Let me check...

Just checking to see if there is any other little boy out there...


as cute and as silly...


as my little boy...


That's what I thought!

Advent 2009

WARNING! EXTREMELY long post ahead!

I kinda went overboard with the number of pictures in this post. I just didn't want to leave any of them out!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

This fall, I really began to think about family traditions and the Advent season and how I wanted to make the holidays a truly special time for my children. I wanted to really build up to Christmas and the celebration of God coming to earth and dwelling among us. And I wanted it to be meaningful.

So, as part of their Christmas present, I found this great Advent calendar on-line (for really cheap...about $17.00) that was cloth and had pockets big enough for me to put little notes about our activity for the day.


One of the first things we did was set up the nativity scene. My kids played with this daily and would act out the story while we read it aloud. VERY cute!


Brad's mom sent Sammy a nativity book that had a bunch of great activities with stickers, mazes, etc. Sammy loved doing these fun activities.


I also found some GREAT Advent ideas on some super websites. This was a Christmas wreath that Sammy made.


This same site also had a lot of great activities to print out. I printed out one coloring sheet a day with a Bible verse and a picture that went along with the story of Christmas. Here Sammy is coloring, cutting and gluing shapes on her tree.


Brainerd does a couple of really fun family days throughout the year. One of them is called Holi-daze. We took a horse drawn carriage ride through downtown to the old Franklin Junior High.


Once we got there, there were several rooms in "Santa's workshop" where the kids could play in balls, listen to a Christmas story, watch a Christmas video, color Christmas sheets, or make jewelry. Caleb just wanted to play in the balls and run around the building, so I stayed with Sammy and helped her make a bracelet.


While I did do some activities with both kids, most of them I did with Sammy while Caleb was sleeping.

I've learned that Caleb is just not ready for Elmer's glue and scissors quite yet!

But there were a few that we did together. The kids used glue sticks to attach cotton balls to a lamb sheet. We briefly discussed how Jesus was the perfect lamb and what He eventually did for us when he died on the cross.


Caleb is so cute!


On another day, Sammy painted some Christmas trees and stars.


Ever since Sammy and her cousin Kaitlyn were 2, I've been doing a gingerbread house every year with Sammy and Caleb. The last 2 years, they have decorated one with their Wiese cousins.

Caleb did a really good job, and I only had to remind him a few hundred times NOT to eat the candy!


Sammy loves this time with her cousins!


Even though I LOVED all that we did and LOVED coming up with our daily activities, near the end I realized that many of the days I was so consumed with preparing them for Christmas and doing all these great things, that I often forgot to enjoy them fully.

Some days I wished we just would have sat on the couch and watched the lights on the Christmas tree sparkle. Or taken more time to drink hot chocolate and talk together about our day. Or even not have done so many "activities", but simply spend time reading and re-reading the amazing story of Christ's birth.

Sometimes, I go a little over the top. I know, it's hard to believe!

But despite the craziness, I pray that both Sammy and Caleb came to understand more fully what Christ's birth meant. Everything about it pointed to His perfect fulfillment of hundreds of Old Testament prophesies, and His ultimate sacrifice on the cross.

The Christmas story is not complete if we don't include what happened on Easter.

But now, looking at my twinkling Christmas tree...yes, it is January 6 and we still have our tree up...I am grateful for the memories we made and thankful that despite my "over the top" ways, we have begun a tradition that my children will remember and might even incorporate into their adult lives some day.

Out with the old and in with the new!

Since we spent a quiet Christmas at home with just our kids, we decided to use some of the extra time to begin preparing for Baby Girl Aust...arriving in just 3 short months!

We live in a 3 bedroom house, so it was time to transition Caleb into Sammy's room. We had tried this before...when Caleb was about 7 months old...but needless to say, it did NOT go well! Caleb struggled with sleeping consistently through the night until he was close to a year, and it just wasn't worth the hassle every night of trying to put 2 kids back to sleep.

Now at 4 and 2 1/2, they play together (most days) like champs and have been asking to room together...and we wanted to move them before they changed their minds!

This room has now been painted 3 times in just 5 short years. (It's a good thing I like painting and am fast at it!)

When we were first expecting Sammy, we painted her room purple.


