I wish you could have heard the laughter at our dinner table tonight!
All three boys were laughing gut-hurting laughs.
Sexy neck picked up the dessert oranges after supper and started juggling them before handing them to the boys to peel.
We haven’t laughed that hard in ages.., it is the simple things!
Side note: I have a Physical Education degree and I think the juggling lesson I received during one of my activity courses was one of the most memorable and useful!
I went back to work part time after our first son was born. After only a few months, I knew that being a mom and teacher was not going to be doable for my Type A/Perfectionist personality.
We immediately cut our cable, saving $30 per month. We tried to find ways to cut even more of our expenses.
We ended up selling our handmade (not by us!) post and beam home overlooking the lake for a home in the city with the ability to walk everywhere. We sold one car and were left with one 4-Runner to share.
We bought a house with a backyard suite. This house allows me to joyfully stay home with my boys. It pays 60 percent of our mortgage with minimal impact on our lives.
Do you have extra space beside your house?
Here is a great suite I saw today while driving around. The suite is on the left.
Let your house make money for you! (My apologies for the photos – I will never make a good paparazzi!)
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not a morning person. My pattern has been work late, exercise in the evening, sleep in when I can… and when I say sleep in, I mean til 10am or later.
The birth of 3 children aged 5, 3 and 1, have slowly lead me to become a morning person. I now regularly wake up between 5am and 6am, depending on which boss boy needs me.
Don’t tell any of my immediate family members, hence we might bring on a heart attack, but I actually enjoy my mornings now.
The boys and I eat breakfast, look out the window at the birds/snow/leaves, play some lego and we hangout together at our extra large borrowed Ikea table.
I even get a little bible study in, where I can read, reflect, pray and be thankful. What a way to start a day!
I have started wearing long sleeved shirts so that I can wipe snot everywhere I go.
Sexy neck told me the other day that he thinks we have gone through a milk jug of snot in the last 2 weeks.
I agree and so does my shirt!
Today, I double dog dare you to take a good look at those people around you. Not the people on the TV, but the people you live with, live beside or are in the line-up with.
You will be amazed at what you will see.
Here was my view from the “sick” couch a few days ago. I may have to spend more time on the couch.
Two boys, a new game, talking, laughing, playing… BeAutiFUL!
When you have 3 boys aged 5, 3 and 1, you need to come up with creative strategies to deal with the physical “combative” behavior that sometimes often comes out. My boys love to climb, build, run, bike, ski… they love to move!
We have recently moved into a stage when our one year old, OC, can get into everything. The big boys do their best to “move” him to safer areas, but sometimes it turns into a wrestling match. Let me rewrite that sentence: The big boys see their younger brother moving into their space and they try to wrestle/tackle him.
Last Sunday night, Sexy Neck and I decided that we needed to institute a formal wrestling time. Here is how it works:
Every night after dinner, each of the big boys gets to wrestle with daddy on the carpeted hardwood floor. Each person can wrestle for 2 minutes for 2 rounds. The person not wrestling must wait on the “bench” (bed). They can no longer wrestle each other or their baby brother during the day – whew! I LOVE THIS!
Two nights later I was at bible study, and my favourite DVD bible teacher, Beth Moore, talked about wrestling (isn’t God wild!). My understanding of what she said is the wrestling that Jacob did in the book of Genesis (check it out in the bible) involved a physical intimacy between Jacob and the angel. Jacob was getting the Holy Spirit all over him! I felt that God was giving us confirmation that we are on track with our evening wrestling time with the boys!
Everyone loves it! Look at that smile!
I have an incredible mentor in my life who believes that you should try and say “yes” as much as possible. She was a leader of an incredibly difficult school with a 30% turnover rate in students every year and a staff that sometimes had difficulty embracing change! She won all the children, parents and staff hearts by being a “yes” woman. She initiated incredible change in people.
Today my baby boy, CC, wanted to go up and down and up and down the hill at the end of our street. I kept saying “yes” until he wanted to stop.
A friend of my went to the hot springs we were at on the weekend. Her children are 6 and 9. She and her husband decided to allow them to stay in the hot springs until they wanted to go. They stayed in for over four hours. They only got out because they were starving.
Today, I slowed down, let go of my own agenda and allowed myself to be a “Yes” woman. Thanks Linda Lou for guiding the way!
One of our baby boys, OC, loves to eat! I mean he LOVES to eat. If we don’t have food on his tray when he is eating, he starts to squawk and scream.
He is the youngest, but we are predicting that he will be the biggest. He eats more than his brothers! Does this perhaps explain his 102 percentile head circumference?
Here is his latest meal for breakfast:
1 whole piece of spelt toast with PB and Nana’s jam
1 piece of bacon
Scrambled eggs
3 Strawberries
Some apple
Note: Notice his oldest’s brother’s breakfast in the background.
"Be" ENOUGH 