Category Archives: Family

Spring is Here!!

The beautiful weather this past week has been a tell tale sign that spring is finally here! (That and the fact that my children need baths at the end of the day because they are so dirty from playing outside:)

Playing in the sand!

We have been having a blast outdoors, SO many things to be thankful for; the buds on the trees, long walks, biking, running through the grass, playing in the sandbox, lunch picnics, parks, wearing summer hats, sandals and shorts, hiking in the bush, clothes drying on the clothesline, tulips poking their heads out of the ground, birds bombarding the feeders and sunlight that warms our skin!

Judah was trying to feed this deer, he actually got really close, but then we just threw the apple at him and he ran away. lol

It’s amazing and I am so thankful for this beautiful season. Spring is one of my favorite seasons. I love the new expectation that it brings. I love how you can see the physical changes in the environment and people seems to be excited to get out! There is a joy that rises up in our hearts of what is to come.

Mercy flying her kite:)

Living out of town it is fun to watch the forest change and the animals come out of their hiding. We have been going on many nature hikes, finding acrons, moss and giant pinecones. We have lots of deer in our backyard, many of them now have little fauwns with them, they are so cute!

This past week we had Shabbat outside on our back deck, we don’t have any deck furniture yet, so we set up the table on the ground, it was so fun! I am so thankful for the sun and the excitement of new things to come. I am amazed at how much a little vitamin D from the sun can do for my emotions and physical alertness. I love making fun memories with the kids in these days.

In the next couple weeks we are going to begin our small garden in the yard. I am looking forward to teaching the children about gardening and allowing them the oppotunity to watch the seeds grow! May to experience the joy and excitement that comes with this season! May you enjoy the longer days with more light and sun! May the winter that is past serve as a reminder of how great our God is and that His desire is to reward those who persevere until the end! Bless your family!

Cultivating Honor in Sibling Relationships

One of the most challenging things I have been facing these days in motherhood is dealing with the relationships between my little ones. Sibling relationships can be complicated and very difficult to referee! I have been annoyed, frustrated, disappointed and clueless in some respects as to how to deal with my children and their relationships. The two older ones are both at ages (5yrs, 2yrs) where their wills and emotions are strong, stern and unforgiving. They both desire independence, attention and justice. Dealing with taddling, arguing, yelling, and sometimes hitting can be emotionally draining on me. Especially when my expectations of them are high. The Lord has been showing me lately that I am the one who needs to refresh my perspective and begin to invest time and attention into these relationships as they will be the foundation for all their relationships in the future. If siblings cannot get along it will be difficult for them to interact with other children outside the family.

I have realized that this is common for children to go through these seasons of learning how to interact and engage with others their own age and even different ages. (This is one benefit of homeschooling; my kids have to learn to spend time with eachother, not just other children their own age and mental/physical levels – it teaches patience:) My expectations, however, need to be clearly communicated AND demonstated in my behavior and engagement with them. In our house, we are cultivating a culture of HONOR, RESPECT and LOVE in our relationships. I feel as though sibling relationships are vitally important and NEED the investment of the parent to see them through. The home is a wonderful and safe place to teach and learn about how to interact with one another. It is a blessing to be able to watch our children learn and grow and be able to discipline and correct them when needed.

I have established a few core values that we go by in our relationships with one another. These are biblical principles that encourage character building and test the heart and motives of the situation. It is hard as a mother to see everything that goes on and often I do not see who started what but we always come back to these values to determine the outcome of a disagreement. I want my kids to know that the reason I correct them is because I love them and wants what is best for them. If a parent refuses to discipline or correct their child how can they really say they love them? Learning obedience, kindness and appropriate social and emotional behaviors are beneficial to children and will help them to form relationships of their own. If there is no oversight or correction the child will be unable to grow into their full potential. Making sure your kids know that discipline = love can change their perspective and help them to recieve your words of caution.

Sisters:)

Here are some of the values that we hold. I think over the next week or so we are going to make a poster board with these written on them so that they can be hung in the playroom and serve as a reminder to us all:)

1. We use kind words with eachother always. (Gal 5:22-23)

2. We treat others the way we want to be treated. (Luke 6:31)

3. We love one another regardless of how we feel. (1 Cor 13)

4. We always extend forgiveness to each other. (Matt 6)

5. Anger is not a solution, it is an emotion and we need to learn how to have self-control (Gal 5:23) when we are angry. We settle arguments before the end of the day. (Eph 4:26)

6. Obedience is better than sacrifice, obedience is our goal. (Deut 5:33)

Motivation, heart relation and relationships are more important to me than making mistakes and always being right. At the end of the day I want them to love one another and realize how special they are to God, us (their parents) and each other. I have been amazed to watch them grow in these areas this week. It has been a lot of work but slowly we are getting there, with much prayer and practice we will be a family who values our relationships as first priority! As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. (Prov 27:17) God has given us each other to develop our character by pressing through the hard times and learning how to love as he does.