Just ignore the plants and dirt on the floor. A friend's little girl had a good time "playing" in this room one weekend. That is a story in itself!

Anyway...

Then, after Caleb was 6 months or so, we wanted to move him into Sammy's room so that we still had a guest bedroom. (We have a lot of family from out of state, and we really wanted to have a queen bed and room for them when they visit...sometimes for up to 2 weeks.) So in preparation of moving them into the same room...which, again, never happened...we decided to keep the purple and added yellow and blue stripes.

These pictures were taken right before I began painting.


It was a crazy, but fun little toddler room. And we've had it this way since about March of 2008.


But, boy were we ready for a change!

We spent the last several months trying to find some bedding we liked. Seriously, bedding is EXPENSIVE!!! We finally found something we liked...actually most of the boy and girl bedspreads had at least one color in common. I thought I knew which one Sammy would pick (a pink one with yellow and light green stripes) and then I was going to grab a coordinating one (a blue with tan and light green stripes) for Caleb.

Note to self: Do NOT let a 4 year old girl choose her own bedspread. She will pick one you NEVER thought she would!

So, after much reasoning (on our part) and tears (on Sammy's part), we finally caved and let her choose a pretty purple poka-dot bedspread...which in no way, shape, or form, coordinated with any of the boy bedspreads.

Arg!

But, hopefully, these 2 bedspreads will last a long time...much longer than a princess or Thomas the Train one would last...and the kids can grow into them and use them when if they ever get their own rooms again.

The paint colors were hard to come up with, but we did like the result!


The room does look smaller with these bright colors, but it does look more like a kid's room and less like a baby one!


So, for now, the projects are done...well, that is, until we decide what color to paint the baby's room!

Christmas family pictures 2009

Ever since we got married, I have LOVED taking family pictures at Christmas! At first it was just Brad and me, and we could just set up the tripod and take pictures of ourselves.

It's gotten a bit more complicated with children...and takes about three times as long to get a good shot!

I don't know why I love it so much! Maybe it's just a great excuse to get all matching clothes and try to take the best picture to send out to family and friends. Maybe it's having (now) 11 years worth of pictures of us to compare over the years.

And man, oh man, has my hair style...and weight...changed over the years!

Maybe it's just because I LOVE having cute pictures of me and my hubby and our adorable children. Maybe it's because we just don't seem to take many pictures of us as a family over the course of the year.

Regardless of the reason, here are some of the GREAT pictures that our friend Jeremy took of us recently.

I can't believe my little girl is already 4! She is such a joy and a blessing to us! (And she's quite adorable, isn't she!)


The tricky part about having Jeremy take pictures of us in his home (with his very cool camera, lights, and backdrops) was that there were toys that kept distracting Caleb. He didn't always have the best smile, but he's still a cutie!


Sammy can only handle saying "cheese" so many times until she just gets squirmy and silly. Hence this picture!


The only way we could get Caleb to smile was to tickle him. And this little guy is very, very ticklish!


After we got a couple of family pictures, we let the kids play and Jeremy took some of just Brad and me and Baby Girl. Seriously, I wish I would have taken more pregnancy pictures with my first two pregnancies!


Why is it that we never get enough pictures of just Brad and me? Oh, that's right, it's because we're always shooting pictures of our kids. That so needs to change!


I LOVE this one! We were laughing about something...have no idea what...but I LOVE how we look! Almost like we're still in love after over 10 years of marriage!


Yup, he does this every year!


And finally, our family picture. Aside from Sammy's static hair, it's a pretty sweet shot! Thanks again Jeremy!!!



Merry Christmas!

The "new" keeping up with the Jones'

Yet again, I've been suffering from a re-occurring condition... Yes, it is back...with a vengeance.

For awhile, I had it under control. All was right with the world. I was completely content. If I struggled at all, I sought council from God's Word. I do not allow little things to bother me. And if those little things start to bother me, I just let them roll off my back.

Then, out of nowhere, I'm struck again with this terrible disease...

What condition do I have, you may ask?

It's called the "comparison game" and this week, the particular virus has to do with my kids.

