Tag

So I checked my friend, Rebekah's blog yesterday and she had been tagged by another friend to answer some questions about herself. I had a sneaky suspicion of what I would find at the bottom...and sure enough, she tagged me to do the same! :) So, here goes...

What was I doing ten years ago?

I was finishing my junior year of highschool and getting very excited about being a senior. I was babysitting pretty much every weekend for various families and sometimes during the week as well. I babysat at church every Wednesday night (different church, Rebekah :) and also sang on the praise team for my highschool youth group.

5 things on my to-do list today:

1. take the girls to preschool

2. play with the baby (he's trying on all the girls dress-up clothes and hats at the moment)

3. feed him lunch

4. pick up the girls

5. go for a walk

5 snacks I really enjoy:

1. CHOCOLATE!

2. cheese

3. fresh strawberries

4. crackers and kalamata olive spread (a rare treat!)

5. cherry tomatoes

5 things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Send a bunch to my missionary friends in belize so they can continue building new churches in new villages. I went there after my senior year of highschool and would love to go back again someday.

2. Like Rebekah said, give to my family so they could pay of all debts and never have to work again.

3. Pay the college tuition for a cousin and a friend of mine.

4. Save some, which is the obvious responsible answer. :)

5. Go on a shopping spree. (come on girls, you know you'd do it too!) :}

5 bad habits:

Ew. I don't like this question! :)

1. Impulse buying. ("Oh yeah! I really did need one of those!")

2. Giving in to the munchies at night. ( a downside to living by yourself...)

3. Going to starbucks after church with my best friend. (one of the perks of being single...I can afford to do this sometimes. And I don't intend to stop! Getting to spend time with a friend is worth the cost of a starbucks.)

4. Only playing the piano every once in a while. My girls have an awesome grand piano and I do not play it nearly enough.

5. Buying scrapbook stuff! (or just going to HL and A.C.Moore in general!)

5 places I have lived:

1. Tulsa, Oklahoma where I was born.

2. A little yellow and brick house that we rented for six months or so when we first moved to OR.

3. The house on Newell Ln that I grew up in for 23 years. Driving up that street still feels like going home.

4. Various dorm rooms at Bryan College

5. A very lonely townhouse apartment the year I taught up in Clarksville. The townhouse itself was great. But it was just not home.

5 jobs I have had:

1. babysitter (I could use this one for all 5 spaces...)

2. daycare

3. landscaper/grounds keeper at college one summer (not sure how i ended up doing that...!)

4. teacher for two years, one year in 1st grade and one year in 3rd

5. nanny! :)

I am tagging:

1. Cassie! (the only other friend I know with a blog...thanks, Rebekah, for not tagging her yet! :)

library day!

Once every two or three weeks, the kids and I make a trip to the library. I remember loving our frequent trips to the library even throughout highschool. I used to read constantly! I still read quite a bit but not nearly as much as then. I had a paper route for several years and one day realized that I knew the specific path I always took from house to house (cutting through yards of the people I knew didn't care...walking down and up the driveways of the ones that did, etc.) that I could take a book and read while I walked. One neighbor happened to be outside one day and commented that he was always afraid that I would run into his mailbox - not that I would hurt it, but that it would hurt me! :) I always saw it out of the corner of my eye. I was rarely bored as long as I had a good book around.


So anyways, I want my kids to learn to love books as much as I did and so we read books all the time and always look forward to our trips to get new ones. I decided to take my camera today and capture a little of our outting as it usually happens. Of course, two main things were missing today. :-p The main children's librarian was not there today but is usually dressed up as something crazy and wonderful, including facepaint, feathers in her hair, sparkly clothes, or whatever the theme of the day might be. In the circle room that you'll see in the pics, there is usually a GIANT stuffed animal - sometimes a huuge long "bookworm" (snake) or sometimes a giant floppy moose to cuddle up next to. Anyways, I'll explain the pictures as we go...


This is the open entrance from the main library into the children's library, which is very nice except when the baby likes to talk loudly! You can see the yellow circle room in the middle. In the far back right corner is the "reading pond" and out of the picture on the right are the shelves you will see my oldest choosing books from in a minute.

Here is the "reading pond" with "lily pads" to sprawl on with a good book! This is also where story time happens, although we don't usually arrive in time for it.

The circle room! The girls love this room and are perfectly content to look at books in here while I choose books from the shelves. I like the open layout of the children's library here because I can see the girls while I walk around with the baby.

After spending time reading on their own, it's time to clean up! This is how my oldest puts the books away....

aaand this is how my middle child does it! :) part of it could be age, yes, but i think a lot of it is just personality! my oldest has gotten the "neat freak" gene, which is both good and bad... :) my middle one rather lacks that gene!

