The Hitchin'

From Romeo and Juliet to the story of Adam and Eve, love stories are everywhere.  I love them -- several of my favorite movies are about two people who love each other so deeply that they withstand trials, tribulations, and time to end of together.  It has taken me a while to process that my parents fell in love at the wrong time in the wrong place.  But this weekend, I watched their love story have a truly happy ending -- at the right time and the right place.  

Who's up for a challenge?

Do you ever look on Pinterest at the photos of these beautifully organized homes filled with projects the owner has completed....not a sock to be seen, no "junk" piles, and not a flaw to be found (well, atleast that's what I see but I digress...)  I hate having OCD....It is this tiny inner voice that obsesses over small details.  It makes me great at my job, but not so much as a wife and mother.  (It tends to lead to nagging....mhmmm)

Oooohhh...I love it! I've been a bit crafty this weekend :)

I have what some would call a Pinterest-problem.  But, I have good boundary skills and don't go there every day.  If I did, my husband would be in a lot of trouble because there are so many wonderfully talented people who post wonderfully creative and helpful things on Pinterest.  The real genius is if I could find away to blog about all of my Pinterest projects and make money doing it....now that would be genius.  Just sayin'

This weekend I did manage to get a few things done that I have been wanting to do for a very, very long time.  Think years....Yeah for me!!   

Big Daddy is very excited for this project....you can just see it in his face!

Even with a BROKEN finger, he still helps out.  LOVE

Uggg...can you just see that ugly blank space. 

Ah....LOVE these beautiful boys :)

The finished product

Vinyl letters

Showing Big Daddy how much I appreciate him

AND, there's more.  One of my goals as a mom is to be more proactive in telling my children what I appreciate and love about them.  I tend to get sucked in to nag, nag, nag mode and I hate it.  So this week, I did something about it and made some very cute and fun ways to tell them how much I love them more often.  Here they are...

Each boy has their own hanging outside of their bedroom.  

These hang underneath the bulletin board I hung for each boy for their art, special recognitions and such.  

The hallway

SUPER simple to make -- I printed the template off on white paper.  Framed it in a cheap $3 frame from Wal-mart, and wrote on them with a dry erase marker so that I can change it daily.  (that's my goal atleast).  It also helps improve literacy skills for the two little people in the house.  

OOOOO.....ahhhhhh......Ohhhhh...is what I heard from the boys when they saw them.  Now, to remember to write on them often -- I'm filling their love buckets and helping them see all of the great things I see every day but forget to tell them about.  

"Earning your Sleep"

A long time ago, I heard an elderly woman speak about "earning your sleep" as a wife and mother.  At the time, I thought I was earning my sleep with our crazy, busy life -- I had a large client base in my political consulting business, a large family to care for, I was attending college full-time, and I was serving on several non-profit boards, starting a charter school, and had a church calling.  I was definitely earning my sleep.

But....

I have had the amazing opportunity to correspond a few times with Allison Kimball from Simple Inspiration.  I want to be her when I grow up...seriously.  She is so eloquent, brilliant, talented, funny, intelligent, crafty....did I mention talented?  But there is something more to her that I admire above everything else.  She is incredibly grounded.   She posted a simple blog post the other day that really made me think, analyze, pray, ponder, and act upon what I was doing in my life to "earn my sleep".

"We can ask ourselves, “Am I committing my time and energies to the things that matter most?” There are so many good things to do, but we can’t do all of them. Our Heavenly Father is most pleased when we sacrifice something good for something far greater with an eternal perspective." ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

 I definitely earned my sleep today -- I worked a full day, coordinated a football dinner for 70 people, made 15 pounds of spaghetti, two crockpots of homemade sauce, two cookie sheets of brownies and sugar cookie bars, and a bazillion pounds of laundry all while wrangling two toddlers, teaching piano lessons, and a conference call.  Please, don't be jealous...I have poor boundary skills :)

But that isn't where this quote smacked me upside the head and made me smile and say a silent prayer of thanks.  It came as I was loading the dishwasher for the third time today -- yes, I said third but who's counting -- and somewhat lamenting that my large family of boys couldn't manage to load it atleast 1 time.  Okay...I was more than lamenting.  I was grousing, grumpy, and a little bit, a lot disappointed that I was standing at the sink again.

