He is risen!

We were eagerly anticipating our Easter tradition of having lunch at Mrs. Linda's house and smashing confetti eggs. But yesterday Jeremiah spiked a fever and was diagnosed with the flu. On this Resurrection Morning Nathaniel and I slipped into church and celebrated Christ's victory over death. We tried to keep our distance from people as much as possible in case we are contagious. This year especially I feel such joy at knowing that the price for my sin has been paid and I am free to live in the joy and victory of Christ's resurrection. After the service everyone was given a white balloon. We stood in the parking lot as Pastor Travis proclaimed, "Christ is risen!" and we let the balloons fly. Yes, he is indeed! I saw those balloons drift off and felt part of my heart let go of the guilt and shame I have carried lately. It was a bit disappointing to not head off to Mrs. Linda's but we came home and made a delicious pot of chicken noodle soup. We have taken restful naps and are going to spend the evening snuggled on the couch watching movies.

Tomorrow I will have surgery to have my gallbladder removed. We are praying that Jeremiah's germs don't spread and everyone else in the house stays healthy. Aaron is home all week on spring break.

*The balloons and strings were all biodegradable. Smile.

just for fun - new hair

I hate taking pictures of myself and I hate seeing pictures of myself. But, I got a haircut today and I am going to post the pictures. Just for fun. And because I have been reading blog posts about embracing who we are. Being comfortable in the skin we are in. Not hiding behind the camera. So this is me.
My hair has been long ever since an ill-fated (short) haircut when Nathaniel was a baby. I like long, but recently felt like it was weighing my face down. And it always ended up in a ponytail. So this time I went for a straight, shoulder length bob, hoping it would feel fresher and lighter. My "stylist" thought that I should let my bangs grow out. I am not so sure about that, I like to keep my forehead covered.

Resurrection Garden

 

 

 For a number of years now I have been wanting to use a Resurrection Garden to help us walk through the two weeks before Easter in a more intentional way. This year I put it on high priority. This morning after soccer practice we headed to Home Depot and got our supplies. We had a friend with us who helped us. The boys got really excited about it and enthusiastically ran around the yard gathering the appropriate sticks and rocks. When it was time to take their picture they said, "How about instead of saying 'cheese!' we say 'GRACE!'"
This was s simple and fun project and like our Jesse Tree at Christmas time I hope this will be a visual reminder that will help us focus our hearts as we contemplate the sacrifice and victory of our Savior.
(I patterned our Resurrection Garden off of the one that Ann Voskamp shows in her blog A Holy Experience. We will also put the stone in front of the tomb on Good Friday and I bought a pretty butterfly to put in place on Easter morning.)

somehow we are still learning

This is our 3rd year of officially home schooling. As I gain confidence and see how well home schooling is working for us I have been much more relaxed and less worried about sticking to an exact schedule, or even to our curriculum. We are still disciplined in getting work done, but in a much more flexible and fluid way. Especially recently, when I haven't been feeling well and my energy is really low, we have had to prioritize what gets done in a formal, sit-down way and what can be learned in more relaxed and independent ways.

For example, our Sonlight curriculum comes with a Language Arts program for Jeremiah. However, with my energy so low I have chosen for us to not worry about whether or not we complete that program this year. That doesn't mean that we aren't doing Language Arts at all. Jeremiah reads voraciously (about 2hrs a day on average), still does copy work, and is enjoying using the Usborne Write Your Own Story book. After his birthday party I had him work on writing thank you letters.



Nathaniel has an August birthday so he is a strange stage. If we were choosing to send him to public school we would have held him back from Kindergarten until he was 6. So this year I took a very laid back approach to his schooling with the goal of focusing on learning to read and starting handwriting. I also ordered a Kindergarten math workbook from Horizons. At the beginning of this school year he was pretty easily distracted. We alternated math and reading days and even then he was reluctant to do our reading lessons. Recently he has all of the sudden shown more maturity and self-motivation in wanting to do his school work. He really enjoys math and as he progresses and gains more confidence he gets more excited. Reading and writing have continued to be a struggle with me trying various methods of holding his interest. Suddenly this week something is clicking and reading has become more interesting to him. Here is the page he did today - completely independently!






This encourages me that with the right environment kids do in fact learn when they are ready. Even though the past few months our home schooling has be much less structured than usual there is still a whole bunch of learning going on here!

It has been quiet but that may change

Another page on the calendar has been turned. February simultaneously inched and flew by. The weather taunted us with warmth and sun for brief moments in between cold and wet.

School this month was kind of hit or miss. We have consistently been doing math and handwriting and reading lots of books. Nathaniel is making good progress on Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Jeremiah reads for about 2 hours every afternoon. He continues to love his science class. We are behind in our Core work (history & geography) and haven't done any formal Language Arts in a few weeks. I was tempted to get worried about this, but I am not. It is obvious the boys are learning, a lot, it just doesn't look like "traditional" education.

