But this week?  It’s a welcome distraction.  I can blog and not really dig deep.  Totally surface post for you today.  It’s all I can give.  Right now anyway.

But, because we spent the entire weekend together, all six of us, I figured I would share a few things with you that I learned.  We don’t get to do this often since the kids are all running different directions, but this weekend, the earth, moon, sun and stars all aligned, and Earl blew through the coast giving us the best.weather.ever. and we took advantage of it.

So here we go…

1.  Watching a child from Haiti experience new things is FREAKING awesome.  Friday night, at the ball game, they played the Adams Family Theme song.  We were all snapping our fingers and he just looked at us… and then tried on his own.

2.  All of the kids scooped him up and communicated with him in their own way.  For Thing 2, it was music as they both LOVE the same type of music.  They both lit up when they realized the other was singing the song piped over the loud speaker.  For Thing 3, it was just being there with him on the field when the game was over, making sure that he had a buddy as they waited in line for their turn to run the bases.

3.  Little boys can’t wait to grow up and use the big tools that daddy does…

4.  And people get nervous when Mama has a chain saw in her hands…

5.  Watching the trees fall make you grateful that you have a hubs that can do that kind of stuff… you know, making them fall the right way, not in the road, or on the power lines….

6.  Having 3 extra children spend the night after a full day of cutting trees can be done and you can have fun doing it!

7.  You can also be early for church the next morning after having fed, dressed, and gathered up the stuff for seven children.  (Who knew?)

8.  All ages (from 5-35) LOVE to play the game Hot Potato… and will play and giggle for HOURS tossing the stuffed, talking potato from person to person.

9.  Some of the best pictures I take of the kids, you can’t see their faces…

10.  I look pregnant in this shirt and should NEVER wear it again…

11.  The kids make me laugh….

12.  We live in one of the prettiest areas in the country…. and I love that we don’t have to travel far to see the beauty of creation….

13.  If you slaughter your eldest son and hubs in a game of Risk, the next time you play they will form an alliance.  The game will go on for so long (because you’re good at the game and holding your own against them) that you will resort to having two other children roll for you because you’re cold and you really want to move the game inside but everyone is afraid the world will get messed up in doing so….

14.  You will take the best.picture.ever. and then stare at it, regretting that you didn’t find someone to take the picture with you in it…

15.  It doesn’t matter that the kids were less than thrilled with the fact that we drug them out in to history and nature on the most gorgeous day that we’ve had in a long time… one day?  They will remember it fondly….

Until next time…

The problem is…

Well…

I get a little in to the music….

As in, I have no concept of what’s going on around me.  Kinda like texting while driving?  Worshiping while driving  might be just as dangerous.

And people in the cars next to you?

They look at you like you’re a freak — hands in the air, smiling and the like… singing your heart out.

Oh well.

I guess I’ll just have to find that balance because I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome I feel by the time I get to the office….

and this song?

My new motivational song…

Enjoy….

I called it that because I was having a bad day, chose to create a playlist and felt the attacks.  So… satan suck it was born.

(I also have a miniature version on a cd in my car, just in case the iPod goes dead.)

So…here we go…. (the bolded ones to me are the most important… if I’m pressed for time to come out of my funk!)

