Look What I Can Do...

The older kids are in a phase right now... It's actually been going on for quite some time... They are both constantly asking me,

"MOM! Look at me!! Look what I can do!!!

I will confess that there are moments at the end of each day when I find myself kind of tired of "looking." But I am putting forth all effort to soak up this season because I know that there just might come a day when they will not be nearly as interested in including me in EVERYTHING that they are doing or discovering.

Yesterday Josiah started the chant... "Mom, look at me..." Then he proceeded to lick his lips... That was it. That's all he wanted me to see...

Sometimes they want me to look at them and when I do, I honestly cannot figure out what they are even trying to show me. Not long after Siah licked his lips, he said again, "Hey, Mom, watch this..." and he held up his pointer finger and his middle finger. I must have looked at him with a confused face because he followed it up with, "See Mom? SEE? My fingers!" He was seriously doing absolutely NOTHING with his fingers. And in my mind, I thought, "ya, those are your fingers alright. What am I looking at again?" I still have no idea what he was trying to show me.

But there are equally as many times that I know exactly what they are trying to show me...

Like yesterday...

Look at me Mama!!!
I can blow up two empty juice boxes at the same time...


I can stand on one foot....


I can put my big toe in my mouth...


I ride this rocking horse reaaaaaalllly fast....


I can laugh and laugh and laugh...


I can sport a Mohawk....


And even though I am sweet... I can get into trouble just as well as the rest of them... :)

To Each His Own...

I love how intricately the Lord knitted together specific details in each our MSC...

They are clearly siblings but each one has an overflowing handful of traits that are 100% their own...

Siah... Has facial expressions and mannerisms that sometimes make me feel like I am looking at my mother as a child. Hal couldn't look like my mother if she tried. Her fare skin and bright blue eyes sometimes make me wonder how she got to be my daughter.


But then I see parts of her personality and I have no doubt that we are of the same blood. Hal can be often be caught trying to get her way through her tears and passionate emotion that she displays in certain situations... But little does she know that her mother had that same zeal about her while growing up... "It takes one to know one," right? I played the emotion card on my own parents sometimes so I feel like the Lord has given me a one-up on little Hal in allowing me to spot her emotional manipulation tactics and the wisdom to knip them in the (bottom) as soon as I see them showing their ugly little faces. Yesterday we had one such situation and I am humbly sharing... that I won!!! ( ok maybe I am tackily boasting of my success.:) I had asked Hal to do something... then the tears started to flow... I took her in the bathroom and told her that I expected her to obey me quickly and joyfully (without tears), the first time, every time! Then I disciplined her. She fake cried louder, I repeated the whole process six more times... The sixth time, her heart softened, she got a smile on her face and she bounced joyfully out of the bathroom and completed exactly what I had asked her to do.

Siah is struggling with having an attitude too but it is amazing how differently he responds to my discipline... With Siah, I usually only have to discipline him once... then his heart softens so much so that his body often melts into my chest hoping for a hug... which of course I am glad to give. :)

Reesie, although she is small is quite dramatic but sh,e so far, has been quick to obey when I instruct her with commands like, "come", "no", & "don't touch". It is so crazy that even at a young age you can see so much of their personality.


Reesie is a "Mama's girl"... Both of the older kids were pretty much indifferent as to who was around. (Papa or Mama)

All three kids have crawled at different times... Reesie was our earliest crawler at 8 1/2 months. Hal didn't walk until she was 14 months... Siah only crawled for 4 weeks before he started walking, which was perfect because Hal was born 4 short days after he started walking.

They are all sensitive in certain areas but tough in other areas.

Reesie is so loud that I have been tempted to buy myself some ear plugs just to wear around the house during the day. Hal is so quiet that I have to ask her to repeat herself almost every time she says something to me... And she is so patient about repeating herself... she never gets frustrated at me. She just says what she wants to say over and over again in her mouse voice until I can understand her. Her patience is something that I really love about her.

Siah and I have similar patience levels (about a 3 on a scale of 1-10 :). We both get flustered when we have to repeat ourselves...


