Shut thy precious mouth...

Okay, so for the past several months I have felt like God has shown me that my mouth gets in the way of what He is trying to develop inside of me & it never really gets the chance to fully develop.

I am a teacher and once I learn something I want to teach it to someone else. I can hardly keep my mouth shut and when I try, I feel physically uncomfortable. Like, when I am in a group and I feel like I have a nugget to share and I try to keep my mouth shut my heart will start racing and I may even start sweating. Psycho teacher, huh? I had a playdate with an amazing girl yesterday who has the very same difficulty. She put it into words for me and it was a yet another confirmation that what I have been hearing from God lately is that I need to shut my mouth until what I am learning is firmly planted in my heart.

My tendency is to read half a book or do half of a bible study and then run with it in my mind and out of my mouth prematurely. I will think I have gotten the main point, and I just want to share it while it is fresh. BUT, sometimes in my haste the message not able to produce the fruit in my life that it should.

{{And even after all that I wrote above I just wrote 3 paragraphs about what He is teaching me right now...and then deleted them...I am so stubborn. I will simply say that this is a season of developing the longing for wisdom and discernment in my life. In order to do this I need to open my ears and eyes and fill them with His Word, not my own words.}}

My baby sibs in transition...

Jeka is graduating TONIGHT with her Masters in marriage and family counseling. My baby sister is a counselor!? What? I am so insanely proud of her. She is engaged to an awesome man who adores her and her fabulous family (especially her nieces and nephew!) She is an adult, like officially. I am so excited for her as she embarks on the beginning of her career and (soon-to-be) marriage.



This amazing uncle, my little brother Matt, just left last week for law school way back in Oklahoma. We are already missing him like crazy, but we are so excited for this new chapter in his life as well. We have gotten so close over the past year that it was extremely hard to say, "Goodbye."

I think these two youngsters and the major life transitions they are facing are much of the reason for my recent emotional swings. Our family is so connected at the heart that whenever one of us is experiencing something big, we all are. I am so happy for them with all of the big changes coming up, but I also selfishly want them to be little again. I want to babysit them and snuggle with them and tickle them and change their diapers. Not the adults they have become (that would be bizarre), but the babies I remember caring for and adoring with all that was in me. I am so thankful for their growing friendship and the fact that even though 12 years separate us, we can now walk side by side and share one another's lives on an equal playing field. Who'd have ever guessed we'd be so close?

the sack...

This is "the sack." The sack contains one whole Jesse Dean.



One of the kids' favorite things to do is to have James scoop them up in a blanket and throw them over his shoulder like Santa with his sack full of presents. He hauls them each around the living room a few times and then dumps them out.
I have to admit that I am a little jealous. I wonder what it would feel like to be scooped up in a sack and carried around in complete darkness. Wait, that sounds terribly creepy. I guess if I ever did find myself in that situation it would not be a good thing. Creepy aside, I do miss the mystery, amusement and excitement from the little things we experience when we are young. I guess James does too and that is why he relives it through playing things like "the sack" with our kids. He is such an awesome Daddy!

Lucy's naptime makeover...

I truly believe that to receive the full benefits of humility from raising your kids you have to have at least 3 of them. Most people can do 2 kids with relative ease and they can maintain all of their illusions about what an amazing wonderful parent they are and take credit for all of their kids successes and failures without putting much thought into whether or not maybe God just created their kid with a certain temperament and personality apart from anything they do as a parent to "make" them a certain way. They can happily sit back and speculate on what they would never do as a parent or what they'd never allow to happen and maybe even get all of the way through rearing their young children without experiencing many things that "only neglectful parents" experience.

Such as...drawing on the wall, falling down the stairs or off the bed, cutting their own hair, or any number of things that I MYSELF said I could not imagine how a parent could let happen. How could they if the parent was paying attention to their kids at all?

Enter child number THREE. The humbling child. This is her job. To humble us. Yes, it is her job to amuse us, adore us, and amaze us as well, but her main job in life (it would appear) is to humble us.

So yeah, I was talking to Cheney on the phone the other day during nap time for a much needed catch-up on each other's lives phone date. Shelby and Jesse were obediently watching a movie and Preslie and Lucy were sleeping. So I thought. So, 45 minutes into the "nap" Shelby comes and gets me and says that I "HAVE" to come and see what Lucy has done. I make it to the stairs where she is sitting with her dark purple hand rubbing eye shadow into the carpet. Her face is a golden glow with illuminator and her right cheek is dark purple and caked with eye shadow. She has also caked her neck with eyeshadow for some reason. My sink and vanity ((that I had just cleaned an hour earlier)) were covered in illuminator and eye shadow and all of my make-up brushes were ruined. After I changed her poopy diaper and washed her face I put her to bed where she immediately fell fast asleep. That Child!