• Free Ride – Audio Adrenaline
• Big House – Audio Adrenaline
• Enough – Barlow Girl
• Let It Rise – Big Daddy Weave
• What the World Needs – Casting Crowns
• The World is Alive – Casting Crowns
• I Know You’re There – Casting Crowns
• Praise You In This Storm – Casting Crowns
• Cartoons – Chris Rice
• Empty Me – Chris Sligh
• Jesus Freak – DC Talk
• Better Is One Day – Hillsong
• Awesome God – Hillsong
• All Things Are Possible – Hillsong
• Let It Fade – Jeremy Camp
• Give You Glory – Jeremy Camp
• You’re Worthy of My Praise – Jeremy Camp
• There Will Be a Day – Jeremy Camp
• Speaking Louder Than Before – Jeremy Camp
• Walk By Faith – Jeremy Camp
• I Still Believe – Jeremy Camp
• Take My Life – Jeremy Camp
• While I’m Waiting – John Waller
• Today is the Day – Lincoln Brewster
• My Deliverer – Mandisa
• Only the World – Mandisa
• God Speaking – Mandisa
• He Is With You – Mandisa
• Love Somebody – Mandisa
• When I Say I Do – Matthew West
• So Long Self – Mercy Me
• Where I Belong – Mercy Me
• Bring the Rain – Mercy Me
• God With Us – Mercy Me
• Word of God Speak – Mercy Me
• Shine – Newsboys
• Your Love Is Better Than Life – Newsboys
• I Am Free – Newsboys
• Friend of God – Phillips, Craig and Dean
• Me and Jesus – StellarKart
• Broadcast – Fee
• Live Out Loud – Steven Curtis Chapman
• Cry Out to Jesus – Third Day
• Sunday – Tree63
• Holy Is Your Name – Unhindered
• Everything You Are – Unhindered
• Father Will You Come – Unhindered
• Shout to the Lord (American Idol version)
• How He Loves – David Crowder Band
• He Knows My Name
• Hold Us Together – Matt Maher
• Get Back Up – Tobymac
• Days of Elijah – Robin Mark

I have a slew of Christian music (including “angry” Christian music that the boys like — think Skillet and Thousand Foot Crutch) and worship music, but these are the songs that I listen to the most….

But I ask you… I have credits in my iTunes account.  Twenty two of them to be exact.  If you were to create your own satan suck it playlist, what songs would you include that I might not have here?  I’m ALWAYS looking for new music….

Until next time…

And when the window popped up, proclaiming that I was a true pioneer, or what ever it said, I smiled.

I did it.

That goal sat there for many weeks.

Then reality set in.  There were no more goals.  I finished it.  Suddenly, the reason to return to the game when I got a few spare minutes later in the day vanished.  The purpose, completing goals and the satisfaction that came with it, was gone.

I contemplated over this much of Friday afternoon and Saturday.  Three hours on a lawn mower with nothing but your thoughts and your “satan suck it” playlist, coupled with a husband laid up on the couch with a fever drifting in and out of consciousness produces quite the thought process.

I found myself angry that I allowed myself to get to wrapped up in this game.  I hated the feeling of not having additional goals to complete.  I enjoyed playing and now?  With no goals?  What’s the point of even logging on?

Somewhere amidst my thought process it occurred to me that Frontierville is much like life.  (Now, if you aren’t addicted don’t play, you might not understand fully where I’m going with this, but try to follow along.  Huge eye opener for me.)

Life is like Frontierville.

Allow me to explain.

Apart from the obvious correlation in that you need to work on your frontier to earn money to buy things and for food… that’s pretty much like life.  And you have to work to get a spouse.  Yup.  That’s much like life too.  And when I finally got hitched, I made the hubs look just like he did in real life.  Then up popped the goal to have another child which is probably the closest the hubs and I will come to birthing another baby.  Not wanting any of the children to feel left out, I appropriately named my Frontierville child “thing 5.”  Heh.

Oh and just like in real life, your frontierville child won’t work on their own.  You have to physically click on them and MAKE them do things.

So there’s the obvious.

On a deeper level (or as deep as you can go when relating a silly little game on Facebook to life) what struck me is that like Frontierville, life is full of goals.  Some of them are very simple and take no time to accomplish.  They’re easy to knock out.  Like clear 10 grass.  That was a simple goal to complete, provided I possessed enough energy.  There are simple goals in my life right now that would be easy to complete… provided I have enough energy. (Can we say laundry anyone?)

Other goals are simple, but you know they will take time.  Like preparing for the school marm.  That goal required nothing short of collecting seven daily bonuses from the school house, but since you can only collect one each day.  It doesn’t matter how much energy I have – completion is at least a week out.  When completing those goals, taking the “waiting it out” stance is about all you can do.

Then there are the goals in Frontierville that require you to collect things to complete.  Like the apple pie goal in which I needed four apple pies to complete the goal.  This required not only energy, but persistence as well.  I can’t tell you how many apple trees I harvested, or how many friends I BEGGED to send me one, it took awhile to complete.  But I just kept on harvesting apple trees and eventually?  I found all four pies and completed the goal.

