A lovely evening...

Tonight, after dinner, the children were wanting me to read so they could work on handicrafts. Noah was whittling, and the girls wanted to do embroidery. Micah was milling around and decided he wanted to embroider too. Typically I shy away from giving sharp implements to 3yo boys, but he found a plastic needle and was insistent. I kept putting him off while I got the girls set up with patterns and embroidery hoops. Part of me hoped he would forget... but he didn't.

Noah kept whittling away. I actually tried to fob Micah off onto Noah for a whittling lesson, thinking that would be more interesting to him. (Yes, I asked a 3yo to go play with a knife... I obviously wasn't thinking clearly...) But Micah wouldn't budge, he wanted to use thread and a needle and he wanted to "make something".

Don't ask me why, but there were some paper plates on my living room floor, the kind I keep around for crafts (but not usually in the middle of the floor). I remembered that I had a small awl and decided to punch holes into one of the paper plates and make him a simple picture. I remembered that earlier this week he was interested in the story of Noah and the Ark, so I punched him a little boat.

I kind of forgot about his project in the flurry of requests for threading, knotting, untangling, etc., from the girls. Noah even came and shoved his whittling project in my face for inspection from time to time (he is making a letter opener from a twig from our Christmas tree this year). Micah was happily sewing on his little plate, and I didn't stop to inspect because he seemed thrilled with his productivity.

When the dust settled and everyone was done with their handicrafting... we had settled for listening to Adventures in Odyssey in place of my reading aloud since I was so busy with assisting all the projects... Micah showed me what he had done, completely unassisted... all I could do was smile...

I love these kids...

I don't think I was very well prepared for mothering...
Some days are idyllic...
Other days seem to disappear right before my eyes...
Many days I fear that I am screwing them all up...
God has used my children, more than any thing else, to sanctify me and conform me to His image...
The process has been filled will joys and sorrows, cheers and tears...
But I can't imagine my life without these blessings...
I put this picture as the background on my laptop and I can't stop smiling when I see it...

When it is time to settle...

That may seem like a funny title, considering we have lived in the same town for 9 years and the same house for nearly 7 of those years. But, when you take into consideration that in the last twelve months we have had our house on the market to sell, hoping to buy a small ranchette... and then took it off the market because that fell through... and then we started making plans to build on an acre lot we have in New Braunfels... but then we decided to join a church plant on the far NW side of San Antonio and called off the home building... so then we began looking for homes closer to the church plant only to decide to stay where we are due to health and other issues with parents... it feels like we are just settling back in.

This past year has been an emotional roller coaster. I am not a mover by nature, I stayed in the same house nearly all growing up, and in college only moved once. My husband loves moving, but he will admit, he doesn't do any of the prep work, so it is just fun for him, like getting a new techie toy. I get totally stressed out by the process, it takes me forever to figure out where things are going to go, not to mention the management of kids and still needing to cook three meals and a handful of snacks each day, schooling them and keeping up with laundry fit in somewhere too. When we lived "show ready" last March, we really didn't get much else done. And even after we decided to rent the house, and do any needed work after we moved, there was still the mental energy and time spent on looking at houses and figuring out price ranges and best parts of town.

I have also been rearranging and putting up new stuff on the walls... like this wall layout for the dining room/classroom... I want to put some words above the maps and cork board, but I am not sure of what just yet...

And then, there was the red chair in my living room. It is tucked away into a corner and doesn't get as much attention from the children as the couches with removable cushions. Elliott calls it "my office" as I keep myself surrounded by books and keep my laptop close by. Lately, I haven't been able to go into "my office" because the piles around it were too high and precariously balanced that I was afraid to leap over for fear of an avalanche. I actually needed to get some work done on the computer tonight, so I couldn't ignore the mess any longer... here was my mid-point... chair and laptop freed from the bottom so I could blog this post.

And now, back to work...