We are building...

Bigger Picture Blogs invited us to write about our families using inspiration from signs that have been popping up all over.  Signs like this and this.  Family rules or maybe more like family goals.  I decided if I was going to write about this I should probably talk to my husband, the one other person in the family who would understand and should be included.  We had made a small list, but I wasn't happy with it.  I just thought I would put off writing one until we sang the hymn All Are Welcome today in church.  It is written by Marty Haugen, and if you are an ELCA church geek like me with your own hymnal (or 2) at home, it's in your ELW on page #641.  It is one of our family's favorite hymn.  We sang it before in seminary and other places.  Our sweet Cherub Choir taught it to our congregation last year.

I want my house to be a safe place of welcome where all you see is the love of Christ.  I'm thankful that the work is never complete in me.  I'm continually building and making better myself, my house, and those around me by sharing the love of Christ.  In the end I want everyone to know that our house is a place of welcome, no matter what.

Linking up with Bigger Picture Blogs!  Here & here

Sugar Cookies!

I'm not good at making sugar cookies.  I kind of don't like it!

I spend a good couple weeks preparing cookies for our annual open house for our congregations.  I like to do the "drop cookies" as they are called in my favorite cookie cookbook.  I don't have time for rolling.

but my oldest son...

He wanted to make sugar cookies so bad!

I think that's the problem with reading a lot of books and watching (a lot) of TV.  Somewhere he read or saw a kid making sugar cookies.  I'm not sure why, but it stuck with him.

He really needed to make sugar cookies with me.  Complete with a rolling pin, flour, and cookie cutters.

It meant something to him!  Maybe not to me, but to him.  Whatever was on the show or in the book made him think this would be something special.

Oh my!

It took forever...well maybe not forever, but at least an hour of rolling and baking!

No matter how many times I said, "start at the edge" the first stick of the cookie cutter went in the dead center.  He tried to mix little cookies with big cookies, put flour on the rolling surface, he messed some up and tried to fix them.  It was a process.

But it meant something to him.  

And that's where I come in!  It didn't mean anything before, but it means something to me now.  My son, really wanted to do this with me.  The hour was worth it.  The small extra mess was worth it.

Would I put every cookie out to serve at the open house if I had done them?  No.  But this sweet face is so proud of his cookies.  We will decorate them soon and every cookie will go out on my cookie table at the open house.

Because now it means something to me!


Linkin' up with Bigger Picture Blogs at Undercover Mother

The flip book

  Remember those flip books?  You could flip through quickly and see the animation or story?  That's what I feel like when I look at my kids right now.

I feel this giant swelling of thankfulness in my heart for everything they are.  I look at them and the little flip book starts going.  I can see them as newborns and babies, as a toddler, and now a preschooler.  I watched my oldest skip home in the wind next to his daddy yesterday and the little book started going.  Wow, my baby goes to school.  I can remember being in the hospital with him and moving here and his first day of school.  I love that he still asks for his mom first and wants to tell me everything.

I watched the little book flip as my baby and I snuggled in the dark after he got sick last night.  His little eyes kept looking at me and I remember being at the hospital in the middle of the night looking at those blue eyes when he was born.  He had a little hand on my face.

We are thankful and blessed in this house by our kids.  My hubby and I discuss that we have loved every stage of our kids.  We feel thankful that we aren't wishing away our time with them.  Wishing they were younger or older or different.  We love where we are at each moment, even the hard ones.

There are only so many pages in our kids little flip books.  I want to be thankful and fill those books with the blessing that are our children.  I don't want to miss something.  I don't want to look at the book and see it filled with "Just a minutes" and "hold on" and "I'm busy".  Because I'm not.  I'm thankful that my job right now is to fill that little flip book with love for my kids.

Linking up with Bigger Picture Blogs today at Alita's.
I'm also linking up with Finding Joy!

Patience in Waiting

Do you have the patience to wait

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving 

Till the right action arises by itself?

Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

 Do you have the patience to listen?  Do you have the time?  I've spent the last couple weeks budgeting.  I budget for MOPS, budget for my family, budget for the Sunday School program, but I can't seem to budget my time.  I just won't let myself create time to sit and listen and pray.  It seems so easy to shave off dollars in our budgets, but it's hard to shave off minutes of those urgent things we feel we must do everyday.  I saw a sign one day on pinterest that said "I can't go to bed, stuff is happening on the internet".  I feel like that a lot.  I can't give up a minute of my time because I might miss something.  Stuff is happening out there.  If I look really hard though, I can find time.  Just like I'm balancing my families budget and the MOPS budget, I can find places to cut.  The question is, am I ready?  

Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, 

you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. 

