Walking by faith

The past two years of my life have taught me a lot. A lot about trusting God for His will and His timing. A lot about simply putting one foot in front of the other. A lot about living life TODAY instead of worrying about tomorrow (or yesterday).

You may or may not know that for the past two years we had been trying to have another baby. The process that we have had to go through to get each of our children has been long, and very different for each of them. It took 22 months (of dr visits) before we were pregnant with Kate, 6 months with Jenna, and now this baby was a very long 23 months. 23 months of putting one foot in front of the other (often blindly) and waiting for the doctors office to call to tell us what we needed to do next. 23 months of waiting, crying, hoping, and praying that maybe - just maybe - this time would work. 23 months on a crazy emotional roller coaster. 23 months of trusting that God knew what He was doing, and that if it wasn't in His time - we didn't want it.

Add into this that during this same 23 month period, we decided to pursue selling our house. An adventure in and of itself. (There are separate blog posts about that process here and here) Part of moving, meant figuring out a whole new part of the metro area that we live in, and establishing a new normal. Oh, and we started homeschooling this year -- yeah, it's been a crazy-busy year!

I am by no means an expert, but I feel that I have learned a lot about taking steps by faith in the past 2 years.  I won't lie - it's SCARY to not know for sure where you are placing your foot (literal or figurative) as you take each step, but in the end it is so very worth it.

I am able to now look back at the past 2 years and see some of what God has been doing (or at least what I think He has been doing) through these trying times.

• Through infertility I have become much more open and real with others in my life.  I have always been something of a private person, not going to volunteer the "really personal" stuff.  I reached a point in this that I realized that I COULDN'T walk my path alone.  So, I reached out to some friends for prayer support (they got to hear the good, bad and ugly).
• I have been stretched out of my Southeast Suburbs comfort zone and into the Southwest Suburbs ... which might not sound like a big deal, but it meant moving away from all of the things that I knew and what was familiar - and away from many of our friends.  Learning new places and people has never been on my list of "fun things to do" - but I have, surprisingly, enjoyed getting to know this area and I am meeting some really great new friends. 
• I am happy to say that we are 14 weeks pregnant with baby #3, the girls are SO excited to have a baby brother or sister and love finding out each week how big the baby is now.
• I have learned that God's plan really is the best plan to follow.  We planned for things to be quite different than how they have turned out, but I wouldn't change them for anything.  I have increased my reliance on God in the past two years and that is something that I would not give up for anything - even if it meant that things had gone "my way".

If you see nothing else from this post - see this: God's plan is best - EVERY TIME.  It may not be what you want, it is probably not what you planned, but His plan is perfect and He is good!

I am going to leave you with a few of the verses that helped me through the past 2 years:

"For I know the plans I have for you,"

declares the Lord,

"plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11

Be joyful in hope,

patient in affliction,

faithful in prayer.

Romans 12:12

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings,

because we know that suffering produces perseverance;

perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not disappoint us, 

because God has poured out his love into our hearts

by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Romans 5:3-5

My grace is sufficient for you,

for my power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a matter

worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Philippians 1:27

And we know that in all things

God works for the good of those who love Him,

who have been called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

There are so many more that I could add here - if you want them - let me know :)

NOW is when you should purchase No More Perfect Kids

Guess what??? It's time! I've been telling you about the No More Perfect Kids book and encouraging you to wait to get it until Bonus Week and it's finally here! Hearts at Home, Celebrate Kids, Inc, and Moody Publishers have put together an incredible package of parenting tools for anyone who buys the book during Bonus Week! Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the bestselling book The Five Love Languages, says, "Few things in life are more satisfying than succeeding as a parent. No More Perfect Kids will help you do just that!" If you pick up the No More Perfect Kids book (e-book or hard copy from any brick and mortar store or online retailer) anytime between March 13 - 23, 2014, you will be eligible to receive over $100 in free resources! Here's how it works: 1) Buy the No More Perfect Kids book between March 13 and March 23 2) Scan or take a picture of the receipt 3) email a copy of your receipt to freebies@nmpk-extras.com 4)Within 24 hours your will receipt a reply with a link and password to unlock you free resources! So what is included in the bonus offers? It's over $100 of incredible parenting resources! Here's what you'll get: 4 Printables:

