Getting Out The Door Easier

Sometimes it's the little tips that can really make day to day life with kids easier!

Often I'm curious about how other moms do things like feeding their people and wash.  I think that's why I've loved Works for Me Wednesday over the years.  I don't have as much time as I used to for going through the tips every week, but every once in a while, I do find a gem.  Something typically so simple yet full of the wisdom that only comes from having lived it.

Whoa, so that's a heavy lead in for my super basic tip I'm sharing today.  But, do you want to know what's working for me lately, making my chaotic life just a little bit easier here in the season where school and activities are kicking off again right smack dab in what is always the the hottest month of the year?

Reusable water bottles, pre-filled with water and waiting, ready to go inside my fridge.  Enough water bottles for all four of my children plus myself!

We've only been doing this a few weeks and honestly I have no idea why I didn't do this sooner.  No more rushing out the door to get somewhere only to have 4 children decide they are dying of thirst and must get some water for the car ride and thus wait several minutes that feels like billions while various children attempt to fill water bottles from our fridge dispenser but mostly just manage to get water all over the refrigerator door and kitchen floor!  Really the whole thing made me so close to going back to disposable bottled water stocked in the fridge.

But, then I saw these babies on Amazon:
the girl version: 



and the boy version:



I bought one of each set to have spares.  They are super cute designs, BPA free, dishwasher safe, and have already been dropped more than once by my crew and not one has broken!

Also, what is certain to secure my award of "Mom of The Year", I grab a cold water bottle for each of my kids and take it with me to pick them up from elementary school.  Considering my younger ones have to wait with me for 15 minutes while my oldest finishes safety patrol duty, it certainly cuts down on the whining if I have a cold drink for them!

A key thing to remember and perhaps the only downfall of the water bottles I've found: they do not wash and refill themselves!  But, when you force yourself to do it, it is much better to refill the bottles and restock the fridge late at night when all is calm and quiet than filling bottles when you are 5 minutes late somewhere!

***Disclaimer:  I was not compensated to endorse this product and am recommending it because I truly use it and am happy with it.  I am an Amazon.com affliate and will earn a very small (think fractions of a penny) portion of the sale should you purchase something with my Amazon link.***

Find more Works for Me Wednesday tips here.

First Day of School Photos

I managed to get all 4 of my children to school today!

The positive:  Everyone had a good day and is happy with their teachers and the friends in their classes!

The negative:  I STILL did not get a moment to myself as Little Girl's first day of Pre-K was a short day (her typical day is only 3 hours, so you can imagine a short day!) and for the 1 hour and 15 minutes she was in school I had to attend a parent orientation/coffee at her school.  It was fun to catch-up with other moms at the preschool and hear the school rules and policies for the 7th year in a row, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't longingly think about all the errands I would have loved to run without kids or the spaces in my home that I wanted to organize with uninterrupted time!  Oh well, that day will come.  Just not tomorrow or the 2 days after that.  I'm beginning to fear I've filled too much of the time all my kids are away at school with volunteer jobs!  But, there are more important things in life than a perfectly organized home!

On to the first day of school photos.  Bless their hearts, all 4 of my children let me pick out the outfit they wore on the first day (I did give my 5th grader the choice of "collared shirt" or t-shirt and he chose "collared shirt" -- that's my boy)!  Nobody complained, they all popped out of bed and dressed quickly!  Let's just hope the 2nd day of school is met with the same enthusiasm.

First Day of Fifth Grade:

 First Day of Third Grade:

First Day of First Grade:

First Day of Pre-K:

Reality and Schedule Are Setting In

You guys will be so proud of me.  After my whiny post last week about not being ready for school to start again, I've put on my big girl panties and actually faced reality!  My calendar is updated, my email inbox is cleaned out for the first time in probably 8 or 9 months, and I've even rolled out of bed a couple times this week before 8am!!  But still, nobody point out the reality that I have to pack 15 lunches next week.  I'll do it and perhaps even include a lunchbox note complete with a joke, let's just not think too much about it, mkay?

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Our 4 year old Little Girl is playing on a soccer team for the first time this fall.  She had her first practice this week.  I walked her up to her coach to introduce her, after we'd told the coach her name and he told her his, I said to Little Girl, "He's going to teach you how to play soccer."  To which she loudly, confidently replied to me and her coach, "I already know how to play soccer!"

Overconfident, much?

Here she is in all her humbleness:

('course she's not wearing the soccer shirt she really wanted!)

