Adventures in La La Land

1. The Potty Training Chronicles: Lucy stayed dry every night for a week, then the past two nights has woken up absolutely drenched again. Frustrating. 2. It's actually been a horrible week of sleep around here. Not only have I been changing bedding and pajamas in the middle of the night, I've been up with Lena multiple times every night. I really think she's getting some teeth. (Finally - she still only has the bottom two.) Her top eye teeth are raised and white but have yet to poke through. Come on, teeth! Just pop out and get it over with!! 3. We heat our house with an outdoor wood burner. All spring, summer, and fall my dad gathers, cuts, and stacks wood like the hardworking ant. But this year, thanks to our especially long, cold, brutal winter we're out of wood! We're gonna have to start burning our furniture if we want to stay warm! Fortunately, we have an indoor fireplace, but the heat doesn't reach upstairs in our bedrooms. Also fortunately, our barn...

This week, we got back on the Bible Lesson bandwagon, and learned about David: First we talked about David's occupation as a shepherd (and discussed a little bit how Jesus is like a shepherd too). I utilized one of Sally Clarkson's suggestions from The Mission of Motherhood and let Lucy work on the sheep craft while I read the story. Usually I make her listen to the story before beginning the craft, but she listened so much better when she had something to keep her occupied (gluing cotton balls to a sheep outline). Lena got in on the action too. That white stuff above her lip isn't snot - it's glued on cotton. Haha.  The Jesus Storybook Bible has a good story about how God chose David to be King over all his taller, stronger brothers, so we read that while Lucy worked on her sheep. Then we talked about how we don't have to be the fastest or tallest or strongest or prettiest or coolest. We only have to love Jesus to be used by him. And God chose David ...

This is the conclusion of my series on Sally Clarkson's The Mission of Motherhood . Part One Part Two The last part of Clarkson's book is titled "A Mother's Heart for her Children." She touches on being available for your kids, showing them unconditional love, and giving them affirmation and encouragement. But the part I liked the most was on giving them grace. This is kind of a trendy topic lately, and something my friends and I have talked a lot about. I have this book in my (virtual) "to read" pile: Anyway, Clarkson wrote her book before this concept was trendy and I loved what she had to say. This was my favorite part, and so eye opening for me: "One day, when my children were young, I was more frustrated than usual with the chronic messes around the house. I said to Clay, 'It seems like our training makes no difference . . . How many times am I going to have to tell them to pick up after themselves?' Clay gently responded, ...

This post is a continuation of my thoughts on Sally Clarkson's The Mission of Motherhood . To see part one, click here .  Part 2: Discipline and Teaching I love reading about Biblical discipline techniques. I was raised a certain way and my sister (who I model much of my parenting after) parents largely the way we were raised. So I love hearing new ideas that I wouldn't have come up with by myself.  I love how Clarkson started her chapter on discipline: "I don't just want my kids to be moral. I don't just want them to know all of the biblical rules for behavior . . . I want them to leave my home with a hunger and passion to know God personally . . . I want them to personally hear God's voice and have his Spirit's gentle touch and impression on their hearts as they read the Scriptures and struggle with the issues of their lives." (82) This is something I've always struggled with. I grew up in a Christian home, school, church, community. I k...

I bought Sally Clarkson's The Mission of Motherhood used for $3 on Amazon after seeing it recommended by one of my favorite bloggers ( Jess Connell ).  It took me a few months to actually pick it up and read it, but I'm so glad I did. I'm going to break my notes down into a few different posts so as not to overwhelm you. Suffice it to stay I underlined half the book and have a lot to share. :-) Part One Clarkson is a huge proponent of "intentional parenting." This is something I've been working on for a while - having a plan and purpose, not just parenting mindlessly. She says, " ...being a mother is a full-time job . . . It is a responsibility that rightly commands our primary attention and calls for an intentional commitment" (49). If nothing else, what I took away from this book was the call to selfless mothering. To setting aside my desires and selfishness to be present in my girls' lives. Clarkson uses the verse Romans 12:1 to rem...

1. I filled out two March Madness brackets this year. In one of them, I'm tied for first (go Villanova!). In the other, I'm in 6th out of 7. Haha. (Go Louisville!) I predicted the Dayton upset, but none of the others. (Seriously, Duke??) I don't follow basketball the rest of the year, and I only pick Villanova because they have a cool name. (Gonzaga also makes it far in my brackets. Haha.) I mostly just like competing against my friends and siblings in the bracket challenges. :-) (Especially when I'm winning!)  2. I bought Lucy the movie Frozen  as a pre-release from Amazon. It came on Tuesday and I hid it away to save for her Easter basket. That same day we went to Niki's house just as she was getting home from Meijer. She pulled out the Frozen movie she had just bought and said, "Lucy, look what I bought! It came with two discs. Do you want to borrow one?" Haha. So we've been watching Frozen  practically on repeat. Lucy can literally quote most of ...

