Sometimes, It Takes a Daddy's Touch

Chores have not gone very smoothly in this house lately.  Enter the DAD.  Using his management skills he helped the kids to develop team work and put them to work on the major rooms of the house today.  It was amazing.  They weren't fighting, they were helping each other and they were working together.  The great thing was that I got to work on some other things that I haven't gotten too because of trying to pick up after everyone.

Another great thing is that as they are working as a team, they each have a vested interest in the room and they are very careful to be sure that no one messes up what they have cleaned!

They worked room by room and then took a playing break and before I knew it the house looked pretty great.  I hope that this is the start of a new trend in cleanliness!

Guess What I Did?

Yesterday I got Zach’s quilt stretched and pinned and today it is on the machine and I have started the quilting process.  I will keep you posted about how it is going!  All I know is that I am pretty excited.

Dawn and Zach - Our Vocal Musicians

It was a week ago since we went to the Marion Choir concert.  Zach had asked me in January if he could be part of the Starry Serenaders, a group of 2^nd graders who met every Tuesday morning a half hour before school to learn some songs to sing at this the showcase concert.  So, we had Zach and Dawn in the concert last week.

Each grade from 2^nd up to high school sang a couple of songs and then at the end, the entire group of 611 kids sang the finale song.  It was amazing what that sounded like in the Marion gym.  I love that they have the opportunity to do this.  It was a fun night.  We were looking forward to hearing the bands tonight but Ryan was sick and had to miss his concert.  He was pretty bummed about that.

Girl's Day Out

Dawn asked me last week if she could get her ears double pierced.  She had them pierced for the first time when she was 4 and so I told her that it would be okay with me if her dad agreed.  Well, he did, and by the weekend both girls had decided to go ahead and get another set of holes in their ears.

Don't think that I got left out of all of the fun.  After one of my surgeries last fall I had forgotten about earrings for about a month after the surgery.  I realized that I hadn't put my earrings in and struggled for awhile until (with the help of a sharp needle) I got all but one earring back in.  Up on top where my cartilage is pierced on my left ear, there was no way I was going to get that thing back in.

Once we got to Clarie's in the mall, I decided to go ahead and let them re pierce the hole that grew shut and get myself a little more back to normal.

Stacey went first.  She had asked me a couple times during the week if it was going to hurt.  "Yes", I told her.  She didn't like my answer but well, I have a little experience with piercing and it hurts.  Sometimes for just a minute, sometimes an hour or two and sometime for the whole six weeks til you take that thick stud out and put in an earring with a regular sized post.  She was pleasantly surprised when it didn't hurt as bad as she thought it would.

Dawn did well too and before we knew it, I was up in the chair while two girls were wandering around the store looking for a new pair of earrings for the bottom holes.  Leaving me in the chair to get my ear pierced alone, I went ahead and got it done so I could join them in the shopping.  It was a fun day.

A Little Progress

I am pretty excited for the progress I have made in my office area, or as my kids have heard me call it, my "Command Center".  When we moved I didn't have a lot of time to organize everything so that area has been moved to the back burner.

I was so excited about finding my label maker that I decided to use it in a big way!  Over the weekend I pulled everything out of the cabinets in the Command Center and sorted them.  After finding some boxes with organizing items, I pulled a few things out and made them work in the cabinets.

Saturday was a HUGE success.  Everything has a place and that makes me happy!  This week I have continued to organize and label.  It is a good feeling to gain some control of things!

Now, if I can just train the rest of the family to keep their stuff to themselves and off of my counter.  A girl can wish!

A Nice Diversion

Last week Mom watched Matthew for a time on three different days.  One of those afternoons, although I was in the middle of some other things at our house, I stayed a little longer and was visiting with her.

Before Christmas I had brought over to her house five new fluffy towels to see if we could embroider the kids' names on them so that they each had a bath towel that they could simply hang up after each shower and I wouldn't be out of towels every other day.

Mom said "we have time to do some right now" and that is how it started.  I think they turned out great and the kids were thrilled!  Now we just need to remove the wall paper from their bathroom and put up some hooks. (And I just may need to save up some money to get the embroidery module for my machine too!)

Break Down

Today it happened...it finally happened.  I have been stressed, I have been healing, I have been frustrated many times in the past six months.  I have wanted to just break down and cry it all out.  I have secretly cursed my anti-depressant because the tears just don't flow when I take it.  I appreciate that it keeps me on a pretty even keel most days but sometimes a girl just needs to cry.

It came on quite unexpectedly although now looking back at my morning, I should not have been surprised, that is the way it usually works.  Not in my room by myself as I tell myself "JUST CRY ALREADY!", no.  This morning I was in my van with my two sweet sons.  I was able to disguise it as very strange sounding giggling, but once I got back to the house, the tears were flowing.

It was a couple of weeks ago driving the boys to school when I was trying to referee an argument that was about to get physical between them in the back seat.  I drove toward a yield sign and didn't see an SUV coming the other direction.  It was a miracle right before my eyes because my van seemed to drive through the tail end of that SUV when it should have crunched into it.  I describe it as a scene from Back to the Future when the Delorian reaches that magic speed and disappears a split second before running into a building or another vehicle.  Totally aware of God's protection as Zach piped in with a white-faced "Mom, that was really close" I knew that he had seen it too.

With that experience not far behind me I know that Yield sign is there.  This morning I am driving toward said intersection and the road was slick  under my tires and I started sliding.  Only being able to do so much with my feet slammed onto the breaks I was pretty close to entering the intersection when the Suburban coming the other way with breaks and skidding passes in front of me.  The man was bald with a long Duck Dynasty type of beard and throws his hand across the windshield to point out to me the Yield sign on my corner of the road.  With a sweeping motion (now that my van had come to a stop) I motioned to him to by all means continue.

I knew that the Yield sign was there, and after the break down and tears came and left I thought long about the situation and knew that he could have been much ruder and he could have flipped me off in front of my boys or any number of things.  But this time it wasn't my fault.  The road was slick.  Again, I drove the rest of the way to school thanking God that He stopped my van before it hit the Suburban.  I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have to exchange insurance information with him.  Somehow in my head an "I am sorry sir, my van wouldn't stop sliding" doesn't seem like words he would have cared to hear.

After the floodgates opened and I got Zach to school, I sat wondering why now?  Why today am I so fragile that an incident like this would start me crying?  Who knows really.  Maybe because it is my husband's birthday and I let him get out the door before I told him happy birthday.  Maybe it is because I have been battling very real spiritual warfare with one of my daughters daily and made a HUGE breakthrough last night.  Maybe it is because it has been a long six months.  Who knows.