Reesie loves to cuddle and be held... Siah would prefer a 10 foot radius of space around him at all times if at all possible. He will give a courteous hug if need be but otherwise he prefers his own space... Hal's a hugger too...

Hal's friendly and outgoing. She'll hug the mail man and thank him for bringing the mail without any prompting from an adult (don't worry, we talk with her about strangers all the time:). But we really have to work with Siah on looking at people when he talks to them & saying hello to people quickly and joyfully when they say hello to him. Right now Reesie is looking more on the shy side.

When Hal laughs it's usually because she's getting tickled... when Siah is laughing, 90 % of the time it is because he is doing something that he is not supposed to do. A few days ago I heard him belly laughing in the living room while I was in the kitchen. When I turned the corner I found him chucking match box cars at the wall as a means of entertaining AJ and his sister.
"Buddy, was that a right choice or a wrong choice?"
Immediately he turned off the laughter and said in slow mo... "Wrong choice mama." :)

Siah and Hal HATE to be dirty, but as you well know... Reesie makes a complete mess of herself every time she eats and couldn't care less about getting dirty...

I could go on and on...

But I just wanted to record here on our blog some of the differences that I truly cherish in each one of our MSC. It amazes me how intricate their make-up is. All the detail that goes into each little life... How can anyone deny that there is a God? Crazy... just crazy! :)

God has given to each his own...
Blessing upon Blessing...

ASk, Seek, Knock

I can hardly call it a trial... But it has been nothing less than a challenge since the day we moved in.
Teaching, guiding, training and exemplifying to our kids ways to problem solve, speak kindly to one another and more or less get along with one another has sometimes left Tara and I baffled and unable to find our words.

The challenge has been this...

It's one thing to guide and instruct your own child; to break up quarrels amongst siblings, but it's an entirely different thing to be in constant contact with a child that is not your own and finding yourself at a loss as to how to keep that child in harmony with your own children.

But I am learning to not be surprised by God's faithfulness in helping Tara and I figure these sorts of things out as we live out this year in our home. We have had many days where we spend the entire afternoon taking turns walking outside and talking all the kids through ways that they can better handle the situations that they find themselves in... Some days the training has felt endless. But I must admit that I have been blessed to be able to go through this time with such a godly woman. I can't even think of sufficient words to express how grateful I am that Tara and I are on the same page about how we want to train up our kids. I cannot imagine trying to share a home with a mom who didn't know the Lord and really love His Word. The coolest part about it is that we "spur one another on" ( Hebrews 10:24) each and every day.

The challenge for me is learning that I don't always have to be the one correcting our kids. It's such a treat to have someone in our home who pours her whole heart into our kids and has a similar passion for teaching them all about the Lord and His Word. And yet I must confess that it is something that the Lord is working on in me. To let go of my tendency to control everything, especially when it comes to my kids has been difficult for me. My head knows that it is a blessing but my heart and my actions are struggling to accept the treat that God wants to give me in this. I am learning that I can walk up stairs and put my laundry away and not feel like I have to rush back downstairs when a brawl breaks out amongst our MSC. Tara handles all of them beautifully...

The reason that I am writing about all of this is because today was a day of success with all of our MSC. They're starting to get it. Our words (God's Word) are starting to sink in. They played together all morning with very little conflict. They're working things out. And it just felt so good...

This morning I was reading Oswald Chambers...
"Never live on memories; let the Word of God always be living and active in you."

I think that's what's happening to me in this house... It might have been the last place that I thought I wanted to be, but each and every day I can give testimony of the Lord being "alive and active in me."

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Mathew 7:7
I have asked for more and more of the Lord in my life, and it has been given to me...
I am seeking Him constantly and I am finding that His grace is perfectly sufficient for me...
I have knocked and the door swung wide open for me!!!

Blessing Upon Blessing!!!

MOMMY

Every Mother's Day I like to attempt a family photo...

This was our little family in 2006... Hal was 6 weeks old... Siah was 13 months old... I was a double-y blessed Mama...


Now days... I am a triple-y blessed Mama...


I can hardly believe that my little treasures are 4, 3 and nearly a year old!!!