Just in time for a new goal to come into play.

But that peanut goal?  Oh.my.word.

Planting and harvesting 1500 peanuts.  Peanuts that take four days to ripen.  And no way that you could possibly plant them all at one time.  I felt like all I did was plant and harvest peanuts.  And while I was waiting, there were little goals to work on, but that peanut goal.  It was about to kill me.  I cleared all of the frontier that I could for the maximum planting space and it still took me well over three weeks to complete.

In the end, the reward was great, not only in the amount of money and food collected from the harvest, but it set me up to where I wanted for nothing as the other goals came into play.  (Unless I needed to find eggplants or unready chickens on a neighbor’s farm… that was darn near impossible.)

Many of the goals required the help of your neighbors and the more neighbors you had opened eligibility for special things.  Just like in life.  To go through life we need the help of others.  It may be that they need something we have or that we need something they have.  Sometimes it was nothing than to just go and help out on their frontier, so they didn’t have to use all of their own energy.

And my neighbors?  They weren’t working on the same goals that I was, so we helped each other with a heads up — trying to navigate through the game — just like we would in real life.  If I’ve already completed the goal they why wouldn’t I help those behind me with frontier advice?

But the kicker as I worked through how Frontierville emulated life?  The realization that with out the goals, the game had no purpose.

Just like life.

The goals we have in life give us a purpose.  What would our lives be like if we didn’t have things to work towards and accomplishments to make?  Yes, life hands us goals that are easy peasy.  We have challenges in life that take energy, ones that take persistence, and ones that seem like we’ll never find all the pieces we need or that they’ll never end.  But, they keep us moving, the keep us alive and coming back for more.

And we keep coming back and we push ahead because we want to know what the next goal is.  Sometimes the goal appears and we’re not happy with it.  Other times, we complete it and say, “well that was easy!”  But the fact of the matter is, the challenges and goals give us something to work toward… life.

And along the way we take what we’ve learned and help others.

Zynga is working on adding new goals to the game and rather than quit, I imagine I’ll log on still and make my own goal to help my neighbors — after all, they aren’t finished yet.  And maybe, they’ll add a few new goals soon.

Until next time…

God’s movin’ y’all.  (If that wasn’t southern, I don’t know what is… but I tell ya, I want to scream it at the top of my lungs.)

GOD IS MOVING.

God’s stretching the hubs and I.  People keep telling me that God is stretching and forming me into the woman that He’s called me to be (and please don’t ask me what that woman looks like, because I don’t know… but I know that it’s not the woman that you know right now…or so I’m told)

But I think God is stretching the hubs as well.  I think that we are on the verge of something bigger and He uses the funniest ways to show me.

I’m motivated by music.  I just am.  As in, I hate to be late for church because I miss the music.  If the sermon came before the music?  I’d probably NEVER make it on time.

And the radio is ALWAYS on in my car.

But I don’t always hear it.  It’s background noise… and then, for whatever reason, I tune my brain in to what’s playing and it strikes me.  And these aren’t new songs, but rather songs I’ve heard before yet never HEARD.

Such was the case Friday morning on the way to work…as I mulled over the events of the past few weeks in my head, asking God, yet again what I’m supposed to be doing (and honestly praying He’d give me a different answer than He has been giving me…)

I tuned into these words…

What if there’s a bigger picture

What if I’m missing out?

What if there’s a greater purpose

I could be living right now?

I cocked my head to the side and I listened to the rest of the song… a song about a man who was just “getting by” as a Christian, a man who lived in his own little world where everything was safe, comfortable, and normal.

A man who is much like me.

In my own little world it hardly ever rains

I’ve never gone hungry and always felt safe

I’ve got some money in my pocket and shoes on my feet

In my own little world

Population me

I try to stay away through the Sunday morning church

I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give until it hurts

And I turn off the news when I don’t like what I see

It’s easy to do when it’s population me

Ow.  My toes just got mashed.  Thanks God.

