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 prin...

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 peop...

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...

I am thankful for... 1. Friends who take time on their day off to play at the park with us.  Seriously the text message of "I have the day off, what is something that is hard for you to do with all the kids that we can go do?" was amazing.  We went and we played hard at the park.  Erica also took a lot of pictures that are too cute!  I can't wait to see them all. 2. Having the Hubs here to help me parent.  When dealing with children's attitude issues sometimes a fresh set of eyes is helpful.  I'm glad I don't have to do this alone. 3. Girls who love to color.  Seriously.  They get up from their naps and color for an hour in my office almost every day.  It's beautiful.  I get more work done and they are happy.  Granted, my office is usually trashed at the end of it, but whatever! :) 4. Home Fellowship Group (aka Bible study).  We've been on break for a little bit but are starting up next week.  I'm excited. 5. Hom...

Again, I am not an expert...but there are certain things that have worked for me that I'll share here.  Meal planning was a HUGE issue for me when I first was married.  First of all, if I lived by myself I'd probably be a vegetarian for the simple reason that cooking meat stresses me out.  A lot.  I also tend to not think about food until I'm hungry...really really hungry.  I also tend to get super cranky when I'm hungry so lets face it, just not a good combination. Early in marriage I tried a lot of different approaches to meal planning but too many times we'd get to 5pm and I still had no plan.  Plus, going to the store every day or every couple of days turned out to be really expensive.  It just wasn't working.  Then I tried some online programs that provided meal plans and grocery lists.  In theory this would work really well but I wasn't enjoying the meals - they were either too plain or included ingredients I didn't like.  (I'm a...

I was told I would never have children without medical help.  I was raised thinking two kids was a good 'normal'.  Hanging out with my husband's family used to be so overwhelming because with 10 kids, there is always a lot going on.  Still, big family life fascinated me so I read blogs and books where moms talked about how they did it all with their large crews.  I watched in awe as they seemed so calm with so much going on around them all the time. In 2009 my body decided to defy science and go ahead and have a baby anyway.  What do those doctors know?  Then while I watched her grow over the next five years, I watched our family grow as well...and we now have five children, five years old and under.  I'm not really sure how that happened (I mean, I know how  it happened).  The math doesn't even seem to make sense even with a set of twins.  But yet, here we are. So that all being said, I'm not an expert as this big family thing. ...

This has been a hard week.  And it is Tuesday.  For example - today I was thrown up on by little man...while I was on the phone so I couldn't do too much about it quickly.  Then one of the boys who shall remain nameless decided throwing poop was fun.  Compared to some horror stories friends have shared, we got off easy with clean up!  I've had to make some tough decisions, hunt down parts for various broken machines, try to get a repairman over here, and fill out paperwork while holding a sad toddler. End of the day, if that's the worse that happens today it's still a pretty good day.  Here is what I'm thankful for... 1. Perspective.  In my old age I've gotten better at saying "this is not worth getting worked up about".  I don't do it perfectly but it is nice to sometimes be able to take a step back. 2. Workouts!  I got up early this morning and did a workout video in my office.  HIIT - for beginners.  I am not entirely sure...