• You're Special Poster
• I Corinthians 13 for Parents Poster
• Compliments and Corrections Booklet by Dr. Kathy Koch
• Conversation Starters for Parents and Grandparents Booklet by Dr. Kathy Koch

4 Hearts at Home Audio Workshops:

• When You Feel Like Screaming--Sue Heimer,
• Getting Inside the Head of Your Kid--Shaunti Feldhahn
• Raising Grateful Kids--Marianne Miller
• Real Ways to Connect with Your Kids--Kathi Lipp

3 E-Books:

• A Perfect Pet for Peyton by Gary Chapman,
• How Am I Smart? by Kathy Koch
• The 10 Commandments of Parenting by Dr. Ed Young

You'll also want to check out www.NoMorePerfect.com where you'll find free videos to accompany the No More Perfect Kids book and other great resources! What a wonderful opportunity this is to get some great parenting resources at an incredible price! Tell your friends, your moms group, and any other parent who would benefit from this wonderful opportunity!

My kids don't wear jackets

Ok - pick your jaw up off the floor.

Yes, I know that I live in MN and it gets FREEZING cold here (below freezing, at that).  Let's not get me started on that after the winter we've just had (time to be realistic ... still having - boo)!

My sweet girls don't wear jackets in the CAR because car seats are not safe with bulky jackets between child and harness straps (or seatbelts for that matter)!  They have fleece, hooded, ponchos that they wear all winter long.  They keep them nice and cozy warm both outside and in the car.  Bonus - they stay safe in their seats!!!

You see, I can't knowingly put my babies in harm's way.  Studies and research have shown that children can be ejected from their car seats when there is too much bulk between them and the straps of their seat (because the jackets will compress).  Now, I am not one to just take information at face-value, so I brought their seats in the house and tried them in their seats with jackets on, without jackets on and with their ponchos on ... wow - the difference was amazing!  BUT, don't take my word for it ... I took photos!  (you could also try it for yourself, I don't blame you!)

These photos are from last year, but the results are the same:

   

Here is my sweet girl, all buckled up - normal. She was still rear-facing at this point; so the harness straps belong AT OR BELOW her shoulders, chest clip ALWAYS goes at armpit level.  You don't want to be able to pinch the straps - I stuck my fingers in it so show how tight they are (that was easier than trying to pinch it AND get the angle on the photo).

   

 Here she is with her silly face and her jacket on (note that it's not even one of the really thick ones).  I tightened the straps to the same tension as they were when she didn't have a jacket on.

This is AFTER I took her jacket off!  I did NOT loosen the straps when she got out, and I just pulled her jacket off ----- I am hoping that NONE of you would EVER leave a child in the car with straps that loose!

 IF you are going to leave your child in their jacket in the car, there are a couple options ... you can do this (and we did this for a while).  Simply unzip the jacket and allow the straps to rest on the shoulders - it does require some shifting and a learning curve, but it works pretty well. You can then zip the jacket over the straps.  The other thing you can do is to put their jacket on backward OVER the straps.

We ended up switching from doing her jacket as you see in the previous picture to using a poncho.  I made their ponchos and they are SO WARM AND SAFE!  You simply lift up the poncho (or reach in), buckle them in, and you're on your way!  They can even get them off if they get too warm!

 Here's my "big girl" .. she is forward facing - so her straps belong AT OR ABOVE shoulder height.  Again, chest clip at armpit level.  (for the record, she is now 5.5 years old and STILL in the harness, will not put her in a seatbelt until she outgrows the 5 point harness)

Here she is with her jacket on ... she thought this process was WAY more fun than sister did! 

 Again, all I did was remove her jacket -- seriously, try it!

