Pics Just In

I just saw some of Z's newborn pics posted on the photographer's blog!  Go check them out.  Thanks, Sarah!  They look great!

I'm A Happy Woman

You have to sing that title like you're Whitney Houston..."I'm a happy wo-man; saved and set free!"  Okay, so I'm no song writer, but I have felt like singing today.  No matter how horrible a day I may be having, it never ceases to correct my attitude to remind myself that I am NOT pregnant!  Instant mood lifter.

God answered our prayers for a buyer for our house and our prayers for rain...

I convinced the girls to go puddle jumping and it started raining on them.  It was so novel that C picked up the hose and told me she was going to make the rain stop.  I had to explain the rain was not coming out of the hose, but out of the clouds, and we didn't want it to stop.  They played for almost an hour in the new wonderland that was a wet, muddy backyard.  And at high noon, no less.  It was cool enough for them to be outside at high noon!!  Thank you, God!

We had a great day of school today, too!  We just might finish week one's material in two weeks!  That's a victory right now.

And my children are being sweet to each other...

Can you find Z in the middle of all that attention?  As I type this post, he's laughing in his bouncy seat.  I think he lost his thumb again because the cat naps have returned.  Nevertheless...

We've got happy all over this house and I'm soaking it up again.  Between last week's sweet spot and today, there've been a few bumps in the road not worth dwelling on.  Gotta sing out loud when the joy bubbles over so you remember the words when you really need them (even if the song writer is lousy).

Big Week

We've had all of four showings of our house, y'all, four.  In a month.  Last weekend, I was feeling discouraged about being in limbo with the move.  My girls were bored and I wanted to start school, but I also wanted to have a cute, fun space to do it in and had already packed up all my posters and extra school stuff.  We got home on Sunday afternoon from house hunting and I went to the dollar store and spent $12 on school stuff.  I waited for the girls to go to bed and decorated our playroom as our new schoolroom.  I told Jeremy it would be Murphy's law that putting stuff on the walls again would make people come see our house.

Monday morning we started kindergarten (pics later) to mixed reviews.  More on that at another time.  At the same time we were schooling inside, landscapers were repairing our sprinkler system and prepping our yard for new sod and plants.  Our landscaping had really gone rotten with the drought and our "we're raising children, not plants" care taking.  The house had no curb appeal.

Tuesday morning started with the arrival of new sod and a forklift driving it around the backyard.  Our friends came over to play, so I planned no school for the day.  Around noon, as four little mouths were sitting down to lunch, the contractor showed up to install a new back door.  This was another sticking point on selling the house--literally, the door was rotting in its frame and would stick about 6" open.  So the next four hours were very hot as we had a huge, gaping hole in the kitchen wall.

With the major repairs done, pretty little plants in the front flower bed, and sprinklers running to beat the band, we called the realtor and told her to drop the price.  Now is not the time to be greedy or proud.  We've got to get this baby sold and get to where God has called us to go.  We had a verbal offer that night.

We received the written contract yesterday and will finalize it today.  Praise God!!  We have a buyer!!  It's the same family that made a crazy low offer two weeks ago, they were just slightly more rational this time around.  We didn't even have to get ready for another showing.  Thank you, God!

Of course that means our buying process is accelerated.  We'll make a day trip Saturday to look at the last few houses on our list.  Then we have a big decision to make.  The buyers of our house want to close on September 22.  If we want to avoid moving our stuff twice, we need to find a house and close on it a few days before.  Thanks for your prayers that have brought a buyer.  Please keep praying we'll find the house, the street, the neighborhood, the community where God is working and wants us to join Him.

The Thought That Started it All

I've been blogging for two years this month.  I can't believe that.  I looked back at my first post to see when it was--August 26, 2009.  How 'bout that?!

I remember the thought that drove me to blogging and I've never even blogged about it until today.  I was sitting in church behind some young ladies who had different standards of appropriate church attire than I did.  My feathers were ruffled by their immodesty on behalf of my daughters who look up to them and my husband who was stuck trying not to look at them for an hour.  But what to do about it?  I'm not looking to crack knuckles with legalistic dress codes, but I still felt like something needed to be said.  So I thought a blog post on the topic would solve the problem.  Ha!  By the time I finished typing my rant, I knew it was best to delete it.

Praise the Lord I held my tongue!  Because Stacy McDonald over at Your Sacred Calling said it so much better and with more love and grace than I ever could.  Women and men alike, for the sake of the gospel, please go read her loving charge calling us to sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron. And if you should ever see me wearing something that makes you want to cover your daughters' eyes or give your husband a blindfold, please call me on it.

Sweet Spot

Today has been a sweet spot in the last few weeks.  Not that the last few weeks have been a terrible burden, just life with a newborn while trying to sell our house.  Crazy, intense days followed by the periodic dull, boring day.  It's really easy to get bogged down and frustrated on the crazy, intense days when I'm tired from getting up too early, the baby won't sleep, the girls are whiny and someone wants to come see our house.  So sweet days like today are worthy of soaking up and relishing.