Henri J.M. Nouwen Life of the Beloved

We are reading Seven Spiritual Gifts of Waiting by Holly Whitcomb in my fall bible study group.  The gift of patience causes us to experience the slow pace of God.  God's timing has a rightness and a fullness to it that can only be found in waiting on God.  Patience is a call to prayer.  We will have to wait no matter what.  It's how we choose to do it.  Do we wait with patience in prayer and with open eyes until that water finally clears and we see what God was showing us?  Or do we run so fast that we miss everything?  Do we forget to listen and have no idea what the instructions were?  

The fullness and rightness of God's timing will be found in the waiting.  And in the waiting, we will realize those beautiful rocks turn into a more beautiful picture of fullness and life in God.  

Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park, Montana

I'm linking up with Bigger Picture Moments over at Hyacynth's today!

A Change in the Season...

I've been pondering how to clearly express what I've been feeling recently as a mom.  I think in one word I was feeling "exasperated".  Webster defines exasperate as "to cause irritation or annoyance".   I'm sad to say that's how I felt about my kiddos.  I was living in this cycle where everything my kids did just kind of annoyed me.  They weren't behaving at Target, they didn't share toys at a play date, everything scares my oldest son, they would fight with me.  You get the picture.  When you write it down, it seems likes very normal stuff for a toddler and a preschooler.  And sadly, it was.  My husband usually reminds me that it's our reactions to the situation that mostly determines how it turns out.  I was letting my reaction to the situation exasperate me.

I was nervous that while my husband was gone to a conference I would spend the whole time just yelling and exasperated at my children.  But something has changed.  I can honestly say I didn't.   I don't know if it's the fact that my preschooler spends all day at school one day a week (giving me a little break) or because I started a large family notebook for myself to keep everything organized.  It could be that I'm very happy, in addition to being a stay at home mom, with my stuff at MOPS and Sunday School.  But without my knowing it, in some small quiet way, my attitude has changed.

I feel more patient.  I feel that I can interrupt the stuff I "have to do" with the stuff my kids "need me to do".  You know, I can give up the urgent stuff for the important stuff.  Part of the reason is my new notebook.  My friend had made one and it seemed like a good idea.  I made my own and customized it to my situation and life.  I have a large list, but it is always in the back of the notebook.  Urgent things and one or two things from the big list are moved onto my daily sheet at the front of the notebook.  In a state of being less overwhelmed I'm more readily available to help my kids when they fight or make a pit stop at the park after the post office.  I think we've been to the park more in the last week than in the last month.  I've been able to discipline better and show more sympathy for the life of a toddler and a preschooler!

I'm not saying everything is perfect.  Far from it. (We did spend 8 hours in the car yesterday and nobody wanted to nap.)  I'm not saying that I will never resort to the point where yelling is the first option.  Things get crazy.  The list might get out of control but it works better when my reaction is to deal with the important things instead of the urgent things first.  I think my kids and I had some of the best 3 days this last week and I was even all by myself.  This is a nice feeling and that makes me want to continue it!

Linking up with Bigger Picture Blogs at Alita's today!

If we miss it...

What if we miss it?  The bigger picture that is our children and ourselves? We live our lives in lists.

This now, that next, followed by a million other bullet points on our lists of life.

Our oldest son did some testing this week similar to Kindergarten screening.  He did okay.  He just didn't want to stack the blocks like the picture showed and he really hates coloring.

What now?  Points deducted because we can't cross those off the list of skills he should have.  But they missed it.  Nobody asked him to put a puzzle together.  My oldest child is a puzzle whiz.  Sorry I haven't worked on stacking blocks, but I didn't want to miss it.  The bigger picture that he really enjoys and gets satisfaction outing of putting together puzzles.  They also didn't ask my son to glue or put together a "project".  He doesn't like to color because he likes to make projects with glue and stickers with his mom.  Sorry folks, but the bigger picture is I would rather do a project with my son than force him to draw a silly stick figure.

The bigger picture is not the list.  Our schools, jobs, and worldly expectations are list driven.  Because my son doesn't want to do those two skills the school is wondering why.  I'm wondering why they can't deviate from a list that obviously does not include the talents and interests of different children.  I'm sure whatever the blocks were testing could be tested in a different way.  (I have no excuse for the coloring though...He just really is not into that. )

I think we all are driven by these list that only present one piece of the whole story of our lives.  The bigger picture is the whole book.  A bullet pointed list is not my story.  I get so caught up in the good feeling that comes from crossing something off that I miss life.  I'm so worried I'll forget something that I push ahead with my head down and I end up missing something so beautiful in the big picture!

Linkin' up with the Bigger Picture here!