A City Life For Me

              

I have always had a list posted in my kitchen of my daily, weekly, and monthly household "chores."  It helped to keep me on track so I didn't forget things, and the goal was also that it would keep me from overdoing it all in one day.  When I was a mom of just little people (I had four under three years old when the twins were born), it was a sanity saver.  I work better and relax better in a clean and organized environment.  But sometimes my desire for cleanliness makes me a little "OCD" as my mom says.  Trying to do all of the jobs in one afternoon usually leads to a crying breakdown right about the time dinner needs to be cooking... Some days with little people feel as if the cycle will never end.  The kids make a mess.  You clean the mess.  Or you don't clean the mess and it eventually drives you nuts.  But recently I have entered a "sweet spot" where my kids are able to help with the chores.  Now, many times it still feels easier...

Here are the captures of our week… Cursive Lessons began in Handwriting.  She was nervous for a couple of weeks prior to this, and then she just wasn’t happy with her letters so she chose to practice (and reward) on her own time until it “looked like her teacher’s writing.”  Snow Day! First bug.  Our house is infected with these lady-bug like bugs. Marshmallow roasting at Grandpa Fezzie’s while Daddy is out of town. Meeting Bart.  Note:  Bart is not exactly friendly since he’s old and set in his ways, especially to inquisitive one year olds. Big Boy! The Berkshire Museum with Auntie Meredith.  She works here and took us in for free.  The kids had a great time!  (Meredith told them to look like kings and queens.  Liberty is the Queen of Laughs). Learning to play chess.

Since coming home we have re-instituted the stay up late night.  The twins are old enough for this, and it seems like I get asked a dozen times each day who get to have stay up late night.  This is how it works… The purpose of SULN ( stay-up-late-night) is to allow each kiddo to have some one-on-one time with Mom and/or Dad.  It’s not a big production, or with five kids I would never get it done.  It’s not even supposed to be a really late SULN.  It’s just a little bit of time after the siblings have gone to bed.  Ideally it is 20-30 minutes, which makes it very doable for me.  The child who is having SULN gets to select the activity.  Sometimes we have a special snack too (but we try to avoid liquids because its right before bed). Some examples of SULN activities: Read several books Play a game (matching, Candy Land, Trouble, etc.) Do a puzzle Build a Lego item Watch silly YouTube clips (we stay away from full length movies though) ...

I just have to brag on my kids for a minute. They love watching Wild Kratts on PBS, and since it's not laced with evolution we enjoy letting them. They have learned so much about Gods amazing creatures! In fact, zoo trips are not usually educational anymore.  My kids can spew out creature facts faster than we can read placards! So…all on their own…they came up with an idea, that they needed to tell Martin and Chris Kratt Who made all these wonderful creatures. My kids decided that the best thing would be to send the Kratts a Bible and tell them about Jesus. So today Elaine and Daddy drafted a letter which Elaine copied out neatly. We ordered a blue and a green Bible, because those are Martin and Chris' favorite colors. And we included a tract, a picture of our family, and some pictures colored by the kids. I'm so thankful they want to share our Jesus with others, and that they are not afraid to do so! #keeponcreatureadventuring #gospelnews   Elaine writing the letter  ...

We’ve been back for a bit now and life is perhaps starting to settle in a smidge of a routine.  I hesitate to say that because I’m sure it will spin out of control on me again at any minute!  This is what we’ve been doing recently… We are learning about the sun, moon, and stars in science class.  Elaine and Nolan enjoyed making some moon crafts (complete with glitter – one of my least used craft items because of the mess!) Elaine’s Nolan’s Then we conducted a project to visualize the size difference between the sun, the earth, and the moon. The large make-shift paper circle represents the sun (54.5” wide).  Ours is about three inches too small because that’s just how it worked… A mini-marshmallow (1/2” diameter) represents the earth.  The sun is 109 times larger than the earth, so we lined up {almost} 109 mini marshmallows across the center of our “sun” to visualize the vast size difference.  It was very helpful that we had just visited the planetar...

The kids loved the house we stayed in while in Wanatah, Indiana with Crossroads Baptist Church.  There was a Jacuzzi tub big enough for all four kids to bathe at the same time!     Daddy found "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" game in the closet - the kids had fun with that - even the twins!         Nehemiah was fascinated with the washing machine all week.  Thankfully, once the door is locked, any buttons he pushed didn't do anything!           Silly twins while we were packing up   Bloomington, Indiana with the Gaschke family and Stoneridge Baptist Church   Nehemiah and Andrew, Elaine, Liberty and Kiersten, Heidi, Will, and Nolan   Pastor Andy Gaschke was the assistant pastor at Highlands Baptist Church shortly after we began attending there.  He and his wife Jenny helped in the youth group and with teen visitation on Wednesdays, so I had a good deal of interaction ...