She ran and kicked and ran some more for the 1 hour practice (they had 6 or 7 water breaks during that 1 hour) and when the practice was over and the coach told the kids they could go, she ran over to me and asked loudly, "Do I get a trophy?!!"  I'm thinking maybe somewhere along the way in our talking about soccer she missed that it was more than one event, but rather a season that lasted a couple months?!!  Anyway, she puts in 60 minutes of practice and is like, "Where is my trophy?"!  To her question, "Do I get a trophy?"  I was like, "Um, not for that!  But, at the end of the season after several practices and games, then you will get a trophy."  You gotta work for it Big Stuff!

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Today we had Meet-the-Teacher at the elementary school and once again we are so blessed that all 3 of my elementary aged kids have phenomenal teachers!  One was even a finalist for teacher of the year for our entire super large school district last year!  I realize my "Letter To My Children As They Head Back to School" post from yesterday may make it sound like I send my kids to a minefield every day and in many ways elementary school today is a minefield of sorts.  But, I am so thankful for the tremendous teachers and leadership at our particular public elementary school and they work very hard to make the school atmosphere pretty great!

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Speaking of schooling, this article on "Homeschooling Your Public School Kids" is a good read.  It describes a concept that we strive for in our home with our kids who go to public school.

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My poor 3rd child is six and between Mother's Day Out when he was two and then 2 years of preschool and kindergarten, so 4 different years of school, he's ALWAYS had a teacher that either his older brother or older sister or both had.  

I thought this year, his 1st grade year, was the year he would finally not have a teacher one of his siblings had because the 1st grade teacher my older son had retired and so did the 1st grade teacher my daughter had.  

But, today when we went up to see the class lists we were surprised to see that the teacher my older son had for 3rd grade had moved to 1st grade and she is going to be my younger son's teacher!  I am thrilled!  She is a great, very sweet teacher and is actually one of my older son's favorite teachers ever.  Thankfully my 3rd child doesn't seem to care that he's living in the shadow of his older siblings, and as I've told him before, "Be glad your big brother and big sister are good kids that teachers like so they don't start you off with a bad reputation just by being their little brother!"

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 Happy Friday Friends!  I am celebrating our last official day of summer break by taking all 4 kids to the dentist for cleanings -- fun times!!  Try to contain your jealousy!

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A Letter to My Children As They Head Back to School

Kids, as you head back for another school year, here are 2 things I want you to remember:

#1.  You were created in the very image of God.

#2.  So was everyone else.

That's it.

You REMEMBER those 2 things and ACT as if you know them deep in your heart and I believe you will have mastered elementary school, mastered life, really!

If you remember that you were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:27) then it can roll off your back when someone out there tries to make you feel small or less than.  Know that your self-worth comes from God, not anyone else in this world.

But, just as you have been created in the likeness of God, so were the girls who tell you that you can no longer be in the "Cartwheel Club" at recess and the boy who always gets in trouble for misbehaving and the one who smells funny and the one who speaks no English and the one who dresses differently and the one who celebrates different holidays than our family does and even the teacher who speaks sharply to you for talking in line when you were not in fact talking.

All of them were created by God in His very image!  Learn to think of them like that, treat them like that and all other knowledge and skills pale in comparison!  This is why your Daddy and I send you to school, public school in particular. 

We can teach you to read and write and multiply fractions at home, but the loving people that are different than you, people that are hard to love, even, and developing the courage to make good choices for yourself even when others around you are making different choices?  Well, that stuff we can pray over, discuss, and encourage, but that stuff we cannot teach you at home, you must really live it to learn it.

Will it be hard?  And will you mess up a lot?  You bet!  There are adults who have not/will not ever grasp these 2 important concepts.  But, we want you to wrestle this stuff out now while we can be your soft place to fall, while your meals are still being cooked for you and there is no rent for you to pay!  

Is it hard for us as your parents to watch you go through hard things that we cannot fix for you?  Absolutely!  But, we are trusting that God is going to use those hard things to refine you.  Just as we can look to some of the tough times from our own lives and know that they made us better people, closer to God.  "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

How do we know you will be okay at school without us with you?  Because God Himself is with you!  "It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8.

Precious 5th grader, Precious 3rd grader, Precious 1st grader, and Precious Pre-K child, know that you are so very loved and we are so proud of you!  We can't wait to see the work God is going to do in and through your lives this school year!

