He's our Wonderful Wrestler?

For the month of December, the memory verse I've introduced to the boys is Isaiah 9:6,
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

As we have been learning and studying this verse, both a funny and a special story have happened in the past few days.

First the special story:
As I am teaching T-Man and Boo to study the scriptures, I've been pausing after each phrase and explaining it using other scriptures. I read "For to us a child is born" and ask the boys, "Who is this child who was born to us?" They exclaim "JESUS!" Then I say, " '...to us a son is given'. Who gave His only son?" They exclaim again saying "GOD!".

So during family worship Tuesday evening we're going over all this with daddy and talking about the Trinity as seen in this verse. We could tell T-Man's wheels were turning (we LOVE it when we see this happening!) and he asked us "So if Jesus is God's son, who's son is the Holy Spirit?"

It was such a precious time to be able to explain how God is one, but in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. He really, really got it and it just made me think about how often I think of the Trinity without being shaken with awe at how great and awesome our God is and all three of His persons.

Now for the funny:
As we memorize this scripture I'm going to add a "name" for Jesus as we go, so I can explain it in depth to them. So, right now we're focusing on "Wonderful Counselor".

When I asked -Man this morning to quote the verse to me, he got to "And his name shall be called..." paused for a long time thinking quietly and finally said, "Wonderful....Wonderful....Wonderful Wrestler?"
It was so funny that I laughed and he looked at me very seriously and said, "Momma this is not something to laugh about".

~Oh how I LOVE my "job"!!!

Day to day

Ever since summer ended, I've been trying to set a new schedule for us. It took some trial and error and a lot of praying, but I believe I finally have a weekly schedule that works!

It's important to Ryan and I that our boys (even though they are young) know that their entire day can not be spent on play. While play is important, it's also important they understand there is more to life.

Here is what a week day in our house looks like: (the order stays the same, but times vary)

7:30 ~ Wake, Breakfast and Clean-up
8:00 ~ Get dressed and Boys help with Chores
8:30 ~ Play
9:30 ~ Worship and Bible at family alter
***prayer
***memory verse
***Bible story
***put on the armor of God (Eph 6)
9:45 ~ "School" at table
***work on Boo's goals
***work on T-Man's goals
10:15~Play outside
11:30~Prepare, Eat and Clean-up Lunch
12:15~Read-alouds (right now we're going through Little House on the Prairie chapter books)
12:45~Boo and SJ down for naps
***"Teach Your Child to Read" workbook with T-Man or books of interest with T-Man
(right now he's interested in spiders, so we stocked up at the library)
1:30 ~ T-Man rest time
3:30 ~ Daddy home! Family time! Fun time!
5:30 ~ Prepare, Eat, Clean-up dinner
6:15 ~ Usually take a walk
7:30 ~ Family worship
8:00 ~ Bed-time

Making Laundry "Soup"

We made our own laundry soap! It's super easy and cheap, cheap, cheap!

First we shredded up a bar of Ivory soap and boiled it in a little water...

And while it boiled, we added 3 gallons of hot water to 5 gallon bucket.

Then we poured the dissolved Ivory soap into the bucket of hot water and also added Borax and "pH increaser" (also known as washing soda, soda ash or sodium carbonate).

We stirred it every hour and then when it cooled, we had homemade laundry soap!

T-Man enjoyed having the job of "stirring the soup" as he called it!

I have to say thanks to Angie, who I've never met, but she blessed me with all her advice on making my new money-saver a possibility!

Home-made Wipes and my new Diapers!!!

I am SO excited about the new wipes I made! I took some receiving blankets I got on super-sale, cut them into 5x8 rectangles. Each blanket made about 15-20 wipes!

I made a cardboard cut-out of a wipe, so I could easily cut around it:

All my wipes cut up (pre-sewing)
Sewed up the edges:
Made my wipes solution and put it in a flip-lid container:
Ahhhhh...Samuel's diapers! I LOVE THE WAY THIS LOOKS...and how it makes me feel!Fresh diapers (but not for long!)

I love not worrying about having to buy more diaper and wipes every month! Plus, it just feels good (in some weird quirky old-fashioned way)!

Eating Where We Learn, Learning Where We Eat

For the time being, it's easier to have our school room down-stairs, so we moved back in our dining room! With SJ's crib being upstairs, it was just too hard working school around his naps...so now we do school WHILE he naps! It's working out great, we've been doing school in the dining room for about 2 months now.

T-Man is going through Rod and Staff's preschool/kindergarten curriculum, and "Learning To Read in 100 Easy Lessons" and then just a bunch of random extra stuff on the side (thanks to all my veteran home-school friends)!

T-Man's reading a lot of words and even some simple phrases like "see me eat".

Boo's still learning to expand his vocabulary, but he's also he's learning colors and numbers.

SJ's just learning to pull-up :)

Our New Double-Functioning School Room:

I LOVE being organized (and having so many choices/varieties thanks to hand-me-downs!):

Samuel's high-chair doubles as my easle for Brahm's school stuff:

The Flu Bug Should Migrate South for the Summer

Here we are in the middle of summer and my Boo caught the flu.

He was up most of the night throwing up and/or moaning in discomfort.

Now, I'm the type of mom that can't just watch my kid throw up. I have to swoop them up and hold them close to me. I don't know why, it's just an instinct...probably something I picked up from my mom.

In my walk of motherhood, it's nights like last night that I feel fulfilled as a mom. Yes, it's hard and sad and messy, but it is always a sweet time between the sick child and me. I get to hold them and sing and pray and quote scripture over them while they lay in arms trusting with me that God is near. My husband and I pray with the sick child that God would reveal Himself. And He always does.

Sometimes He shows up and stops the vomiting (like he did last night). Other times He shows up just to bring peace and comfort, but either way, He always comes. And I am so thankful I get to be the one that holds them in my arms when our Father shows up to reveal a glimpse of Himself to us.

Bye-Bye pacifier!

Yesterday Ryan and I decided to take Boo's "passy" away. His favorite one (the only one he would use) has been discolored for some time, and then yesterday we noticed it was covered in some strange film. So, we decided to say bye-bye to the passy.

He slept really good yesterday and last night, surprisingly enough. It's nap time right now and he's not sleeping, but he's also not crying...so I think that's a good sign. He is, however, just sitting in his crib saying "momma? momma?" over and over and over and over...

And T-Man is just sleeping right through it!

New Blog for the Every Day Stuff

Welcome to our family blog!

I hope you'll enjoy hearing about our day-to-day, fun, crazy and busy life!

I'm sure it'll end up being a lot about my 3 sweet little boys. They make my "job" worth every minute! Just like a few nights ago...

Most nights, my husband and I sing "Pure and Holy Passion" (is that the name of the song?) over our boys as we tuck them into bed. My oldest son, Trusten, likes for me to add each of their names in the song. So I sing, "Give Trusten one pure and holy passion, and give Brahm one magnificent obsession...(and so on)"

So when I was at the end of the song , I sang, "Lead Trusten on, and he will run after you, Lead Brahm on, and he will run after you, Lead Samuel on, and he will run after you...".

When I was kissing them goodnight, I could tell Trusten was really thinking hard and then he said, "But momma, Samuel can't walk. He's just a baby. Can you sing that Samuel would roll to God?"

So I did. I started from the beginning of the song and at the end said, "Lead Trusten on, and he will run after you, Lead Brahm on, and he will run after you, Lead Samuel on, and he will roll after you...".

I wanted to laugh, but Trusten in all seriousness said, "that's better, mom".