Yes, she was able to sit, buckled with her teddy bear AND still have room to lean forward ... or take her arms out of the straps all together .... This is how much space she'd have if we were to get into an accident, after her jacket compresses from the impact. 

And - here she is in her poncho -- silly, silly girl!

If you have questions, please feel free to ask!

Stay tuned for a tutorial on how to make your own poncho!!!

Why, yes, we do homeschool

Once upon a time, in a city across the metro, I promised a homeschooling post to a friend ... (sorry it took so long ... but here it is)

I remember the day that I knew I wanted to homeschool.  I was in 5th grade and my best friend was homeschooled.  I had stayed the night at her house (because my mom had to work overnight), naturally, we talked about school and what-not ... I went to school the next morning, knowing without a doubt in my mind that someday I wanted to homeschool my children.  I loved how close her family was, how she got to do school in her jammies (if she wanted to), and that she wasn't in school ALL.DAY.LONG!

Fast forward about 15 years ... SO much had changed in that time ... my friend had moved away when we were in 6th grade, I had finished high school, and gone to a great college, was now married and we were thinking about having a baby/pregnant with said baby.  The one thing that stayed the same through all of that was that I still wanted to teach my children at home.  Lucky for me, my husband was homeschooled and had been praying for a very long time that his someday-wife would want to homeschool their kids!

The closer our sweet daughter got to being school-age, the scarier our decision to homeschool became ... I mean, if her/their education is lacking - that's on ME!  No pressure or anything, right?!

When our oldest turned 4, we started doing preschool things with her ... testing the waters, so to say.  I created our daily plan (sometimes it was great, sometimes it was lacking); but we enjoyed it.  She loved being able to say "we do school at home" when people asked about school.  I loved that I still got to spend all day, everyday with my sweet girl.  I also learned very quickly that she is very, very smart!  By the end of preschool, she had taught herself how to read some basic words!  She never ceased to amaze me!

As we sought out council from friends who have homeschooled or were planning to homeschool their kids, we learned about MACHE and attended their conference in April.  That made our heads spin (in a good way)!  So much information, so very many options on what to teach and how to teach it ... we were overwhelmed, to say the least!

We chose a curriculum that we were certain we would both thrive with - I wanted something that would tell me what to do, and she loves art projects/hands on learning - so we went with My Father's World (Kindergarten).  While we have thoroughly enjoyed this curriculum, I have learned a few things ... My sweet girl is NOT at the level of a typical Kindergartener ... and I don't like having everything handed to me .. I want to create my lessons a little more than a boxed curriculum allows.  I want to piece together things that interest her and make lessons that suit where she is, educationally.  So ... for next year, we'll be back to the drawing board (exhibit hall at MACHE) for what to use for first grade.

The other thing that we did this year was to join a homeschool co-op.  I thought that having other kids around and having her involved in this would be beneficial to us ... it wasn't.  I think that for the right family, this or any, co-op would be very beneficial.  However I learned that I want more control of our schedule.  We chose to homeschool so that we can be home and doing school together, on our schedule - not in a setting of "controlled chaos", sometimes barely (I can say that, I am also their teacher).

I have heard so many times that I must be "so patient" or some variety of that ... I can tell you with 100% honesty that I am NOT "so patient" and many days I "don't have the patience for that" ... but to see my sweet girl learn to read for the first time, and watch her get something after struggling with it - it's ALL worth it!  I, firmly, believe that God gives us the grace and strength that we need for each day ... some days, I need more than others.

All this to say, I firmly believe that homeschooling is an excellent choice for just about any child, assuming that the parents are able and committed to educating their children.  It's not easy or for the faint of heart; I mean, we make messes and have an ant hill (eww).  BUT I wouldn't give this up for anything!

Let's catch up :)

Wow ... it's been a while since I have posted anything here - life has been a whirlwind and much has been going on!

So ... we moved to our new home in the beginning of August, love the house, and we are getting adjusted to the area.  In some ways it's been difficult to readjust, we had FINALLY made friends in our old neighborhood, and were at a point that we were really loving where we were - except our house.  Now we have a house that we love, and some great neighbors, but it takes work to build new relationships.... especially when it's been cold/snowing since a couple months after we moved into our house!

