Trying again

So I didn't make it up at 5:30 this morning. :( But it was before 6am and I did reach for my Bible first. I get partial credit right?

So far the rest of the family is still sleeping. It's David's day off of work so he's here too. Little David is giving me a rare and precious gift this morning by sleeping in. It's already 6:45am and he's not up yet. Thank you, Jesus! I needed some time without them!! ...and I mean that with all the love in the world.

I have Bible study later this morning. Yay! I'm getting out of the house, getting in the Word and chatting with some pretty cool ladies. Win, win, win!

If ever there was a worship song created for me...

DESERT SONG

by Hillsong United

This is my prayer in the desert

When all that's within me feels dry

This is my prayer in my hunger and need

My God is the God who provides

This is my prayer in the fire

In weakness or trial or pain

There is a faith proved

Of more worth than gold

So refine me Lord through the flame

Chorus:

I will bring praise

I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice

I will declare

God is my victory and He is here

This is my prayer in the battle

When triumph is still on its way

I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ

So firm on His promise I'll stand

All of my life

In every season

You are still God

I have a reason to sing

I have a reason to worship

This is my prayer in the harvest

When favor and providence flow
I know I'm filled to be emptied again

The seed I've received I will sow

Day 2

I got up on time today. That's 2 days in a row now. I'm a goal reaching machine!!

There is hope...

I did it! I did it! I got up on time this morning! There is still hope of getting myself back on track. Whew. Good to know. I had a fabulous time with Jesus this morning. It feels so good to start my day in the Word.

Have a great day, everyone!

Getting back in the swing of things

*phew*

     January is finally here. I was beginning to think that Christmas break was going to last forever. It was fun while it lasted, but I was happy to see it go. I'm really craving our "normal" schedule back again. Hang in there with me today. My whole family is sleeping and I feel chatty. There's so much I want to update you on!

    Christmas Day was fantastically fun in every way. We saw both sides of the family. It made for a somewhat long day, but it was worth it. I got a slight cold the week of Christmas that didn't disappear for a good 2 weeks and David had a sinus infection that was resistant to the first round of meds he was on so it drug out lots longer than necessary. We spent the week after Christmas going through old toys and breaking up fights over the new ones. We rang in the new year at a friend's house and have been trying desperately to catch up on sleep since then.

     David's school semester started on Monday. This semester he has 2 in-seat classes as well as online classes. His in-person classes are on 2 different evenings - one is 4 hours long, one is 3 hours long. With only one week so far to judge, I'd say it's not going great. Little David just wants Daddy to put him to bed and got really upset this week when that couldn't happen. With all the commotion over the holidays, I'm not surprised he's easily broken these days. He's been throwing fits about just about everything and is super whiny even when he's "happy". Like I said, I want normal back. :)

    My morning quiet time was thrown out the window over the holidays and I'm having a really hard time getting it back. Being a little sick for a while there made me just want to sleep more and it paved the way for all sorts of snooze hitting bad habits to form.  The "but it's Christmas" excuse only lasts for so long too. Ugh. This is sort of like starting all over again. I just can't seem to get out of bed! It doesn't help that the boys want to stay up later at night, get up earlier in the morning and wake several times in between. This would be much easier if they were just a teensy bit older I think.

    Speaking of the boys not sleeping...Max just won't sleep through the night. He was sick so often from October through December and waking up so many times at night because of it that he just can't seem to stay asleep now. It's just habit to get up and nurse for a while then go back to sleep. We've cut out nursing in the middle of the night (thanks to being away from home on New Year's Eve), now we just need to make him stay asleep! I wish parenting came with a manual. Wouldn't it be great if they said "Here's your baby...and his instruction booklet". My husband is no direction-reader kind of guy, but I'm sure even he would appreciate that.

    It's snowing here. Finally. December didn't come with much snow at all. Every time little David saw even a single flake fall from the sky he'd ask to go out and play. It was so hard to explain that flurries do not make snowmen. Today though....wow. Today is beautiful. It's been snow ever since he woke up, sometimes harder than others, but snowing nonetheless. As soon as Daddy got home from work this morning they were outside sledding. More on that later.

  I'm done talking. Now I want chocolate cake. I think I need some Dangerous Chocolate Cake. Yep, I do. Bye.

