A day to rest!!

Sunday's are usually our day of much needed rest! We do what we can to insure that EVERYONE takes naps after church on Sunday. Church was really good today! The Pastor talked about how we need to stop seeking the approval of men, and seek the approval of God. So many people have things going on right now especially with finances and we just keep going through the motions of life instead of truly seeking the answers from the Lord. I have been guilty of this in the past. The last two months we have had one thing after another going on in our lives and God has really been laying it on my heart to SEEK HIM more! My strong point has never been a really good prayer life, I mean I pray I'll ask for help, I'll praise Him, I'll pray daily but to actually have a PRAYER TIME, where I sit down and take an hour or half hour and do nothing but seek the Lord in prayer, I've not really done. I really don't know why I haven't because I totally believe that Prayer is a HUGE part of my walk with God and that prayer sometimes is the only thing that works! I've been unable to sleep much recently and been waking up at 4am quite often. I've been taking that time and using it to seek after God in my devotionals but not prayer. Once I start homeschooling the girls I'd love to teach them how to do this as part of their bible lesson. Maybe have a quiet time and start with just 1 minute and keep moving the time back more and more, this way it will help them to never struggle with prayer as I have because it is such a huge part of their lives.

I ordered this book from the library for the girls, as part of our first month of homeschooling for next month since we will be talking about manners. I went online to B&N and looked up all the Children's books on manners and this is one I found. The girls love Martha, and A- already had the book memorized after a few short readings! I was astonished when I opened the book to read to them and she said everything word for word! Makes you feel like your actually doing something right for once!

I read this book the last few weeks for a book club I am part of and it was pretty good, I'd probably give it about 3 stars. I have seen the movie before on Lifetime, and the movie was good, sad, but good. It was a while ago when I saw the movie so I don't remember much details but I know it was very similar to the book. I don't remember a lot that was in the book that wasn't in the movie, so they are very close.

Random Chaos!

SHEW! So today was a rough day! I was up since 4am because A-decided to get up and I had to take care of that. My husband had to get out of bed and be at the church early this morning since our Fall Classes are going to be launched tomorrow, he had to put the booklet of all the classes together and print them off. So it's now 8:30pm and he is still there working on that! SO I loaded up the kids and the dog and went to visit my parents this morning hoping it would tire them out enough to take a good nap, so I can get one in too. Wishful thinking I guess, because A-REFUSED to take a nap!! I ended up falling asleep and while I was sleeping she climbed over her gate and went into the kitchen. She took the entire huge tub of pretzels into S's room and they were crunched up all over the floor and in her bed! Then I walked into the kitchen and she had gotten the milk out of the fridge and was trying to pour it into her cup, but there were milk puddles all over the floor. She also decided to poop on her bedroom floor! However they did go to bed at a good time tonight and didn't complain much. I guess I am going to have to get a hook and eye to put on the outside of the door to her room so that she will not get out and keep getting into things before we are awake. The other day she did the same thing and I'm just afraid for her safety.

My diet today has been hanging onto a thread. I started off well I ate a good breakfast, no lunch, and haven't had dinner yet. While I was preparing the girls PB sandwiches I did sneek in a bite of PB cause I was starving!! Hopefully my husband will bring me home a salad on his way tonight.

I am excited however I absolutely love the show 24!! My husband's friend had the first season on DVD and asked us if we've ever watched it before, then let us borrow it. At first I was like "Ummm YUCK, I don't want to watch that!" but when we started to watch it, we couldn't get enough!! We were up all weekend long watching these videos! However, when it airs on TV we can't watch it because it gets so intense I can't stand the wait till the next week to watch it, so we just wait till it comes out on DVD and got buy it. But this time I found season 7 at the Library!! So we will be up for a few days watching this season! :)

I also found these at the library and they have been AMAZING for my girls! We got the "Hands are not for Hitting", "Words are not for hurting", and today just got "Feet are not for kicking" and "Tails are not for pulling". So far my girls have been very receptive to these books, I might have to just go out and buy them since they have been so responsive. They are starting to realize what "mean" words do to people and each other, and are starting to realize that "hands" are for Loving, and hugging, not hitting each other"

They also have LOVED this book! When they first got this from the Library they thought little David was a monster, but they soon realized that he was just a rowdy and mean little boy who wanted his mommy's hugs at the end. It goes through tons of scenarios of how he gets into trouble by dragging mud in the house, not doing what mommy says, breaking things, getting into things and then at the end he has to go to time out and his mommy hugs him and tells him how much she still loves him! This has been really good for my girls as well and has helped them to have more of a conscience when they do things wrong. Highly Recommend this book, as well as the Behavior Series by Elizabeth Verdick!

