Love is Patient!

It has been a VERY challenging day.  I struggle with the ability to be patient when trying to "do" school with the BOYS.  Every day I pray and ask the Lord to help me see my boys being children and enjoy the way He made boys to be.  But I am a girl!!!!  How can I communicate to boys so they under stand what I want them to do?  I love to read to the 5yr old and almost 3 yr. old and they love to listen.  They actually sit still, until one of my older kids has a question about their school.  Once my attention is off the younger two, poof they are gone.  Mentally and physically.  I can't seem to corral them back either.  Then I fail miserably and yell.  I see the hurt it causes my children and the mental game that satan plays in my head afterwards.  I instantly know it is SIN.  So I quickly as for forgiveness and hope that my children remember my acknowledgement of my sin and repentance and not the act of "yelling."  So what does it mean to be patient?  According to the American Dictionary of the English Language 1828, it is 1. Having the quality of enduring evils without murmuring or fretfulness; sustaining afflictions of body or mind with fortitude, calmness or christian submission to the divine will.    2. Not easily provoked;  3. Persevering, calmly diligent.     WOW!  I am NOT these, not even close.  I hate it when I yell so maybe that is the starting point.

I do struggle to see the little boy in my 3 yr old.  He is out of this world curious and into EVERYTHING!  I love it but am not sure how to use his design for Gods glory.  Here is a picture of what is did in a matter of 1 min. while I was trying to go over a math test with our 11yr old.   Of course this is right before "quiet time!"

I know the Lord is making me more like him.  Boy, my will is strong!  LOL!

4 Days on GAPS Intro.

We are on day four of the GAPS intro diet.  Here is our experience thus far.  Day one no real physical or emotional changes.  Day 2 my 4 children on GAPS woke up with the shakes.  Had to help them out with a little apple sauce and a date.  Emotional let downs in the morning because no one wants "soup" for breakfast.  But that is all we have. :)    My daughter was a true delight the rest of the day.  She usually as some sort of an attitude most of the time. The oldest does not complain too much and knows that we can only eat certain things so he just eats it.  My third child, age 5 melts down off and on all day.  He is the one that needs this the most due to all the food sensitivities.  My 4th, is almost 3.  We modify it for him.  He has no visible allergies so we allow homemade yogurt in the morning and homemade apple sauce.  I did notice on day 4 this morning that after he ate he had an emotional breakdown.  Not so yesterday when he didn't have yogurt and applesauce.  Have to consider what is happening....  For myself because I am breastfeeding a 5 month old I have to consume a lot of food and at night when my kiddos go to be I have two soft boiled eggs and homemade yogurt to keep my milk supply in good shape and a ripe banana.  The effect on our 5 month old is that his dry skin is getting better.  He should be the next child in line to get all the allergies.  They typically skip children.  So I am anxious to see if we can avoid this by changing my body.  Day 3 and  4 in the morning everyone woke up good with no shakiness.   The kids can't wait to add something new and the applesauce they did have they LOVED like never before.  I have also noticed that I have had no "anger/frustration" issues.  I have been able to handle all emotional challenges with my kiddos very nicely.  That feels great too me emotionally.

Summer Update

Well if you haven't seen it on the news yet it is HOT here. The last couple of days have been about 115 degrees. I know it is going to be a long hot summer! Truitt is now 3 months old and just a joy. Still a very happy easy baby and gets so much love from the other siblings. Here are some pictures. Brinnlee has now lost two teeth; Merrick plays with Truitt by putting all the toys on him while he is in the bouncy seat. Truitt didn' seem to mind; Cool down with a popsicle at 8pm when the temp. is still 100 degrees plus. I have to get that energy out of the boys some how!!

Whats new?

A lot is new around here. We had our fifth child March 27th, Truitt Dean. He is a" tru" delight! The easiest baby I have ever had. You would not know we had a baby in the house. We started school back up about 3 weeks ago and all is going well. Trying new things in the kitchen with Nourishing Traditions cooking methods and so far so good. Trying to teach my children responsibility........... Going to baseball games. Here are a couple of pictures. I have the best helpers too! The Lord continues to amaze me every day!

What do boys do for fun?

Well it depends on their age. The oldest will always push the younger ones around, on a tractor or in a car. The middle one will use the hose to spray them as they race across the yard and the youngest LOVES every minute of it all. He just gets carried and placed wherever the oldest wants him and goes along for the ride. The oldest will think a little and put on a bathing suit, the middle will just take his clothes off to his underwear and the youngest will have his diaper taken off for him and run around in the buff. My daughter and I were crying because we were laughing so hard.

Now if you are in doors and you don't hear your two year old run quick and see what is up or send one of the older children to check on them. Don't be surprised by what you might find......finger painting on himself. Boys will be boys.