Maximize Your Morning challenge: Week Three

So last week didn't go well. At all. It was a combination of lack of trying and a sick son. Max developed an ear infection and a super high fever on Tuesday and by Thursday wasn't sleeping or eating at all. He was feeling pretty crummy and it really took a toll on me. I quit setting the alarm altogether and just slept when he gave me the chance (which wasn't often). It is SO exhausting to have sick children. I must have looked like I really needed encouragement because nearly every mom I saw last week told me to keep my chin up and keep pressing on. I was assured over and over that this is just a phase of life. It is merely a season and it will pass eventually. Some were even crazy enough to tell me I'd miss this someday. I guess they think having a family and raising small kids is a blessing or something. ;)

Despite being a horrible week to choose to back down on caffeine, I did ok on that goal. I set out to drink no more than 10 cups of caffeinated drinks and I almost made it. It was tough. I just passed my mark at 10.5 cups this week. For me, not sleeping and excessive baby screams are hard to handle without coffee. Yikes. That's all I'm going to say.

This week the goal is to create exercise goals for myself. I'm setting the bar low since it's been far too long since I've done any sort of regular working out. I hope to get my body moving 5 days this week. I'm keeping the workouts very short and simple so hopefully this will be something I'm actually able to do with kids running around here. I'd love to be able to workout before the boys woke up in the morning, but that's probably not going to happen with everything else I'm trying to do too. Ah well, I'm sure I can figure something out.

I'm continuing on with my Bible reading in 1 Samuel. Did I tell you I was in 1 Samuel? I opened my Bible and let the Spirit lead a couple of weeks ago and this is where it took me. It's been really good and actually kind of nostalgic for me. One of my favorite Bible stories for my mom to read to me when I was little was the story of priest Eli and little Samuel. I can still hear her voice in my head as she pretended to be the Lord calling to Samuel. "Saaaaamuel" she'd call in a loud whisper. Ah, good memories. It was sort of funny to be sitting in my kitchen as an adult and thinking of the kid version of this story. Like I said, good stuff. I'm taking it sort of slow and I got set back a bit when Max was sick, but I'm up to chapter 20 where David is running for his life as Saul is trying to have him killed. Oh that Saul. Talk about anger problems! Yeesh.

Maximize Your Morning challenge: week two

Today begins week 2 for my Maximize Your Morning challenge. Last week's goal was just to get out of bed. That's it. Just get my booty up. I did alright. I managed to hit my goal of 5:30am five times this week. I slept in until 6:15 one morning and 8am one morning. A holiday week is not the easiest time to start a challenge like this. In the last 4 days we have been to 3 different family gatherings. The boys didn't nap at their usual time on even one of those days. It's taken every ounce of energy that David and I have left to deal with overtired and cranky boys. I can't blame them. I'm a smidge cranky myself.

This week the goal is to create a set of worship songs and a bible study to get yourself on track in the morning. I already have this plan in motion. It was the only way I could keep my butt out of bed once I got up last week. I'm going to keep on with that plan and also add my own personal goal this week. I'm going to limit myself to 10 cups of coffee (or other caffeinated beverages) this week. I know, I know. Ten still sounds like a lot. And it is really. In the last 2 months or so since the weather has turned cold I have become quite obsessed with warm drinks. Oftentimes I find myself reaching for coffee. It's just so stinkin' tasty! I now reach for it at all hours of the day and most days will put away a good 3 cups without realizing it. That is just too much caffeine. It's not healthy for me and it's not good for my poor Max...who is coincidentally having trouble sleeping at night these last 2 months. Hmmm. So my goal is set at 10 cups this week. This gives me one cup every morning and then 3 extras to drink whenever or to use to fight off any withdrawal headaches I may get. Here goes nothing...

A somewhat grumpy morning

I hate mornings. There I said it. I don't like leaving my comfy, warm bed and I don't like pulling myself away from wonderful sleep. I'm really sort of mad at morning for coming today. Grrr. Yesterday was such a big day. I was busy all morning then we were gone all afternoon and evening. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade that time with family for anything, but I'm just a little worn out today. The boys didn't get naps yesterday either so I'm sure they will wake up in very similar moods. Blah. I'm not really accomplishing much this morning. If I can be honest (and I can with you, right?), waking up in a funk has made me want to skip my Bible reading and serious stuff altogether and just do mindless things like blogging and facebook. I'd much rather read status updates than 1 Samuel this morning. I'm just being real here.

