaned and had my dh massage my low back which felt good even though I didn't have back labor. He was in and out a bit coordinating helpers getting the kids down to bed. I was ready to push by 9:15 or so and my dd was born at 9:30 with my husband catching her! He announced she was a girl (after 3 boys in a row and making it 4 boys 2 girls instead of 5 boys 1 girl)! She was 7lb 8oz.
So that's been it so far! It was so nice just being home after the homebirth and not leaving my kids. They all were still awake/up after my dd was born and all came in to see us pretty quickly after the birth which was neat!
We enjoyed some sledding fun today and I finally got my camera out for some pics! This is a small hill in our back yard of our rental place - just big enough for the kids to enjoy but not too big for the little ones!
Here's Our Meals For The Week! Let me know if you want any of the recipes!
Monday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - leftover sloppy joes with homemade buns
Tuesday:
Breakfast - Raisin Bran muffins and fruit
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Gone to my brother's house
Wednesday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Cottage Pie (like Shepherds Pie - ground beef mixture with mashed potatoes and cheese on top)
Thursday:
Breakfast - baked oatmeal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Ham and Bean Soup
Friday:
Breakfast - polenta
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Tortillas with cheese, meat, refried beans and corn
Saturday:
Breakfast - polenta
Lunch - Macaroni and cheese and salad
Supper - Potato / ham casserole
Sunday:
Breakfast - scrambled eggs and cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Stromboli - bread crust folded over with pizza-type stuff inside
Most lunch meals also include a fruit or veggie.
Most supper meals also include a salad or other veggies, maybe some
homemade muffins or bread, and often some fruit.
My menu planning got a little off from our being gone over the week-end, so here's our menu from now until the end of next week! Let me know if you want any of the recipes! Friday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - ground beef / brown rice casserole
Saturday: Gone on a day trip after pancakes for breakfast
Sunday:
Breakfast - scrambled eggs and cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - homemade pizza and salad
Monday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - pork chops
Tuesday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Leftover lentils
Wednesday:
Breakfast - polenta (cooked cornmeal mixture made into a loaf, then fried)
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Spaghetti
Thursday:
Breakfast - baked oatmeal or regular cooked oatmeal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - tuna wedges
Friday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - broccoli soup and banana bread
Saturday:
Breakfast - waffles
Lunch - macaroni and cheese and leftovers and salad
Supper - leftovers
Sunday:
Breakfast - scrambled eggs and cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Cottage Pie (like Shepherds Pie - ground beef mixture with mashed potatoes and cheese on top)
Most lunch meals also include a fruit or veggie. Most supper meals also
include a salad or other veggies, maybe some homemade muffins or bread,
and often some fruit.
One thing I've been convicted about is to make my husband a true priority in my life. I like Cam's post
on this One thing I've tried to do in the past was to have things
cleaned up and looking nice when my husband came home. Many people try
to do this. One addition to this routine that I did was to have a
bite-sized snack for my husband when he came home. As soon as we saw
that he was coming we'd gather at the door and I would have either a
bite of something I was cooking or just something else I knew he'd
like, and as he came in the door I'd give him a kiss and his bite of
something to eat! I'd just put it in his mouth and he wouldn't know
what it was I was about to give him, so there was a bit of a surprise
anticipation to the whole thing.
Of course now he works from home since we started our new business
selling ink refills/cartridges etc. so now I find I'm not being as
intentional as I was in doing things for him since he's around all the
time. I'll need to work on that and think of something new I think!
Thanks Cam for getting me thinking about this more!
Friday night and Saturday morning was haircutting time in our house!
Friday night I did my Cora's hair (5 1/2) - actually did a full cut for
the first time in a while. I struggled a bit with it and it ended up
shorter than I wanted. It had been fairly long. The picture doesn't
show it very well - especially with her wavy hair. I wanted to do some
layers, but it didn't work. Oh well - maybe next time!
Then Sat. morning I did the 4 boys.
Judah - our 2yo, is afraid of having it done. I use clippers and he
sits on my lap and screams while I do it. I figure it's better to just
do it with him screaming with the clippers and be done faster, than to
take a long time with him still crying some and doing it with scissors.
Devin also cried quite a bit this time when I did it. He hates getting
any hair in his face and screams with that. Does anyone have any good
tips for keeping hair out of the face when giving haircuts? I'm not
good at that and that's part of the reason why my younger boys hate
getting their hair cut. Wish I were better at it!
