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!

Growing up too fast!

My littlest bug is 2 months old, my biggest bug is camping in the backyard with her daddy for the first time ever, and my middle bug….well he’s stuck sleeping inside with me tonight and I might be secretly hoping he wakes up early and comes in my room to ‘nuggle!  He’s my little snuggle bug and I hope he never outgrows it!!  

This has been a really fun weekend – and much needed after a couple of crazy busy weeks!  I have an appellate brief due June 22nd and a 2 day trial June 28 and 29…the combination of the two equals major stress and long work hours (usually starting after 10 pm when everyone else is sleeping and the house is finally quiet). Briefs and trials are a bad combination anytime…but briefs and trials when you’re still supposed to be on maternity leave are just plain miserable! Needless to say we’re counting down the days till the end of the month…and being VERY thankful that July looks to be a whole lot calmer!

I finally uploaded pictures and videos and found a few that I just have to share!  Maybe when July 1st rolls around and I’m operating on more than 3-5 hours of sleep a night, you’ll get a more coherent blog post—for now, you’ll just have to enjoy the pictures! 

LOVE that smile!!  She is such a happy babe—and so good natured, we are blessed! 

And Gracyn is blessed to have a brother and sister who love her to pieces!!

Makenzie LOVES to sing to Gracyn….and Micah loves to do anything his big sister does….and Gracyn loves to listen, she’ll even stop her fussing just to listen to her big sister sing.  Micah man’s singing doesn’t quite have the calming effect Makenzie does – imagine that, it’s only about 10 times louder and usually less than 2 inches from Gracyn’s face!  

Love this little man’s singing…even if it isn’t Gracyn’s favorite!

An Update the Easy Way

What we’ve been up to…..

Wearin’ matching dresses

More matching dresses….and finishing Enrichment (pre-preschool)

Our first gymnastics “meet”

Plantin’ our garden and giving Gracyn her 1st bottle

Hangin’ out with mama (this was literally attempt #354 at a picture on Mother’s Day)

Havin’ tea parties (and reading Fancy Nancy….notice the pinky (or pointer finger) up….that’s fancy!)

Finishin’ Kindermusic

Lovin’ on our baby sister

Goin’ to the zoo

Ridin’ on Daddy’s shoulders

Bein’ ornery…and maybe tormenting our sister

Havin’ pool parties with our cousins

Havin’ fun at the park

Playin’ “boat” (in the cupboard under the sink in the hotel)

Wearin’ our sun hats and lookin’ super cute!

Quick 5

I realized it has been almost a month since I last blogged….probably because things are just a little crazy around here!  Good, but crazy and BUSY!  Here’s a few highlights to let you know what we’ve been up to:

1.  We’ve  determined that Miss Gracyn definitely has MSPI issues (dairy and soy intolerance)….so I’m on a pretty restricted diet and any mishaps result in a very angry baby girl!  It’s easy as long as we’re home but when we have to eat out, it’s nearly impossible…not just because I’m pretty much limited to meat and veggies when we eat out, but also because the risk of cross contamination is so high (i.e. I can order PLAIN veggies but if they cook the veggies in a pan that had butter in it before they cooked my veggies, that’s dairy and crazy as it seems it’s enough to upset Gracyn.)  Pretty much we just eat at home – or if we do go out, it’s either to Subway (sandwiches on Italian bread w/ no cheese are safe) or to Runza (Can I have a hamburger, ketchup only w/o the bun please? )    Qdoba has been a good option too – naked burrito with meat, rice, beans and guac but either the burrito or the coke upset Gracyn last week so they’ve been blacklisted for now.  Oh yeah, and major props to Outback – we ate there while we were in Colorado and they were SO accommodating –steak, baked potato w/ olive oil instead of butter and steamed broccoli (w/o the butter sauce).

2.  I’m headed back to work on Monday –on a very part time basis  and Gracyn gets to go with me, but still it’s enough to make me anxious!  I’m really not sure how we’re going to get everyone out the door by 8 in the mornings –pretty sure we haven’t accomplished that yet (at least not with me having hair fixed and make up on….I might be able to make it if I didn’t have to shower and get ready for the day!) 

3.  Tom, Gracyn and I spent last week in Colorado – it was great to get away and Miss Gracyn got to spend her 1 month birthday at Garden of the Gods.  That’s right – my littlest bug is already 1 month old….where does the time go!! 

4.  I officially hit the BIG 3-0 this month.  It really wasn’t as traumatic as I thought it might be –so far, 30 doesn’t seem to bad!  And my mama totally spoiled me by making dairy and soy free chocolate cake.   A couple days before my birthday I was whining to Tom that I was going to have to celebrate my birthday with strawberries because all the good birthday treats (cake, pie, ice cream etc) would upset Gracyn’s tummy….but my mom searched out an MSPI friendly cake recipe and it was AMAZING!  I don’t even like chocolate cake usually – but this was great!  (If you’re interested go to www.mspimama.blogspot.com, click recipe index and look for wacky cake).

5.  This week we’re finishing up all our spring “activities” – Makenzie had her gymnastics program last week and her last night of class is this week and Micah man has his Kindermusic program this week.  It’s been a fun spring, but I’m not going to lie – I’m looking forward to being done with scheduled activities and reclaiming a little family time this summer!