Please help me...

Not to forget. These days are flying past - some with exhilarating joy, some with agonizing pain, or mind-numbing struggles - but each one is a precious gift, and the minutes tick by with unrelenting fleet. Gone, not to be retrieved. Certainly not to be mulliganed. God, help me learn from my mistakes each day, and concrete these precious moments into my heart.

Yesterday morning I was trying to get all of us to church without my husband, who had to go round. Hurry, hurry, hurry - stop piddling, finish your breakfast, please put your shoes on, please don't take your shoes off, no we cannot watch a movie, I'm sorry you don't want to wear pantyhose but it's very cold this morning, Wild Man please come to the bathroom so I can fix your hair...

WM: Hey, look how tall I'm getting! I can see my whole face in the mirror now! I used to only be able to see my hair.

Freeze. See him grinning at me in the reflection. Hug him tight, watch him act like he doesn't like hugs, see his grinning grimace as he quickly nuzzles in closer before letting go.

These days...

Hear the Little Boy and Girly Whirl screech-screaming, gleefully talking back and forth to one another. Blowing raspberries at each other and giggling. How do babies so young in their own rights form such a close bond already?

See Little Lady babying her baby doll, whose name changes weekly, mostly to names we tossed around in the naming of GW. Hear her craft stories, watch her desperate cries for attention (some lovely, and some less so), hear her eager voice clearly reciting out perfectly our family memory work. Feel her wiggly snuggles as my early-riser tiptoes into bed with me and sighs happy-quiet, "Just Mama and me."

Watch in the mirror as I sway Girly Whirl gently to sleep: her face pressed into my neck, one thumb in her mouth and her other hand gently rubbing the back of her own head. See her happiest grin when I come back after she wakes, rocking back and forth on all fours and so excited even her head is bobbing.

See Little Boy come racing to my knees, clasping them eagerly and saying "Nee' nee'?" to let me know that he needs - yes, needs - a hug. Pick him up and hold him close for a breathless moment: he squeezes with his whole body and murmurs, "Mmmm, Mama," before scrambling to get back down.

Listen to my Wild Man reading to me, after countless hours of frustration for both of us learning phonics. See his wild joy and pride at such an accomplishment, then shock when I pull out a new book. "More reading??" incredulously and crestfallen. See his lego creations, these engineering feats with which to have ship battles with his daddy, see him striding confidently through the backyard with his play rifle slung over his shoulder, watch his carhartt-encased legs crawling under the house with his daddy to work on something...

Watch Little Lady helping me clean or make cookies...and actually being helpful...

See my Little Boy begin to respond to and learn from what seems like endless and fruitless hours of training and teaching...

Watch my tiny Girly Whirl army-crawl across the playroom floor to play with the trucks (and not the baby toys)...

And they are growing so fast. Some days I get so caught up in the immediate needs, the stress of the day, my own pain or selfishness...but these precious souls entrusted to me do not wait while I finish one more project, one more chapter, clean one last thing. I have written this before, I have said it a million times. But I am a slow learner. I know that I need to start counting again.

Try as I might, there isn't a way to close this post that makes me feel content with it. Then I began thinking about this enormous job of mine, the ways that I labor, pray, persevere, and sometimes hurt, struggle, and fail. The joys and heartaches along the road. The things I want to remember, learn from, live over again, or never repeat. All of it, whether good or ill, we are not alone. As we walk through a trying time these few weeks past and present, I listen to this song over and over (and even posted it on facebook today, too). I close my eyes and lift my hands: "With joy, our hearts will say, 'Never once did we ever walk alone, never once did You leave us on our own: You are faithful.'"

(I realize this post seems a bit disjointed; forgive me, please? Asking for grace in a dry season.)

Valentines Day

My kids made valentines, we all made special cookies, we're going to a sweet friend's house for a little party, and I even have a little surprise in store for the man of the house. But we're celebrating 1 John 4:19 y'all: We love because He first loved us.

