34 weeks and My Baby Outside the Womb

I had someone try to give me encouraging words about these last few weeks of pregnancy that "I would get to hold my baby soon."  But that idea makes me cry because I already have a baby to hold! 

And here is my sweet baby at almost 14 months. I know moms all over the world manage having children this close together and I know God's timing is perfect in all things, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy.  My baby does think he is a big boy. He attempted to ride this tricycle yesterday and picked up the broom to sweep today.  He is soaring with signing all of his needs to us. We are the ones who can't keep up with him! He is more strong headed than my first two, and that really has taken me by surprise. When Matthias is angry he will grab and throw anything in his reach. Yesterday he picked up a heavy basket of plastic animals to dump all of the animals out in anger! He's so little his tantrums make you laugh, but he is also very, very aware of what he is doing and trying to see how we will react. A few days ago he even threw himself on the floor.  We have yet to experience a child like this at such a young age...whew. 

 And here I am feeling like I'm due tomorrow...belly button popped out and stretched to the max! No pressure, just a constant ache in my upper tummy muscles. This makes it especially hard to carry by baby outside the womb right now. But as soon as the baby inside the womb is out, I will be able to hold my sweet Matthias more...I hope.

While God was totally faithful to my first non-medicated birth with Matthias, we are still quite anxious about the birth in 6weeks. It's just so soon! I remember WAY TOO much to want to do it all over again. But I am trying to rest in God's sovereignty and wisdom and remind myself of all the feelings of pure joy and ecstasy I felt after Matthias' birth.

Animal Books that Give Credit to the Creator

My kids, hubby, and I highly recommend these great books! My kids love the "ooo-aw" factor and great pictures, but we love them because they didn't forget to leave out the CREATOR!

(As you can see I copied the pictures from Amazon, but the Davis books were handed down to us from my mother-in-law and I bought the Dinosaur book off of a Christian website.)

November 2011 in a Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Visit Shutterfly.com to create your own personalized photobook.

Parenting in the Pew

I recently finished reading Parenting in the Pew: Guiding Your Children into the Joy of Worship by Robbie Castleman and would definitely recommend it. We began our family in a church that promotes the entire family worshiping together in Sunday morning service, so the ideas in her book weren't shocking but encouraging and supportive.  Castleman had a lot of new points for us to apply with our toddlers as well, and I'd like to highlight some of her ideas and thoughts that might have been new to me or were a reinforcement of our beliefs.

We are teaching our children not to just go to church, but to go to worship. We ourselves need to understand that worship is not for our benefit, but for God's glory. Worship training is important because we want our children to know God and love Him.  We need to enforce in our training how God wants our attention, time, and love and therefore worship is important. p25

Most Sundays I just want to listen and take good notes. Having to train my children during this time is a challenge! However, as Castleman points out, there is only one thing that we will do for all of eternity - worship. I can go into Sunday worship with one of two attitudes: 

1. Sunday morning sermons are the longest hour of the week 

OR 

2. I am providing the very best preparation for eternal joy (21). 

Sunday mornings should be a time of joy and closeness, not strife and estrangement (43). Castlemen says we should announce on Sundays that the very best day of the week is about to begin and we are going to meet Jesus for him to give us a big hug. Making Sundays joyful means preparing for it on Saturday evening (choosing clothes, diaper bag packed, not staying up late, etc). 

Sometimes I would really like for my kids to be able to sit with another family in church to give me a break, but Castleman challenged me with her explanation she would tell her children when they desired to sit with friends.

It is much harder to pay attention to God when you want to pay attention to your friend. 

You will have time later to be with your friend; right now Jesus wants all of our attention 

because he has something to say to us. (p56)

I actually had to use this explanation this morning with Adeline. I also took the approach of maybe she would not be distracted from worship if she sat with her friend, but her friend could be distracted. 

Training children in worship means that you will need to quietly speak to them all throughout the service.  Hopefully you have a congregation that supports you in your efforts. Ask questions and/or make a comment as each part of worship takes place. Make personal applications where ever possible to help the children relate. 