Shelby and Jesse have never in their lives messed around during nap time. They are really obedient when it comes to bedtime stuff. Thus, I am unprepared for this child who also wrote all over the wall, her sheets and herself (with a washable marker) the other night when she was supposed to be sleeping. I am up for the challenge, but pray for me, b/c who knows where her creativity and rebellion will take us on this journey to humility.

Side note: I hope the 4th child is the gift from God who is super-easy and obedient to reward you for all of the hard work you do with the third.

roller coaster ride...

I don't know if it is the heat, the desert, the recent visitors from home who remind me how much I miss Kansas or the midlife crisis I am headed into, but I feel like I am on a roller coaster ride lately when it comes to my emotions. I feel like I am entering a second adolescence or something. For someone who likes to be "in control" this is an uncomfortable place to be.

The years between the ages of 30 & 35 I felt like I went through a process of becoming who I was meant to be. I had finally "arrived." I was confident in myself, my parenting, my marriage, & my God. I felt like for the first time in my life I really knew myself and liked who I had become.

I am about to turn 37 and I still feel this way. I am confident in all of those areas, but emotionally I feel really fragile. I will have a few really good positive days and then a few down in the dumps days. I will find joy in living here and then something will make me hate it again. I will have hope in the future one moment and then I will feel despair. I will feel so close to God one day and distant the next. I am terribly annoyed with myself lately b/c I don't do well with emotional people and I am being an emotional person.

I so hope this is just a phase because I am ready to be done with it.

Savor the time...

This is the time of the summer when I hear many of my friends anxiously looking forward to school starting again. Their young kids are stir crazy because they have done all of the typical summer activities already and are bored, and parents have run out of ideas of how to occupy their kids to keep them out of their hair.

Ask any parent of teens or grown children and they will tell you that they only wish their kids were "in their hair" again. I have spent some serious time lately savoring my kids and I have discovered that there are so many things I will miss when they are older. Yes, I want them to grow up and I will enjoy every stage, but there are a few things that only accompany this stage and I don't want to be so busy or distracted that I miss out on them.

such as...

-the look of surprise and adoration when your baby catches you watching her as she crawls by.
-constant begging for more tickles or "Momma, hold me."
-carefree, unbridled, jubilant singing and dancing
-innocent, heart-felt, faith-filled prayers shared aloud
-binky kisses
-dirty blankies and bears
-skipping everywhere they go
-siblings snuggling or holding hands
-mountains of drawings of our family
-the pure jubilation when we walk into a room after being gone
-bouncing curls
-playing in the bathtub until they are pruney little frogs
-innocent & hopeful dreams of the future
-forts
-imaginations
-and so much more

I was watching them dance last night with Lucy's curls bouncing and Preslie's arms flapping, Shelby's choreographing, and Jesse's writhing around like a fish out of water with a huge grin on his face and time froze for just a few moments. Tears came to my eyes and I longed to bottle up that feeling, so I could open it up later and drink it in again when they are far beyond this stage. Oh, my babies...How I love them.

Mice Family Vacation

We had the Mice here this week and it was a blast!! You'd think 3 extra kids and 2 extra adults in our tiny house would be overwhelming, but we loved it!
Their boys slept in Jesse's room and we kept Preslie in our room (closet in the pack and play). Jeremy and Helen got the playroom and Vonna slept with the girls.



Here are the princesses sharing a bedtime story in the big ole king sized bed. Lucy made sure that she still got the crack, but she did share a blankie and glow-baby with Veronica. The first night all of the kids were up until at least 10:30 and got up at 5:30 a.m. the next morning. OUCH. After that sleeping was much easier.



The guys took the older kids swimming yesterday and Helen and I took PJ and Patrick with us to grab pizza from Spinatos. Yum! Then we went on a lizard hunt in my parents' yard with the boys. We found some but couldn't catch them. Tommy is reptile obsessed, so it was right up his alley. Although, he was pretty disappointed that we never caught one. Jesse promised him that we could go hiking the next time he comes and catch some lizards or snakes. Hopefully that will entice them all to come back when the weather is nicer.



This boy loves his dinosaurs! He entertained himself with dinos most of the time they were here. I just love his giant Mouse eyes and Mouse eyelashes. All of their kiddos have been beautiful from the moment they emerged from the womb. Huge eyes and super-long lashes! I was there to see Veronica make her way into the world. What a princess, and what a JOY!



Lucy lou is a swimming fool. She loves to wear goggles but always takes them off before she gets into the water.



The kids entertained me and Helen a lot with their jug band. Helen taught them how to use overlapping sounds to make a silly song. She also wrote me a song called "Jeanna Lich-ten-berger" that I know have stuck in my head.

