Great Quote

"While we are busy teaching our children all about life - our children teach us what life is all about."

It's Sunday evening and I don't understand how a 5 day "vacation" week at home can go by so quickly. We had a very relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving with Brad's family- complete with that "too full" feeling and Grandma's meringue kisses- mmmm....

We got all of our Christmas decorations out and up which I've decided is rather silly to do unless you have others over to your house to help enjoy the the Christmas beauty you've attempted! Anyway, we had fun putting ornaments on the tree - and since we have our tree in a corner this year- we only had 1/2 of it to decorate! It took about 20 minutes! Seth literally put the bulbs ON the tree- as in there were a pile of decorations on a single branch. He thought it was funny - especially when they started falling. Let's just say we have a lot of precious yet not breakable ornaments on the bottom quarter of our tree. Of course, the expectation of "Oh Jaedon! This ornament is of your first Christmas" and him replying "Oh Mama! I'm so glad that I'm part of your family!" was a bit lost in the "Hey! there's a hook in my sock" and the excitment of getting more and more ornaments to put on the tree- regardless of the memories behind them.

The boys also had a bit of left over fall fun. For some odd reason the trees in our backyard decided that Friday was a good day to drop every single one of their leaves. Sooo...all 3 boys, complete with 3 little and large rakes, had LOTS of leaves to have fun with. And fun they had...as demonstrated by the video.

And now Monday is looming and I'm fighting the urge to just stay curled up in my bed all day and wait until Christmas break - but I guess that's not really an option huh? I find that while I love having Brad home on his breaks, I always seem to have a transitional day of "oh yeah- I can do everything on my own" on his first day back at work. That's pretty selfish of me- I know! It just reminds me of how thankful I am for all the time I DO get with my family when most other husbands jobs don't allow for those types of times! What a blessing.

If - Then

Jaedon has stumbled into a grand new phase of understanding cause and effect - the whole "if - then" idea. I guess I must speak to him in cause and effect quite often because over the past few days he has decided to speak to Brad and I in the same way. For example - before breakfast today he asked if he could have a piece of candy (thank the LORD there is only two more pieces of Halloween candy left!). I told him he could have one piece of candy after we ate some breakfast. He said "well, if you're not gunna let me have a piece of candy now then I'm not going to eat my breakfast." I replied "If you're not going to eat your breakfast then you're not going to get a piece of candy!" The dialogue continued by him saying "well, if I can't have a piece of candy then I'm gonna pitch a fit!" AH!! Where should the bantering STOP!!? I told him that if he chose to pitch a fit that he could go in his room while Seth and I enjoy our breakfast. I'm not sure if I should just keep reasoning with him - he seems to "get" the reasoning logic thing- or if there is a better way to be dealing with this defiance. Any suggestions?!

For your soul

I am doing a Bible study at church and we are using a book called "Living Beyond Yourself" written by Beth Moore. Over the past few weeks we have been reading and learning about love- without making this a super long post I'll just say God has been reworking my heart in this area. Not only how I give (or don't give) love but how I receive it.
She wrote this poem that made me cry (everything makes a pregnant woman cry!) - but honestly as I read this I was thinking that I could've penned the very same words. I hope they speak to your heart too.

I've arrived at a conclusion,
maybe one of life's rare finds
that there's not a lot worth salvaging
within this heart of mine.

It's ever ready to destruct
and lie above all things...
It tends to laugh when it should cry
and mourn when it should sing.

I've wasted countless hours begging,
"Fix this heart, Lord, please!"
while it stomps it's feet and demands its way
and floods with sins disease.

At last, you're able to get through
and lay it on the line:
"You must give up that heart of yours
and trade it in for mine."

So I cry out with the psalmist,
create within me, Lord
A new heart crystal clear
that only Calvary could afford.

A heart which pounds the rhythm
of heaven's metronome
and issues forth a boundless love
and beats for You alone.

I want to love that which You love,
despising what you hate
and see myself as least of these
oh Lord, retaliate

The efforts of the evil one
who seeks to make my plea
that of his own, "I'll make no move
'til I've considered me."

Peel away my fingers,
finally make me understand
the power to love and please You
can't be found within a man.

So, my Lord, I bring this offering;
a stubborn heart of stone
And ask You, in it's absence,
please exchange it for your own.

Being efficient

Last night I went in to Jaedon's room to give him one more tuck and kiss before I went to bed - usually I do this and he's sound asleep -but last night he was wide awake and sitting on top of his pillow with his bedding all nice and neatly pulled up. I asked him why he wasn't UNDER his blankets trying to sleep and he said " but Mama- if I make my bed NOW- I wont have to make it tomorrow!!"
Ah! Now why didn't I think of that?!!!!!!! =D

The end of my twenties...

The kids enjoyed helping put the candles on the cake. Seth put one in upside down and Jaedon wanted to help put them "on fire".
Brad and Jaedon made me my birthday cake. Do any of you other moms not get b-day cake anymore? I wanted a plain ole chocolate real-live birthday cake! It was yummy! - Obviously, Seth enjoyed it too ;)

I had a great birthday this past weekend! My hubby took me out to eat at Rose's restaurant in East GR - highly recommend it if you have some cash to kill. Brad ordered Duck (he likes ordering weird food - especially when we have a gift card ;) and I had "Parmesan crusted Chicken with aspargus". On my actual b-day (Saturday) Becky Gurk and I went to Pages in Time to scrap the day away! I have not been motivated even slightly to well, first clean UP my scrapbooking desk and then to actually dive in and do something. So this was a perfect opportunity to get caught up on Seth's baby book. I figured that might be a nice thing to get done before baby number three. =) We enjoyed a delicious, kid-infested meal at the Gurks afterwards and I actually volunteered the game Scrabble to play after the cake! I'm claiming temporary loss of my senses on that one =D

Picture this

We were bored this morning so Jaedon and I thought it would be fun to have a little "photo shoot". After claiming the make-shift "studio" as a pirate ship, they had fun climbing on the sheets I set up. Of course, after EVERY picture I took both boys jumped up and ran over to me to "see the picture". Wait until they find out we had to actually WAIT to get pictures oh way back when... ;)

Halloween

I'm real glad that my red eye eliminator worked well on these pictures- now to find a ketchup remover button. hmmm...

The crew- Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, Wendy, Peter and Tigger too!

I never went trick or treating growing up. With both of my parents being raised Mennonite, my Baptist upbringing was quite liberal for them - included in that was basically ignoring the day of Halloween. I honestly don't know how to teach Jaedon right now why some people like to be scared (never understood it myself!) but we're just focusing on the fun part of the day. It's fun to play dress up and, of course, get candy!! This year I found a Peter Pan outfit at a garage sale- which spurred our entire evening's events! Becky Gurk and I thought it would be fun to have our 4 kiddos dress up as the movies characters. Jaedon was Captain Hook (he carried his bucket by his hook ;), Adrianna was Wendy, Seth was Peter and Eliza was Tinkerbell. Adrianna's cousin Colin (Tigger) bounced into some pixie dust and joined us too :) Ever creative Becky made mummy dogs for dinner for the kids and then spider snacks after we all dried off from our rainy outdoor candy-getting-adventure ;) The older two kiddos then got to watch Peter Pan (after sampling some candy). It was a fun evening - my second time trick or treating!