Laughing all the way

It was a pretty typical Sunday morning in our house.  I was rushing around trying to get all four kids (and my husband) fed, cleaned up and dressed in time for mass.  This particular Sunday, I had the added stress of trying to coordinate everyone’s outfits so that we could take pictures for our Christmas cards after church.

I was not in the best of moods as I searched every drawer and laundry basket in the house for a missing pair of red leggings and tried to find a shirt for my husband that didn’t clash with everyone else’s.  The weather was not helping my mood either.  It was cloudy and looked like rain.  After checking the weather report (it was supposed to start raining and be wet all day) I gave up on the idea of pictures and frustratingly got everyone dressed in regular church clothes.  We all headed off to mass with me annoyed that we wouldn’t get our pictures today and I would have to wait to work on my Christmas cards.

At mass, something happened to change my bad mood!  During his homily, the priest talked about all of the distractions of the holidays.  He called out the fact that we make so many plans during this time; baking plans, party plans, shopping plans and so on but, we often forget to make a spiritual plan.  We forget to slow down and pay attention to what we are supposed to be celebrating.  We lose all of the joy and peace the season of Christmas holds. 

Well, in that moment, I felt like he was talking directly to me!  Just that morning I had let myself get caught up in holiday distractions.  I was letting myself get worked up over matching outfits and Christmas card pictures! 

So, I decided to make some changes.  I was going to go home and make a "spiritual plan" and cut out some of the distractions; one being to give up the idea of new pictures for the cards.  I thought about all of the pictures I had taken throughout the year and decided I would just use something we already had.  Later that day, I sat in front of the computer to find a picture for the card.  I decided I would look in each folder from the past year starting back in January.  What I found was wonderful.  Every folder held precious moments from throughout the year: Rapunzel’s first ballet recital, our trip to Disney World and backyard smore making.  There were pictures of things I had already forgotten about.  A rainy day of puddle fun, my husband cuddled on the couch with the girls watching a football game, a moment of laughter shared between sisters and so many more.  I really was laughing and smiling all the way as I relived the year through the photos. 

We are just so busy all of the time.  We take all of these pictures, put them on the computer and then forget about them.  We let our business, our worries, and our bad days sweep us up.  It is so easy to forget about all of the smiles and special moments. 

Especially in light of the tragic shootings of last Friday, I am so grateful for every day with my family, every smile, every hug, every giggle, even the not so good days; at least they are days spent together. 

I think this will become a new tradition for me.  I will take time at the end each year to look back at all of our pictures and remind myself of how blessed I truly am.  I highly suggest you try it as well; hopefully you will find yourself laughing all the way!

(And the cards turned out pretty cute, keep scrolling down to check it out!)

Holiday 2012

All The Laughter Holiday Card

holiday party invitations and thank you cards by Shutterfly.

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The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

A rare moment of quiet happened in the house this morning.  I found myself awake before any of the children; alone with my cup of coffee and my thoughts.  I sat in the dimly lit living room with the Christmas tree lights on and relished in the peaceful time of reflection and prayer.  My eyes fell on the mantle with its pretty garland and family photos and I couldn't help but count the stockings hanging there.  Six! It wasn’t all that long ago when there were only two, my husbands and mine, and now the mantle is nearly FULL.

I thought about that word again, FULL.  I hear that word so often these days; mostly when I am out with all four children.  People just can’t seem to help themselves.  Sometimes I’m not sure if it is out of awe or pity, but I inevitably get the “You’ve got your hands full!” comment (hence the title of this blog!).  Perhaps people feel the need to say something because they just can not imagine a life so full.

My standard response to this comment has become “And loving every minute of it!” or “Wouldn’t want it any other way!” And I really wouldn’t change it for anything.  As I sit here looking at the mantle full of stockings, I can’t help but reflect on all of the other things that my life is full of this holiday season; joy, excitement, laughter, anticipation… the list goes on.  The house is full of Christmas music and the refrigerator door is full of priceless artwork (made by my five and four year olds that is).  My arms are full of hugs and cuddles.  My mind is full of happy memories from a busy year.