We had such a great time. The Mice are friends we can totally hang out and relax with. They are real people & real friends...the kind we enjoy so much. In the short time they were here, we managed to get caught up on each others' lives, share a lot of laughs (& a few tears), and solve all of the world's problems. We may be exhausted, but we are also refreshed. We are so thankful that they chose to drive out of their way on their family vacation to spend time with us.

Mom doesn't ever feel sorry for anyone...

Shelby has said this about me a few times lately, so it has really gotten me thinking. Of course, she is referring to the times when they are being disciplined or when they are not allowed to do something another child is allowed to do and I do not give in. They are all keenly aware that if they want the answer to be a definitive "NO," all they have to do is cry or whine about something. I will entertain reasonable respectful objections when voiced without crying or whining such as, "Mom, remember last night when you said we could have dessert tomorrow?" But not, "BUT MOM...that's not fair! You said we could have dessert tomorrow!" Once they take a certain tone, the answer is and will forever remain "NO." So, in that respect, she is right I don't feel sorry for them. They know the consequences, no reason for sympathy.

But it goes farther with me...She is right, I don't ever feel sorry for anyone. Feeling sorry for someone is called "pity" and pity is a useless emotion. I am not the friend to call if you want to have a pity party or husband bashing session. I won't tell you that you are right, your life is miserable and your husband is awful and you DESERVE to be angry or upset. {with a few exceptions} Nope, pity I do not do, and it has cost me more than a few superficial friends I am sure. I have had people tell me that they appreciate my honesty and know exactly what to expect when they call me. If they want a pity party they have other friends they call for that. Still, that makes me kind of sad, because I don't want them to think I don't feel their pain.

Compassion is a better description of what I do feel and what I do DO. The definition of compassion is "Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it." I feel deeply, but I do not pity. My first instinct is to relieve their discomfort, not play into or encourage it. So, I will usually go into reality and advice mode, encouraging my friend to look at her situation reasonably and challenging her to work toward a solution instead of just "venting." Sometimes I do this in a way that leaves people feeling less than validated and then they probably aren't quite as receptive to hearing my advice. I am growing in this area, but I still have a ways to go. I want to be better at communicating my heart...the first part of the definition "a deep awareness of suffering," because I do feel it, I am just not great at expressing it. Now, "the wish to relieve it"...I have got that part down.

I'm a work in progress, that is for sure!

Tea Party Tradition...

Our new tradition is to have a tea party when Jeka is in town. Grandma Sherri got to join us too. We had tea and real crumpets from Trader Joes, gluten-free muffins, yogurt cookies, fruit, and scones. We used the special tea sets my mom bought in Canada. It was a grand event!



Shelby and Jesse helped Noni and Jeka make this fabulous cake they found in a tea party cookbook. It was beautiful. Lucy was asleep during the party, but we waited on the cake until she could join us.



This cracks me up! After the tea party everyone relaxed on my parents enormous couch all snuggled up in blankets. Never mind that it was 112 degrees outside, they were chilly. Jeka's dog Baxter got in on the snuggle action too.

Eventful trip to the library

Grandma Sherri and I took the kids to the library today for what was supposed to be just a quick trip to return our books and gather a new stack. Well, it was a quick trip, but much more exciting than we had originally planned. One of these long horned beetles was crawling around the kids' area when we arrived. Jesse was in heaven. He contained the bug while I retrieved the librarian to remove the pesky creature. He was totally fine with it crawling on his almost bare flip-flopped foot. He created a cage with baby board books. The librarian was too freaked out to do anything, so she retrieved the custodian. He scooped it into a trash can and carried it outside. Jesse probably would have picked the thing up and carried it outside if I let him. All the while, Grandma Sherri was looking for a book in another section and missed all of the excitement. I wish I had had my camera, but I found this pic that looks exactly like the one we saw. We never saw one of these dudes in Kansas, that is for sure!

More bowling pics...

Noni entertained Preslie with the bottomless popcorn and danced with her to the country and hiphop music. Papa buried everyone else with his mad bowling skills. He had almost a perfect game the second round. It was unbelievable!



On the second game, James let Lucy bowl his first ball each time. She watched with such anticipation as the ball crept at a snail's pace down the lane and then she jumped up and down and screamed, high fiving every single person after she knocked a few down. Her joy was uncontainable. She gets almost as excited just looking at these pictures! Such a fun age.

Bowling Party!

Last night, we went bowling to celebrate Father's Day. It was our "gift experience" for my Dad. As an added bonus, Grandma Sherri is in town and she went with us. We had SO MUCH FUN!!!! We have been super busy lately with Jeka and Grandma Sherri, so I haven't had much time to post, but I have lots of pictures so over the next few weeks, there will be more.

Happy 4th of July 2010

Am I sexy enough?

Just read and meditate on this, my friends from the (in)courage blog... http://www.incourage.me/2010/07/enoug.html

100 degrees at 8am...

