Activities with Preschoolers

I was just surfing the blogosphere and learned about Amazing Afternoons web site! I'm totally excited about this! I have always wanted to be able to do things with the kids beit educational or just fun (which is actually how kids learn, through play) but I have always felt lost as to what to do or how to come up with any kind of organized theme (books, songs, projects). This site does it all for you! I'm totally psyched about starting to get these worksheets and having some kind of plan already laid out for me so that I can do the types of things that allow me to really spend time with my kids, nurturing them and growing their minds and skills. If you've got young children, you've got to go check this out! Hee hee - I'm excited!

Thought for the Day:

I got an email from a friend today that had a few lines I thought were great.

Thoughts for the day:
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
He sends you flowers every spring.
He sends you a sunrise every morning.
Face it, friend - He is crazy about you!

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.

Read this line very slowly and let it sink in...
If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Where are you sitting right now? - Additional Note:

I sat down yesterday and re-read my last blog posting followed by those few before it. I thought, "how appropriate is that?!" when I got to this post and re-read Beth Moore's words "Never misunderstand pain as permission to forego the will of God." I was just talking in my last post about the discomforts of the house selling/buying process and how it's so hard to sit and faithfully allow God to drive the direction of my life rather than me taking over and trying to do it myself. And then there was that line. So perfect for that situation ... and yet how quickly I'd forgotten it. "Pain" in this statement doesn't have to mean what we consider to be the true definition of pain. It's anything uncomfortable or difficult. And there I was taking my emotional discomfort as permission to forego the will of God.

Just something to think about .....

Where are you sitting right now?

Ok, so many of you know that our house is on the market. We've been trying to sell our house for over four months now. A little frustrating, yes. A little stressful, yes. But all the while, I've been reminding myself that God will send the right buyers to us at the right time. And He'll send the right house for us to move to. It will all be fine. He's in charge. And I have felt such peace about the whole thing. It's actually been kinda nice in a way ... other than the annoyance, of course, of having to maintain a clean and "perfect" house (despite two preschoolers and a toddler) so that we'll be ready at the drop of a hat when that agent calls and asks to show it to a client in 10 minutes! But we finally painted that last couple of rooms and replaced the kitchen vinyl and the bathroom tile where it needed it. We got rid of all the clutter that I now realize was so suffocating. And to top it off we hired a company to stage our home so that it looks more appealing to prospective buyers. I've LOVED living in my house this last few months! It's great! It's so much more beautiful and comfortable! But nevertheless, I HATE living in limbo. I can't do things I would normally do because I don't want to mess up the house. We have moved all of the kids big toys to storage and kept just the toys that fit in a few small bins in the corner. And I am constantly losing things because when people do call and want to see the house, we scoop up everything that's not nailed down (laundry, mail, misc. papers, books, etc) and hide it so that the house looks nice and clean. Then once we come home, I can't find things because I've hidden them - from myself!!! Ok, so that's my gripe session. Makes me feel a little better to fuss a touch. On to the real topic at hand....