So, yes, my hands are full and no, not every day is a picnic. We have our share of fits, temper tantrums and grumpy days, but what else would you expect in a house with four kids ages five, four, two and one! However, the good just always seems to outweigh the bad.  To me, FULL hands are so much better than EMPTY ones!

I pray that your holiday season is a FULL one.  Full of peace and joy,  full of family and friends, full of laughter and memories and most of all, full of the love of Jesus Christ.

“and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”   -Colossians 2:10

ABC All About Me!!!

No, this is not a post all about myself, but rather about our theme after Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We did several weeks using this theme; we focused on areas likes our names, our family, our friends, and what we want to be when we grow up. Rapunzel ended the unit wanting to be an artist and Monkey-Do is set on being a doctor! I am personally still trying to decide, maybe a ballerina!  Anyway, we all really did have fun; check out some of the highlights!

The girls used letter tiles to practice spelling names of friends and family members that I made up with their pictures.

We used play-dough to make our names.

After reading the story Chrysanthemum  about a little mouse with a very long name, we compared the lengths our our names using linking blocks.

This was my favorite name activity!  The girls each had a bowl of flower petals with letters from their names written on them.  They had to spell their name on each flower. The girls are glad their names are not as long as Chrysanthemums!

In honor of Chrysanthemum, we made peanut butter mouse cookies! 

For the last week of "All About Me" we read books and did activities about different jobs we might want to have when we grow up.  I could have done one job a week; there were so many fun activities that I wanted to girls to do, but for my sanity, I tried to keep it simple and we just did one job a day!  Here are some of our favorite jobs and activities.

We pretended to be bakers and flipped over cookies with color words on the back.   The girls had to read the word and then color their paper accordingly.  

                                     

We pretended to be mail carriers and sorted mail with different numbers of stamps.

While learning about dentists, we spun a spinner to fill a mouth with marshmallow teeth!

The girls used stick puppets to tell about the jobs they learned about and  why they liked and disliked each job.

                                     

Ok, so I did just have to laugh as I looked back over this post.  Everything looks so perfect and organized and peaceful!  Not at all the way it seemed when we were trying to get through the chaos of the first few weeks!  It is just like I said in my post "To blog or not to blog"; it is all about what you put in the post.  If you only show the good stuff, no one will have to know about how crazy it really was or how stressed out you really got.  But it is good for me to look at these pictures and realize that we are doing something right, that the girls are learning and having a good time and that there are moments of peace.  Sometimes, in the middle of a school day, amid all the craziness, I forget to stop and really enjoy what I am doing with my children.  I am glad the camera was able to catch these moment for me!

                                     

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Welcome to Our Classroom!

Well, it has only taken me two months to get to this, but here it is; my post on our first week of homeschool! 

One of my reasons for doing this blog is for friends, family members and others who are just plain curious about what really goes on in a homeschooling household.  I have learned A LOT during these first two months and have so much I want to share; including our reasons for choosing to homeschool and how I am keeping my sanity through this whole thing!  That will be in some upcoming posts; for now, I just wanted to share some of the exciting things that went on during our first week.  I have already shared the bad and the ugly moments (see "It was the best of times... " post) so now it’s time for some good!

For our first week, we had a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme.  Rapunzel had a great time reviewing letters of the alphabet and number recognition.  Monkey-Do jumped right in and got busy working on letters and numbers too! (for an explanation of their names see the "A rose by any other name" post)

Here is a look at our very busy first week!

Rapunzel on the first day of Kindergarten!

Monkey-Do all ready for preschool!

The bonus room above the garage is now half playroom and half school room.
We still needed the playroom space for Nomo and Guy-Guy!

Alphabet Coconut Tree hats!

Coconut Counting Book

Hand print coconut trees

Patching letters back up with band-aids.  This was Monkey-Dos
favorite activity of the week!

Alphabet letter sorting

Nomo and Guy-Guy busy with blocks
(and not wreaking havoc on the rest of the school room for once!)  

