7 ways to make your kids feel more loved.

Take them to the edge of the sea and tell them who made it.

Teach them how God loves details and these gifts are ours to enjoy.

 

Love their daddy.

Kiss him and adore him right in front of them.

They may seem embarrassed but truly

this makes their heart jump inside.

Cultivate love between brothers and sisters.

Let them work along side each other then have

fun along side each other.

Cheer for the same team, any team, but make it a part of who

you are as a family.

 (For best results bama works best ;) 

 Pick them up and twirl them around in your arms; body small.

Take it all in and remind them of God's goodness by allowing them to be in your family. They are a gift to you and to each other, remind them often. 

  

 Love on them a lot...

Even when they're older.

Be silly and make them laugh.We get so caught up

in being serious but there is a time when laughter is the best medicine.

 Don't let your touch seem hesitant or tense.

Don't let your hugs be few and far between.

(In fact stop reading and go hug them now).

Spontaneously chase them down the beach

and grab them up and tell them over and over

how much you love them.

They should not have to wonder.

Teach them to love

 Show them how to love.

 and they will love you in their own way in return

they're different than you are and they each show it differently.

 Take them out after walking on the beach to this little pub that sits directly in front of the ocean winds and share a feast with them.

Pack your table with food and drink

Don't look around at what people think

Don't worry about the noise they make

Bask for a moment in the creation of your God made family

and smile and breathe in the goodness of this moment.

 At the end of your dinner, bellies full and goodbyes said to the sea,

make sure you collect all the love letters that they wrote to you while

you were basking. 

Remember to watch for the unexpected, love when you don't feel like it

and run this race of parenthood until your nikes are worn out.  

My Birthright

The farm is staying busy even though the cold has come in to the deep south.
The cold always surprises me for some reason. I know it's coming and yet when that first frosted morning arrives I'm always thinking, "wow, that was quick".
My body longing for the heat.  

We added a little girl named Willow to our farm. She is being raised with the cow and the pigs, chickens and rabbits and the kids. She is such a beautiful little gift and I love seeing her as she is preparing to stand guard over this farm. Work in progress mind you, but aren't we all?

 Rosebud is doing well. She is lonely most days since we lost Sammy and so we spend lots of time with her. She likes being next to the pigs so we stake her out and let her spend her hours soaking up the aroma of her brothers/sisters. We have finally felt the 'farm life is not easy' on a whole new level. Spending 7 hours out in the cold trying to save Sammy from bloat, the vet didn't give us much hope.

We kept fighting though and yet we still lost him. The next day we wanted to sell the farm and move into a nice comfortable home in suburbia. Its was hard...bodies ached from the hours of cold but we dragged through the day after and each day became brighter with the realization that our other animals needed us. So you just keep on..gurarded a little more, but keep on moving.
  

We work together as well as grieve together so when it's feed buying day everyone grabs a bag and takes it to the shed. I love seeing them work. They don't complain about the job. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm out there with them. Maybe it's because their whole life has been about this place. This time. Them together doing work. Doing what needs to be done and believe me, there is always some kind of work. I truly believe a common goal planted early in their mind is part of it. 

They really don't know any difference. You just get up and start working. If you complain it's really silly because everyone around you is working..We didn't always have this mindset. When the two oldest were young we watched a lot of tv and I found out that getting things done was easier if I just did it while they were asleep. I didn't expect them to do anything so when Taylor turned 5 and I was convinced I had ruined her we made some changes. We never looked back. We realized at that point that giving our children the easy life was going to make it harder on them in the real world.   

 I believe when we lost the farms and folks started moving into the city people forgot about work. They traded their cows in for cars and boats. They traded their tractors for bigger houses.They traded their work in for the life of ease, ripping from our hands the very thing that our country and nation was based on...work.
So many can't even get kids to take out the trash much less put in a 5-6 hour work day mucking out stalls, cutting wings, breading rabbits, keeping up a winter green house, hanging clothes out when your hands freeze from the dampness, making bread and trying your hand at soap, teaching little ones to read and older ones how to get along in this world. It all takes effort and time and seems to me most people have neither these days.   

I laugh because I've lost more than a cow in my lifetime.

I've learned that your world crashes hard and fast in a blink of an eye

and the busyness is not worth one minute of time unless you're around

the people you love. Nothing I could do outside of this house is more important than being focused and intentional with my mothering.

I pile books high around my bed and read to them and have them read to me.

I braid hair and pray for them as I feel their little frames relax at my touch.

I dress baby dolls

and make their favorite meals

play games

and watch a little 3 year old roll out dough every single night

at 5.30 for "her rolls". She slowly takes dough and rolls out about 30 little

dough balls. It relaxes her and she knows when it's time when she smells

food coming from the kitchen. 

  

I'm tired and just like you my time is valuable but I have seen what

time can do. Their legs grow long. The time for leaving short.

I press on 

 I take pictures to remember the time here.

I teach lessons

I teach them not to mind the work.

The work makes the rest better.