And then there was Allison's blog post...feeding my family, serving my family, loving my family....that's exactly what matters most.  Sure they could do more (I'll make them pay me back later), but I am privileged to be their mom, divinely chosen to raise this herd of Strippling Warriors.  And I am more than grateful that I had the time, energy, and skills necessary to get everything accomplished today.  Phew....I think I earned my sleep tonight AND I did it doing things that matter most for my family.

Be sure to check out Allison's blog for more inspiration -- it was just what I needed to remember today.  (And thanks for the perfectly timed email today, Allison.  So needed to hear your wise words :)  )

My boys :)

Structure and Reality

What do you get when you combine a Type A personality, a dash of OCD, a large family, and a long list of responsibilities??  A mama with patches of hair missing from where she pulls it out frequently.  I wish I could just squash that part of my persona that makes me clean, organize, and freak out when things aren't as orderly as I would like them.  It's a love-hate relationship with that part of me.  Seriously....

Today officially marks the end of summer.  The older kids are back in school and today it is just me and the littles.  Today, I am relishing in the idea of summer chaos aligning in to the sweetness of order.  I have that tendency.  Give me five minutes and I'm going to be in a full blown panic attack about everything I need to get done.  

This was a hard summer for me...I'm not going to lie.  I had seen the dates on paper and knew about the expectations for my job as State FFA Coordinator.  But it's always more complex in reality.  I spent a great deal of the summer traveling and working with six beautiful young people...but that also meant I spent a great deal of time away from the five beautiful people who live in my house.  There was still laundry that needed done, a garage that needed cleaned, and babies that needed potty training.   It was brutal and yet I loved every minute with the state officer team.  Throw in a case of mono and then lumps in Bauer's lymph nodes that won't go away, a week of jury duty, and getting ready for the school year and I'm just about at the end of my rope. 

So today is both a sad and happy day.  Sad because I missed out on summer with my children (I'm planning better for next year) and happy because I get to feed my OCD Type A personality with structure and to-do lists.  There are many happy, amazing, and fun adventures coming up -- football season, meeting Bria and Derek, Cantus, and more.  I'm going to try and take today and breath deep as I unbury ourselves from the summer months of travel.  Welcome back structure and reality....I've missed you.  

And here's a little ditty to motivate you today -- I LOVE this song! It's been a summer favorite :)  Enjoy...

Hard Things...

Why?  Why does God ask us to do hard things?  I'm comfortable with where my life is headed.  We've made it through some pretty rough seas, big storms and fires that seemed endless in the last five years.  I'd be content just sitting back and catching my breath.  God, however, has other plans.  He asks  us to do hard things because He needs us and His timing is perfect, even though I don't want to admit it.

Adoption has blessed our family incredibly.  We have two beautiful sons who weren't born in our family, but born in our hearts.  They went through hard things before they joined our family and our family experienced hard things as we grew together.  Having emerged on the other side of those hard things, I've seen the impact  adoption has had on our family -- the good and the bad.  And one thing is for certain -- there is never a time that God's hand was not at work in our home.  Healing and blessing, pushing and pulling, and sometimes even carrying one or all of through.  

So imagine my surprise when a friend called me a couple of months ago and told me I needed to check out Idaho's Wednesday Child, where profiles of adoptable children are posted.  I laughed her comment off...after all, I've been on the site a dozen times and looked at children.  They are cute and lovable and I would adopt a million if I could.  As the page loaded and the picture loaded, there was no way I could deny that I was looking in to the faces of my children....my children.  God was telling me to do a hard thing -- open my heart again to rejection, frustration, and potential loss in return for the eternal blessing of having these two beautiful children be a part of our family.  

I was stunned...I am still stunned.  I am humbled....I am grateful....I am scared.  And in just 12 days, we will will have the opportunity to meet our children face-to-face and embrace them.   And even then, there is a risk that they won't come home with us.  That they may go to another home...in the world of foster-adoption, that is just a risk.  But it is a risk I'm willing to take because God is asking me to.  I will trust Him to bring us through this hard thing and I will enjoy every moment and savor every blessing.