To wrap up our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom week, daddy helped us out with a coconut taste test.  

I was surprised at the final results of the taste test.  The girls liked the coconut more than the grown ups!

So there you have it; our very first week in this adventure of homeschooling!  I truly feel the meaning of "You've got your hands full" while trying to keep the kids learning and busy, the housework from taking over and my husband from feeling too neglected!

These last several weeks have been a roller coaster of highs and lows for me as a mother and a teacher and as I said at the beginning of this post, I have learned A LOT!  I am looking forward to sharing more with you soon!

A rose by any other name...

I thought it would be helpful to introduce you to my family just a bit before blogging all about them! Because I will be posting a lot of pictures of the kiddos, I will use nicknames for each of them. I just didn’t like the idea of their photos and real names being on the blog. 

So here is a quick introduction to my four little sweeties!

 First is Rapunzel. She is my oldest and is five years old.  We are homeschooling her in kindergarten this year.  The nickname needs no other explanation other than the girls is obsessed with anything from the movie Tangled!

 

 Next comes, Monkey-Do.  She will be four in October and we are homeschooling her in preschool this year.  Monkey-Do got her nickname from her grandpa after watching her copy everything her older sister did and telling her “Monkey see, monkey do”.  She loved repeating the “monkey do” part back to him and the name stuck!

 

My third little princess is Nomo.  She is two years old and living up every bit of the terrible… I mean “terrific” twos!  Her nickname is actually the name of her stuffed monkey that we gave her after she broke her arm, but it is also very fitting for her. She was jumping on the bed with her sisters and fell off.  We read "Five Little Monkeys" many times after that and Nomo stands for the "no more" part of "no more monkeys jumping in the bed!"

 

 Last, but not least comes the man of the house, Guy-Guy.  He is ten months old and received his nickname from Monkey-Do when he was only a few weeks old.  With three older sisters, he is spoiled rotten and already knows how to get whatever he wants!

 So there you have it; all of mommies little monsters.  Cute monsters though, aren’t they?!? 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

 There is a reason that I have not posted anything for two weeks, that reason is that I honestly didn’t know if I could do this.  I didn’t know if I wanted to do this. I know what I said in the last post about sharing the good, the bad and the ugly but I truly had not been prepared for how hard these last few weeks have been.  By the end of our fourth week of homeschooling, I had experienced every emotion and changed my mind on every decision more than once.  I was overwhelmed, exhausted and frustrated.  This past week had been especially hard.  There was and incident with the two year old locking herself in her bedroom and another “situation” involving a diaper explosion that I’d rather not get into.  There were temper tantrums and tears on my part as well as the kids.  I sat down on the couch on Thursday night feeling defeated.  I felt that I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t home school to a preschooler and a kindergartener, I couldn’t keep the two year old and ninth month old happy, I couldn’t keep the house together; it was all just too much and I was ready to give up.  I sat down that night and opened the computer to face book and the first things I saw on a friend's page was a link to this post.

 http://rachelmariemartin.blogspot.com/2012/08/dear-sweet-mom-who-feels-like-she-is.html

It was like the author was speaking directly to me at that very moment.  Every word rang true.  I read it and then I read it again and then I cried.  The good “get it all out” kind of cry you just have to have sometimes.  I am still amazed by it, I needed to read it and there it was right in front of me.  Sometimes you just have to step back and thank the Holy Spirit for stepping in.

So, “best of times” or “worst of times”?  Our first month has definitely been both!  There have been many frustrating hours of trying to teach with every distraction the two year old can throw (and I mean throw literally. How many times can she throw a marker at your head before she finally gets bored?).  There have been failed lessons that I spent hours planning that the girls thought were “no fun” and as I said before there have been plenty of tears. I have learned though that it is easy to get overrun by the negative and it truly wasn’t all bad. We did have some fun somewhere along the way and I’m pretty sure some actual learning took place.  I will share some of the “best times” of our first month in some upcoming posts. 