Real love is not a square on a Hallmark calendar, in a country with the highest divorce rate in the entire world. Real love, selfless love, agape love, 1 Cor 13 love...it's all just an outpouring of the great love we've been shown by the Father.

I love my sweet husband - I don't need an excuse to tell him or the whole world that. He brings me flowers pretty regularly - he doesn't need to do it when the whole rest of the free world is and the prices are all jacked up. And I'm a grown-up - I don't need any excuses to eat chocolate. {smile}

We love because we're loved, and I hope and pray that we all know and embrace the love of the Father, and are privileged to experience the outpouring of that love in another.

video by a dear friend of ours - check him out here

Feeling official...

I am enjoying so much (despite my own personal struggles with time and the computer) how the internet makes the world a smaller place. There is no shortage of awesome Titus 2 women with blogs, from whom I can gain perspective and wisdom! A blog I just recently found but have been enjoying so much lately is In the Nursery of the Nation. She's doing a series about homeschooling right now, and I linked this morning's post on my facebook feed; it's about how our heart attitudes (and face, and tone of voice), towards the tiniest interruptions to our school day teach our children so much. I needed to hear that! It's something we know logically, but I can have a hard time translating that to real life.

Soon she'll post about practical tips for keeping the littlests happily occupied, and friends, I need those, too. My Little Man is trouble with a capital T. I use baby gates. Because if I don't, this happens:

"Ha? Ha, Mama, ha? Srash?"

Yup, he went and dug out a hat ("ha?"). And a dirty diaper from the bathroom trash can. And little bro' can climb now. Wheee. He loves the bunk beds in the boys' room. Ere go, baby gates. And hopefully some fun ideas from around the web.

In other news, I done gone and lost my mind.

Y'all. Seriously.

(sigh)

There are ants in my kitchen.

On purpose.

I really love My Father's World kindergarten. It's so.stinkin.fun, and we get to have a blast exploring God's creation. The program is interesting and captivating, and the kids love everything we learn about. Plus, they make it really easy for you to get outside your comfort zone, by things like having an ant habitat.

Seriously, I feel like a "real" homeschooling mom now that I have critters in my house that would otherwise have me panicking on the phone with our pest control company. And actually? The ants are really, really cool to watch.

Don't Stop

Once upon a time, I had a clean house. A very clean house. I had half as many children, (and none of them were being schooled, therefore...), a lot more time, and an overly thorough cleaning schedule. I had dust-free ceiling fan blades, clean baseboards, fresh sheets, and a silky-soft clean doggy.

Now, I love having a sparkling clean house, I do.

But that is not my season of life right now. Perhaps it is for you, and maybe my old chore chart up there will help you out. :)

But my life right now is just not there. And what I'm trying to tell myself right now is something I remember hearing when I was struggling so much with breastfeeding and a final-sentence of PLF:

Don't stop doing what you can, simply because of what you can't.

I just can't do the white glove clean twice a week. But I can take 30 seconds and wipe down the counters when I use the restroom. And maybe the toilet the next trip.

I might not be able to sweep and mop together, or dust and vacuum in one single day now, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take 5 minutes to sweep the kitchen and dustbust the pile. Then take 5 minutes to spot-clean where the peanut butter and jelly sandwich hit the floor open-faced, and I left it for the time being because the entire cup of milk that just got overturned because someone is still not sitting properly in her seat during meals was a little more immediately important, and then I totally forgot about the PBJ smear until I was sweeping.

Oh, I'm sorry. :) I digress.