I have continued to struggle with this "mysterious illness." This week an abdominal ultrasound revealed gallstones. I have an appointment with a surgeon next week to see what the next steps are. I am not excited about surgery but if it will take care of my symptoms (which have come and gone since Thanksgiving) I am ready to get it done. It is really hard to spend so much time not feeling like myself. And I will admit that I got pretty discouraged and complained a lot. However, I have also been made more aware of the struggles my friends with chronic illness experience and I pray for them more.

We have signed Jeremiah up for the spring soccer season. This is through the YMCA not through our city league. So far we have been very impressed with their organization and communication. Aaron will not be coaching. We are looking forward to spring evenings at the soccer field with new friends. Jeremiah moves up to the big field this year! Yikes!

We are making some decisions about Aaron pursuing his Education Specialist Degree. It would mean a very intense year for all of us (the program is June 2013 - June 2014) but the long term benefits are many.

It is funny how life seems to be moving a long in a comfortable, predictable groove and then suddenly things change. We continue to take one step at a time, trusting God's guidance and love for us.

now he is 8

 

 

On Saturday we had a little party for Jeremiah who turned 8 on Monday of this week. The one thing he wanted to do this year was play laser tag with some friends. So we kept it nice and simple with cake and icecream at our house (and presents of course!) and then we all loaded up and went to play laser tag. Nathaniel was picked up and taken to another friend's birthday sleep-over so we took Jeremiah out for dinner. Then we spent the evening back at home building new Lego sets and watching documentaries about space. It was a perfect way to celebrate our growing boy.

I am loved

 

It has been a rough week for me. But how can I not feel loved when at the end of a long day I come home to pretty flowers and written words of affirmation and encouragement from this man who knows me well and loves me steady? How can I not feel loved when the morning light streams in and the two tousled boys at the breakfast table are full of chatter and fun? How can I not feel loved when I do a concordance search of "love" in the Bible and start writing down the hundreds of verses?

Tree Climbing

 Jeremiah loves to climb trees. But we don't have any good climbing trees in our yard. That is until Aaron put a ladder in our beloved magnolia tree so that Jeremiah could get up to where the climbing is good.

 

 

 

 Cay you spot him up there?

Stretching our legs

It has been a long, dreary, wet, dark January. We have all been cooped up in the house for too long which doesn't always bring out the best in us. This morning when the sun beamed bright and burned away the fog it seemed the best thing to do was to ditch our school books and "to-do" lists and head outside. We went to one of our favorite spots and spent a hour traipsing through the woods, soaking up the sun, listening to the rush of water, slogging through mud, and watching minnows dart in the creek. I lay on a bench in the sun while the boys roamed. I could hear their voices ringing as they went on their own adventures and made their own discoveries. Boys need space to run and wander. They need to blaze their own trails and make their own way. Yet one of my boys always returns to me and takes my hand to help him down the rough parts.

We needed this gift of a day. We needed to stretch our legs, fill our lungs with fresh air and soak up some Vitamin D. We needed to laugh and see beauty in the world around us. And we got home pleasantly tired and ready for naps.

the lost month...

Last week Wednesday I began to slowly feel better and more like myself. Since then my appetite has been returning and with it my energy. It was very strange and frustrating to feel so unlike myself for so long. It feels good to be catching up with friends, getting the house back in order, serving healthy food, and getting back to doing our school work. It feels like we kind of lost the month of January and here we are starting February already. We ate a lot of processed food, watched a lot of television, got behind in some of our school work, stayed at home, and let the bathrooms get disgustingly dirty. Yet we survived and in some ways even thrived. Jeremiah was so helpful, from helping make meals to entertaining Nathaniel. The boys played for hours together. Aaron was so loving, kind, and generous in his care of me.

So we are jumping right in to February which promises to be a busy month for us but full of good things.

a new niece!

I have lived away from my family for more years than I have lived with my family. It is just a fact of my life. Some of the people I love the most are not a daily part of my life. Most of the time I am okay with it. It is not ideal but we were all raised to be independent people and so we pursue our lives and passions without guilt. We have learned how to communicate and maintain relationship over time zones and telephone wires. But last week Saturday when my sister-in-law called to tell me that she was in labor (finally!) I wanted to curse the miles between us. It suddenly wasn't enough to be receiving the updates via text message. I wanted to be there, in the waiting room with the rest of my family, ready to celebrate this new little life. As the pictures come up on Facebook I want to be there, welcoming them home as a new little family, watching them revel in the awe of being new parents, making meals, and of course snuggling the baby. Sometimes, distance just sucks and there is nothing to do about it. Thankfully we all live on the same side of the ocean now so hopefully it won't be too long before we can visit and enjoy all the new baby sweetness but for right now pictures and text messages and Skype and Facebook updates will have to do. 