This year my kiddos picked out a lovely card and some "cool mint" oreos at Walmart for me... With Papa's help they brought me breakfast in bed... Scrambled eggs, cinnamon rolls, sausage, bacon, & some delicious OJ! I slept in till 8am... I am convinced that sleeping in just might be one of the best gifts anyone can give a Mama of MSC...

The real us... I LOVE this picture... Siah is into making faces in photos, so Joey told everyone to make their funny faces... But then it turned out that only Siah and I followed Papa's instructions... Oh well, I love how happy the girls are in this photo...

I LOVE BEING A MAMA to my MSC...

Happy Mama's Day (as Siah calls it) to all the wonderful moms I know!

A Handfull Of "Reesie" Pieces...

I think because Hal and Siah talk so much, their silly words and funny antics makes the blog way more often than this little peanut...

The funny thing is that, technically, she's the most "outspoken" one of them all. She might not tell jokes, or declare that her name is "spiderman" at the breakfast table. She might not have the words to convince me that she needs to wear a princess dress in 50 degree weather, or walk around the house singing, "ABCD's" out of tune...

But let me tell you, this girl can really belt it out!!
This morning I was dead asleep and I woke up to her boisterous voice shouting, "MaaaaaaaaMA!! MaaaaaaaaaMa!"
When I went in there she was standing up in her bed holding onto the side rail and when she saw me she shot me a beaming smile, and started bouncing up and down and giggling...
It was the best!

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Anywho, I took some pictures of her playing in the playroom today... Her top two front teeth are making their way into her precious smile...

How precious are those eyes...




Check out her teeth...


And yes, her eyes really are that dark...


She's crawling everywhere...


She crawls into corners and sometimes gets herself stuck... But she doesn't cry about it... She just twists and turns and wiggles her little body until she can get herself out...


She's pulling herself up on everything these days... I can't wait for her to start walking... She is going to be so stinkin cute!!!

This little girl is sweeter than a handful of Reeses Pieces!!!!!!
She's our little Reesie!!!!

The Extreme

There are certain things in my life that can only be overcome with something extreme...

For example in year 3 of our marriage, I was really struggling to respect Joey as the head of our home...
At the time, we were pregnant with our twin boys, Joey was making a whopping $1000 a month (No that was NOT a typo :) working at our church as a youth pastor and doing random side jobs for whoever needed pretty much anything. When we found out we were pregnant, I just assumed that he would quit his job at the church and find something that would provide a little bit better for our family (after all, we had two babies on the way and our expenses would inevitably be going up. :)... But Joey felt that the Lord was asking him to stay right where he was.
At that time I began to pray that the Lord would put something in my life, more specifically in my marriage, that would cause my respect for Joey to increase in a mighty way...

And so He did...
Cuz He's good like that...
But it was what I least expected...

We spent four days in the hospital losing our boys and Joey stayed with me the entire time... He never left my side... He was my voice when I didn't have the strength to say what needed to be said, when decisions needed to be spoken out loud and no longer just talked about amongst ourselves.
When we got home, I had nightmares and Joey would wake up in the middle of the night and he would fight fervantly for me in prayer... He would put me in the car @2 am and drive me up and down the coast at let me talk about whatever I wanted when I couldn't sleep... I am so grateful that Joey continued to work at the church during that time... Between our family and our church family we had more love and support during that time than I could ever put into words...

Although I know that there are probably many reasons unknown to us this side of heaven as to why we lost our boys that year, I believe that one of the biggest blessings in it was the tremendous amount of respect that I have gained for my man. I needed something THAT big... I needed that loss... to truly change my heart in that area of my life.

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And here I am again through God's amazing grace, finding overwhelming blessing in the extreme...

I have confessed to some of you throughout the past few years the struggle that I have with anger when it comes to my kids... Who ever would have thought that three little people could infuriate this Mama to such an extreme???

I have spent countless hours praying that the Lord would take this anger from me... I have memorized scripture and read an abundance of books on the subject in hopes of finding specific ways to overcome the anger that I daily battle with towards my children.

I've asked, and begged, and pleaded with the Lord that he would just remove this struggle from my life... and each day I would find myself losing it in one form or another...