Some time ago, Brad and I got into a discussion with one of our pastors about how "keeping up with the Jones'" has changed from "stuff" (like boats and cars and houses and income) to "children" (like how many AP classes they are taking or how many sports they are in or whether they are on the A or B teams, etc). Brad and I even talked, in detail, how we did NOT want to be sucked into that game. We've discussed how we are going to protect our children and our home and our schedules from it.

The problem is, I haven't figured out how to protect it from me and my inner feelings.

I've been wanting to post some cute pictures of Sammy "doing school" at home with me, but I just haven't been able to because of how I've been feeling. (I do hope that by the end of this rant, I will be able to.)

Since October 1, I have been doing "school" activities with Sammy while Caleb naps. She was almost 4, and even though she wouldn't even be able to start "traditional" kindergarten for almost 2 more years, she was really done with taking naps (bummer for me) and was so ready for extra work and challenges.

I did some research, talked with some elementary school teacher friends and some home school moms, and started doing about 30 minutes of "school" with her. We've done a variety of things from learning games, learning the alphabet and numbers, cutting and gluing, puzzles, etc.

I've really enjoyed it...even though she and I have very similar personalities and we both can be quite stubborn and strong-willed at times...which has made some days quite challenging.

I have asked some of my good friends (who are homeschooling moms) questions about what they are doing with their 4 year olds, and have been quite content with what I'm doing with Sammy. (The comparison bug would stick out its ugly head from time to time, but quickly went away.)

I've talked excessively about it with Brad, and since Sammy has "play time" at the YMCA 3 mornings a week while I work out AND great Sunday School and Wednesday night classes at church AND a very structured and Biblically based Bible Study Fellowship class every Thursday morning AND another class every other Tuesday morning while I meet with my Titus 2 women's group, we agreed that I wasn't going to over-do it and add even more structure when she's learning a mess of songs and finger plays and Bible verses and whole lot of other stuff...like the pledge to the American flag and the Bible...pretty sure I didn't learn either one of those until I was a couple years older than Sammy...elsewhere.

Because, she really is only 4 and her main job is to play...which, by the way, she is doing right now in her room. I think her little care bears and my little ponies are on an adventure somewhere...and I think they are singing "Oh come all ye faithful" as they walk...or at least that's what it sounds like from here!

Yet with all of the discussion and prayer, I felt like a failure as a mom (and her teacher) again earlier this week. One little incident caused me to re-think what I was doing with her. I began to think she was behind and that I was holding her back and not doing enough with her. I decided that I had to do some more research and buy some curriculum to help her learn her letter sounds faster and get her reading. She was still struggling with a few letters and I felt I had to help her learn them quickly and RIGHT NOW!

I worked myself into a complete tizzy...over the smallest little thing...over comparing Sammy to another 4 year old.

Why must I keep repeating this pattern? Am I going to get over this before Sammy gets older and all the activities, school work, sports, swimming, dance, etc. really consume our time and lives?

Why can't I just let Sammy be Sammy?

So, today, I confess my sin.

I confess placing my eyes on those around me instead on the One who made me.

I confess trying to use Sammy and her accomplishments to make me feel better as a mother (and a teacher...since I do have that lovely masters degree now).

I confess trying to fit Sammy into a cute, little square box...when, as an educator, I know children develop differently and at different times.

I confess trying to make her grow up too soon...which is opposite of what I really want to happen.

And I confess my pride...and my self-righteousness. Just because another mom is teaching her 4 year old to read and another mom just plays Candy Land all day with her 4 year old SHOULD NOT make me feel better or worse about what I am doing with Sammy.

And, really, it is not about me. My feelings are not authoritative. They do not always equal TRUTH. And my feelings are either ruled by God's Word or by sin.

(My thanks to Carolyn Mahaney and her book Feminine Appeal for those last few thoughts.)

I realize today that I can't conquer this sin by myself, and I'm not meant to. The only power I have comes from God, His Word, and from being connected with Him.

So, I think I will post some of those fun pictures of Sammy because I am proud of her and her learning. This blog is about recording memories of my life, my marriage, my kids, my failures and my successes. I will not allow sin or certain feelings to paralyze me from doing just that.

Here, Sammy is cutting and gluing shapes in her "dollar store" workbook. LOVE those workbooks by the way!


She's concentrating hard, isn't she!


Learning to write her name.


Putting together puzzles...one of her favorite things to do after we're done doing school.