To Live is to Learn

Photo courtesy of http://www.smalldreamfactory.com/2011/07/free-pattern-short-sleeve-shirt-size-12.html. This website has a tutorial for making a collared shirt for a little boy. My desire to is give my Lightning McQueen loving little 2 year old a collared church shirt that is of this favorite toy. This is the tutorial I plan to use. I may not be able to work on it until after we move but it is a desire of mine and I will share it on the blog when I begin working on it. If you find these posts boring, feel free to skip it. I think creative Wednesday and Crafty Friday will be future coming plans. Mostly because with moving a baby that continues to be fussy I just haven't gotten back into a groove with my crafts. It is my escape and I will return I just can't quite yet. So I hope you stay tuned for when I will be able to do more with these two days. I'm excited about blogging about this and hope to share about it soon.

I thought I would update about my sugar journey. August 1st I had planned to cut out processed sugar out completely. Surprisingly, I did really well...at first. Sadly, with my mother in law passing away and food being brought to us and then my birthday a week later. I did eat some processed sugar but didn't fall completely off the wagon until this past week when I ran out of my homemade cereal and a fussy babe kept me out of the kitchen more so than not.  So while I'm happy with my progress, I've been bad the past week. I am encouraged that I've only had more sugar because that is all there was in the house. If I had my own naturally sweetened snacks and my homemade granola cereal I would have been fine.  So...for next month I will plan way more easy recipes to make so that I don't run out of healthy or naturally sweetened stuff and then I won't just have sugar as an option. When I'm breastfeeding I'm ravenous. It's not an excuse but truly...

NO! Boy, that one word triggers me on all levels. I feel disrespected. challenged and I fear my kids strong will and that I'm failing as a parent. Hadn't really occurred to me to try to get at whatever is under the No. Again, I have been referring back to Lori Petro of Teach Through Love, and I'm finally getting better at taking her advice and when I feel challenged and frustrated at my kids I just take a breath. Honestly, being consistent with this has helped me a lot the past couple of days. Unfortunately, normally, my impatience leads me to yelling or saying words I fear are shaming my children. Choosing to take a breath and respond instead of just react has helped me immensely. Just today the kids were frustrating me quite a bit and many times instead of saying "why can't you guys just leave each other alone and not fight." I'm finding myself saying, "I saw you hit your brother, you must have been very angry can you tell me more?" There...

It's creative play Wednesday! Mostly daily and sometimes weekly my kiddos play with play doh or gak. I'm trying to grow in this area but truly, I have a very fussy 2 month old baby so right now it's mostly in the planning phase. Some first thoughts are homemade play dough. I've found a recipe and plan to try it soon and (GULP) let the kids help in the kitchen. I recently liked a page on Facebook called 5 minute crafts and I've been bookmarking some favorites to work with the kids. I'd like to do more crafts with them. I have more plans but for now it's 11:30, Henry is finally sleeping and I need to head that way too.

It's marriage Monday! I continue reading the Introvert advantage. I have a fussy baby and two other kids that need me so I've only read three chapters since last week but I'm calling that progress. I'm reading this book as an E-book because I needed to get reading it faster than Amazon could get it to us. The above highlights are things that this book has taught me so far. The first one says introverts don't talk for talks sake. When they speak it's important. This was a realization for me because after reading this I'm making a conscious decision to listen when hubby talks because it's important. He doesn't just talk to talk like I do. I was surprised to learn meaty conversation nourishes and energizes an introvert. I will try to implement this in my communication with my hubby. The last thing that stuck out to me was that when external stimulation becomes too much they just shut down. This is helpful for all the times I feel neglected or that...

Fridays are my crafts or works in progress Fridays. Friday morning my mother in law went up to be with the Lord. She lost her 4 year battle of ovarian cancer. We're deeply saddened and will miss her greatly. Needless to say it's been a really rough week, actually, a rough month. I'm choosing joy that she is no longer in pain and that she is rejoicing with our Savior. Back to my projects. I started this little guy a couple weeks before Henry was born. These pretty colors will be Piglet...someday. My next project that I can't wait to try is this one, isn't it cute?  Goal is to have several of these made. I have a secret desire to be able to make some crochet fun and be able to sell it. Maybe these could be cute little thanksgiving decorations! Any who, that's it for this post. Now for the next, ha.