I have taken the words of Rachel’s post to heart.  I have thought about them over and over again for the past three days now. Am I still overwhelmed? Yes.  Am I still exhausted? Yes. Do I know what I am doing? No. But, I am not giving up, I am not failing. 

To blog or not to blog???

That really has been the question I have been asking myself for the past several months and although I could name a few good reasons for doing it, I had so many questions and concerns about the whole thing.

Would I have the time to do it or would it just become another thing to keep up with? Would I really have anything interesting to blog about?  Would anyone even want to read it if I did?

I started looking at blogs of other moms for inspiration and answers to my questions but, what I found did little to encourage me. 

Everything just always seemed so perfect in these little blog worlds.  Homes were clean and well decorated, homeschooling was fun and engaging, kids were cute and entertaining.  I just felt that there was no way my messy, busy and often chaotic life could keep up!  But then I realized that I didn’t have to.  You see, blogs are perfect in that they only show what the author wants to show.  If you don’t write about or post pictures of your sticky kitchen floor or the five baskets of dirty laundry, no one will know they even exist.  If you don’t blog about your five year old daughter kicking her sister in the face and giving her a bloody nose on the first day of school (yes that really did happen at our house), the world will assume you are raising perfect little angels!

So that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to even try to compete.  I was just going to be me; and that means real and honest. Like right now for instance. I could tell you that I am typing this as my little darlings are all tucked in bed and I sit in my clean living room with a nice glass of wine reminiscing over a fun filled and educational day, or… I could tell you the truth.  Right now, the computer is on the kitchen counter, I am impatiently waiting for some cupcakes to hurry up and bake so I can frost them for a baby shower tonight, the only way I am keeping the teething eight month old from screaming at me is by letting him lick frosting off of my finger every few minutes and I literally just locked the three girls out of the house to keep them from running into the kitchen dripping wet from the sprinkler!

Ah, the truth will set you free!  If it’s good then good if it’s not, well, I will share that too. This is going to be an adventurous year for us.  Homeschooling a kindergartener and a preschooler; all while keeping the two year old from smothering her younger brother, is going to be pretty interesting. I want to be able to look back and the successes and the failures.  I want to learn and grow from this and if others can learn something as well or even just feel better about them selves then great!

  So, if you are in the need for some honesty, a good laugh and maybe a little inspiration, then keep on reading!

What’s in a name???

“Well, you sure have your hands full!”

This seems to be the unofficial catch phrase of my life right now.  I hear it from anyone and everyone when I am out with my four children.  It has become so predictable, that I can bank on hearing it at least once if not more while we are out and about.  

Actually, they usually first ask if they are all mine.  At this point I am thinking “Do you think I am crazy enough to be out in public with a five year old, a three year old, an almost two year old and an eight month old that are not mine???” But, I just smile and nod.  That is when it comes… some form of “you sure do have your hands full!”. 

Most people just smile when they say it, with a look of “better you than me” about them, but it doesn’t really bother me.  In fact, I think it is a bit of an understatement!  Four kids age five and under… there are a lot of things that are full around here and my hands are just the beginning!  What about the dishwasher that is always full no matter how many times I run it?  Or the laundry baskets full of dirty clothes that are trying to take over the house? Or my mini van?  That thing is at max capacity for car seats!  There are plenty of good things that are full as well.  My refrigerator door is full of beautiful artwork.  My scrapbooks are full of happy memories.  My kitchen if full of laughter during meals as the five and three year old try to invent their own new jokes (I won’t even try to explain the one about the cow and the microwave!)  And of course my heart is full.  So full of love, appreciation and absolute wonder that these four little blessing are in my life. 

So yes my hands are full and yes there is  rarely a dull or quiet moment around here.  But what is the alternative?  Empty hands?  No thank you; I’ll keep my hands full and I will be happy. OK, so the washing machine and dishwasher could be empty; that would make me happy too.  But, let’s face it that is never going to happen with a five year old in finger painting phase and a two year old obsessed with anything covered in spaghetti sauce!