I know I am tired. And by the end of the day I often want to rush through the bed time routine so I can have some peace and quiet before the day begins again. But I love these days. I love that my son wants to sit beside me at dinner and have me sing him his lullaby before bed. I love our snuggle time on the couch watching Curious George. I love his giggle when I say some silly word like, “but but” and his enthusiasm about planting seeds on his birthday. I love baking cookies with him and singing, “Sugar, dada-da-da-dada-Oh honey honey” when we measure and pour the sugar into the bowl. I dread the day when he no longer thinks my way of doing things is THE RIGHT way to do it, or when he no longer goes to sleep clutching that days most prized object (be it a sword, or pumpkin, or watering can). So the next time he reminds me we haven’t had any snuggle time today and I am in the middle of e-mailing or unloading the dishwasher, I am going to remember that these moments are fleeting and I will revel in the fact that he still wants to share these moments with me.

When my son gave me this bracelet which he made, “because I love you Mom” my heart melted. I wore it all day. I wore it to the grocery store and while I made dinner. What can I say? I am a sap through and through. I guarantee if you looked at the bracelet you would see little worth to the foam charms and plastic chain. However when I look at it, I see the love behind the gift and it is truly priceless. I wear it with pride because my son made it for me as a token of his love to me.

How cool is it that our heavenly Father cares just as much about our love offerings to Him. They may be trivial in light of His resources but yet He stopped at nothing short of his Son to get us back. Unbelievable! We don’t need to wait for Christmas, Easter, or Sunday morning to show our Father we love Him. We can do so today, right now, “because we love Him.”

We found an earthworm and I was really proud of myself for not going “eek” when I uncovered it in the dirt. Not only did I not shriek, but I feigned excitement and got my kids to be excited about it. My 2 year old tried to eat it (you have to watch her)! My son was enthusiastic about holding it. When he found out that you use them for fishing he said, “Oooh, I’ll put it in my pocket so Daddy and I can bring it fishing.” Hmmmm, guess I better start checking his pockets. He was very concerned that the birds would eat it if he didn’t keep it. We found a nice hiding spot behind some flowers.

Despite the fact that I lack a green thumb, we bought some flowers at Wal-mart yesterday to plant in our front flower gardens. My kids were so excited! I even splurged and got them each a mini watering can. Does it get better than that? We spend several hours out front weeding and then planting and then, the best part, watering the flowers. We saw our neighbor who is about 6 years older than our son and my son eagerly invited him over to join us in our weeding. He kindly obliged and when he went to his shed to go get his tools my son admonished me to slow down on the weeding.

“Mom, don’t pick all the weeds. We don’t want to run out. We need to share them with Tommy.” This made me chuckle. Running out of weeds isn’t a problem I have ever experienced in my limited time gardening.

The flowers we were planting were called Impatients. Seemed appropriate as throughout the afternoon the conversation went something like this.

“Mom, are you done weeding yet? Can we plant the flowers?”

“Now, can we plant the flowers now? I am ready to water them.”

“Hey mom, is it time now to plant the flowers? I got my watering can.”

FINALLY it is time to plant the flowers. We begin with the first one of 18. By plant 2, it is…

“Hey Mom, can we water them?”

“When is it time to water them?”

“I’m ready to water them.”

Finally we got them all planted and then they got to water them. It was pretty cute watching them pour the water from their cans. I also loved watching my daughter pat the soil around the plant… something about those tiny little hands patting down the soil, it was like a Hallmark moment or something.

Don’t forget the baby. About half way through the process she decided she didn’t want to be left out and she joined us, sitting on my lap. Digging the holes one handed was a bit slow, making the process take even longer. It was close to dark when we finished.

This morning when the kids woke up, my son told us he was so excited to look out the window last night to see his flowers. THIS is the part of gardening I enjoy. He also thought the flowers were thirsty and would need watering again today. Perhaps these plants have a better chance of survival than the last flower I brought home. Maybe green thumbs skip generations.

“Mom, I am going to be really good at nap time today.”

I was in the midst of trying to find the things on my mental list and push the cart with three kids on it, so I muttered something like, “good honey” and continued on. My son was so excited because after nap time we were going to plant flowers in our yard. Later that day when I was putting him down for his nap (with his new watering can in hand) I told him I expected him to stay quiet in his bed during nap time. He replied, “Mom, remember at Walmart I told you I would be good at nap time today?” “That’s right, well good.”

As I closed his door and walked down the hall I realized that since he can “decide” that he is going to be good at nap time and he recognizes that he has decided to be good, then the times that he isn’t good and doesn’t obey, it is just as deliberate. He just busted himself. Bummer for both of us because now I must discipline him when he isn’t good at nap time. To ignore it would do more harm than good.

I didn’t believe it at first either.

But they played with their hammers and legos and I was able to fold, sort, and PUT AWAY 3 loads of laundry. For an entire hour I was caught up laundry.. unable to do more because my washer and dryer were both running and 4 loads were waiting beside the washer.

The Pack-n-Play, that’s my Works for Me Wednesday… hope it works for you too!!

“Uh-oh” I thought.

Upon further investigation I found molasses covering the entire shelf, the box of aluminum foil, the pancake box, the corn muffin box and still no molasses jar. Then I looked on the shelf above. The molasses had tipped over, dripped over that entire shelf, down the back of the shelf and gotten over all the afore mentioned items on the bottom shelf. With each discovery of brown sticky mess, I whined a little more.