Alright, it's time to end perk things up and quit dwelling on how miserable I feel. Mind over matter. If I think a better mood, I'll feel a better mood. Happy thoughts....happy thoughts....happy thoughts. You know, I'm going to jump over to Pandora radio real quick like and start my worship playlist. That'll help. *jeopardy music* Ok, I really hated the first song it picked for me this morning, but the second is much better.

"There is none like you, no one else knows my heart like you do.
I could search for all eternity long and find there is none like you."


So true. He is like no other. He made this beautiful, cold and snowy day. I will rejoice and be glad in it. I will be happy.

Thank you, Lord for Friday November 26th and all it will bring.

The teachable twos

So many people (myself included) have referred to the late toddler years as the "terrible twos". I am just about fed up with this title. It's negative connotations have done nothing in the way of helping me or my child adjust from the baby years to the much more independent small child years. Without realizing it, I've allowed the "What are you going to do? He's two" and the "Oh my! Just wait until he's two!" mentality to set my child up for failure. I look for him to disobey or misbehave before taking action. The idea is not to sit back and wait for your child to do something wrong before you explain to him how you expect him act. I don't have to put up with misbehavior and brush it off and move on explaining that he's just two and will do it no matter what. I want to be more proactive than that. I want to be more hands on and have a bigger impact on my child than that. The Lord entrusted these boys to my care and I need to give them more than that.

As language skills and independence are forming, kids can get frustrated from time to time. I get that. Whether it be that they can't find the words to make you understand what they are saying or they don't understand why they can't pour the brand new and very full gallon of milk by themselves, frustration will come at some point. It's what David sometimes chooses to do with his frustration that I have an issue with.

I've resolved to call this phase of life the "teachable twos". I've recently been asking the Lord to show me my calling or purpose as a mom. As my boys move out of the "basic needs" baby stage and into very impressionable years, I'm really relying on the Lord to reveal to me what my course of action should be in raising them. As he always is, the Lord was faithful to answer. He lead me to a website that I'm absolutely in love with called Impress Your Kids. It was founded and operates on the principle of impressing God's word into your children's hearts as described in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Within a week of finding this website and it's mission statement verse and with a lot more prayer, I also ran across this verse 3 more times. I really felt like the Lord was laying it on my heart that this would be the next step in raising my little guys to be young men of God. It is time to make a stronger effort to impress the word of God into their teeny little hearts. It's time to toss that "terrible twos" concept out the window and focus on the "teachable twos". When is a better time to introduce ideas like patience, love, obedience, kindness and the like?

In order for a mama to make her child a better child she needs to first make herself a better mama. Instead of letting the boys be my alarm clock and waking me up between 7-7:30am, I am now setting a real alarm clock and getting out of bed at 5:30am to meet with the Lord and have quiet time before the boys get up. This gives me 1.5 to 2 hours to do my bible study, work out, eat breakfast, shower, have a cup of coffee or get things done with out the boys. When they get up, I am ready to greet them with a happy attitude and get started with the day. Let me tell you - mornings go a lot smoother around here now.

To get our new habits started on the right foot, I have found a couple of things on the internet that we can use to get ourselves on track. Mine is the Maximize your Morning challenge from Inspired to Action. It's a step by step month long challenge to get moms out of bed in the morning and get them ready to face the day. It gets them making (and reaching) goals and praying for their children. Sounds like exactly what I needed, huh? I've downloaded her free eBook and gotten started. Good stuff! For the kids we've decided to do something along the lines of Impress Your Kids' ABC Scriptures. It's exactly what it sounds like - a mix of the alphabet and scripture. You take the alphabet - one letter per week - and do a craft, scripture memorization and read books corresponding to that letter. Since David is so young we've tailored it down some. We do a very simple craft (mostly coloring), learn a Bible verse (I don't use a lot of hers from the website - I've found my own that fit our needs better) and a coloring page with our letter on it. For us it's not about memorizing the scripture. We're focusing more on exposing David to scripture and trying to teach him the concept behind it. We've been speeding it up somewhat too. We are doing a different letter about every 4 or 5 days.

We are really excited about the changes this is bringing to our family. I can't wait to share our new experiences with you guys! I'll be posting David's ABC scriptures later in different posts so you can see what we're working on.