Busy busy busy!!!

It feels so much better to DO STUFF.

The past months, I  mean year, I have been sort of living in survival mode ... doing laundry because I have to ... cleaning up but not really cleaning ... making meals, but not great ones... at the end of the day sitting with Dale playing games on my phone for hours. I have been blowing through the days just trying to get through them.  There are the occasional good days, of course.  Not that each day wasn't a good one, but my... performance as the manager of all things domestic was not good most days. 

Now the baby is sleeping hours and hours now.  The preschoolers are entertaining each other.  The girls are doing a lot more cooking.  I am finally getting all the balls in the air again!  Hahahaha.... don't judge me.  It was an analogy to juggling, and you knew it!

SO anyways... the very mention of not really reading my Bible was enough to compel me to get my Bible out.  I think about this all the time. Living life with a Biblical worldview colors everything.  The whole data-in, data-out is huge when you are raising a village.  Every detail of this life goes through the filter of what would please God.  I MUST be in the Word daily in order to rightly prove what is good and true and not some societal law that is really insignificant.  I MUST read the Bible to the children and in front of the children daily in order to establish it as our foundation!  It's absolutely critical.  I intend to do this very thing!!

On the side of all things lovely... here is the lampshade I bought at the thrift store for two dollars. Forgive my photography!  It's not on my agenda to become a photographer. You get the idea. :)

 What I did was rip off the decorative paper.  Underneath was a clean white slate.  With hot glue and some fabric that I found in my workroom,  I completely covered the shade with a single smooth piece of fabric.

 Next I cut out a million circles of fabric by hand with some dull scissors. Each circle was folded into quarters and glued onto the shade.  It was easy and turned out to be so lovely! 

My next project is to do something to this lamp to make it worthy of this lamp shade!

Just one more thing while I'm here! Check these happy girls out at Forever 21.

Now go and DO SOMETHING!  You'll feel so  much better.

lvb

Just another day in paradise

It's nuts around here. Kennedy is so excited about ballet that her enthusiasm is catching on! Last night after i got off work, she taught her first ballet class with three students. About five mintes after they arrived, Deisha walked into the kitchen and threw up all over the floor. About that time I got a rare phone call, and of course Scarlette broke out into a hysteria. The same night while I was sitting with Deisha in the basement, the toilet gurgled a few times and shot water all over the bathroom floor.

Listen, I don't mind a little chaos in my life. I am learning that some things matter and some rhings don't. But the key to that is finding the good part in the mess. When the plumber arrived, I shadowed him the whole time. It was probably obnoxious, but I have a lot of traffic on those toilets! I need to know how to clear the lines. Thanks to Mr. Roto Rooter I now know how to access the line from outside and how to use 100 foot auger. Can't beat a lesson from a pro!

It's these crazy days that make the hard days more bearable.

A quick FYI here: If you you find yourself with a clogges toilet, don't trouble yourself with flushing dish soap and boiling water for an hour. There will be bubbles coming out of every toilet in the house, and the plumber will make fun of you!

Lvb

Filthonica

*See Nighttime Craziness

She is so funny!

Lvb

Ladybug Pants

Naughtypants took her bath and got fancied up for lunch. She cracks me up!

Nighttime Craziness

At bedtime I clock out.
Nine o'clock approaches, and I feel myself leaing toward that punch clock. 
Once the kids head up the stairs I take off my hard-working-mommy hat and let my hair down.

Typically my work is not done at that point. It's been this way for over a decade, but I'm a diehard optimist. I HOPE that after that last kiss goodnight I can sit down and relax.

Last night, after fifteen minutes of random screaming and yelling, I dragged myself up the stairs to deal with it.

I got the little girls settled back in to their beds and stuck my head into the other kids' room.

The first thing I saw when I opened the boys' room was Micah in the full face Viking mask standing posed like a deer in the headlights, arms flailing. After I scolded the boys for being out of bed I caught a quick glimpse of Tre behind the door wearing a Robin Hood hat and holding a bow and arrow ready to shoot.

The girls' room was quiet so I expected them to be nestled into their beds reading quietly.  You can imagine my surprise when I found Filthonica sitting at Kennedy's desk, lights on, music blasting. She wore a high, bushy, side ponytail, and a pair of 3-D glasses with the lenses popped out. I gave the same directive to the  girls that I gave to everyone else and excitted to gales of laughter.

It secretly thrilled me to find such excitement after hours, but I'll never tell!

Lvb