When listening to a music prelude without words, help your children think about what the song makes them think about. For the younger children, give them themes to think about (God's creation, Noah, Jesus feeding the 5,000, etc.). Castleman suggests training for this part in the home with classical music and to not always focus on a spiritual theme but let the kids use their imaginations to tell you what that music invokes in their minds.

Bringing toddlers to worship isn't all about making them be quite and training an externally well-behaved child. We are training their hearts, and therefore coloring books, crayons, and the such can't be brought to worship because in the end you are only producing a quiet and well-distracted child. While at the younger ages this seems a bit harsh, you might as well start early so you don't have an 8 or 10 year old who has yet learn how to worship. We allow the kids to have a piece of paper and a pencil and once the sermon is introduced I try to draw an idea or write a main word for the kids to trace, draw, or write themselves. Castleman suggests that you don't start training until the age of 4. I can see how that is practical, but I don't think it's necessary to not bring in your younger ones. I LOVE CHURCHES WITH CRYING/TRAINING ROOMS!. 

After the service we have started asking questions about a theme/idea/word/illustration used in the service. One of Scott's ideas was to have Adeline make a check mark every time she heard a key word in the message. 

This picture had the key words mal (bad), bueno (good), and Cristo (Christ). She did good job for her first try. I honestly think trying to train them in a worship service in Spanish is more difficult than if it was in English. But recently Adeline has been doing a GREAT job singing along with songs we sing often. Darton has been known to pipe in a word or two himself :)

There is SO much more in Castleman's book to share, so I do hope you pick up a copy for yourself. 

 

Some Pictures for Daddy

We made it to Cabarete and back and I thoroughly enjoyed girlfriend time with Mariah who is heading to Haiti tomorrow for a medical mission trip. They expect to see 300-500 patients in 4 days. Wow!

I have hit 32 weeks and I'm feeling much larger with this one than the others. Let's just say that a swimsuit WITH A SKIRT doesn't even cover the extraness on the backside! I wouldn't have known if my thoughtful daughter hadn't informed me though ;)

 Mariah was LOTS of fun to play with!

 The kids and I enjoyed virgin Mohitos on the beach :)

 Lunch with Mariah

 The cutest naked baby ever! He's my chunkiest baby yet, so we call him "gordito" (little fat boy).

 Many of you moms with multiple kids under the age of 5 know how super tired and achy your body gets the last trimester. This trip would not have been doable without Ana there!

 Stop to stretch our legs on our 3hr drive. 

 Well at least the girls are looking :)

A Phonics Lesson

Here is an example of Adeline learning how to read/spell using the phonics program "Phonics Road to Spelling & Reading." My video space ran out before she was able to read the word. Although sometimes I think that we are learning how to read and spell the hard way, it will end up being the easier way in the long run. Plus phonics teaches a discipline of the mind much like math does. It's another discipline to help my children learn how to logically analyze and think.

Thoughtful Husband and Helpful Gardener

Scott leaves for work on Monday mornings around 5:30a.m., but he managed to get all my coffee stuff ready with a note for me when I waddled into the kitchen at 7:30am. He purposely got out the "best mom" mug and wrote his "y" backwards like he did in his love letters from college. Isn't it a beautiful thing how God puts the perfect two people together?

Darton's most FAVORITE job is to follow Theo around the yard the three days a week Theo works here. It's a boy's dream to have a man figure around to do "manly" things with all day long.  Most days Darton wakes up and says "I'm going to work. I need my work jeans." 

 I took this picture of Matthias because he still has the longest and beautiful eyelashes like the day he was born.

 One of the fun activities we do is story telling.  I bought books with nursery rhymes and nursery tales and laminated all of the characters. We don't have to stick to the original story of course! Scott has recently started making up stories for the kids at bedtime. They love it! Sometimes the story is a true Biblical story, but it makes it so much more fun if daddy tells it rather than reads it.