After the turn of the year, when traffic started picking up and we started showing our home more, our real estate agent recommended that we get out there and start looking at houses so that we would know what our options are once we do get a contract. Sure! Sounds reasonable. However, I've begun to stress over this!! Our first weekend out, we found THE PERFECT HOUSE! I was flipping out! On the way home, I was trying to figure out if we could "float" two mortgages! This is something that no, we can't do and no, we don't want to do and no, this doesn't feel like I'm trusting the Lord! This feels like I'm trying to manipulate things and force them to fit MY plan. So, I smacked myself around a little and straightened up. Then our agent sent us several more houses to look at. My husband latched onto a fixer-upper and was rather interested in it but only if we could get the price down and some repairs done. That didn't pan out so no big deal. Then this weekend, I went out with our agent and looked at two more houses (while John stayed home with the sick kiddos). The first was really nice but the neighborhood was "eh." The second one, however, was a great house, in the perfect location, in a beautiful neighborhood, with more room than I'd know what to do with! It's a foreclosure so it's a good deal, although it has lots of repairs needed, but oh my word, the potential!! So, for the last two days my mind has been racing! I've been seriously glued to this house! How much would all of the repairs cost? Can I knock out that kitchen wall to make it open up to the living room? How can I find out if that's a load-bearing wall? What if that damage to the porch door really is termites? Can you still buy a house that's had termite damage? How much would new carpet cost? Can we afford a home equity line for all of the repairs over and above our mortgage? How much could we talk the bank down on the price? What are other houses in the neighborhood selling for? Can we "float" two mortgages so that we can go ahead and buy this one now and start on the renovations so that we'd be ready to move in once we eventually get a buyer for this one? Good grief! It's so easy to see now that these are rediculous questions! Why am I stressing so much over this stupid house? And note-to-self: there's something about all this finagling that isn't feeling quite "right." I recognized this afternoon what I was doing (again). I realized that I had basically decided that I was smarter than God and was trying to bump him out of the way so that I could do things my way. Picture, if you will, standing next to someone and doing that little hip-bump that knocks them off balance and out of your way (or that reminds you of the school dances in junior high where the girls are all giggling as they bump-bump each other's hips to that funky beat - yes, I'm still a dork). So, I realized today that I was trying to bump God to the side. Then tonight at small group, I asked for prayer to help me remember to keep God in the driver seat. We were all laughing about my rediculous thought processes when one of the guys said, "Just don't go. " We kept laughing and continued on with prayer requests but my mind stuck on those words. Well, duh! Ya know that makes a whole lotta sense!!! If I'm stressing over the houses that I go look at, then (Dork!) DON'T GO LOOK! I was praying about it on the way home and got a new image in my head. Rather than me simply offering a could-be cutesy hip bump to God, what I was really doing was more like the following: rather than sitting in my passenger seat, with my little seat belt on, hands nicely clasped in my lap, looking out the window and enjoying the view, here I was arms and legs outstretched as I lean over, clamoring and scratching for the steering wheel, trying to shove my foot over the console and down onto the pedals and trying to wedge my butt into the seat and shove God right out the door! Hmmm... Now, that's just not cool. Does that sound respectful of God? Does that sound faithful of his sovereignty? Is that trust? Or is that some totally dispresctful show of arrogance that I should know how to drive better than He? He sees the full portait on this huge canvass. I see my mega-pixel splat of color on my wee little corner. So, this whole, long, rambling story was to simply ask you where are you sitting? Are you sitting in the passenger seat, politely and faithfully enjoying the view as you allow God to lead you where He wants your life to go? Or are you grabbing at the wheel, shoving your foot down trying to reach the pedals and trying to butt God out of the way? Needless to say, I apologized to God tonight.

Personalized Gifts and Custom Embroidery

One of my friends just started her own business. She has the cutest stuff and I wanted to share with everyone. Either click here or visit her site at www.shopmemento.com. Hmmm... now how much money can I spend this month?? Time to shop!

Quote of the Day

This weekend Abigail came into our room while John and I were laying across our bed just talking. It was already made up, all of the pillows properly stacked. He was sitting on one corner and I was laying across the other. Abigail comes in, climbs up and wants to jump on the bed and land in the pile of pillows. We said, "No jumping on the bed, sweetie." She says in her three-year-old-high-pitched-wee-little-voice, "I knoooow. I have uh ideeeea. Wes tom-pro-mize. I push an you faw off de bed!" It was just hilarious to hear this wee widdle voice say such a mouthful of a word: compromise. Who could resist such a thing?!?!?

Sharing a little of His word....

I just wanted to share a few thoughts that keep ringing in my head from some bible study and preaching I heard yesterday and last night .... I wanted to share these in case it touches someone else out there ....

I recently started a Beth Moore bible study, Living Beyond Yourself. Yesterday I was reading about living a crucified life: living not for your own will but dying to yourself and living for God's will. There was a statment that just keeps ringing in my head. She said,

"Never misunderstand pain [emotional, physical, spiritual] as permission to forego the will of God."

"Never misunderstand pain as permission to forego the will of God."

I just thought that was a powerful statement because so often people say, "Oh, well, God would never want me to suffer so I'll...[you fill in the blank]." But what God wants is for you to keep His word ... even when it's difficult.

Another interesting thing I heard was last night while watching a show featuring pastor Henry Wright from Pleasant Valley Church in Thomaston, GA, author of A More Excellent Way. The focus of his book is connecting the dots between our sins and our diseases. It was a very interesting discussion. My husband borrowed this book from a friend but had to return it and now we are thinking about buying a copy of our own.

He was talking about blessings and curses. He said that when you follow God's word, He will fullfill His promises and offer you blessings. However, when you don't follow His word, you are essentially following a different word (Satan's word) and as the consequence, you receive Satan's "blessings" (aka curses).

... kinda makes sense ...

He also talked about how he did a word study and looked up the word "if" as it applied to the scriptures in Deuteronomy about blessings and curses. IF we obey the Lord and follow His word, we will receive blessings - he found that this "if" meant quickly, we'll receive the blessings quickly - but IF we do not follow His word, we will receive curses - he found that the different word "if" used here meant slowly - we will recieve curses slowly, in time... which is how diseases work.

