Update courtesy of my new bffs: Iphone & Instagram

I have a new love in my life….my iPhone….and the camera on my phone!  It’s definitely not my Canon camera (another love), but SUCH an improvement over my last phone camera!

Warning before you start scrolling—the captions are all sorts of messed up…..but you can probably figure out which caption goes with which picture.  For some reason auto format is killing me tonight--it keeps moving my captions around. 

Seriously, how adorable is this girl!! 

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it when these two get along! Makenzie was “reading” to Micah!

Swimming in the backyard!

Biking in Breckenridge –4 adults + 3 kids (one on a tagalong, one on a “wee-hoo” and one in a trailer.  We looked a little like a traveling circus….but this little circus made it nearly 10 miles round trip!! 

Love these two—and iPads…seriously, what did we do without them!

3 Months!

We had Miss Gracyn’s 3 month pictures taken this week….only 10 days after her 3 month birthday…..because with three kids, that’s how we roll….late.for.EVERYTHING!  You’ll be glad to know I have her three month well baby checkup scheduled for next week.  Does that mean I should schedule her 4 month in just a couple weeks….or do you keep it consistent and take her for the 4 month checkup when she’s 4 1/2 months old?? 

Anyway – click here for a sneak peak at my sweet girl! 

Faith and Family: Memorizing Scripture with the Little Ones

A dear friend and I were talking a few weeks back about fostering our children’s faith, and one of the specifics we talked about was helping our kiddos memorize Scripture.  I’m obviously not any sort of expert on this….but we’re working on it and I’ve found a couple of super great resources to help me!  If you’re interested, here’s what we’re doing (as in my kids and I):

1.  Step Into the Bible --  I started this book with Makenzie before Micah was really old enough to do any memorizing.  It’s a GREAT book –it has short 10 minute or less Bible stories and a Bible verse to memorize with each lesson.  The really great part—the Bible verse stays the same for 5 lessons, so it gives you several days to really get the verse memorized!  Makenzie soaks this book up and even asks to do devotions in the mornings –and she’s done a great job of “keeping” her verses memorized!  Each morning we do a devotion, I’ll have her go through the verses she has previously memorized and usually if I give her the first word or two, she can take off and recite the whole thing.

2.  Another friend recently introduced me to Teaching Children Memory Verses –this is WAY more Micah style than the previous book.  My little man has the attention span of a mosquito…or maybe of a 2 year old boy! By the time I get done reading a devotion, he’s long gone….usually sitting on the floor making growling noises at me or trying to drive his cars over the book I’m reading to Makenzie.  This book is more like Sunday school materials –it has a color sheet/activity to go with each “lesson”….but the lessons are short and the activity is good for keeping attention!  They have these books for various ages --I bought the one for 2 and 3 year olds and it really doesn’t seem to be too young for Makenzie. 

I think my biggest struggle in all of this is that I want it to be grand and elaborate and perfect…..and well, 2 and 4 year olds just don’t go for this!  We’re talking a maximum 5 minutes of good attention.  But here’s what I love –God is faithful!  God made my kids with that 5 minute attention span—and He also made them more than capable of soaking up His word in that timeframe! 

The other struggle is time – 3 days a week we’re racing to get out the door to work and daycare and sometimes that means mom’s yelling at everyone to put their shoes on for the 17th time instead of sitting down to read a devotion or go through a Bible verse.  As much as I wish this wasn’t the case, I think it’s just life….if it wasn’t work and daycare it would be something else….one more year and we’ll be racing off to Kindergarten in the mornings.  (Man that’s hard to actually type out….I’m definitely not ready for that!)  The 2nd book is great for this –just this week, I gave the kids a coloring sheet at 7:45 am, we talked about the verse while I fed Gracyn and they colored, loaded up at 8:00 and practiced the verse as we drove to daycare.  They weren’t fighting, I wasn’t crabbing—and they LOVED it!  Both kids insisted on taking their coloring sheets to Trinity to show their friends and teachers.  I’m thinking “Memory Verse Mondays” are going to become a regular occurrence at our house because I’d much rather have my kids going out the door with a verse in their head than a replay of me telling them to put their shoes on/brush their teeth/ stop fighting etc. etc.

Moms - I’d love to hear your ideas—how do you do Scripture with your kids?? 

Quick 5

1.  Life is BUSY!  Probably you already know that….but seriously….its busy!  I find myself having to work really hard to not get overwhelmed by my “to do” list.  And I can’t tell you how many times in a day I wish I could just spend it playing with kids and that somehow the laundry, dishes, cooking, work etc. would just take care of itself.  Maybe I need to hire a “mom” to do all the house stuff so I can just do the fun mom stuff! And I might need to hire someone to show up at work for me too….they’re going to start wondering if I ever work if I don’t get some office time!  Between  maternity leave, court hearings, vacations, continuing ed, and out of office meetings, I’ve hardly been in the office since April. 

2.  And because we don’t have enough going already, we decided to add building a house to our “to do” list.   This is super exciting and super terrifying all at once!  Thankfully, we’re giving ourselves lots of time –we met with the guy who is drawing our house plans last night and I can’t wait to have a preliminary picture of the house! I took him 2 house plans I had found and literally said, I want the main story of this house and the 2nd story of this house, except I want the garage moved and the kitchen bigger and I’d like a built in pantry, oh and while you’re at it, can we put in a built in desk and lockers for all the kids.  And if he can do all this and make the house look good, I’m going to think he’s a miracle worker!   Right now our plan is to start building in the spring, but there are lots of variables in that, so we’ll see.

3.  Makenzie came home with a note from Trinity this week that said, “Its so nice to have one child who listens the first time.  Keep up the good work.”  Proud mommy moment!!  (But oh how I wish she listened this well at home!

4.   Micah has picked up a new favorite phrase, “why because?”  I can’t tell him ANYTHING without hearing “why because?”  And even though it drives me CRAZY, he’s just so stinkin’ cute, that it makes me smile every time. 

5.  Gracyn is pretty close to perfect—she smiles and laughs and tolerates her brother and sister’s “love” so well!  She needs to start making friends with her daddy and grandparents though –she’s in  a “cling to mommy” phase and screams when anyone else tries to hold her.   

Happy Birthday America!