The kids and I are heading to Cabarete (3hr drive through mtns) tomorrow morning to meet a girlfriend flying in from Dallas. Scott leaves for TX for his brother's wedding on Thursday night and will return Monday night. The kids and I return Friday late afternoon for a LOOOONG weekend without daddy. Don't worry, I'm taking the nanny with me to Cabarete and will be calling in reinforcements as needed on Saturday and/or Sunday. 

This mama's body aches most of the day with little peanut pushing up on my left rib cage, so I have to have lots of help with Matthias. He adores Theo...actually he says Theo's name and NOT mine! Theo has been a huge help recently taking Matthias outside and giving my body a break. Who knew the gardener would be such a big part of my family. "sigh" I wonder what life will be like without him when we leave the DR someday.  I wonder what his life will be like....

Playing church

Two young worshipers.

There is a very neat instrument that takes the place of the drum that Darton is imitating playing here in the video. Things to notice in the video: at the beginning D says to stop singing because it's God's turn to talk and then A randomly thinks she can talk on her pretend cell phone during the song!

5.3 Terremoto

Although Scott was already up and getting dressed for work, I sat straight up in bed this morning at 5:35am because the whole house was shaking. About 2 seconds went by and Scott said, "Get downstairs." We grabbed the keys to the iron door that locks us in upstairs (and intruders out) and as I placed my hand on Matthias' door the earthquake stopped and Adeline and Darton began to cry. We comforted them, Scott left for work, and I went back to bed. There was a small aftershock that took my breath away, but we are all okay.
There really is so little time to think during an earthquake, especially when they happen in the middle of the night. It takes a second to realize what is actually happening. This is the second terremoto in my life I have felt, the first one being in Elko, NV. It also occurred in the early morning hours.
I've been advised that the best place for shelter during an earthquake is near a large and heavy object. When the ceiling falls you want to be near or under an object that will cause the debris to make a triangle around you, giving you a space to survive. This could even be an island in your kitchen, the refrigerator, etc. But honestly a plan needs to be set in place. There really isn't time to think where should you go when everything is shaking around you. I pray that if my family has to experience an earthquake like Haiti, there will be time for me to get my children first.
Thank you God for your protection today.

A Joyful Heart

What do your blessings do when they get angry?  Here's the latest rundown of responses in anger from my household.

When my 5 year old gets mad, she runs away crying.
When my 3 year old gets mad, he pulls his hair, screams, and sits on the floor usually thrashing his legs around. He will also throw anything that is in his hands or bite and pull on his shirt. Oh yes, and let's not forget that he also walks stiff-legged on his toes when he has been asked to move in obedience while being mad.
When my 1 year old gets mad, he bites you or anything he can sink his teeth in to! He's also been known to throw his precious pacifier on the floor in anger as well as yell at you.

And for all my & Scott's family members reading this you are asking, "And you are surprised?" Yes, two strong-willed, stubborn, hotheaded parents can create the exact same offspring :)

Training is not easy. Training the heart is even harder. A sinful parent doing the training can seem like an unattainable goal. BUT God's mercy is wide & deep EVERY MINUTE. And while God's mercy and grace is what ultimately softens my child's heart, we do have a responsibility to shepherd their heart.

My children know the Fruits of the Spirit by song. I pray the Fruits over them and we are constantly talking about bearing them instead of bad fruit. We will be known by our fruit. If you've yet to hear Paul Tripp's Getting to the Heart of Parenting series, go buy it NOW!

Adeline's Fruit of the Spirit tree.

As we have begun this week we are focusing on:

Proverbs 17:22

A joyful heart is like good medicine. 

Beverly Hillbillies meets Ole Susanna

Adeline gave me quite the laugh when she broke out singing this song. Listen carefully and you'll catch words from the Beverly Hillbillies theme song as well as Ole Susanna. Where Sacramento fits in, I'm not quite sure, but it is in CA!