Derek did a little better with the haircut, although
he's the one who should be the most afraid. A while back I had some bad
clippers and he got cut on his ear by the clippers. Then another time I
was giving him a little trim around his ears while he was in the tub
and was also holding the baby at the time and snipped his ear a bit!
OOPS! Anyways, he gets a little nervous when I cut around his ears for
good reason! Thankfully he didn't cry Sat., just was nervous and kept
asking when I'd be done.
Thankfully my 8yo son has learned to sit nicely and
doesn't complain too much about it! Nice to have one fairly quick,
peaceful cut!!!
I do let them watch a video or something while I do it. Haircuts and sicknesses are about the only times we do videos/TV. By the end of the haircutting I'm a bit tired and glad it's all done for a couple of months hopefully!
Here's Our Meals For The Week! Let me know if you want any of the recipes!
Monday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - pork chops
Tuesday:
Breakfast - Baked Oatmeal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Leftover soup
Wednesday:
Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Creamy Garlic Chicken
Thursday:
Breakfast - leftover pancakes from the freezer
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Potato Corn Chowder
Friday:
Breakfast - polenta
Lunch - sandwiches with homemade bread
Supper - Gone out of town
Saturday: Gone out of town Sunday: Gone out of town
Most lunch meals also include a fruit or veggie.
Most supper meals also include a salad or other veggies, maybe some
homemade muffins or bread, and often some fruit.
Aprons – Y/N? If Y, what does
your favorite look like? No - I've just never gotten used to wearing one..
Baking – Favorite thing to bake
Healthy Quick breads like banana bread or applesauce bread etc...
Clothesline – Y/N?
Not yet - am hoping to get one once we get our land / house.
Donuts – Have you ever made them?
nope
Every day – One homemaking thing
you do every day
Cook meals
Freezer – Do you have a separate
deep freeze?
Yes, although right now in our rental, we don't have a place for it, but being it's winter, our storage area attached to our house makes a good freezer!
Garbage Disposal – Y/N?
No - live in the country with a septic
Handbook – What is your favorite
homemaking resource?
The MOMYS cookbook!
Ironing – Love it or hate it? Or
hate it but love the results?
I don't iron usually - our clothes are all pretty good without and I just spray things with water and smooth them out and hang them.
Junk drawer – Y/N? Where is it?
Yes - in the kitchen
Kitchen – Color and decorating
scheme
Off-white with gray counters and light wood cupboards - very nicely done!
Love – What is your favorite
part of homemaking?
Coming up with healthy, cheap meals to cook for the family
Mop – Y/N? No - I have the kids wipe the floors with a rag usually
Nylons – Wash by hand or in the
washing machine? By hand
Oven – Do you use the window or
open the oven to check? I open the door
Pizza
– What do you put on yours? Usually just pepperoni
Quiet – What do you do during
the day when you get a quiet moment? catch up on e-mail
Recipe card box – Y/N? What does
it look like? I have a recipe notebook with recipes I've printed off the computer that we use. Most of them are also stored in my computer cookbook
Style of house – What style is
your house? Old 2-story
Tablecloths and napkins – Y/N? We have a vinyl tablecloth - don't regularly put out napkins
Under the kitchen sink –
Organized or toxic wasteland? fairly organized
Vacuum – How many times per week? Not enough - that's all I'll say!
Wash – How many loads
of laundry do you do per week? Only about 5 but it's winter and my dh doesn't have "work clothes"
X’s – Do you keep a daily list
of things to do that you cross off? No
Yard – Y/N? Who does what? Yes - we're renting and have 40 acres but just a little of it is yard. Dh does the mowing. The kids and I do the rest.
Zzz’s – What is your last
homemaking task for the day before going to bed? Snack time with the kids before their bedtime
My 8 -year-old ds who loves having a dog!
Dh exercising our dog! I joke that the dog is his personal trainer as he's now regularly exercising more than before!
Thankfully the dog is great with our baby and all the kids!
Standing in the water spray!
What a glorious day!
Running Through
Bringing mommy water from the sprinkler
8 months old today! Wearing mom's old baby clothes!
I love the view down the dirt road from our yard. 
Our Journey Into The Country - A Faith Walk