1. I recently joined a facebook group about being a healthy, fit mom. Since I stopped breastfeeding I've noticed my jeans are getting a little tight. I'm about 15 pounds over my healthy weight. But I'm not sure I'm really ready to commit to eating healthy or working out. Haha. I like to stalk the people on facebook doing their workouts and eating their healthy food while I sit on the couch eating cookies and drinking 32 oz. Dr Peppers. I've got problems. 2. Last weekend we ran out of overnight diapers for Lucy. She has been totally day-time potty trained for almost 2 years and yet she continues to completely  drench  her diaper at night. For a long time I just thought she wasn't ready physically, but I finally decided to test it and see how much of it was willful. The first night she slept all night and woke up dry!! I couldn't believe it! Since then we've had 2 more dry nights and 3 nights of Lucy appearing next to my bed in the middle of the night wh...

I'm reading Numbers and need to write this stuff out to make it clear in my head. No one reads these posts if I don't link them to facebook, so I'm just going to ramble. If you happen to read it and have any insight, feel free to share. :-) The Israelites have been freed from 400 years of slavery. They should be happy, right? We have been freed from sin through the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross. We should be happy, right? They're stuck in the desert though, and starving. We have to live our lives out on earth and have needs. God meets their need and provides manna - a daily miracle. God meets our daily needs as well. (Give us this day our daily bread.) They get sick of the manna and cry for meat. Honesty card: I'd cry for something besides manna too. I don't even like eating leftovers from last night's dinner. The same thing every single day for years? Yikes. I'd be whining. God gets MAD. Why? Because they're not happy with his pro...

1. I tried making roasted chickpeas this week. The internet raves about them and calls them a fantastic replacement for chips. The internet lies. They were disgusting. Mealy and disgusting. Fail. I'm going to try kale chips next . 2. I did pretty well with eating vegetables this week. Mostly carrots and spinach. I've been putting spinach in everything because it's so tasteless. I put it in pasta, in sandwiches, salads, etc. I also made dinner every night this week and tried to make sure it included vegetables every time. I really wanted to make roasted Brussels sprouts one night. Justin's mom makes them all the time and I love  them. But I couldn't bring myself to pay $3 for 15 little sprouts at Meijer! Maybe I'll have to try frozen. 3. One of the meals I made was homemade chicken fried rice . It was so easy and yummy! I am so NOT a photographer. 4. Last night Justin and I went on a date. We still had a Celebration Cinema gift card from Christmas, so we...

The weather is horrible. I don't ever remember such a cold March. March is supposed to mean temps in the 40s and occasional 50s. It's supposed to bring sunshine and rain and thunderstorms. Not snow and more snow and below 0 temps. I don't know how much more I can take! So Lucy and I decided to make a "think spring" craft. It was inspired by this picture from Pinterest. Here's our take: It was a nice multi-step craft that we spread out over the whole day. First, Lucy drew on the flower stems with a green marker. Then she ripped up pieces of tissue paper, crumpled them into flowers, and glued them on. She got bored of "crafting" at this point, so we left it for a while. Later we came back and painted the sky and a paper plate sun. While we waited for those to dry we made coffee filter birds. This is one of her favorite projects. We've used this method for suncatchers, Easter eggs , and butterflies in the past. Color on a coffee filter with...

1. Lena turned 13 months on Sunday. It was weird to not write an update. Here are a few highlights: she's a total monkey. She amazes me every day with things she climbs on. Can't take my eye off her! She's walking everywhere. She tries to run, but her head is too heavy and she usually topples forward. Haha. She still takes 2-3 naps a day and sleeps 11 hours at night. She wakes up at 6 almost without fail every morning. Some of her new words are "amen," "no," and "up." She's a total hog and eats non-stop. We attempted to take some "one year" pictures today. So far we've got a lot of blank stares and arms reaching out toward me. We'll try again after her nap. 2. I'm making a goal for March to have 2 servings of vegetables every day. I know that's not near the recommended amount, but I have to start somewhere. Right now I have 0 servings of vegetables every day. 3. I'm thinking of devoting a point a week to ...