Making Time Apart Easier for Young Kids

When we took our oldest 2 kids to the Dominican Republic for a mission trip our 6 year old and our 4 year old got to go to Nana and Papa's house.  They had a blast, went tons of fun places, and drank chocolate milk every day (or so they've told me many times since they got back, to which I reply, "I'm happy you had chocolate milk at Nana and Papa's house, but if you had chocolate milk every day at home then it would not be a special treat when you got it at Nana and Papa's house." -- blank stares is all that answer gets me!). 

I knew they'd be very well cared for with my husband's parents, but I worried they'd get homesick.  Especially our Little Girl, who joined our family 19 months ago via adoption from Ethiopia.  This was the first time I'd left her overnight and unfortunately it had to be for a week this first time, but I did feel she was ready and that staying with grandparents she loves and is comfortable with and having a brother stay with her would all help.  But, I had my prayer partner praying over the situation and had been praying myself for months because there was the potential for it to go badly.  I mean this is a little girl who has had the experience of losing her first family forever and I worried she'd think we'd left her forever.

So, in addition to praying, I talked to her a ton about it.  To the point that she finally got very firm with me and said, "I KNOW that, Mommy!  I KNOW you are coming back!"  And all I could think was "Praise God" for that confidence because that must only come from Him!

And I also made these:

A dollar store gift for each of the kids to open every day we were gone with a tag attached that counted down the days until we'd be back.

Over the top?  Maybe, but I think it works to make the time apart just a little easier on the little ones.

Don't worry, I do not intend to send them with gifts for each day when they go away to college!  I just plan to go with them, move right into the dorm -- kidding!

Find more Works for Me Wednesday here.

The View From My Stationary Bike

A few months ago, my husband decided to buy a stationary bike to be able to get in some cardio exercise for himself late at night.

I was not thrilled that then the bike found it's home in our bedroom.   Oh the attractiveness!  But, seeing as how we don't have an exercise room in our house and as long as there are children dying of malnutrition in this world we do not plan to add on an exercise room, function had to trump decor.

I was also not at all planning on using it myself.  I was all, "I prefer to run or ride a bike outside and you know actually GO somewhere rather than riding and riding and STAYING in the SAME place!"

or because I'm so adventuresome and like to keep things exciting, for my cardio I'll do the SAME exercise DVD over and over again for years IN MY LIVING ROOM!  (If you mute the volume, that Jillian Michaels - 30 Day Shred just does not get old, with the volume it gets old in about 6 minutes!)

But, lo and behold this summer because it's approximately 400 degrees outside and also to actually GO somewhere in my exercising I'd have to trail 4 children along behind me, I've found myself riding that exercise bike! 

I do like that I can read a book while I ride, which I totally can't do while running or following along on the 30 Shred video!  But, the view is the same every single time.  

This is what I see while I ride:

My dog laying on my bed relaxing and staring at me!  

Happens Every! Single! Time! I ride that exercise bike, even if she is not on the bed when I start, she notices me get on the bike and settles herself there on the bed to MOCK ME.  Really, while I'm huffing and puffing and sweating and pedaling there is nothing more annoying than this view of my dog super comfy and lazy on MY bed!  

Honestly, can't she find anything productive to do with her life?  Maybe we could rig up a treadmill right next to the stationary bike and I could hold her leash and make her at least trot alongside while I ride?

Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

Just Don't Say, "Back to School"!

We have one more full week left of summer and honestly I am just not ready for it to be over!  Thinking about all the logistical details of 4 kids in 4 different classes/grade levels and all the balls I'll be expected to juggle to get people where they need to be when they need to be there with the things they need to have like lunches and homework and agendas signed by me, all makes me kinda hyperventilate just a little!  So, let's just pretend for a few more days that it's not happening!

I would like to say how thankful I am that our school allows you to pay a flat fee and then all your child's school supplies are delivered to their classroom, no running around looking for just the right kind of ruler/brand of red pens/specific color of folder that is on the school supply list!  And considering I'm in back-to-school denial, it's awesome to just skip those school supply aisles completely during my Target shopping trips!

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Recently I noticed my 6 year old son and my 4 year old daughter playing dollhouse together.  "Well, that's VERY sweet!"  I thought.  

But, upon closer look, while Little Girl was pretending that the Mama Zuzu Pet was tucking in the baby Zuzu Pet,

My son had this double-sworded guy scaling the outside wall of the dollhouse:

Ah, gender differences!

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Recently overheard around here:

Little Girl said this week, "When I grow up I want to be Nana's mom."

Nana is my husband's mom but will also be his granddaughter someday if Little Girl grows up to be who she wants to be!

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 Happy Friday, Friends!

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