May you be blessed in your relationships this week! May to experience a deeper level of connection and commitment to each other. May you be a family who honors eachother at all times!!

Thankful for His watchful eye!

There are few moments in life when I am completely taken back and aware that I am not in control. Tonight I had one of these moments. My 9 months old is busy these days, she is constantly crawling around, putting everything in her mouth and exploring everything and everyone in her environment. We have done our best to baby proof our home, which is difficult with the small toys and collections that my 5 year old and a 2 years old have acquired over the years. We always try to remain aware of her whereabouts.

Tonight my husband was bathing the kids while I was sweeping the bedroom floors. Atirah was playing in the bathroom and had managed to get ahold of a plastic cap that goes on a bolt on the base of our toilet. It is quite big compared to her mouth. She had chewed on it before and we didn’t really think anything of it, in fact I was upstairs 3 days ago vaccuuming while she played with this same cap. Somehow tonight she managed to get it in her mouth and it got stuck and she began to choke on it. My husband immediately ran to her and with much tact and maneuvering managed to get it out of her mouth, thank God! But it was really scary! My heart was racing and Atirah was really shaken up. The first thing that I thought was; “Thank you God! Thank God that this happened when we were near, thank God that Jim was able to remove it, thank God that it didnt happen when we were not looking. Thank God!”

I think it is easy sometimes to wonder why God allows hard/scary/bad things to happen in our lives. We have a limited perspective and as a mother I am beginning to realize how small my perspective really is. This is just a small example but it is a great demonstration of how we need to be thankful in ALL situations because we do not see the end result as He does. What if this had not happened tonight but it happened tomorrow when I was alone with the kids and Atirah was out of my sight?Or 3 days ago when I was vaccuuming and couldn’t hear her all the time? Even 1 minute it could have made all the difference! God thank you for watching over my sweet little Atirah and teaching me that I am not in control. Help me to surrender always and to remember to ask you to continually watch over us. I desire your watchful eye to remain always on my family.

I humbly recognize that He is the one who watches over my children. He is the one who protects and provides for us. Protect my children Lord, help me as their mother to be watchful and dependent on you. Let me always remember that You are in control and I trust you with the lives of my family. Let us mother always rememeber the impact of our prayers and petitions for our children. You love our kids more than we do God, Thank you for your provision tonight.

May you be mindful of the One who watches over your family. May you be thankful and dependent on Him today! God grant us the grace to take care of our little ones and the humility to recognize that ultimately you are in control!!

Loving Laundry

I have had many readers ask me about how I manage laundry in our household with three little ones running around. I must say that it has taken me several years to learn from trial and error how to get on top of my laundry. I have been working at making laundry a simple event that is organized and efficient. On any given day our family goes through, 5 shirts, 5 pairs of pants, 10 socks, 4 pair of underwear, and 6 cloth diapers, not to mention any accidents that require extra shirts, underwear socks or sweaters. So here is how I do laundry, hopefully this may help some of you:)

Note: laundry in our household fluctuates depending on the season, winter seems to be less and fall, spring and summer there tends to be more and how many chidlren are in cloth diapers at the same time.

1. Have Laundry Days. I do my laundry twice a week, Monday mornings and Friday mornings. I have found that doing it more often is too much and I can’t do it any less, this is the minimum amount of time that I could get away with. I really did not like when I tried to do laundry depending on how many clothes were in the basket but it seemed as though I was doing a load every day or every other day. Having the two set days has helped to keep it at bay. We cloth diaper as well so I do a SMALL load of cloth diapers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I always hang the cloth diapers on the drying rack so we save on the drying.

2. Start First thing in the morning. The sooner you can get done the better. Some people like to make it a family event or involve their children and I believe that I will one days involve my kids but because they are so young right now it is much easier for me to do it on my own. Next year in homeschool I am going to teach Judah how to do laundry but for now its mommas job and I want to be fast and efficient so that I can spend more time with my babes! I try to start my first load at 7am and when I do this I can usually be done by noon and fold it all from 1:00-1:20pm during nap/quiet time.