For starters, life is beautiful because I am not pregnant.  Being "not pregnant" makes everything easier, even having a newborn.  But then, Z slept until I woke him up at 7:30 am this morning!  Great start to the day!  The girls stayed in bed until their lamp came on, so I didn't get out of bed until 6:45 am.  They enjoyed the new cereal I bought them (frosted mini wheats with fruit filling for other mommies of picky eaters).  Daddy ate breakfast with us and changed a dirty diaper before he left for work.  We all went outside to play in the driveway before it got too hot and got to talk to some neighbors.  Z fell asleep in my arms without me even trying.  We went back inside and I did "circle time" with the girls.  They stayed engaged with me for an hour and a half!  We read our Bible story, prayed, sang some songs, did a little art, read some poems, worked on scripture memory, read three chapters in our chapter book (!!) and finished with the last 24 hours in pictures.  Fabulous, blessed time together!!

Then they played happily together making a birthday party for their stuffed animals while I tended to some chores.  I realized Z had been sleeping for a little over two hours and went to check on him.  God's grace to me today....

...he has found his thumb!  This was his second nap to be prolonged by the sucking of a glorious thumb! We might be on to something here!  And hallelujah, because the last few weeks have really been exacerbated by a cat-napping baby.

I woke him up, fed him, and put him down to play while I made the girls' lunch.  I turned on some fun tunes and laughed with Z as he kicked in his bouncy seat.  My eldest, pickiest eater asked for leftovers from supper!  (Cheeseburger pie for those other mommies of picky eaters.)  And she ate them all and her fruit without a fight.  (Audiobooks are my new secret weapon during lunch.  They're so busy listening, they don't get silly at the table and we avoid most of the common pitfalls of table discipline.)  We finished lunch, watched a show, and started quiet time.  Z went back down for another nap without a fight and he's still sleeping!  Praise God for thumbs!!

I got a little cat nap before getting up to enjoy an ice cream sandwich and write a blog post.  Ladies and gentlemen, life does not get much better than this day!!  I know not what the afternoon holds or how it may all fall apart tomorrow, but I shall enjoy the glow of this moment and savor it.  May your day (or some day soon) be equally as pleasant and peaceful.

A Mommy Poll

I spend a lot of time and energy feeling guilty about the amount of time I spend or don't spend playing with my children.  Is this normal?  I've been thinking about generations of mommies before me and I don't think they spent a lot of time on the floor playing Polly Pockets.  Will my children be healthier adults than their children?

I know in generations past, there was more labor involved in housekeeping.  So kids were helping out from early on.  I imagine their opportunities for pure play were farther apart and means of entertainment were much simpler.

Modern conveniences and technology now make the workload lighter, and psychologists tell us to let our kids be kids, playing is their job.  And I hear it in their little voices, "Mommy, when can you play with me?"  They crave the attention and I know it does wonders for our relationship.

Does anyone else obsess about this?  Am I the only mommy who feels like I can never satiate her kids' desire for play time together?  How much time do you spend in pure play with your kids?  A few minutes here and there throughout the day, or a concentrated hour after supper?  Not art projects or cooking together or reading books, but getting into their little made-up world, being who they want you to be.

Please leave a comment (click on the word "comments" below this post) or send me an email.  I think it would be really interesting to see what "Mommy, play with me" looks like in other well-adjusted, healthy homes.

Boo!

One night last week, when C was still in her crib, she woke up screaming and crying around 11:00 pm.  J was still up and went to see what the fuss was about.  "Pants!  Pants! I don't have any pants!" she railed at him.  She had picked a nightgown to sleep in and was apparently regretting her choice after several hours of sleep.

J moved to accommodate her because there is no reasoning with an irrational 2-year-old in the middle of the night.  You may as well tell a pregnant woman you ate the last of the ice cream.  J knows when to pick his battles.

What you need to know is that we moved all of C's clothes into A's room months ago to make room for Z's clothes in the nursery closet.  So J had to sneak into A's room for the very necessary pants.

J was rummaging around in the pajama drawer as stealthily as he could when A popped up from her perch on the top bunk and gave him a hearty, "Boo!"  I think she probably got a good payback for all the times he's pulled a similar stunt on her.

Big Girl Bed

Because we don't have anything else going on around here, we decided to transition C to a big girl bed.  It actually made sense to do it before the move, because we wouldn't have kept her in a crib in a new place.  This way she has the chance to get used to it in a familiar place and moving to a new house won't also include moving to a new bed.

We all picked a day on the calendar to try it and that was last Friday.  Turns out that was the day our house went on the market.  It wasn't a crazy day at all.

We stuck to our planned day and she's done great.  She's sharing the bunk bed with A, so we've had the expected trouble with talking too much before going to sleep and waking each other up too early.  I'm really hopeful those things will settle down over time as it becomes more routine.  If not, we'll have to come up with a new strategy or two to make sure they are each getting enough rest.  Never a dull moment!