But how true it is.  For me.  I’m comfortable.  I’m safe.  I’m content.  I don’t want to shake things up any.

But God has other plans.

God thinks we can do more.  He thinks we can be more.

(Ok, so I don’t think the hubs is as gung ho on this as I am, and I apologize alot to him for marrying a woman with strong convictions.)

But reality?

We’re living in a world, population me.

And I don’t think the hubs and I are the only ones.  I bet there are a few of you out there that have felt a little tug recently… a tug simply indicating that there’s more for you… and I’m telling ya.  If you feel it?  It’s there.

What if there’s a bigger picture?

What if you’re missing out?

What if there’s a greater purpose you could be living right now?

Noodle on that for a bit….

Until next time…

But in her defense, she’s at the on the fence age where the baby/toddler is behind us and the big girl is on the horizon.

Quite by accident, we found a way to encourage/reward her for acting like a big girl — shampoo.  It’s sounds weird, but it all started when the hubs bought me my FAVORITE shampoo for my birthday.  It’s pricey, but so worth it.  It smells like vanilla birthday cake.

Thing 4 was dying to use this shampoo in the middle of a meltdown about taking a shower so I simply stated that only big girls could use that shampoo.

And it worked.

The only problem?

Big girl shampoo doesn’t have a no more tears formula in that it’s hard to be a big girl when you have soap in your eyes.  (Nevermind that the soap gets there because we can’t stand still in the shower…lol)

So when I was asked to review the new Johnson Natural Line, I was a bit apprehensive.  There was NO WAY this child was going to let me put BABY shampoo in her hair.

Fortunately for me?  They have a kids version.  That has the famous No More Tears formula.

We’re happy in the shower at our house.

I’ve been using the lotion, 99% natural and the kids have been using the foaming hands and face wash, and the 3 in 1 shampoo (shampoo, conditioner and body wash).  All of us love it.  (Ok, I shouldn’t say that we all love it.  Mom loves it.  The kids?  They could care less.  It’s a bottle in the shower that has soap products in it so that they can take their bath and get it over with.)

Even the hubs liked the face wash.  (And this is a man who is very particular about his face wash.)

I can be honest and say that we passed the baby shampoo and body wash onto a friend who has… you know, a baby… (remember?  there are none of those in our house!)

All in all I was impressed with the products.  The girls’ hair, when they got out of the shower, was easy to comb through, it didn’t sting their eyes, and it smelled clean.

Plus, I like that it’s green.  I’m starting to try to do more and more that’s “Green.”  And the price?  It’s affordable.

About Johnson Natural Line (from their website): The JOHNSON’S® NATURAL™ product line is the only line of baby skin products that combines 98% naturally derived ingredients with 100 years of baby care expertise. Every ingredient used in our JOHNSON’S® NATURAL™ line of products meets or exceeds the guidelines set forth by the Natural Products Association.* And of course, every JOHNSON’S® NATURAL™ cleanser contains our gentle NO MORE TEARS® formula.

This gets my seal of approval.  And Thing 4′s.  What better recommendation do you need but that of a 5 year old?

Disclosure:  No 5 year olds were harmed in the testing of this product.  Again, please don’t think that I’m a sell out for doing paid reviews on my blog.  I find it fun, entertaining, and challenging to take a review and add a story to it… and because the law says I have to….

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Johnson’s and received the products necessary to  facilitate my review. In addition, I received a gift certificate to thank me  for taking the time to participate.

Until next time…

They didn’t believe me.

(When are doctors going to realize that we know our bodies?)

So they hooked me up, confirmed, but sent me home anyway.

Thing 2 was already a week late.  I had decided that I should start charging her rent.

And here I am 11 years later watching my baby girl thriving this first week in school, making strides that I never in a million years could’ve done.

I’m in awe of who she is.

Her face bubbles with excitement as she recaps her days at school — the people she’s met, the playdates she’s scheduling, the social activities planned at the school.  You’d never know that just three days ago she knew no one.