3. I do 3 loads on Mondays, 1 dark, 1 light, 1 cloth diapers. I do 4 loads on Fridays 1 dark, 1 light, 1 towels, 1 cloth diapers.

4. Once a month I wash all the bedding (sheets, pillow cases, duvet covers) on Monday mornings, (unless someone wets the bed which usually happens at least once a month:)

5. When springtime comes I hang out my laundry and it saves us “loads” 🙂 on the hydro bills. However, if it is raining on a day when I would hang out the clothes I still do them but use the dryer that day. Otherwise it throws my entire schedule off.

6. There are NO laundry baskets in any of the kids rooms. All the laundry goes directly into the laundry room. (this may not be feesable for everyone, our laundry room is on the same floor as the bedrooms) I find when there are many baskets it makes for more laundry and my kids throw things that are not dirty in them. I also like having all the laundry in one room because I do not have to go collecting it the morning of, nor do I find any surprises in the baskets:) I also know how much laundry needs to be done because I can see how full the basket is getting. Jim and I also have a basket in our room but that is all. Less is more when it comes to baskets!

Enjoying laundry and serving my family in this arena is something that I have grown in. I used to whin and complain about it all the time but now I laugh and enjoy this time. God has given me peace and joy when it comes to laundry. I love to serve the Lord and in this season of my life I am going to be faithful with the laundry piles that build up in my home. I am thankful that we have clothing, that I have little ones who are growing and I get to continually wash their little socks and t-shirts as I watch them grow before my eyes, I love that we have amazingly efficient laundry machines and I don’t have to do it by hand, there are SO many things to be thankful for in laundry.

At this point I find it more frustrating to try to involve my kids in the process. It become tedious and I am easily irritated and they get bored and restless, so I have decided that I work more efficiently if I do the laundry alone. However, I am also looking forward to the day when I will teach my little ones how to do their own laundry and who knows maybe one day one of them will do the laundry for me:)

May you be blessed as  you serve your husband and children by cleaning their clothes. May the Lord wash you with His word today. Bless you!

A Time of Rest…

Our family was blessed these past few weeks with a wonderful vacation in Florida. It is something that we do every year, Lord willing, and I am amazed as how the God refreshes us during this time.

I believe that there are so many important things that come when we take time apart from our routine. You certainly do not have to go to Florida to experience the Lord’s refreshing but I do believe that there is value in stepping out of our normal routine if only for a couple days and getting a new perspective on things. God wants to take us to new places, to have new perspectives, ultimately to give us an ariel view of our lives so that we can see the bigger picture.

As I was running one morning in Florida, the Lord was speaking to me about giving me eyes to see what He is doing in the earth and how to be part of His plan. I was feeling so “stuck” in my own little world of being a mom, keeping our home in order, and feeling isolated and disconnected at times.  As I began to focus on Him and His word I began to see how my role fits into His master plan. Each of us have a part to play.

Imagine that God is the director of an incredible play, each of us are given a role in which we must perform. According to our gifts and talents he appoints us as different characters in the play. Each of us are given the platform at some point in His play to do what He casted us for. Life is the practice and rehearsal for this play. Each day we recite our lines, plan our costumes and rehearse our part. The final day will come when there will be no more dress rehearsals, no more practicing, we will be on stage doing the very thing we were created to do.

Are you ready? Have you practiced as much as possible? Do you know your lines?

Are you using the giftings that God has given you to be the best you can be?

Perhaps you don’t even know your part in the play…maybe you have never auditioned? It’s time. I encourage all of you to take seriously that which God has placed before you. Don’t ever let up, give up or shut up. See everyday as a rehearsal for what is to come. Let’s make our director proud!

God reminded me of a verse I’d like to share Jeremiah 29:10b,11 Msg “I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for”. Isn’t that AMAZING!!? Let’s trust Him to lead us everyday and allow His plans for us to become a reality!

May you be blessed as you see life from a new perspective, may you embrace your role in the master play! God help us to be faithful with what you have given us!

The Fruit of the Spirit

The Fruit of the Spirit!

Today we tried a fun little activity for homeschool. I decided this week that we would focus on the Fruit of the Spirit from the book of Galatians in the Bible.