On top of this, we started homeschooling (a whole separate post on that later), joined a homeschool co-op, I attend (and love) MOPS, have started going to a new church, joined AWANA, and put the girls back into swimming lessons ... WHAT WAS I THINKING?!  I feel as though I am treading water, waiting for some of these things to end so that life can be a little bit less chaotic!  We have things going on just about every day -- for those of you who know me ... I don't function well this way!!!

Life has been crazy, but as always, God is good!  He has shown Himself faithful time and again through these months.  While we might not always know what He is doing, I do not doubt for a second that He is in control and has a plan (more on that when the time is right).

I plan to get back to posting MUCH more often, and hope that you will be back to join me here :)

No More Perfect Kids

It has been a long time since I have posted ... however, I can't let this opportunity pass without giving you the opportunity to join!

As you may remember, last year, I helped launch a book by Jill Savage titled No More Perfect Moms - the book was a game-changer!  Well - now, I am beyond excited to tell you all about the next book in the series: No More Perfect Kids (co-authored by Jill Savage and Dr. Kathy Koch)!!!  I have been reading this book for the past month or so ... which is saying a lot - I tend to devour books!  This is a GREAT read, and it's taking me so long to get through it because there is SO MUCH great information and it causes me to stop and think and be so much more intentional with my girlies.

Here's what you can't miss out on though:

• buy the book between March 13 and the 23rd and you will be eligible to receive over $100 in free resources!!  I'll give you more info during the release week :)
• go to www.nomoreperfect.com and sign up for their 13-day No More Perfect Kids e-challenge

And because I know you are just dying to know what is in the book - here's an excerpt: 

Ten Ways to Encourage Your Child 
An excerpt from No More Perfect Kids by Jill Savage and Dr. Kathy Koch

Parenting is hard work and sometimes it seems our kids do more wrong than right. Add in household responsibilities like laundry and meals, spilled milk at the breakfast table, a child who comes in from playing outside and is covered in dirt, and sibling rivalry where the kids pick at each other all night and sometimes life just isn’t easy. Fatigue is normal and frustration is, too. Learning not to act unkindly in our frustration is a journey requiring grace for ourselves and our kids.

Even in the midst of real life, it’s important to say far more encouraging words to our kids than correcting words. When we encourage kids, we give them courage. It’s empowering, freeing, and strengthening. When encouragement is the norm, children will learn they can take risks, try new things, ask for help, and make mistakes without the fear of losing the acceptance, love, and support of their parents.

It’s not easy to give encouragement, especially on the hard days. There are, however, steps we can take to increase encouragement in our home.

Here are 10 Encouragement Enhancers you can use in your family:

1. Don’t expect perfection. When we expect perfection we notice every little thing that’s wrong and that creates an environment of discouragement.

2. Encourage childlike behavior. There’s a difference between childish behavior and age-appropriate childlike behavior. Discourage the first and encourage the second.

3. Value what your kids learn. We need to pay at least as much attention to what’s being learned as we do to grades being earned and performances at games and concerts. This is one way we communicate that our kids are more than what they do and how they do.

4. Resist the urge to judge all performances. One way to emphasize learning rather than performance is not always to ask about their scores or grades.

5. Ask them how they feel. When talking about one of their athletic competitions, concerts, or tests, sometimes ask first how satisfied they were with the outcome. Two-way conversations about grades, concerts, and competitions will be more profitable than one-way judgments.

6. Notice their strengths. Point out their character, attitude, and action strengths to help them when they work to make progress in weak areas.

7. Don’t worry about their challenges. Understand some areas will remain challenges for our kids no matter how hard they try. Trying to get kids to change what they can’t improve is a sure way to discourage them.