First Hair Cut

You know most moms have so many jobs and one of mine is the "barber." I must be descent because I get approval from my hubby and his father has been a "real barber" for over 40 years. I thought it was time to cut Merrick's hair for real. He is going to be turning two at the end of the month and I know we will be taking pictures so why not with a new cut. You can see by the pictures he does not like the clippers and I am amazed he came out of it with any hair. Brinnlee and Clayton were excellent helpers. Brinnlee was the photographer. Of course there had to be a treat and he was a happy boy even after all the trauma. We have the best "job's" in the world!!! Thank you Lord for making me a mommy.

Camping

Our first family camping trip in a l o n g time. We had a blast! It was nice to get away and enjoy the wonderful outdoors that the Lord has blessed us with. In the pictures are our children getting dirty without a worry. Nolan totally enjoyed whittling. He usually can't sit still ever! But give him a BIG SHARP knife and a stick and he would sit and concentrate for at least 15 minutes. Clayton is our future hunter for now. He really enjoys shooting his bow. Brinnlee actually took most of these pictures. Merrick just loved to play in the dirt. It was great just letting them play and get "dirty."

The First Tea Party

My daughter was turning 6 and we wanted to have a tea party. So after searching on the web I came up with a few ideas and ran with it. It turned out perfect. She had four of her friends come and we had set the tables for 8. I decided that I was going to enjoy this one with "the girls." My two older boys and my husband were the escorts and served the "ladies." We had soooooo much fun and both the boys and girls loved every bit of the party. We made tea party hats to start and then sat down for lunch which was served by the boys or young men.... Brinnlee then opened her gifts and we returned to the table for dessert and tea. Matt, my wonderful hubby and awesome daddy, came out with his English accent as he asked what kind of tea we would like and we just about fell off our chairs in laughter. The younger girls ate it up. They played right along with him. It was fun to teach our daughter and sons how to serve and be served. I have to say that our first tea party was a hit.

Garden Update

We are now harvesting peas, spinach and Swiss chard. I have taken a little Romain lettuce too. This has been the easiest garden ever. It has been so much fun for our family to go out each morning and see if there are peas to pick and in the afternoon we go and get some chard and spinach for dinner. The carrots are not ready and neither are the beets. We are going to be planting melons, cucumbers, sweet peppers, and green beans. We are looking forward to the summer harvest.

Ski Day

We had the wonderful blessing of taking our two older children skiing Tuesday. We left REALLY early that morning and headed up to Flagstaff for the day. It was great spending the day with just the two older children and enjoying the beauty of Gods creation in the mountains with my hubby. Clayton learned how to ski a couple of years ago and this year we were able to get Brinnlee up on skis.

We have peas!

Here is the latest on our garden. We have some peas growing. Our lettuce is doing great, in fact I think we will be eating some spinach next week. We have had to use some of our grapefruit to try to keep the ants away. They seem to really like the swish chard. Our beets did not do as well. Not sure why?

No More Procrastination

I finally took the plunge! I have been wanting to make my own yogurt and butter for a long time. I just thought it was too hard and took too much time. Well to my surprise and a friends blog, thanks Jodi, I did it. It was soooooo easy and took no time at all. The butter is awesome and I know VERY good for us. Not sure what I will do with the buttermilk yet. I have also started to learn how to soak my grains before using. The oatmeal over night is great. My next new change will be to sprout wheat before making fresh wheat flour for bread. I will need to read up on that.

The Pecan Farm

We are gathering the pecans after the tree was shaken.

This is the shaker. It is placed around the trunk and you can actually feel the ground shake like an earthquake.

This is Clayton on the tire swing.

Last Saturday we went as a family to a pecan farm in Camp Verde, which is between Phoenix and Flagstaff. We had such a great time learning about the Pecan Tree and the 40 plus different varieties. We were able to see how they shake the tree to get the pecans to fall on a tarp and then gather them up. Then we were shown all the different shellers. The children loved it. As you can see they also had a tire swing which we had a hard time getting the children away from. There were some sword fights with Auntie REW and a river walk as well. If you have never eaten a pecan fresh from the tree there really is a difference! They were so tasty. It was a wonderful day being out in Gods creation.

Peek-a-Boo

This is the bag that Grammy brought the children's gifts in. We put Merrick in it to see what he would do. Well, he played peek-a-boo. It was really funny.