Mercy and Judah have been learning alot these days about loving each other and learning to serve one another. They are both at the ages now where they have their own STRONG opinions, ideas and thoughts about EVERYTHING and this leads to alot of arguing, complaining and fighting. We read the passage from Galatians 5 and discovered what the Bible says about our actions. We made a “fruit basket” with the fruit of the Spirit in it and placed it in the middle of the kitchen so we can remember to fill ourselves up with these fruit. This activity was a practical way to help me talk with them about the ways in which they can show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to one another.

He cut out the fruit and wrote most of the words:)

I gave them the example of how a fruit tree produces its own fruit; i.e. apple trees produce apples. I explained that in the same way we produce fruit according to our words and actions. This fruit belongs to either a “SPIRIT-filled tree” or a “SELF-filled tree”.They seemed to get the concept and I was challenged as well. It really made me think about what fruit I am producing in my life through my thoughts, words and actions. I desire to live a life that demonstrates a consecration to God and his Spirit!

What kind of fruit are you producing in your life? Are there areas that need to be refocused?

May you experience the abundant love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that are yours in the Spirit. May you walk in the fullness of His plans and purposes for your life today! Blessings!!

A Celebration of LOVE

My little lovebugs

Many people have asked me if we celebrate Valentines Day seeing as it is not “christian” holiday. My response: Absolutely!!! Any opportunity that we can get to celebrate LOVE we’re going for it! In our home “LOVE DAY” as we call it is a day when we can reflect on God’s love and remember His beautiful sacrifice for us. We do crafts, read bible verses on love, make hearts shaped cookies, sandwiches, and have a special Valentines dinner. (Heart shaped pizza with heart shaped toppings:) It is a day to reflect once again of God’s great love for us!

Raspberry finger puppets

I remember before I had children I would spend the entire day preparing to celebrate a nice evening out somewhere special with Jim. I would have a shower, dress up, do my nails and often wear heels. Oh have things changed!:) Today I have NOT showered, I am NOT dressed up, the kids made me wear a red shirt, jeans and red socks to be “like Valentines”, nails are unpolished and I will NOT be wearing heels:)

Dinner table

I now celebrate all day with the kids and when Jim gets home from work we have a fun dinner together. I think it is becoming a tradition in our home to stay home with the kids on Valentines evening and to tell the truth, I love it! During this season of my life I have learned to embrace the reality that being home with the kids is a blessing and sometimes it is much easier than trying

Jim bought Mercy her first bouquet of roses, she was so happy, she kept repeating "oh thank you daddy"

to get someone else to look after them or taking them out. I am sure that one day our children will grow up and Jim and I will once again go out of Valentine’s night. (At that point I’ll probably miss being home with my babies:)

Yummy fruit kabobs

I believe that as mothers we walk in a new level of LOVE. A selfless, and serving love. We use all our strength to serve our children and our husbands. We choose daily to let go of our own wants and desires to pursue a higher standard of love. I believe that this is the love we as humans are called to. To lay down our lives for one another, just as Christ laid down his life for us. I know that this is something I need to work on in my own life. Not always being concerned with myself but shifting the focus to others, and asking how can I serve? how can I help?

Getting ready to do a craft

When was the last time you had a selfless love for someone?

We used tape, less mess:)

Today we made these fun mobiles to decorate at the table. They were a great craft idea from our Awana cubbies book. The kids loved it and it was easy, no mess, no clean up! I’ve included a couple pictures so you can see them.

Finished product!

The Bible is full of verses on LOVE. I was read some of them this morning and I’d like to share a few with you.

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. Om tjos way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out all fear.” 1 John 4:16-18

Heart-shaped Grilled Cheese

“The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Gal 5

“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how high, how long, how deep and how wide his love is!” Eph 3:18

Pizza prep, I used the easy pizza dough recipe and it tastes amazing!

“We love because he first loved us” 1 John 4:19

“We should love one another” 1 John 3:11b

Heart Pizza

May to feel His love today, may you come to know the depth, height, width and length of this deep love He has for you. God loved us and sent His son! This is worth celebrating!!

Happy LOVE Day!

AmAzInG aNiMaLs

This week we were inspired by the movie Happy Feet to study not only penguins but 5 different animals during our homeschooling routine. I suppose you could call it more of a unit study. It has been so fun and we are only one day in! We are going to pick one animal each day and learn interesting facts about them.

Judah's new brother, Pat the penguin:)

Through this activity I’m going to be teaching the kids how to put together a “project” that is interesting for others to read about and learn from. Kids of all ages can do this and it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Hope you have fun!!