.... hhmmmm...

...just a few things that I thought were interesting and I felt the urge to share, just in case it touches someone else out there...

Additional note:
Please don't get angry with me if you have an ailment and say "I'm not a sinner!" We are all sinners. I think we need to all pray and ask God to reveal to us how we can better follow His word. I'm doing this myself...

Flannel Sheets - You Are My New Love!

Haaaallelujah! Haaaaallelujah! Hallelujah!Hallelujah! Hal-leee-luuuu-jaaah!!!!

Ahhh!!!! Flannel - my new love!

Every night as I sit like a moron at this computer until 1:00 a.m. ... 2:00 a.m., rather than going to bed at 10:00 p.m. at the LATEST (I've obviously not yet successfully achieved that goal for 2008), I freeze my butt off here in the dark and then eventually get into bed. I lay there like a popsicle, trying to snuggle up to John to tap into his body heat (without waking him up from a jolt of cold toes... wait, who am I kidding?! NOTHING wakes him up!), yet continue to shiver out of my skin until I have put on three pairs of thick, zero-degree hiking socks and retrieved my beloved fleece throw from the hall closet. Finally, I then have some relief and can drift off. I had considered using an electric blanket. However, after going up into the attic to dig out the old gotta-be-over-30-years-old-electric-blanket-of-my-youth from a box and plugging it in to see if it still worked, we felt no heat. Instead, I placed both of my hands on the blanket, paused, looked at John with my head tilted a little and said, "Do you feel that?" He placed his hands on the blanket feeling around for the eluding warmth and said, "What?" "That." He paused a moment and then we both realized that the "tickle" that I was feeling was ELECTRICITY!!! "AAaaahh!" I jerked my hands back, a little freaked by the feeling of live electricity crawling under my fingertips! So, uh, no electric blanket for me, thank you very much! We talked about buying a new one but then the whole electric-current-running-over-my-entire-body-thing flashed cancerous thoughts through my head (yes, I realize this is going overboard but that's what went through my head) and I wasn't as excited about the idea anymore.

Flash back to Christmas. Abigail received flannel Dora sheets for her bed. Followed were several 3:00 a.m. visits over the course of the next month, "Mommy, come sleep with me." Here I am zombie-shuffling to her bed answering, "Okay, but just for a little while, sweetie" (actually thinking "sure, anything, as long as it means sleeeeeep.....zzzzz!"). I realized during those sweet yet sleep-deprived snuggles in her small bed just how warm her bed was. Especially after I would wake at 4:00 a.m. and return to my own cold, cold sheets (repeat process: snuggle up to John for warmth and hope that I don't disturb him with my coldness). So, I was sold. Note to self: add "buy flannel sheets" to my To Do list in the morning.

And then we come to tonight. I finally got the sheets. I finally got them on the bed. I (again) was up too late tonight and therefore partially frozen by the time I crawled into bed. But, aaahhhh - my first socked foot slid under the covers. My other socked foot slid under the covers (yes, don't I just scream sexiness here!). I could already tell the difference! I slid the rest of my body under the covers and layed my head down on an already inviting pillow case. I was already halfway thawed rather than nearly to the deep-freeze stage! Snuggle to John and done. I was thawed and ready for sleep! And I must say the ensuing lightening storm of static shooting and darting around under the sheets as I was sliding in was quite entertaining!!

... then of course I couldn't sleep because I wanted to share my new found joy with the world! So here, again, it is 1:00 a.m. as I sit at the computer! But that's fine. I sit here wrapped in my fleece throw just knowing that I can crawl back into my flannel bed when I'm done (allthewhile giggling at the lightening show) and snuggle up nice and toasty!

Thank you God for flannel!

Quote of the Day

Today's quote is not from one of the kids this time but shamelessly taken from a fellow blogger whose site I love to visit. I just loved this quote and wanted to share:

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." (William Butler Yeats)

...just simmer on that one for a minute....

Guess what Grandma? I can say Sh*t!!

We often work with the older kids on saying their S's as they both tend to lisp, saying 'th' rather than 's.' This weekend, John had been working with Jared trying to show him how to hold his mouth with his front teeth together to get more of an 's' sound rather than letting his tongue come out and make the 'th' sound. Jared was doing really good. Grandma called about that time and Jared was itching to talk to her as always. The first thing he says to her is, "Guess what Grandma? I can say Sh*t!" Both John's and my head jerked around!! I leaned over toward the phone in Jared's hand and said, "We're working on our S's today. He's trying to say "sit!" I could hear Grandma quietly say, "Ooooh." John and I were silently dying laughing as Jared continued his conversation!