On our walk this morning, the kids tried to wimp out. It was 100.9 degrees at 8 am, but we are determined to get our walk in. We had a long talk about exercise, sunshine and vitamin D. And then, we bribed them with a reward for anyone who could complete the rest of the walk without complaining. We had some strawberry "spicy juice" {spicy for short}left over from a dinner we had with friends in May, so that was their prize. Even Preslie partook in the "spicy."
(Spicy is our name for soda pop. Shelby called it spicy juice when she was little and it has been spicy ever since.)

p.s. Sorry, James for posting this with your crazy hat hair!

When being a Mom is hard...

Being a Mom can be hard. There is no getting around it. Some days are better than others. Sometimes I seriously sail along through motherhood for a few weeks or months without feeling like it is hard and then I will go through a few days or weeks where I just don't know if I am up for the task. I have experienced moments that are TRULY difficult, like childbirth, or like making decisions about elective surgery for Shelby's eyes and waiting for her to wake up from surgery. Or, driving Jesse to the E.R. because he fell off a play car on to his head. Or, waiting to see if Lucy's horrible reaction to cashews would totally close up her little throat like it had already closed up her eyes and caused huge welts all over her skin while waiting for the epi-shot to kick in.

But, truthfully, the times when I feel like being a Mom is hardest are simply the times when they get in the way of what "I" want to do. The more I focus on myself the further south my attitude goes when it comes to my kids. Just telling it like it is here...

Sometimes,
When I want to sleep in and they get up earlier than ever, it is hard.
When I want to have a quiet and peaceful dinner and they complain and argue, it is hard.
When I see other women buying new clothes and heading off to work where they are affirmed and PAID, it is hard.
When I want to post something on my blog and they decide to trash the house, it is hard.
When I want to talk to a friend on the phone and they eat everything in the cupboard, it is hard.
When I just want to spend a day vegging out and they "NEED" my attention (because they are 7 & under after all), it is hard.
When I want to stroll leisurely through Target and they are screaming or asking for everything in the store, it is hard!

So, basically, if I choose to, I can think of my every moment in my life as a Momma as "HARD!" {Name for me one worthwhile cause or occupation that is easy.}

I have found that in most situations, motherhood included, accepting and more importantly, EMBRACING my current reality makes a huge difference in my attitude and my satisfaction with my life.

The more I think about what "I" could be doing, or what "part of me" wants to be doing instead of mothering, the more I feel like being a Mom is just plain hard. I even start to resent my kids for being kids and feel trapped. I contemplate what I could be doing if I stuck them all in school and daycare. I can even start to fantasize about what we could do with the extra money I would be bringing in.

On the other hand, when I embrace that this is my God-given part to play in life and notice the rewards that come from doing it well, mothering is just what I do, and who I am. I am able to see that it is a privilege to spend these few short years with my children. I see the honor in partnering with God & my husband to shape them into who He created them to be. I actually LOVE and ENJOY what I do. I don't feel trapped at all. I feel free because I have been given this incredible gift and opportunity and I am FREE to choose how I use it. I am a passionate and creative person and I can be passionate and creative with my parenting. I can be as intentional in what I do with them as I would in any job, art project, healthy menu planning, blog posting, or any other interest I pursue.

Sure, there will be no worldly accolades or pats on the back.
No one may ever even notice me or what I do with my role as a Mother.
I will not win any rewards or make a lot of money.
And I will probably never be popular and have lots of friends.

But, My Father in Heaven who gave these precious children to me will be glorified through my simple embrace of the role He has placed me in. I will please Him and put a smile on His face. My home will be a safe haven full of joy where my husband and my kids WANT to be. My kids will know that they are valuable and they are worth it. I will be proud of the way I spend my time and fall asleep satisfied at the end of the day.

The truth is, being a stay-at-home Mom is my reality. Whether I choose to embrace or resent this fact it remains true. 95% of the time I embrace it and I can honestly say that I do love being a Mom. The other 5% of the time, when I feel like being a Mom is really hard and I want to throw up my hands, I can usually point to some very specific areas in my life where I have become selfish and started focusing more on my own wants and needs than my loved ones.

The irony of selfishness...focusing on MY needs and wants for a change!, like the world will tell Moms to do...is that it usually breeds more dissatisfaction than the satisfaction it promises. Balance is the key for me. I take time for myself (by myself) every day, and I have a few hours kid free outside of the house each week. Here and there I make space to remember that my wants and needs are important too and I nurture myself. But, in order for me to have joy in my position and make an impact in my world, there is no place for selfishness. Basically, I just need to "get over myself!"

The second part of that irony is that the more I focus on glorifying God {rather than myself} in all I do{including mothering}, the more joy and peace I have on a consistent basis. {Oh, and as an added bonus, my home just so happens to be filled with joy as well.}
Go figure.