We spent a quiet Christmas Eve with family. It was very relaxing as well. One of my gifts was a new mouth piece and reeds for a clarinet my father-in-law bought at an auction last year and gave to me after I told him I used to play when I was younger. So....my goal for this coming new year is to learn to play it again. I am very excited and hope that Clayton and daddy will be able to learn the guitar together as well. Maybe we will have a family concert for Christmas next year. (lol!) You will have to wait all year to find out. Brinnlee got a recorder and I hope to help her learn how to play too. We opened gifts Christmas eve and then after everyone left we watched the Nativity movie in preparation for our Christmas day birthday party.

The Garden

We planted a garden a few weeks ago. We have growing peas, spinach, swiss chard, carrots, green leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, and beets. So far so good. Everything is sprouting. The area we planted in is raised and was empty when we moved in. My dear hubby picked up some good manure and we mixed it in with the dirt. We did have to clean the BIG rocks out first though and loosen the dirt a bit. Hopefully we will have some home grown food in a couple of months. It has been fun for the children to do a little work and learn about how the Lord provides for us. They also have their own flower pots with wild flowers. We will hopefully see beautiful flowers come late winter and early spring. Even when I don't know how things will work out the Lord does and it isALWAYS perfect. He does provide for me and meets my every need.

Fun Day

Not much happening. We had a good day today. We enjoyed seeing some friends who are missionaries in Honduras. It was great seeing them and talking with them. I always remember in the back of my mind that our oldest son told me that he thinks God wants his family to be missionaries. My response is, "well we have to be missionaries at home first and pray about where else the Lord would have us go." I guess we will see??? After that we went to the Surprise City Party for about 45 minutes. It was fun but a little cold. We did go last night to see the balloon glow, tree lighting and the sky divers. Had a great time.

Happy Thanksgiving

"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good!"
I have so much to be thankful for: To God for giving me life through Jesus Christ, family, friends, children laughing and playing, prayer, living in a country where I can read Gods word freely, a loving husband, home, food, another beautiful day on earth, homeschooling, health, forgivness, love, mercy, and so many other things. I am truly blessed by the Lord in so many ways.

Today it is just our children with mom and dad celebrating together. Matt and I were laughing because we could just stay in our pajamas all day if we really want to. No where to rush too but we just get to spend a wonderful day with our children giving thanks to God.

Attitude

The last few days I have not had a very good attitude. Why do I allow the things of this "world" to take up such valuable space in my mind and get me off the path that God has me on. My expectations of my family are exactly that "MINE" and they belong to the Lord. So as a pray and ask the Lord to reveal this sin in my life I know he is going to show me and that is sometimes a hard thing to give up. He is faithful and will not give up on me though and for that I am thankful for. He loves me even when I don't want to give him all my junk and want to try things my own way. God is love 1 John 4:8.

I WON A PIE!

A few days ago I was going to make caramel apples, which I had been procrastinating on for a week. I realized that we had use the syrup the day before and was a little, no very, frustrated that I had to go to Trader Joes and it showed. So since I had to get my groceries for the week anyways Brinnlee and I headed out. Well it just happened that Trader Joes was grilling hot dogs and giving away pies. They did a drawing every 15 minutes. You had to find a laminated pie on the floor with a number on it and if they drew that number you were able to choose an apple or pumpkin pie. Brinnlee REALLY wanted to play and we had just missed the opportunity so when we got up to the register she asked when the drawing would be held again. The cashier told her in about 10 min. Brinnlee asked if we could stay and wait so she could try to win a pie. I really did not want too but by the time we got the groceries in the car and sampled the hot dogs, chips and water it was time for the drawing. So Brinnlee went in and stood on a pie. The cashier had seen her and told her to find another one because the pie she was standing on had won last time, so she switched to pie number 7. When they announced to find a pie Brinnlee was so excited. Then when they announced that number 7 had won she was beyond excited and I will admit I was too because I love pie! She choose the apple and it just happened to be that I need to by whipping cream that day as well. I don't think I have every seen Brinnlee so joyful that her cheeks were red. The Lord knew exactly what I needed and use my daughter to show how crazyy it really was to be so frustrated about needing to go to the store. He gives us blessings even when we don't "deserve" them. By the way the pie was very tasty too.

Tongue Tamer

I decided change things a little this week during my bible time with the kids. We have been reading through Proverbs and choose two words to learn about each week. We would write the definitions out and talk about what the Lord is telling us in that part of scripture. This week and for the next few we are working on taming our tongues. Proverbs 15:1 "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." It has been very sweet to hear all of us holding each other accountable to what Gods word says. The children will be playing and I hear some not so kind communication and then right after that one of them will repeat Proverbs 15:1 and the offender is quick to repent. I really think the Lord is using it more with me though. In my quest to turn away from my sin I often find myself using some "attitude" behind my communication. What is great is that the Lord and my children are quick to rebuke my "attitude" and gently remind me of our tongue tamer.