Thankful for our kids' love of singing. The collective kid fave is Toby Mac's "Undeniable"... and hearing Hudson pipe in with the repetitive "You Are, You Are", makes my heart happy.
Listen here!
Toby Mac's Undeniable
Thankful for continued patience in the parenting journey. This week's honest heart update is for Hudson Frederick. This boy who is all BOY... all sorts of charming... my baby who always will be my baby ( although he is like 50 pounds and almost as tall as Hannah!)
He is killer in public social settings... and it's breaking my heart...it's physically exhausting, emotionally taxing and just flat out embarrassing... when the mom of a sweet little girl watches your big beastly valentine throw a wooden thomas train at her head?! or that sweet petite little angel at church who looked at his candy the wrong way gets rocked to the floor? or that boy in his center at school that wanted his car, so he punched his face? Or that time when you go bring Big Bro to the hair cut place and watch 3 little boys all get their hair cut without a blink, fight or scream... and tears well up because why on earth do they all get it so easy?! Why on earth does Matt have to wait in the car with him because he dislikes that place so much...I want an easy hair cut time ... instead of the fight, screams and sweat ....
Where is my baby's use of words!? Why on earth is he so physical? He is talking sooo much more and is soo much more understandable.. but still... the hands come out way too often... the term "safe hands" reminds him to fold his hands and be still {Thank you amazing Miss Daley for being so patient, loving and concerned with Hudson and helping him SO MUCH!}
Do we do time outs? Do we spank? Do we just hug it out and move on wondering what his brain is processing? The hows and whats and all the in between questions are sooo hard... I love that we have to go through this as it provides a different glimpse into how I view other kiddos... and although Hudson does not look like he has any form of disability on the outside... he acts cray cray.. so when I look at other kids {actually adults too!!} I'm just reminded not to judge a book by it's cover or a human by their face... because ... there is so. much. more to that face....
God spoke..... through 2016's Jackson Conference Message from Paul Theissen about our career of and call to Motherhood...access it here ( scroll to 2016 Conference)
Paul T ....
.and when I was listening to the importance that God places on the job of mothering these precious souls that only God has given... I just cried and thanked God that somehow He thought Matt and I could parent this special, unique, hard headed, car loving, octopus obsessed boy {Thanks to Finding Dory }... and so with that- I will work harder to see him as God sees him.. a precious soul that needs care, compassion and endless training.. knowing that THIS is our call in life... to parent these souls.,, and although we are working and parenting... the call to mommyland is a far higher calling & I need to re-balance my emotional outflow at work ( those precious 28 kiddos take alootttt of my love... and I pour it out freely...} but then come home & have little to pour out to our 3 souls here... so that is my weekly intentional parenting tidbit...of course also treasuring all the positives along the way ( which are MANY), his fave movie is Trolls, and he is obsessed with it always being "Hug time", hoping we can transfer more Hugs to the social settings i.e the gym school & church, and less hitting time ;)
💟Thankful for a fun week of Valentine's learning & 100th day fun! 💟
Thankful for 4th graders who earned special time out of their classroom & came to help my pumpkins with heart measuring. 💗
100th day! 100 minutes outdoors! Yes please! #geniusteachers
Thankful that although these sleepy heads were all out ( even big H! what in the world!?) before Wednesday night meeting... God gave my heart a little dose of "tough it out, wake them up and stay for meeting" when maybe I was tempted to do a U-turn and drive back the 40 minutes home... night time events without Dad make for a sometimes wimpy momma... but God gets the credit for holding me close and giving my weary heart energy!
Thankful for these gorgeous sunrises on the way to work. 😎😍
Thankful for the coolest thing ever.... Blinky Bill on Netflix! Blinky Bill was an all time favorite childhood memory for Dusty and I... my dad brought the chapter book back from his business trip to Australia... and we would curl up on our green plaid living room couch to snuggle in with him as he would read us a chapter or 2 each night... and now it's a movie?! Ohh to pass along our memories to our kids!! 💗💗💗
Thankful for another timely devotion,
Thankful putting the above devotion, read just 45 minutes prior to actual use... I got called out from my fave gym class to handle Hudson... and so without further ado.... we went to Starbucks... got food and soaked up the SUN.... nothing's going to rob our joyful hearts on the 60 degree weather weekend!! Not even a spitting son 😱
Thankful for a few minutes before gymnastics to hula hula!
( and thankful to put away that winter poinsettia wreath and bust out the Flip Flop sign!! Hopeful that with that sign up Spring will STAY)😎💚
Thankful for Matt being encouraged at a Men's Leadership breakfast with CCCH ( Christian Church of Clarendon Hills)... he was able to minister to the men there and left totally uplifted! God works in all sorts of ways and we l.o.v.e that!
He and Dave are going for their 1st ride together! Matt had a mid life crisis and bought a bike {thankful for friend's perspectives of "that's all he did for his midlife crisis? You should be thankful".. ohh ok not where I was going ... but now that she said it YES INDEED...very thankful..} when I say he bought a bike.. I mean the research.. the time invested in this thing and the excitement he and his cycle friends find in it.. are priceless! And yes... it's the most pricey thing in our house, so of course it needs a spot in our bedroom ... yikes.. lol 🙈
Thankful for our country. Thankful that even with all the political hubbub we live in a land where the red white and blue fly free. 💓💙
And our weekend had one big highlight... an RV show.. true story ... we are prayerful about Road Schooling our kids and living life in an RV traveling all over... and so 1st step is to look at RVs in person... over and over and over again :) Success.. we found our dream home... so now we pray, we search for online teaching jobs and watch God work... and by work we know that He may want to us to be patient ( man- that P word!!)... and we are committed to being okay with God's amazing timeline for us...
Sushi anyone?! It had been TOO long.. so we totally went for the kill... and it was worth every calorie and every dollar 😋
Here's to another great week ahead... love you friends!