But eleven years ago today, I dropped Thing 1 off at the sitter and headed to the hospital.  My labor was harder with Thing 2.  I had already been in the hospital for her for a week at 36 weeks.  I remember cursing and my husband saying, “you need to stop that…” and I looked at him and said, “what are you going to do, take me home?”

I remember the contractions hurting so bad but not yet being to the point where I could get my epidural — and when they finally gave me stadol for the pain I remember saying to the nurse, “if I were an intravenous drug user, this would be my drug of choice.”

I also remember it wearing off in 45 minutes and the pain that came with it.

I remember my best friend calling and telling me to hang in there just a little longer, that she was wrapping up at work and would be there soon.

I remember her arriving, walking in my room and then telling the nurses to find the doctor… that it was time.  I was in transition.  (To this day, I have no idea what that means, but she was right.)

I remember the doctor coming in with pants that were way too short.  I remember calling him “flood boy” in my head.

I remember very little pushing before my baby girl let out a cry…. and I remember them weighing her and calling out “9 lbs, 1/2 oz” and my best friend following the comment with “three pounds of it are hair.”

Hair.

I knew she would have hair.  The only time in my life that I’ve ever had heartburn was the 41 weeks that I carried her.

And if I’m honest, she still gives me a little heartburn to this day.

Yes, eleven years ago my life changed dramatically again.

But I’m so glad it did.

Because she teaches me so much…and  I can’t wait to see where she goes in life.

My prayer is only that she accomplishes all that she sets out to do, she learns from my mistakes so that her life is all that she wants it to be and that she loves God first and foremost.

Love you less than God, Thing 2.

Happy Eleventh Birthday….

Until next time…

I arrive home from work and Thing 1 is at the dining room table doing homework.

Thing 2 is in the living room doing homework.

A beautiful sight I tell you… both of them doing homework and me not having to hound them.  I think it’s going to be a good night.

I head to the kitchen to start dinner.  We’re having something new.  Rachel Ray said it was quick and easy.

Silly me.

I believed her.

I carefully tried to read the directions when Thing 1 asked for help.

“Whatcha need buddy boy?” I asked as I wiped my hands on the dish towel and headed into the dining room for a look see.

“I can’t remember how to divide decimals.”

Crap. I suck at math.  And that was the math that I learned how to do… not this “new math” that they are teaching them.

I try to point him in the right direction and head back to the kitchen as I hear Thing 2 calling for me.

“Mom! I need help.”

I head into the living room and guess what she’s stuck on?

Math.

Again.  Suck.

I help her and head back to the kitchen.

(I know that you’re already thinking, “why doesn’t she put them in the same room?”  Well I could… except they would fight and vie for attention.)

I grab the eggs from the fridge and one falls on my foot… so there’s egg everywhere.  I clean that up (or so I think) and go to open the tuna.  Now there’s tuna juice everywhere.

“Mom,” Thing 1 cries.  ”I just don’t remember.  I’m so stupid.”

“No you’re not.  Give yourself some credit.  It’s just day 2.  You haven’t done algebra all summer.”

“Mom,” Thing 2 calls, “Why did you put me in advanced math.  This is hard stuff.  I’m dumb.”

“No you’re not,” I reply.  ”You’re a math genius.  Hang in there.”

Meanwhile my onions are burning and I play math helper ping pong through the house beefing up my children who, bless their hearts, are truly trying to do a good job and struggling.

Then my phone dings.  The sound means my beloved hubs is sending me a love note.  Except he wasn’t.  ”I just messed up big,” he wrote.  ”I’m an idiot.”

My fingers were quick to the keys to respond with “look, I’m in the middle of math hell, the kitchen is a disaster, there’s egg in between my toes, and the rest of the house thinks they are idiots too,” but I didn’t.

I was halfway through when I deleted it and simply wrote, “no you’re not.  What did you do and how can I help?”

Now, I tell you this not because I want you to think that I’m some amazing saint.  I’m not.  Fortunately for me, about that time, my friend arrived and since she’s an accountant… and likes math, stepped in to help the kids while I finished getting dinner in the over and the kitchen back under control.

Because I wanted to continue channeling Jesus.  I felt good after I responded with caring and compassion and my initial response wouldn’t have done any sort of good.