See what I mean? I can't do it all in one fell swoop like I used to. And, for better and worse, I am very all-or-nothing (which is why FlyLady doesn't work for me), so I often put things off because I know I won't be able to finish them. (Case in point: I've been meaning to overhaul my personal cookbook for over a year, and have been putting it off because I wanted to be able to do it in one sitting. Finally yesterday I realized that that isn't gonna happen, so I started working on it in small chunks, and now I'm already nearly done, yay!) But I should never stop doing the little things that I can do in a few moment's time just because I can't do it all at once. This works for sewing and cleaning for me. I'm still working on finding a way to make it work for exercise. ;)

This might seem like "homemaking with littles 101" to you. :) But for a former Type-A poster child who God is gently breaking down by grace, child by child, this revelation has been very freeing, convicting, and encouraging for me. Hope it's a help to all the recovering type-A mommas like me. :)

M-m-makeover time! (again)

Our home is sweet - home, sweet home. Lovely, and I love it.

And it is cozy. {smile} Our house is basically one great big room with a hall and bedrooms. Our eat-in kitchen is fully open, divided only by a half-wall, to the living room; and fully open to the sunroom/playroom by a french doorway with no doors on it.

We are constantly rearranging, redecorating, re-fabbing, and redefining spaces within our home to accommodate our growing family and shifting needs. Very shortly after we bought and moved into this, our first home, we found out we were expecting our second little treasure, so we had an office/guest room for a grand total of about 6 months before I overhauled it into a nursery for Little Lady. It was so worth it, and we moved our "office" space (mostly just the computer) into the kitchen, which had a perfect bit of counter space for it.

However, when your "office" is part of the kitchen...well, we all know what happens to an office space. And flat surfaces. In many ways, it was convenient. And in many ways, it was driving me bananas. It mostly always looked like this...

So around Christmas I started begging Hubby to help me rearrange the playroom and get a computer armoire, and we've finally finished, yay! So above is before, and here is what my kitchen looks like now:

My, my - there actually is a kitchen now! :)

So here's our computer corner, where I'm sitting right now...

out in the sunroom, which was an addition on to the original structure of the house, which explains the brick wall, haha. :)

Oh, and I never blogged it, but immediately behind me is...

My sewing/craft/school supply overflow table that my beloved put together for me, using 2 9-cube storage units and a sheet of laminate. I'm still finishing it off; I need to glue some ribbon around the raw edge of the laminate, and do something to the back of the storage unit facing the playroom. I was thinking about magnetic paint, and putting letters and numbers and stuff out there - opinions? (At first I didn't want to do this, because I was afraid they'd end up all over the playroom, but let's be honest: the ones on the fridge already don't exactly stay in the kitchen, you know what I mean?)

Oh, and my precious momma-in-law is here for a visit, which means that Truett (who has permanently moved to the farm) is here for a visit too.

And Little Boy is in love with the "doddy." :)

Happy, rainy weekend friends!

A Storyteller at Heart

Oh my goodness, this girly...

...she has my heart. We got to go on a mommy-daughter date last week, and it was so precious. We just went shopping, to lunch, and then to starbuck's for coffee (for me) and hot chocolate (for her) to curl up with some beloved books.

And let me tell you, her books are definitely beloved. Books and stories of all kinds sweep her up. She's kind of like her mother, isn't she?

One day recently, after I had told every single possible combination of events to craft up a story about princesses and dragons that my brain could muster on not enough sleep and too much caffeine, I suggested, "Why don't you tell me a story, baby girl?"

Sister delivered. So now her favorite thing is to tell me stories. And for posterity (as well as your enjoyment), I had her tell me one today while I sat at the computer and transcribed it. Most stories run along this general theme, although sometimes there's more killing and soldiers. (She does have an older brother, after all.)

So now, in Little Lady's words, a princess story. No, a dragon story. Well, actually, it's a story about a princess and a dragon, Mama.

Once there was a daddy who was mean, and the dragon was mean too. So the dragon throwed (sic) sand at everyone and made them mean, and made them yucky rules like they had to sit in the mud and throw dirt at each other. But the mommy was a good queen, and she said no no no, because she wanted everyone to obey God’s word and honor Him. So, then there was a princess who obeyed the mommy’s rules and then everybody else wanted to obey too, because the good princess was so good and kind and pretty in her heart, so they all obeyed the good queen and God’s word instead of the cruel, wicked dragon.

