Our December

This month has flown by but in a fun way. Here's a glimpse of how we've filled our month.

We decorated the tree. The kids had fun remembering the ornaments from year's past.


The kids and I rode on our church's float in our town parade. These are all of the kids who attend our Wednesday night groups where they learn about missionaries. It was fun aside from my legs falling asleep and getting a few splinters from the truck bed!



Last year, I bought all the ingredients for gingerbread and never got around to making it. This year I was determined to do so and had a fun morning baking with Braewyn! This rolling pin was given to my by my elderly friend Mrs. Cordie who is now with Jesus. I think she would be happy to know that it is still being used!

Instead of our normal history lessons from History for Little Pilgrims, the last two weeks of school the kids made lots of crafts celebrating the names of Christ. They were all found in an article in the Fall 2010 issue of The Old Schoolhouse magazine (wonderful resource for homeschool families!). These activities helped us all to remember that Jesus is so much more than just the little baby in the manger. We learned He is also Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, Emmanuel, the Good Shepherd and Alpha & Omega!




This past Tuesday, we joined some friends who were going to a holiday lights display. We stopped at Chick-Fil-A first for dinner and look who we ran into!









I liked how this last picture came out because it looks like a Light Bright image but is really a six-foot tall angel!

This year, my energy level is little low with being seven months pregnant. However I did want to make our living room and kitchen area festive. Here's the mantle with the kids' portrait from Walmart. I was thrilled that it turned out so good and looks great with our stockings! The next two pics are in my kitchen table area, just a little collection of breakable things to remind me that I am still a grown up amongst all the toys in our house!



Chloe has done remarkably well around the tree. The only time she bothers it is if her toy gets kicked underneath it!

Yesterday for our last day of school before Christmas break, the kids and I made colorful snowflakes using crayon shavings and an iron!

Pregnancy Update Overdue

I am 7 months pregnant and have mentioned the pregnancy probably only twice on the blog. I think during my pregnancy with Braewyn, I posted about every appointment! Poor neglected third child! Anyhow, I'm feeling farely well even with a fair share of crazy side effects. As with both of the other kids, I've had a head cold which leaves me with an annoying cough for a month afterward. Pregnancy + cough = bladder control issues + frustration! I think the cough is almost gone (praise the Lord!), but the last few days have left me with a sharp pain in the left side of my rib cage whenever I do cough. I'll ask about that on Tuesday when I go for my 30 week check-up.

The other thing plaguing me are vulvar varicosities. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? In layman's terms, that is vericose veins in the pubic area. I developed this while pregnant with Braewyn but thankfully they go away after delivery. They came back earlier in this pregnancy because of it being a pre-existing condition. The doctors just say try to stay off my feet as much as possible but how possible is that with a 5-year-old, 3-year-old and a puppy? (I know, the puppy is my own fault.) After actually praying for Jesus to help me find it, I found my VV support band in an unpacked box under our bed just last week. For the past two months, I've been sporting underwear and my bikini bottoms under pants. That was fun! The support band looks like a jockstrap with some lacey material sewn across the front. No matter the look, it works and that's what matters. However, even wearing it, I still can't stand or sit for long periods of time. Oh, the joys of pregnancy! If I stand too long (i.e. our three choir programs last weekend), my thighs go numb. If I sit too long (i.e. the two hours in BSF), my back end goes to sleep. Yeah!

People tell me I look "so cute" because my weight gain is only in my stomach (yes, God has basically strapped a 15-pound watermelon to my waist). However what scares me is the 10-15 more pounds I'll gain over the next two months and how I'll need a wheelbarrow to get around for the last few weeks.

Ok, all that said, we are having a new baby in a few months and I am getting more excited about that reality by the day. It has brought a new excitement to this pregnancy with not knowing if we're having a girl or a boy. We're still mulling over name ideas but have narrowed down Juliet as our girl first name choice. (Not as original as Braewyn but still has that princess ring to it! Plus a favorite character name from TV's "Lost" and "Psych".) We are still completely undecided on a boy's name so feel free to offer suggestions.

My Birthday by the Hour

I want to thank my friend Jessie (Thank you, Jessie!) for recently posting an hour by hour recap of her day. My 35th birthday (yes, when I think about it, I'm feeling a bit old probably due to my age now declaring me a "high risk" pregnancy with my OB office!) was this past Sunday and so I thought it a great day to recap with a photo every hour. Here we go...


Up at 7:00am when I heard Chloe barking, i.e. "I need to go outside and potty!"


8:00am and Matthew surprised me with chocolate chip muffins for breakfast. FYI, don't insert wax candles into muffins just out of the oven. He had to carve the molten candles out of the muffins!


It's 9:00am and I'm still putting on my make-up for church. I'm supposed to be READY by now so I can get the kids finished up. Thanks, Matthew, for always pulling everything together when I'm running late!


At 10:00am, I'm in Sunday School with my wonderful Senior High girls. I am blessed to have been teaching teenage girls for the last 10 years. Teenagers experience so much more these days than when I was their age. My prayer is that I might make some sort of small impact on them so when they are in college a few years from now, they'll make better choices than I did.


11:00am (or a few minutes before) finds me in our church choir's practice room, warming up and praying before going into the sanctuary. The choir is a family to me as it's my weekly dose of adult interaction. Our church is blessed to be led musically by Pastor Butch.


Our church service is almost over at 12:00pm and I must say we are equally blessed by the Lord to have such a godly man as our senior paster. Yes, I get to hang out with Hank Williams every Sunday (that's really his name!).