I made it to the mall to help Thing 2 pick out her birthday present and pick up the last remaining school supplies.

We got milk and cereal.

And then I walked in the door to chaos… kids here there and everywhere.  Books and supplies strewn from one end of the house to the other.  Papers from school on the table, sorting to do, and while the hubs was working on getting the younger ones down and had started the dishwasher, I lost it.

No one seemed to care that I had walked in the door carrying all the loot that I shelled out for others.  The demands were quick and no one really wanted to go to bed or the shower.

And all of a sudden I lost my connection with Jesus.  I was channeling no more.

And then I might have laid it all out there to my husband like a snotty little brat that didn’t get her way.

Sometimes I wonder how in the world Jesus could do all He did and be cool with it.  How could He not look at people and go, “suck it up and get over it?”  I’m in constant awe of the way He lived His life.

“Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”

Yeah, right.

Perfect.

I am not.

But praise God for grace.

Because I need alot of it.

Until next time…

“I have a new best best friend!”

“Really?  What’s her name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mom!  I had the BEST DAY EVER right up until it was time to go home.  I opened my locker EVERY single time until then!”

All in all it was a good day…

Until next time…

It’s horrible.  I keep sitting here telling myself that this is silly and that I should be completely okay today.  But I’m not.

Today is one of those days that will go down in parenting infamy.

As in, I’ve NEVER been this way on the first day of school.  Typically, I’m the mother the emulates the old Staples commercial where the dad is going down the aisles singing “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

And yes, I’ve been the mother that has been super excited to get her morning time back and to cease all daycare payments.

Until 8am this morning.

Maybe it’s because all four of them were starting new schools.

Maybe it’s because we had two milestones in that thing 4 started kindergarden this year and thing 2 started middle school.

Maybe it’s because I knew that thing 1 and 2 both missed their orientations.

Or maybe it’s a combination of all of the above.

Regardless, we put things 3 and 4 on the bus and then I drove the older two to the middle school.  My plan was to at least have 20 minutes to walk around the school with Thing 2 and find her classes and work with her locker.

And we had that time.

She was slightly frustrated with the locker.  I kept telling her that she would not be the only child that had trouble with her locker (shoot!  even i had trouble with it, showing her.)

But then?

It was time to deposit her in the auditorium with all the other 6th graders and when she walked in, I know that she was looking for a familiar face.  My heart sank.  I knew she wasn’t going to find one.  All the memories I’ve contained as a child of a first day in a new school came flooding back and I knew just how she felt.

But she turned and looked at me and said, “I’ll call you after school.”

I left.

But I wasn’t ready to leave that school.  So I marched up the stairs, found her locker and I prayed hard over her locker.  I prayed that satan be bound from that school.  I prayed for peace.  I prayed that it would open the first time every single time she came to unlock it.  I prayed for the students that owned the lockers next to hers — that they would be kind and caring.. and friendly.

This came after I woke up 20 minutes before anyone else this morning and sat on the desk as the sun was rising and prayed my little heart out for all four of them on their big day.

I have been a bundle of nerves all day.

Perhaps I should’ve prayed for me and the hubs.

I wonder if Thing 4 has had a meltdown yet because things weren’t perfect, or because someone wouldn’t share.

I wonder if Thing 3 has saddled up with another kid and chatted away like he normally does.

I wonder if Thing 2 is being her normal outgoing self.

I wonder if Thing 1 has talked to ANYONE.

And it’s lots of thinking and wondering and praying and calming myself down.

Silly, really.  Because I know that they are all fine.

They don’t have to be scared or nervous.  I’m doing that just fine for all four of them.

Which is kinda what Jesus did for me.  He hung on that cross for me.  And for the hubs.  And the things.  And for you.

Not that I’m condoning my worrisome behavior as the Bible says not to worry.  But I’m going to cling to what I know He did for me.  What He did for those kids.  And trust that everything is just fine — and we’re going to have lots of memories of August 23, 2010.

But man! I can’t wait to hear about their day!  It’s going to be exciting in the House of Chaos tonight!

Until next time…