 I remember my birthright. I will not take it for granted nor will I sell it for a cup of soup. I will let it sink in to my very soul and remind my children of the responsibility of their birthrights. We were chosen to live when so many die. I will not grow weary and least I do, it won't be for long because I have too much to teach and too much to learn.

My soul

Being Thankful....

Fathers not provoking

Not being angry

Not being nitpicky

Harsh words spoken

hearts closed

Please open him back up to joy

color leaves 

cold feet

babies playing hair-do

late morning with Scott

daughters who love to cook

bible time

Lazy Saturday basking, clothes hanging on the line, 

green house with girls eating kale.

The weather perfect. 

My heart healing from a summer of personal reflection.

God's perfect plan for me feels different then ever before. 

Moving on and walking through a door I have never walked through hard.   

Babies growing up.

Breeze blowing in my face.

Sun warm, your sunshine so warm

so peaceful, relaxing, generous

Thoughts clear

air fresh

Moments to rest, to reason, to bask in Your glory Lord.

Friends move on...

little pieces of my heart gone.

Enjoying my life anyway

Baby William rejoicing in heaven,

singing with the angels.

Life all around me

Games being played

Lady bugs, airplanes, blue skies

leaves fall, grass fades

her foot steps on hardwood searching for me

gates locked to keep others out

to keep me in

My bedroom a place of peace.

No rushing, no going from one place to the next 

Just sitting a spell and taking a breath

and saying,

"Thank you Lord,

for all of this".

Thankful to be in the race

Dear Lord, You have made me a strong woman yet given me a heart to have compassion.The work you are doing in my life is slowly being uncovered. I'm selfish and my heart cries out for it's own way. Please forgive me.

You, Father, have done so much for me. You have given me enough blessings for a thousand women. A sound mind, a beautiful piece of earth to raise my family on and lots of children to share my few breaths with on this earth. Why can't it be enough? Why must my mind drift to what ifs and more? Why must I, like a child who grows tired of their toys, grow tired and want more gifts when the gifts before me are so numerous I can't count them?

I feel a slowing down of my mind for once in my life. No need to hurry about. Stopping to enjoy the intentional gifts You have put in my life. I realize that the gifts and the blessings are numerous. I just have to uncover them. Like the many animals here on the farm. Cats, chickens, cows and the mischievous 3 little pigs who refuse to stay in their padlock and uncovered 1/4th of the dark soil in my front yard. My face surprised as I saw the tilled up earth.Turning my thoughts to the farmers in the old days who loved the pigs tilling ability and who depended on it. Even though I can't think of a thing that I can plant that would make that place look beautiful right now, I wait for spring and the new growth of grass and somehow turn that tilled up earth into thanksgiving.   

I'm thankful for the son that seemed to grow up right before my eyes.The one that holds that place of being first. Being the first son to slip into my life. The little boy who made me worry when in his first weeks of life he struggled to be here. The little boy who made me question if I really loved his father more and realizing I really did love his father more, but only by a little. The little boy knees that were in my back as he slipped into my covers in the darkness of the morning. The little boy who has treated me way better than I ever imagined as he has became a man. My heart swells with a mothers love when I see him dreaming and preparing for his future. 

I'm thankful for a race, that I was not fully prepared for but a little girl that had been training all summer chose to run with me and root for me and tell me that I could do it. I tried to get her to go on.....to finish and do well but she grabbed my hand and said "mom, I'm staying with you". The tender mercies of a sweet daughter with a toothless grin who, in this moment in time, is not embarrassed to run the race with her mom or afraid to come in last if she has to (thankfully we didn't come in last :).

The moments of motherhood are being lived out everyday around me.The tiniest of blessings being overlooked if I don't watch for them and record them in my mind.  

Remembering that some days are easier and lots of days are hard but like Paul, I'm just thankful to be in the race of motherhood.

Hebrews 12:1: 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. "

Dear Diary,

I did the whole pumpkin patch thing today, this time in the pasture on the other side of the pond. It's getting to be where I would never leave this place. This earth that holds all that's dear to me.

I piled the kids up in the old red truck and slowly made my way across the property. I had already went and bought pumpkins and set them in the field so when we got there they were super excited. I glanced over at William's grave and for a moment I wondered what his little tow headed self would have looked like running for a pumpkin?

I can't help thinking that my life and my children's lives are going by way too fast. The ordinary has passed for my older two. They are thinking of bigger things than pumpkins and I'm left with a picture with two of my babies missing from it. I'm not sad because when your prayers are answered concerning certain things it's a blessing, but there's still change and with change it seems to always be hardest with me. I don't know, I don't do change very well, Lord. I like the everyday..... cook, clean, school, the trips to walmart and the library. But real, honest to goodness, change takes me a while. As the clock ticks in my life I like change less and less.

sigh....

 



 Oh, the moments slip right through. I seriously looked at her boots today and thought,

 "next year it will be another pair and then one day her boot days will pass and she will move on to something else".

Note to self: Keep those boots. I don't want her to out grow them.

 I love seeing her slip those boots on and run to check for baby rabbits.

No teeth and a tangle full of hair..and no baby rabbits today. 