8. Celebrate what’s real. When one child deserves to be celebrated for something significant (e.g., no C’s on a report card for the first time in a year, a soccer championship, art being displayed in the county library), don’t create fake celebrations for your other kids in order to be “fair.” Use these opportunities to teach children to genuinely celebrate their siblings.

9. Introduce them to overcomers. Discuss relatives and local people your kids know who have overcome great odds. Read biographies and autobiographies of people who have been highly successful even though they also struggled. We can often learn our greatest lessons from our greatest challenges.

10. Have fun together. Play with your kids. Relationships are deepened while building forts and having tea parties with your little ones and going shopping and watching ball games with your older ones. The fun, relaxed moments you share make tough times easier to walk through and go a long way to creating an encouraging family culture.

Be patient with yourself as you work to increase the encouraging environment in your family. If you choose too many things to change, you and your kids will be overwhelmed and little progress will be made. Don’t look back with shame or guilt either. Today is a perfect day to look forward with hope, choose one Encouragement Enhancer to start with, and walk in a positive direction!
**************************************************************************

Our moving adventure, part 2

So much has happened since my last post!  The journey to our new home has been full of craziness!

So, as of when I last posted, we were 3 weeks (and 1 day) from moving.  The only thing we were waiting for was the appraisal; of course we thought that was a given.  I mean this house is a steal!  Well ... as I'm sure you've guessed - it didn't appraise!  The house appraised for $10,000 less than the amount we had agreed on with the sellers (after several days of negotiations, because they wanted more).

Which brought us back to square one!  We told our realtor that they needed to drop the price by the $10,000 that it was short, or we'd be finding a new, new home.  Fast forward past several phone calls from their realtor to ours asking how much of that $10,000 we were willing to pay (the answer was ALWAYS $0!), to Monday, August 5 (3 days before our closing date on BOTH houses) we FINALLY hear from the buyer's agent.  He said that if they can keep their curtains (but leave the two story ones), they'll move forward with the closing.  CURTAINS?!?!  Seriously?!?!  Of course, take your curtains, I don't like most of them anyway!  At last, 3 days before closing (and thereby being homeless) we know where we will be moving!  Even better: we got it at the price we FIRST offered them!

Ugh - those were some of the longest weeks of my summer!  Not knowing where we were going to move was hard!  We had gone back to looking around at the market and there just wasn't anything that was what we wanted.  We were basically back to building ... but we really REALLY didn't want to wait the MONTHS that it would take to then move to our new home.  We did have the arrangements all figured out, but it was not going to be a smooth transition.

August 8th brought an excitement and a sense of relief!  Finally, this whole crazy process was about to be OVER!  We closed on our house in Farmington in the morning.  Then went to the closing on our new house in the afternoon.  Well, that was an adventure -- you see, when the sellers wait until there are only 3 days until you're supposed to close it makes it VERY CHALLENGING for the loan officers to get everything through in time!  There were addendums (addendi?) and resubmitting of paperwork with the new price ... to the point that our loan officer was working like a mad man to get it done, and the financing went through as we were finishing up the closing!

PRAISE GOD!!!  THE HOUSE IS OURS!!!!!

So, we get to go and move into our new house - thankfully, we have some awesome family and friends who were at our disposal through this process, there is no possible way this would have worked without all of you!  Many late nights were put in packing/cleaning our old house and then moving/unpacking/cleaning at the new house!

Breath a sigh of relief, the house is mine!  One of the things we knew coming into this purchase was that the microwave didn't work.  No big deal, microwaves aren't THAT expensive.  Well ... what we didn't know is that the dishwasher didn't really work, the washing machine sounded like a monster was trying to escape and the fridge didn't make ice or chill water ..... ugh!

We have now, FINALLY, gotten mostly moved in (there are boxes remaining, that will wait for winter to be unpacked).  The house feels like ours (minus the fact that I have NOTHING on the walls), the girls are loving their new house (though miss friends from our old house), and we are all getting to know the neighbors.

God is so good!  He knew all that we would go through, and that His plan would prevail.  I am so glad that we waited on His timing and didn't try to force any of this to happen in our timing!