That is, until we moved into this house... With this amazing godly mother... who exemplifies patience to me in a way that i have never been so blessed to witness before... Sweet Tara has a way of staying calm on the outside, even in the midst of fits, tantrums, and frustration. I know that she feels bothered on the inside but she exercises self control and a gentle voice on the outside as she joyfully trains her son in righteousness... She's not perfect, she's human, but the Lord is using her in the most awesome way to anwser some very specific prayers of mine.

The past two years I have struggled and struggled and struggled... And since we have moved into this house I have not raised my voice or lost it on my kids even one time... Living with someone else provides me with an unspoken accountability partner. She doesn't really have to say anything to me, just knowing that someone else is around causes me to stop and think about how I am going to respond to any given situation with my kids. Instead of just reacting, I take the time to figure out what the real problem is. I check my tone before it comes falling out of my mouth. Since moving in, I have really dug into the scriptures to find ways that I can help my kids through their struggles with God's Word and not just my own opinion.
Without a word, Tara has exemplified Hebrews 10:24 to me just by the way that she lives... the way that she loves... the way that she seeks her Savior...

I needed something extreme... I needed to move into this house, against every desire in my body... I will be the first to admit that the first few weeks were rough for me... But my God is oh so faithful to provide purpose and victory in ALL the things that he takes me through...Even if this freedom from anger is the only reason that the Lord brought me here, I would be forever grateful! But I have this feeling that He has even more blessing up His sleeve for me.

Things are not perfect with my kids... I wouldn't be a real mom if they were... But I can see change... I can see the Lord working mightly in my life in this area of anger... And I am grateful... Oh man, am I grateful!!!!!

Blessing Upon Blessing....

PS.. Oh, and by the way, Tara is the one who continues to make my blog look so stinkin awesome! For that, I am also grateful! Thanks friend!

Pretty Pink Princess Shoes

My Hal... My sweet, sweet Hal... She lights up my little life...
This weekend my man took my boy camping and rock climbing up at Joshua Tree with some friends from church...
So it was me and my girls... Me, and two of the most amazing little people ever to be created...

My Hal is the girliest of girly girls...
She has so much joy in her little heart that it just splashes out of her the moment she gets out of bed in the morning... She loves glitter and flash... if it's pink, she loves it... it doesn't matter what "it" is. :)
Yesterday when I turned on a movie, her eyes got all big and her smile took over her whole face and she let out a resounding "WOW" as the music accompanied the beginning credits... I LOVE that she lights up at the CREDITS... who needs the actual movie... The credits have enough thrill and excitement all on their own...

Hal is the girl who can't wait to get dressed in the morning so that she can put on her dress and look like a princess!
She's the girl who finds a pair of shoes that make her feel pretty and is convinced that they look gorgeous on her even after they have clearly passed their expiration date...

Sort of like the ones below... She has worn them so much that both toes now have a hole in them...

But she loves them just the same... She doesn't care if they match or not... she just knows that she wants to eat, breath, and sleep with these shoes on her feet... She calls them her "princess" shoes.

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So, when I asked her what she wanted to do this weekend while the boys were gone, she knew without any hesitation, "NAIL POLISH PLEASE!"

When we woke up saturday morning, we headed straight for Target... She picked out "Barbie Pink" nail polish and clung it tightly in her delicate little fingers until we got home.

While we were at Target I secretly keeping my eye out for some new "princess" shoes cuz the old ones were simply on their last legs... I told Hal she could pick them out herself... You'll never guess what she picked...


Yep... Pink, Sparkly shoes with a bow!!! I expected nothing less... And she loves them! So much so that she wanted to go to sleep last night with them on... I told her she could keep them at the end of her bed and put them on as soon as she woke up... This morning when I went in her room to get her, the first thing she asked was, "where are my pretty princess shoes Mama?"... She wore them all morning with her PJ's and she wore them to church, and she slept with them during her nap (not on her feet, but waiting next to her on her pillow.)


Anyways, we spent the afternoon together doing our nails and putting ALL our new hair clips in our hair while Reesie slept... I loved every minute of it...

Here we are with our hair clips...

Loving every second I have with you Hal, my little pink, sparkly, joy overflowing, princess!!!!!

Blessing Upon Blessing!!!