The little ones growing up right before my eyes. What can I do to make sure they know how I feel about them? What emotions come over me when I see her smiling into the same camera that once held a little girls smile the same way? That little girl grew up and she never looked back like I do.
I can still see her heaving a heavy pumpkin into the backseat of my car with a grand smile on her face.

 

Years later I live in deja vu....

 



Oh, Lord... help me. I'm doing the only thing I've ever loved. I'm doing the only thing I know. How do I go to the next step? How do I parent when I don't know what the next step holds?  The one thing I, as a mother, am supposed to do was.. and is.. to teach them to love the next thing. Help me also Lord to love the next thing.

 

 The next step..

 

Now I must do the next thing and to be honest, some days I just want them all small again.

  

 But...

I'll do pumpkins and I'll do candied apples. We'll bob for apples and laugh when they get water up their noses just like Tucker did.  I'll take really cute pictures and all the while I'll remember I've done it all before. I just have to remember they haven't. I have to redo it all so they will have the memories. So I'll have the memories.
 
They too will continue their growing and I will continue my journey waiting until it's my time to pass the baton to the very last one. I feel myself changing so much, how could I expect the winds of change not to reach them?

 The breeze grabbed her hair and sunbeams danced through the trees. I snapped pictures and laughed and enjoyed this pumpkin day more than the rest I believe. Because as I looked around two were missing and I know it will only be a matter of time until pumpkin day is a memory held only on these pages for them to go back and laugh at. Does everyone parent like this? I do believe I'm crazy. Every moment an opportunity to express my love as if at any moment that opportunity could be snuffed out. I live within myself with the motto no regrets. I don't want any! So I live on high alert. I must be crazy. Yes, I believe I am. I'm trying with the Lord's help to change a generation of regrets.
    

sigh...

 

 

 No regrets when their faces light up just by carrying a pumpkin





 

 no regrets in making sure they remember 

 

no regrets in buying pumpkins and hiding them in the field in the tall grass of the pasture

no regrets with a little browned eyed girl who loves her cowgirl boots.

no regrets to having open doors

 

 no regrets with crazy boys that sit on the land that holds generations of their ancestor's memories

 

 

 

I must go cook supper and read Go Dog Go again..I have actually memorized that book.

I must put my apron on and sing and dance to the music in my kitchen.

I must pick up crying little girls with bumped knees, check math problems, take the old red truck out for the sunset, set the table and kiss my man when he comes home and all the while

keep the biggest secret ever.....

They're all growing up and one day pumpkins won't be such a big deal to them either.

 

So today while pumpkins still make them giggle I will giggle with them.

 

Pumpkin Day 2012 

 

A wedding

It was simple, quaint and beautiful. A small lake wedding, a grandfather doing the marrying, a girl behind the lens of her camera

and a mom with lots on her mind. 

  

I loved working along side her and I loved watching her with camera in hand as she tried for that perfect shot.

Are you tired of parenting? Do you feel as though you'll never get it right?
or live through it?

Let me encourage you to stay on the course that is set before you.

Yes, it's hard some days but if you can imagine your little ones all grown up one day and your days of parenting them gone, it will help you keep your job as mom

in prospective. I marvel at where our time went with Taylor and Tucker.
I did not blink.
I kept looking at the hands of time and knew this was all just temporal.
It still shocks you though when you realize that it's almost over.

I was with them every step of the way and yet I think I missed something because

it seems as if over night they grew into adults.

I'm glad I have no regrets. The time I get them now is a bonus sort of. She will marry a fellow and he will marry a sweet gal someday and when they do I'll be ready ( or at least I keep telling myself that)  because I have walked this road of their life with them every step of the way and I know that step will be just as beautiful.

I will not blink as I send them off to start their own family either.
I will stand beside them and support them on their journey.  

  

 There are years in parenting that you honestly believe you'll be in overdrive mode forever and the frustration mounts and you don't handle them gently. You crave free time and time away to only wish you had it all back when you grow old. When you're sitting on your front porch looking at an empty yard. When you're buying grorceries for just 2 or 3.
You will miss the times when you can sleep deep because they're all tucked in and under your roof. 

 But you trade in your already borrowed time for some useless something and then you blink and they're grown. So many parents are left wondering,

"what if I would have done something different?"
 Now, we all know that God is sovereign and nothing you do will change His plan.

But so many trade hours of their time to be away from the few hours they have with their children. 

I'm so thankful that I didn't blink. I savored every single moment with this daughter/son of mine. We shared our days in homeschooling, hours and minutes and what seems strange to the outside world was a mixing of our souls that will never be unmixed.

A monumental amount of memories that will carry me through my old age.
When I sit in my rocking chair I'll have a smile on my face because I soaked up every single part of them. I was not and am not a perfect mama...I have and have had bad days but it's the getting up after bad days remembering what my mission on this earth is and I kinda hope/pray my swings will be filled with lots of grandbabies;)

So as they venture out and start their jobs and I'm able to share in their adult
world it's a bitter sweetness.

This weekend I watched her work and realized that this arrow is sharp and the time to launch her is close.

So for now I'll enjoy my bonus time with both of them.

Enjoy your children and don't blink.