While the girls clean up the books, the baby hangs out and practices blowing kisses. I am a huge fan of hats on my little boy and for some reason this particular hat does not like to stay on straight but would rather flip around sideways like this! :)

My generally happy sweetheart! :)

These are the shelves I mentioned before. I usually choose several books for the girls and then at the end they walk around with me and choose a few of their own off of these shelves. After that it's time to check out and we're ready to head back home and find our favorite reading couch and explore some of our new books! :)

I love going to the library with my kids and I love snuggling on the couch reading to them afterwards. It helps the day go by quickly and begins a new good habit for them! :)

on the other hand...

Ok, so sometimes it makes me sad when my kids learn new skills...and other times...it doesn't. Just after I finished the last post, my oldest brought me a small bundle of hair that looked strangely like the color of my middle child's hair. I had a flashback to yesterday when the kids were cleaning up the playroom and I kept seeing bits of paper being thrown in the trash. I assumed at that time that the baby had torn a page out of a book. Today, however, I suspected what was the actual truth and soon learned that middle child (I am going to have to steal my friend's idea and come up with nicknames for my kids!) had gotten a hold of the kitchen sissors in the past day or so and not only cut her hair (for the second time...) but had also decided to trim a large portion of a page in two different books - one, of course, being a library book!

it's amazing the emotions that can go through you in one day... sigh... two steps forward, one step back... :}

i'm a big kid now!

I had my kids for the past two weekends and we've been working on nighttime potty training. I have potty trained 4 children, but have never done the nighttime training. The first weekend went really well but for this past weekend I thought it would make the whole process more fun to have a chart so the girls could see their progress. Once again I am amazed at how much my kids are growing! It sort of makes me sad when they reach a new milestone in their lives and it is easy to wish they could stay small for forever but I know it is loving them better to help them reach those milestones and learn to be "big kids". It is worth it to see the priceless expressions on their faces when they accomplish something they didn't think they could do - like staying dry all night. They are so proud of themselves and are tickled that I am so excited for them. So good job girlies! Keep it up. I know you can do it! :)

just His name

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Phillippians 2:9-11

This has always been one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It is powerful. It leaves me speachless at His majesty. It gives me chills because it calls to the full extent of the glory that Christ deserves, demands, and WILL be given by every person one day.

There is one detail of this verse that came alive to me this weekend... "at the name...." I have my kiddos for the second weekend in a row and yesterday we went to run a couple errands and were in the car driving home. The back seat was quiet for a rare couple minutes and I was lost in thought while the radio played Love 89 in the background. My middle child, well known for her rather loud voice, quietly spoke up behind me and this is the conversation that followed:

"Say 'Jesus', Kiki!"

"Say 'Jesus'?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because He loves you, Kiki! So say 'Jesus'!"

Just His name is enough. Because He loves you is enough reason to praise Him, even just by calling His wonderful, powerful, mighty, indescribable name! It amazes me that sometimes pastors can preach it, theologians can teach it, songs can sing of it, but God can still use the funny, sweet, sometimes a little random :) mind of a three year old to say it simply and quietly enough to be heard.

I have to say also, that on the days when life gets in the way and we're busy with just finishing the day and wondering if anything we say is getting through, moments like these are encouraging and a reminder to keep focusing on What is really important.

Jesus. Say it!

one heartbeat at a time

I thought I'd share why I gave my blog the web addres that I did. Steven Curtis Chapman has a new CD out called This Moment. It is, as usual, filled with excellent, thought provoking songs, two of which I especially love. One is called Cinderella and just reminds you to take time to not rush the simple small moments in life with your children. The other one is called... One Heartbeat at a Time. :) It was written for his wife and speaks to all stay-at-home moms. Instead of describing the song, I am just going to put the lyrics below.

One Heartbeat at a Time

by Steven Curtis Chapman

C 2007

You're up all night with a screaming baby

You run all day at the speed of life

And every day you feel a little bit less

Like the beautiful woman you are

So you fall in bed when you run out of hours

And you wonder if anything worth doing got done

Well maybe you just don't know

Or maybe you've forgotten

That you, you are changing the world

One little heartbeat at a time

Making history with every touch and every smile

Oh you, you may not see it now

But I believe that time will tell

How you, you are changing the world

One little heartbeat at a time

With every, "I know you can do it"

And every tear that you kiss away

So many little things that seem

to go unnoticed

They're just like the drops of rain

Over time, they become a river

You're beautiful, so beautiful

How you're changing the world,

yeah you're changing the world

I believe that you, you are changing the world

One little heartbeat at a time

Even though I am not officially a mom, I know the feeling all to well of going to bed wondering if anything meaningful got done on a particular day. I may not feel like it all the time and sometimes I might just forget, but I pray that I really am being effective in pointing "my" three kiddos to Christ... One Heartbeat at a Time.

keeping up with the joneses

Well, this is yet another "all my friends have one...!" kind of situation. Several good friends of mine who live far away from me have blogs that I love to keep up with and so I have succumb to the pressure and decided to start a blog of my own. I'm sure mine won't be quite as awesome as theirs is but that's ok...it's mine. :)