Working on me, boy this could be a loaded entry. I think I've mentioned in previous posts that I have been in counseling for 3 years off and on. What sent me there to begin with was a realization that I had no self worth. Further investigation into my self worth issues revealed that I battle heavily with shame. I essentially function out of shame. I've been working hard in this area and have made major progress. However; thanks to marriage counseling I'm more aware now that I have even more shame to work on. I feel heavy shame in relation to my husband and our marriage. If you've read my gentle parenting post then you know I'm been following Lori Petro of Teach Through Love. I mention her here because she advises working on your triggers as a parent so you don't pass those things on down to your kids. Well, one of the videos on Teach Through Loves YouTube channel mentioned that children that are raised with punitive consequences will either rebel and the p...

Last month I went to the homeschool convention. I attended 3 workshops that were conducted by the Home Grown Preschooler. In those workshops I learned about all the different types of play that are good for our children. She discussed many categories, sensory play, imaginative play, domestic play and written play. This is so hard for me because my children love to paint and I would love to let them go wild and learn via that kind of play but the mess that they make, oh the mess. Most days I just don't have the umph to let them go crazy with paint and the ensuing clean up. I'm working on it. I'm trying to have something fun for them in that way every day. I can tell my kids are expounding with their imaginative play. They pretend many different times a day with lego people or stuffed animals. Pretending to be the parent and the child and the conversations that go with that. It is beyond cute! One area that I totally cringed at during the workshop was domestic play. My ...

I'm honestly really hopeful about blogging about this subject of gentle parenting. I hope that it will help keep me accountable to my personal goals in this area. As well as bring awareness to someone who comes to this blog via a google search looking for information about positive or gentle parenting. My biggest resource this past week is Lori Petro with Teach Through Love. She has a youtube channel with tips and help on how to implement gentle parenting in every day life. It is really helpful. This is her method for gentle parenting during conflict and something I'm really trying to implement better. I continue to fail daily but I am trying and pray that one day it will be more natural to engage and empathize then it is to yell and threaten. I've read enough articles about the damage of yelling that I know I don't want my kids to experience it from me. I wasn't yelled at growing up so it saddens my heart that I choose yelling in my triggered moments. Lor...

Well, as per my new "schedule" it's Monday and I'm focusing on working on my marriage. You may know this you may not but hubby and I are finally in real marriage counseling. Truth be told, we needed this kind of professional help for years but instead went to "mentors" who were free. Not a bad thing but hubby and I need more help than those people can provide. I won't speak for my husband but I know that I was so completely unaware of myself and my feelings and my lack of self worth that I allowed myself to be pushed around and controlled by my husbands strong personality and desires. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how much this was affecting me until around year 3 of our marriage. Since then I've been in counseling and working on myself. It's been a long journey full of peaks and valleys. I've been through major healing through prayer and I've made many improvements. That being said, hubby and I continue to have our issues. Sadl...

Well, hey, I'm going to rejoice because I thought I had been close to two months since I last blogged and it's only been three weeks. Ha. Anyhow, life with three kids is very busy. Busy in the morning, afternoon and evening. Especially evening. Our lovely little Henry has for the most part transitioned to a colicky baby instead of fussing all day but frankly, nighttime, is when I get "things" done. So he's put an adorable little crick in my day. Speaking of little Henry, he's 2 months, he's an excellent nurser and not a shabby sleeper when he's not fussing. Out of three kids he's definitely a baby with high needs and it's hard and requires extra grace and God is extending to me that extra grace so I have it to give to Henry. I continue to remind myself that he's only this little once and that I should try  to enjoy him even when he's fussing. Maggie and Eli are well too. Maggie has 4.5 more months of leukemia treatment. Having a chi...