Looking at images about Penguins

1. We picked an animal. Today was Penguins as per Judah’s request and tomorrow is going to the Blue Whale, as per Mercy’s request, I have no idea how she even knows what a blue whale is:)

2. We researched them online, I went to a couple kid sites and found interesting facts. We highlighted the facts we liked the most.

3. We searched pictures on google images and printed out a few of our favorites. .Judah picked one of a seal about to attack a penguin, I thought it was a bit disturbing but he said “that is what happens if the penguins aren’t careful mom”… LOL

4. We then printed off all the info, and the kids had races to and from the printer gathering their papers.

Breaking for a little snack, I just happened to have penguin crackers which seemed fitting:)

5. We cut out the pictures, boarders and pasted them on the poster board. The kids loved cutting and glueing, although, my counter was rather sticky afterwards they enjoyed it!

6. We then placed them on the board and glued them on, by this point Mercy was really interested so she played while we finished up.

7. That’s it! We are going to bring it to show the grandparents tonight and Judah wants to explained what he learned because now he is an expert on penguins:) haha

First "official" school project:)

It was actually surprisingly fun to do something different, for both the kids and myself. The best part about studying something that we know little about is finding out how much details and thought went into their creation. I was able to really emphasize how amazing animals are and how amazing and creative God is to think of such creatures. Whether your kids are homeschooled or in school it doesn’t matter, exploring creation with our kids is a gift to them! Take some time to learn about something new and then give glory to God for his amazing creation. We are looking forward to learning more about the blue whale tomorrow…apparently this whale has a heart the size of a car crazy?!

May you be blessed and encouraged this week as you walk in the revelation of God our creator!!!

 

The Truth Behind the Fruit Snacks

I love how my children are always challenging me to evaulate my heart motives and my convictions. As a parent, there have been several times where I have chosen to “raise the bar” in certain areas of character and integrity. As leaders and influencers in our homes our ceiling will be our childrens floor, in other words, our highest standard has the potential to be the foundation for their lives.

My mother’s heart longs for my children to excel beyond where I am, I want them to go further than where I’ve been. I want my life to be an investment into theirs so that the return will be even greater. God has been challenging me to stand firm in my faith and to uphold His standards in our home. I dont’ know about you but I find it difficult NOT to compare myself with other mothers and woman who I look up to. I think it is great to have examples and role models in our lives but ultimately the word of God needs to be our greatest influence!

My son, Judah spearheaded another amazing challenge yesterday when he asked me to give him some fruit snacks in the morning. He told me that “daddy said I could have some”. I confirmed this statement with him several times and he kept giving me the same answer. Although I knew in my heart that Jim probably didn’t say that, I went along with it. I told Judah that I was going to ask daddy once he came downstairs if he did in fact tell him that. He said “ok”. I noticed at this point he looked a little sheepish and got very quiet as he ate. Once he was done we had a conversation with Jim. Jim’s response was that he told Judah he could have some fruit snacks “at some point today, not necessarily in the morning”. However, Judah assured me that daddy said he could have the fruit snacks right then.

So what’s the problem? To some it may appear that Judah was telling the truth: Jim DID say he could have the fruit snacks at some point, right? Wrong. In actuality Judah was lying BECAUSE he was trying to twist the truth to decieve me into giving him the snack when he wanted it. Ultimately, he was trying to deceive me in that moment. The definition of lying is: the intent to deceive. Whenever we try to twist the truth or hold back the entire truth we are lying. This definition takes lying from mental awareness to a heart/soul awareness. It begs the question of our true heart motives whenever we speak to others. It makes us responsible and accountable to be truthful in ALL circumstances.

This is a principle that our children NEED to learn in order to have pure hearts before God. The Bible is clear in the book of Matthew that “blessed are those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God“! I want to see Him and I want my children to see Him too!

Have you ever thought of lying as the intent to deceive?

In the above example with Judah, he was not given a consequence because we had not taught him this principle yet. Although, it was obvious, from his countenance and behavior that deep down he knew what he was trying to do, deceive me, and he knew it was wrong. Going forward he is now responsible for what he knows. If he chooses to lie in the future he will be accountable to his words and actions. This is the same with me, I am, as a mother, responsible and accountable for my words and actions, with my husband, my children and all the people I influence around me.

How can instilling this knowledge to your children be beneficial?

May you be blessed and honored as you live a honest and transparent life. May God give you the strength and the wisdom that you need to encourage your little ones be ALL that God created them to be. May all of our hearts to be pure and truthful before the Lord!