1:00pm and we're eating lunch at La Paz, a Mexican restaurant in town. Ruth Ann treated us for my birthday to which I told her the phrase which normally applies to men is true for me these days, "The path to a man's (or my) heart is through his (my) stomach!"


We arrived home at 2:00pm and the truck became a playground to our energetic kids.


At 3:00pm, our family enjoyed birthday cake with my parents who stopped by for a short visit. Matthew, Philip and Braewyn made the delicious cake Saturday night. While I sat on the sidelines watching it all, I had to tell him at one moment, "When you bake with kids, you need to assume the worst might happen."


4:00pm came and I tried my best to squeeze a nap in. I had left Braewyn to play in her room with the command to let me sleep for 30 minutes. About 6 minutes after this picture was taken, I was woken up and not a happy Mommy! That's what unconditional love is all about, right?


At 5:00pm, when we would be leaving in 10 minutes for evening church, here is what I found in Braewyn's room. Thankfully, she did fall asleep but only after playing really hard in her room.


At 6:00pm, you'll find me on Sunday nights helping with Braewyn's Awana Cubbies class. It's a Bible verse memory club for 3- and 4-year-olds. Braewyn's face is under the arm of the girl in the pink shirt with her arm raised.


Cubbies is over at 7:00pm and it's time to clean up our room.


Dinner comes at 8:00pm on Sunday nights after we get home. Yeah, Mexican leftovers! Thanks, Ruth Ann, for two meals.


Bedtime at our house is 9:00pm (one of the perks of homeschooling is that the kids sleep until 7:00am or at least that's the goal). Even though I'm usually exhausted and ready to lay down myself, it's a sweet, sweet time of family devotions as we teach our children about our God.

A long day, but such blessings all along the way!

A Castle for My Birthday

Today is my birthday and I'll have another post about that tomorrow. Yesterday we began the festivities by going to lunch as a family. I wanted to pick a restaurant that would be fun for all of us but some place special too.

This past week, Philip and I have been reading about how the Gospel spread through Europe from 300AD to 1000AD through the teachings of Augustine in Italy, Patrick in Ireland and Boniface in Germany. Strong men of God who sacrificed much in telling others about Jesus. Philip's history book also touched on the fact that at this time, Europe was not made of large nations but rather of kingdoms in which all the town people lived in a castle governed by a lord. The special project actually suggested constructing a castle from Legos (the key to Philip's heart) or other building blocks and surrounding it by a moat if possible.

Here are some pics of what we constructed. What could be more fun than Legos and a bathtub full of water!



Building the Lego castle helped me realize what a great restaurant choice would be... California Dreaming! It would provide a chance to visit the next best thing to a real castle!






Don't fall off the drawbridge!

Randomness of Childhood

A few nights ago, we were putting the kids to bed in our normal fashion. Brushing teeth, reading a Bible story, saying prayers (Braewyn: "Thank you God for Grandma, Nana, Papa, Daddy, Mommy, my brother, my brother in my mommy's tummy" -- does she know something we don't? Philip: "God bless the African children and let them believe in You." Future missionary?), and tucking them into beds. I went to leave Braewyn's room and simply said, "Sleep well, honey. I love you." To that Braewyn says, "I'm telling my doggy that aliens aren't real. She doesn't need to be scared." What?! Too many Ben 10 cartoons with Philip I suppose.

Driving to church for dinner Wednesday night, we passed a strip mall. Philip asked if the moose store had closed (it's a hunting / sporting goods store with a deer head on the sign). I said no, but the school supply / hobby store had closed. He said, "That's where we went to look to buy Andrew (his cool 9-year-old neighbor friend) a birthday present." I replied, "That's right, but then we found him one at a Kmart after the last family reunion." To which he replied, "There's smart and then there's Kmart smart." What?! I vaguely recall seeing a Kmart commercial on tv but that kid is a tag line junkie.

Sweet funny kids. I wonder what kind of things this third baby will say in a few years.

Arts & Crafts

I wouldn't consider myself a very crafty person. I did enjoy scrapbooking before the days of blogging and Facebook. I'd really rather paint a room in my house before trying my hand at oilpainting. All that said, kids like arts and crafts and so I did want to incorporate that into our school year. The best part of helping Philip and Braewyn do crafts is seeing their personalities displayed through their artwork. It's amazing how two kids raised by the same parents in the same circumstances can be so different. Yes there is an age difference to consider but yet there is a difference in color preference and the ways things should be. First here are their scarecrows we made a few weeks ago. They each colored the pieces of the scarecrows themselves, Philip cut his pieces out, I cut Braewyn's, and then they each glued them on construction paper. Very cute finished projects and each unique. Philip likes things to look the way they should. Braewyn goes for eclectic and bold.



Walking through the children's hall of our church, I often get ideas from the preschool art on the walls. I really liked the idea of handprint fall trees so we gave it a try. Philip thought it was a dumb idea but I told him he wouldn't be saying that to an art teacher at public school. Braewyn tried to jump on Philip's bandwagon and whine about it too but then jumped into her work and went overboard. Not sure but I think her painting depicts burning fall leaves on the sides!



After Philip finished his handprint tree, he said, "Now I want to paint a picture from the book." What he was referring to is our Usborne Book of Famous Paintings. Once before I let him look through it, pick a painting and recreate it himself. This time he picked "Sunflowers" by Vincent Van Gogh. Braewyn is still in the modern art stage but thoroughly enjoys the experience. Here are my little artists at work.



Here is Van Gogh's work, Philip's underneath and finally Braewyn's pop art. Not bad for an unexperienced 5-year-old! He said three flowers were enough for his painting.