Looks like my quick chocolate fix was going to be postponed as I set about cleaning up the molasses. So much for minimal effort. UGH! As I began cleaning up I wondered how long the molasses had been dripping back there waiting for me to notice. How many times had I grabbed something out of the cabinet not realizing that an enormous mess was sneaking up on me?

It kind of reminds me of sin. How often do we shut the door on a sin that is in our life, not realizing how it is growing and festering into a huge mess? When I discovered the molasses mess, part of me was tempted to just grab the needed sugar, shut the door and pretend the mess wasn’t there. This would have done no good. The mess would have only gotten worse and eventually I would have had to clean it up anyway. It is far better to clean it up when we discover it then to let it slowly drip into a bigger mess. Sin is the same way. Rather than shutting the door and pretending it isn’t in our life, if we confess our sin “God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Now my shelf is clean, all the boxes were wiped clean and the sticky residue is even gone. Is the same true of your heart? Is there a sin you need to take before our Lord? He is ready to clean up your mess, all you have to do is ask.

• Monday:Pancakes and Scrambled Eggs: Tonight is Mommy’s Night out as I have a MOPS meeting so Daddy will be cooking breakfast for dinner tonight for him and the kiddos.

• Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs: I like to make my own meatballs by taking ground turkey, bread crumbs, one egg, and Italian seasonings and mushing it all together. I then make them into little meatballs and broil them in the oven. One pound of meat makes enough for two meals so I freeze one batch of meatballs for next time! Then all I have to do is boil some water for spaghetti, open a jar of Ragu and Voila! Dinner is served!!

• Wednesday: Harvest Steaks and buttered egg noodles with a side of canned peas. This is one of my kids favorite. They call ham, “the new meat” To make the kids ham, I just brown the ham steak on both sides and serve plain. To dress it up a bit for my hubby and me, I use this recipe from Taste of Home’s Simple and Delicious Sept/Oct 07 magazine.

• 1 med onion halved and thinly sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• ham steaks
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice
• 1/2 cup apple butter

• Saute onion and pepper in butter until crisp tender.. Remove from pan and set aside. Brown ham steak on both sides. Meanwhile in small bowl, combine cornstarch and apple juice until smooth; pour over ham. Bring to boil; cook and stir 1-2 min or until slightly thickened. Reduce heat; spread apple butter over ham. Top with onion. Cover and simmer 5-7 min or until heated through

• Thursday: Chicken and Dumplings: This is super easy and my kids have been asking for it for the past week! Take 3 frozen chicken breasts and put in crock pot with 2 cans of chicken broth. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Pour cooked chicken and broth into large pot on stove and bring to a boil. Use a fork to break up the chicken into pieces. Mix dumplings using Bisquick recipe and drop onto chicken and broth. I recently startedd adding baby carrots and frozen peas to the chicken while in the crock pot in order to get our veggies in there too! A one pot meal and it is so easy!

• Friday: Day Before Chilli Recipe: My husband had been asking me to find a new chilli recipe for awhile. I found this online and it was an instant hit. While it suggests you make it the day before, I have forgotten and made it the day of and it still tasted great!

• Saturday: Homemade Pizza
• I make the dough in the bread machine using this recipe:
• For 2lb serving (this serves 4 adults plus 2 preschoolers with some leftover)
• Ingredients: 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1-1/4- 1 3/8 cups water
• 3 tablespoons of oil
• Combine all ingredients into bread pan.
• Select dough setting. (will take 1.5 hrs to make dough)
• Preheat oven to 400.
• Roll out dough and top with sauce, cheese, and toppings
• Bake for 20 min

Sunday: Sloppy Joes made with Manwich and served with oven baked fries and sweet peas

Let me know if you end up trying any of these recipes. I’d love to know what you think!!

(bn)

When talking about laundry to my husband, I typically describe it as the “bane of my existence.” No matter how hard I try to get it washed, folded, and put away, I typically fall short of accomplishing all 3 of those steps. Most often I get it washed, dried, and dumped on to our guest bed (which my husband now affectionately calls his dresser). Then in the morning when my family is looking for something to wear, I run downstairs, rummage through the pile and when I am lucky, emerge with matching socks (or at least close) and clothes for them to wear. Often I go downstairs to discover that the load in the washer was left over night or sometimes nightS and I have to rewash the load (so frustrating). On a good day I get the clothes folded and sorted into piles and once on a blue moon they get folded, sorted, AND (drum roll please) put away.

This was NOT that week.

The pile started on the guest bed and it grew….

I then moved it to my bed thinking that with it on my bed I would be sure to fold and put them away before going to bed that night.

Instead the pile got transfered to an overflowing pile in a basket in our room. After a few days this basket was moved to my living room with the new rationale that with the clothes sitting on our couch I would be sure to fold and put them away b/c I would be looking at them all day.

They stayed on the couch for 3 days.
Yesterday I got them all folded and put into piles. Unfortunately, everyone was napping when this occurred so I couldn’t get them put away.
As I sit and type this, they are sitting all nicely folded and in piles on our couch(of course my kids are awake, so we’ll see how long this lasts).

THIS is why I should not have started blogging.