Thomas S. Monson has taught:

“Whatever our calling, regardless of our fears or anxieties, let us pray and then go and do, remembering the words of the Master, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who promised, ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’”

“We can strengthen one another; we have the capacity to notice the unnoticed. When we have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that know and feel, we can reach out and rescue those for whom we have responsibility.”

“None of us lives alone—in our city, our nation, or our world. There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor’s poverty.”

“There are feet to steady, hands to grasp, minds to encourage, hearts to inspire, and souls to save.”

“Perhaps when we face our Maker, we will not be asked, ‘How many positions did you hold,’ but rather, ‘How many people did you help?’”

“As we go about our daily lives, we discover countless opportunities to follow the example of the Savior. When our hearts are in tune with His teachings, we discover the unmistakable nearness of His divine help. It is almost as though we are on the Lord’s errand; and we then discover that, when we are on the Lord’s errand, we are entitled to the Lord’s help.”

“By learning of Him, by believing in Him, by following Him, there is the capacity to become like Him. [Our] countenance can change; [our] heart can be softened; [our] step can be quickened; [our] outlook enhanced. Life becomes what it should become.”

So, you are probably wondering WHY is this a hard thing?  There are a lot of reasons...some more deeply personal and matters of the heart, while others are more practical.  Here are just a few that I have taken to the Lord.

1. What if they can't bond with us?  We have experienced RAD and we know how hard it is to love someone from afar who can't reciprocate that same kind of love back.   We already love them no matter what and we understand that they will need time to feel the same way.  
2. How can we afford two more people in our household -- more clothes, more food, more water, moer power, everything.  Kids are expensive and we want them to experience so many things and those things...they cost money.  
3. Space...oh boy....space.  We will make it work and we'll be happy about it because this home is exactly where God wants us right now.  I have no idea why...but He hasn't opened anything else since we've been looking.  That's both a relief and a pain all at the same time (but that's another post for another time). 
4. Teenage girls are a lot of work...especially those that need to bond with you at the same time they are supposed to hate your guts.  (Just ask Kristi and Kim)
5. What if they don't ever come back?  My mother heart aches when I think about my older "kids".  Some are learning things the hard way.  Some are in situations that require me to be distant so they don't get hurt.  Some don't recognize the unconditional love I have for them, despite the fact that I didn't "have them" like my biological children.  
6. What if we aren't selected?  The Sunday School answer "God has something else in mind for you" won't heal my broken heart.  I tried to relate this to my good friend Sara last week.  If we aren't selected, in many ways it will be like having a still born baby.  I know I will grieve...that loss scares me.  

And so, I am trusting.  I am humbled.  I am honored.  And, I am scared.  Hard things are just that...hard. 

I would LOVE to hear about the hard things you have walked through or are currently walking through.  What have you done to help survive them?  What have you enjoyed most or least?  What have your hard places taught you?  Comment below.  :)

Our Summer Reading Challenge....and a little STRUCTURE

This has been our first week of summer and can I just tell you that my OCD self is already craving the comfort of "routine".  Things have bee a little crazy around here as I try to balance family, preschool, and my new FFA job.  It's been nuts...I'm not going to lie.  

On Friday, I returned from State FFA CDE's in Moscow.  That was preceded by preschool graduation, music recitals and everything in between.  I was pooped by the time the three week whirlwind was complete and the 26 hours of sleep I had in 2 days left me feeling a little sluggish this week.  But I made a promise to myself that I would make every moment of "summer" count for my kids and we just wouldn't spend it sitting in front of the TV.  

So our Summer Reading Challenge has begun....and I am so excited!  There are two requirements for the challenge:

• PART 1:  Read the ENTIRE Book of Mormon by August 1st.  (If you are starting today, that's 11 pages per day)
• PART 2:  Read one age-appropriate book every week throughout the summer. (That's atleast 7 books, yup)

I think I just heard a collective groan....oh wait....that was my children.  Don't despair, it will be fun.  And if you join us, there are PRIZES :)  Mwahhhahahaha....a little bribery never hurts.  :)   So come on, dig out those library cards (and pay your late fees...) and let's get our READ on!