It's so funny how when we think about teaching our children, it seems like this huge thing where we have to plan out these elaborate plans but honestly just sitting down with them and reading some really interesting books that teach them things about different subjects, behavior, manners, fall, winter, spring etc...is probably all you have to really do to get by with a little teaching each day and you will be so surprised at how much they take in from just 15 minutes with a few good books.

Lots of new things!!

So today is day 1 of my South Beach Diet. I had done it before right after *A* was born and lost 25lbs! So I'm praying that I can stick to it and eat healthier and get back down to a good size where I can finally feel comfortable being in pictures again. Ideally, I'd love to loose a good 50lbs, but I'd be happy with 25-30. I'm going to venture out there and eat some Salmon for dinner tonight, I'm not really a fish person but we'll see what happens. I was preparing dinner last night so that I didn't wake up today and not feel like cooking and say forget it, and the Salmon totally grossed me out!! It still had SKIN on it! YUCK! So hopefully I can not think of that this evening as I eat my dinner and maybe I'll actually enjoy it. I've never really been much of a fish person so we'll see.



I've also started today doing www.flylady.com. It's an amazing site!! It helps you get control of your home and keep it cleaned by getting you on a daily cleaning schedule and helping you stick to it! It all starts with shining your kitchen sink and keeping it cleaned, then they take you step by step over a 31 day period teaching you to keep control of your home. I'm so excited and hopefully this will work for me. I've never been much for cleaning, I've always hated it since I was small. My mom had the cleanest house and everything was always in place and I hated cleaning because we did it all the time!! When I got married I decided that spending time with my husband was more important than taking time to clean the house...however when I had kids it backfired on me and I spent more time trying to clean up the mess in the house than I spent with my children. So now I've learned a clean house means more time with my children, if I can keep up with things daily and get things down to a 20-30 minute cleaning time daily... I will have more time with my children to teach them and play with them.


So my read this week is "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. AMAZING!! I started reading this book yesterday and am already half way finished! I couldn't put it down!! Aside from the main character being a harlot, this book is almost like my husband's and I's love story. I was married at a young age, and had saved myself for my husband and ended up divorced at a young age. When I met my husband now, I was so messed up for such a long time from my past that I couldn't accept that he actually loved me. I couldn't understand how someone like him could love someone like me who had already been "had" I guess would be the term. One day the Lord spoke to me and told me "you asked for him, and I gave him to you, now accept him before I take him away" After that was when I finally let go and accepted him...we got married and I've never been happier! Reading this book really brings back memories from how my husband had to break me down in order to soften my heart and reassure me he would never leave me. So this book has hit pretty close to home for me. I will be leading a Christian book Club at our church this fall and this will be our first read. Highly recommend this book!

Preparations for Homeschooling

This will be my first year on the homeschooling side of things. I'm really excited but nervous at the same time. We are down to 3 weeks till the first day of school and I've been planning, planning, planning! This year I'm planning to focus a lot on the Bible Lessons and also Reading/Writing with my oldest. A-is 3 years old and is pretty advanced, she already knows her ABC's, she can Count to 20, and knows all her colors and shapes. S-is my 2 year old, She hasn't had as much one on one time with me this year since I was pregnant with E- our 9 week old, so we will be teaching her the ABC's, Counting past 10, Shapes, and Colors.

I'm not using a formal curriculum this year since it is so expensive and ends up being mostly color pages. We will be working in the book called "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" also we will be doing bible lessons out of "Jesus wants all of me" Devotional, as well as learning a letter, number, color, and shape Weekly. We also just went to Walmart and got a preschool book, that has been really amazing with my 3 year old learning pre-math concepts, and learning to write. We will most likely be using "Signing Time" Videos with my 2 year old, in order to effectively teach her like we did with my 3 year old. I'm so excited to be able to teach my children! I just pray that the Lord be with me and give me lots of patience, and help me to manage my time between schooling and keeping up with the many tasks around the house!