3.6.17

Thankful this week for some heart hugs. Encouraging texts. Answered prayer. Reset buttons pressed.


Thankful this week for our music teacher ( who may be questionably bipolar in how she treats adults and children alike) taking a huge interest in my class for the Black History Assembly and getting them trained to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame and buying them bats, balls and whistles! It was so. sweet.

 Thankful for these two.. Karla is on the left and in my class.. Stephanie her sister is a year older and an absolute angel... this girl makes me earn my money each day that's for sure, but she is a tough, brave little lady, and looked stunning in her matchy matchy sister dress..

Thankful for exciting 1st tooth out news on an emotional day!
Pray for Hannah's school community. A 2nd grader, Sofie Shields, lost her young battle to brain cancer and passed away last week. Hannah's amazing teacher was also Sofie's teacher and had a really rough morning... Hannah felt those vibes and also had a rough morning and had a sweet talk with the school counselor there... then after lunch... those pickles will do it every time ;) her tooth popped out. I really loved how the Lord took care of her that day... Hannah's heart is huge... she wears her true colors on her sleeve, and will break when others are broken... and I love that she loves her teacher so much that she hurt alongside her... and I love that a lost tooth could put all those tears to the side and that sparkle return!

We had heard all day about these amazing donuts, typical for Fat Tuesday... any excuse to try a new donut sounds good to us! 

 Thankful that we could celebrate amazing Memere from afar! Man, the miles apart are killer especially for the kiddos during fun events like holidays and birthdays... but hooray for Spring Break tickets to AZ bought!! T-minus 26 days!!!

Thankful for Dr Seuss's birthday and his amazing talent in children's literature! 

 These frosting faces made my heart melt. Green Eggs and Ham out of cookies and gum :)

 #squad 

 

Thankful for ways of spicing up the nights when dad's at work 

Of course we need to bake decorate and eat birthday cupcakes in Dr Seuss's honor :)

Thankful that I have flexibility and can bring our kiddos to school. We have it worked out that if Matt can make his Friday meetings happen, we can have a "normal" schedule Friday with us both downtown all morning and home in the afternoon. This Friday Harrison and Hudson had 1/2 days and played hooky. I think I might have worked Harrison harder than in his school ;) 

It was Read Quest, a national reading day, and Room 108 returned as champs for most books read. quizzes passed and words read from K-2. Mrs. Hebert may be slightly competitive ;) At 2:40, 5 minutes before competition ended, I said ENOUGH.... our heads hurt, it's sunny outside... we have too many points and we need to RUN and PLAY :) 

 

Go Hudsie go!

( it was also PJ day if you are wondering about slippers and snowmen fleece ;))

Thankful that my new double hoody arrived!! I am super skeptical about online small stores.. never true to size in my opinion and I just love the ease of everything on Amazon... and Target.... but Mindy Mae has adorable styles and it arrived on Friday for the best snuggly outfit ...ready to cruise to get some new to us pizza at Pisa Pizza... it is our new fave place...

Thankful that my aunt rocked our world again by sending reading materials that were much needed. Somehow my emotional switch can flip in a literal second and I honestly can't tell you the rationale!? So when I was too stressed out to be a good date, and too annoyed to just enjoy our night, I read. And Read., and read... God has a way of just stopping us and making us listen to Him..7 Solutions for Burnt Out Parents by Dr Dobson.... a must read. Then next was Radical... man this book hits my heart each time! Love love love it.

Thankful that my morning pukiness today must have been food related.. and  does not mean I'm pregnant :) Today was a holiday for my kiddos, so they were excited to come to work with me. Matt would bring the boys later, and Hannah and I would go at my normal early bird time as Hannah is up that early too! Love her! I had puked 3 times before getting to work... puked another time with my kids in the class... and then on the way home too... thankful for amazing staff who help out on crazy Mondays! Hannah was totally bumming as she was leading my girls in shamrock craftiness... Although we have 2 adorable H names JUST IN CASE... we reeally have our hearts and hands full with our tribe as it is... so hooray for just 1 blue stripe :) And that meant I was home all day with my kiddos and although I napped most of the day, we did escape for some 7-11 hydration & slurpees and park time...

2.27.17

Thankful for amazing audio messages that encourage.
Jacksons 2017 conference messages are available... two of my faves were done by a fave preacher of ours... Dale Vitale... here is the link

Dale's Message #1

Thankful for Hannah learning to ride her bike without training wheels!

Thankful for a fun short 4 day week last week. With one day being on Internet Safety & digital learning. 

Thankful for a fun new ride!

Thankful for a fun Food Friday activity ... praying the students did not have night mares ;) But we got to be the predator ( big fancy word for these kiddos) and eat the Peep ( aka penguin). It was a blast and yummy ( and zero prep !!)

Those are their scary leopard seal faces ( loved that Hudsie could come with me on Friday too :))

Thankful for dad son dates & the love of taking car wash selfies ;)

Thankful for an encouraging Fellowship Friday with a dear couple from church... and the sushi we enjoyed was delish!! Month 2 of Fellowship Friday 

( kinda excited as sometimes our best intentions are short lived, but with 2 months down, we think we can make this idea a new norm )

Thankful for hearing Brandon Heath's song "Give Me Your Eyes" after not hearing it in like FOREVER.... came at just the right time... 

Thankful for baby Al being a celebrity, bringing our fam into town! 

2.20.17

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!