Welcome to the world little Lieke! We love you and can't wait to meet you!

Sickness...

We are officially 2 weeks behind on our core curriculum for school. The boys have both been sick. I have been sick (again). I had a wisdom tooth removed. Aaron has been home taking care of us for 6 days straight and today he went back to work. The mornings are the worst for me. All the congestion makes me nauseous and the fact that I haven't eaten much makes me weak.

This morning I was tempted to despair. It was very slow going getting breakfast out, refereeing the boys arguments, getting school started, looking around the house and seeing everything that needs to be done but having no energy to do it. I just want to feel well again so I can have energy to do everything that I need to do.

This morning I read from Because He Loves Me by Elyse Fitzpatrick:
In my own life I frequently have to pray this way [reminding self of the basics of the gospel] numbers of times before I can silence the dreadful harping of my proud heart. I have to remind myself over and over that his righteousness is now mine and that the way my heart harasses me is more a function of my pride and self-sufficiency that a sincere desire for godliness. If godliness before him is what I was really after, then one look at the cross and empty tomb would suffice. But I can see that I'm frequently more concerned about whether I approve of myself than the fact that he approves of me. I sinfully long to be able to look at my life and feel good about my personal accomplishments -See what a good mother I am!- and it's that desire that spawns crushing guilt. The only was to silence my heart and find solace is to continually remind myself of my new identity in Christ and to be satisfied with that alone. If  I try to be satisfied in my own accomplishments or identity, I'll never know the comfort he promised. "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laded," he calls, "and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30)

When I come to him in meekness and dependence, I'll learn the difference between proud self-condemnation (which is all about me) and humble conviction of sin (which is about him, his grace, and his law). His yoke is easy; his burden light. I can come to him and find rest for my soul, but I must come in humility and brokenness (1 Pet. 5:5).

So today I am coming to Him in humility and brokenness. I am trusting that my worth has nothing to do with how much school or house work gets done. If I need to rest I will rest. I will not beat myself up over all the things I think I should be doing (making meals for friends who just had babies) but simply do the next thing in front of me. I will trust that He has already perfected me and given me just what I need for today.

Good stuff

I finally feel the calm of "normal" life returning! The Christmas decorations are put away and the house has generally been tidied. The kitchen is restocked with healthy food and a meal plan hangs on the fridge. Regular bedtime and morning routines are once again in place. We have started school again.

My alarm goes off at 6:00am but I am slow to wake. At about 6:30 I get my cup of coffee from the pot that Aaron has set and fresh for me every morning. I take it back to bed and in the cozy light read my Bible, scribble in my journal a bit, and pray. Most mornings I hear the boys starting to stir at about 7:30 and I am ready to greet them with enthusiasm and joy. This morning Jeremiah wakes before Nathaniel and joins me. He snuggles under the covers and we chat. He tells me about a scary dream he had a few days ago but didn't want to talk about. As I look at his face I marvel at the blue of his eyes. I catch another glimpse of the young man he is becoming. At a pause in the conversation he gets up. Before I can ask what he is doing he is back with his Bible. He turns to the back where he has found a kids Bible reading plan. He enthusiastically begins reading in Matthew and in no time at all has checked off 3 days worth of reading.

Nathaniel is obviously slow to wake this morning. At about 8:30 he joins us, dressed in his favorite sweat pants. It is his 3rd day in a row in the camo pants, but I let it pass. He crawls up and snuggles because morning snuggles are one of his favorite things.

The morning unfolded and it was good. We enjoyed breakfast. We prayed and I loved hearing the boys voices praying for others. We cleaned up the school room and got rid of a lot of clutter without any arguments or frustration. We did school work and spent an hour snuggled on the couch with our read-aloud.

And I realized that these are the moments to cherish. I spend so much time wishing I was a better mother, beating myself up over all the ways I fail or all the things I leave undone, that I miss these moments. I miss the good stuff that is going on here. 

Christmas Pictures

 Uncle Ben is always fun to hang out with.

 Sunday afternoon football watching.

 Ready for Christmas Eve service.

 Watching the snow start to come down!

 Silliness. 

 Oma & Opa's house on Christmas Eve. Just enough snow to make it magical. 

 First clue to the treasure hunt for their presents.

 Teaching Opa to play Temple Run.

 Jeremiah gets the glowing Buddha that he was eying during the White Elephant gift exchange.

 Stockings at Grandmom and Grandad's house

I didn't take very many pictures at all this year. So here are some of the ones I did. Good memories.