The end

Our school year so far...

This year has been exciting, challenging, fun, and sometimes a stretch as we've continued in our homeschool journey with Wild Man in kindergarten and Little Lady doing preschool-level work, although that mostly means exactly what her big brother is doing with lower expectations from Mama. ;)

Someone asked me the other day how life had been acclimating to 4. Well, I've already told you that, haven't I? But her main question, after hearing about our autumn was, "Wasn't doing school on top of all that so hard for you?" I had to answer honestly then, and now:

No. Actually, I think homeschooling what was held us together. It gave us a purpose, an agenda for each day. A little structure, learning, fun, and creativity. All without the immense stress of the clock, needing to be somewhere at a specific time, or having to have things completed by a certain date. Yes, there were times it was hard, times I didn't want to plan, or days when I just wanted to loaf around and not execute our plans. But overall, homeschooling was definitely a support rather than a stressor.

When people ask us how we're enjoying having school as a family at home, I answer with a smile, "We love it almost every single day." And that's the honest truth. We're having some growing pains figuring out how to do this thing, with both Hubby and I being first-generation homeschoolers. We're encountering some resistance from WM, already a perfectionist, who doesn't like to do anything he cannot do perfectly. We're figuring it out, one baby step at a time, and every school week looks different than the one that preceded it. Mama is learning how to order days, what works and what doesn't; what is important and what is not. And folks, I am a slow learner.

But really truly, we mostly love it. The kids are learning so, so much about the world around them. And we are all learning so much about our Creator, and about one another. For anyone curious, this year we've been enjoying My Father's World kindergarten curriculum. For now, having a single comprehensive curriculum is really working well for us; it simplifies my planning and helps me not stress out with over-researching and planning. A blog I enjoy reading has an upcoming series about homeschooling, with some practical tips about how to pursue home education with as little stress as possible; perhaps you'd like to check it out. :)

Okay, now to the good stuff:

Sweet Hubby putting together a bulletin board for our kitchen/school room.

Bulletin board a week or so into school; creation unit banner, sun unit stuff.

Love this picture, "quiet" reading time.

Sometimes when she was tiny, Girly Whirl would join us, but girlfriend can no longer be trusted to remain in a seated position in the Bumbo.

Little Man loves to color for about 30 seconds if I tape the paper down. Then he starts ripping the paper, eating the crayons, and throwing them down and saying "Uh-oh!" in a really surprised-sounding voice...

And sometimes I'll notice that the playroom is a little too quiet and find him like this.

Wild Man drew the solar system.

Sponge painting leafy autumn trees.

Isn't it beautiful? I throw away most of their artwork after I take photos, but I haven't been able to part with these paintings yet.

Some more artwork. I love his words; the letters are all over the place, haha! Just get it on the page, right?

Pretty typical "seated" position for boys.

First book he read all by himself!!

Big sister is only too happy to take on the role of teacher.

Snuggle-time on the sofa for reading.

Making words.

Painting pine cone Christmas trees.

Oh, proud boy!! He's so in love with sitting at the table for school when his big kids do.

Our very crowded bulletin board at the moment...this makes me so happy.

Favorite art so far! We made ocean collages when we studied the letter 'O'. Watercolor paints for water and sand, real sand, construction paper, pipe cleaners, sweetgum balls (sea urchins), pine needles (sea anemone), bubble wrap (reef), sticks painted to be coral, shell-shaped pasta, and tempera paint stamps for other animals.

Oh, and hole reinforcers for the octopus' suckers. WM's octopus was red, because as he told me, "The octopus is flushed red because he's angry, and octopuses change colors when they're mad or scared." Thus the angry face he asked me to draw.

School year in brief so far. :) I've been taking pictures of all the work, and I plan to make a photo album for the year when we're done. Hope you enjoyed a little peek into our home school life!