The Ambitious Life

My sweet Abi Ann, You are my sunshine.  You look like sunshine, you smell like sunshine, you are my sunshine.  You are a stubborn little thing who knows exactly what she wants.  You love to do all the things your big sister is doing, but you are also content to be on your own.  You love your brothers with everything in you and play with them with shouts of laughter.  You are loyal, sweet and kind.  You care about other people and want everyone around you to be happy.  You are enjoying preschool and ask me every day if you can do school...and more school...and have pages to color and cut.  (On the days I don't have pages for you to color and cut you generally make me find one.)  Kid - you are fierce.  You are strong willed and tough.  I pray that you will continue to be fierce and strong and tough and that you will use those things to help the people around you and to give glory to God!  I am so thankful for you my lovely princess.  You will always be my sunshine! Love, Mommy

I was thinking about these "how I manage" posts that I really do want to finish writing - but I think the first thing I have to address is how I manage my attitude.  Pretty much everything else stems from how I look at my life, my situation and my to do list in the first place. I used to hate cooking.  And cleaning.  And being organized.  Seriously.  I feel like my poor husband had a wife with a huge learning curve when we got married.  I am a pile maker - meaning I put stuff down in an "organized" pile...and there it sits.  My mom did a great job teaching me to cook but frankly, lack of practice or interest put me a little behind when it came to cooking for my man who is a secret foodie.  I felt overwhelmed, embarrassed and kind of like I was faking this wife / homemaker gig. It really was quite a struggle for me until a couple years ago.  When we moved into Harvest House I realized that if we were going to share our home with other people I HAD to get these th

I was reminded in a sermon on Sunday how much, how often, I need to remember to give God glory.  In the big things, in the little things.  Things that seem easy to brush off are just as easily an opportunity to point to God.  I posted this message on my Facebook that day... "I have been asked so many times in the last few days how I handle being mom to five very little ones. The short answer is, I don't. God does. I am not a naturally patient, even tempered person. I am prone to selfishness and frustration. My organizational skills were not superb and lets face it, cooking is not my strong suit. But God. And that's how I do it" And I mean every word of it.  I can't.  But God.  It is so true. That morning I also posted about how we had found out a year ago about our fifth child.  (I adore him).  But he is our sixth child.  The first we lost very early to miscarriage.  I wear a beautiful necklace many days and each child is represented with a charm carrying thei