First week of school

Last week was Mary's first week of (home) school. We call it learning time:) I was nervous about it for some reason...but it went really well. She likes looking at her board and she particularly liked the book The Apple Pie Tree (apples were our theme) so we read it lots! We also did a few activities at her table:
Creation matching game:

Sorting and counting a small bag of m&m's, which she wanted to do again and again

Painting her big A and little a with an alligator stamp


And going through our board each day


We are combining two preschool curriculums: this one and this one. They are both great if any of you ever need an activity to do with your little ones:) It was fun last week...I'm excited to see how it goes from here on out! We have a few friends we meet with once a week so I may have more posts with fun activities we do with them!

birthday party

We had a combined birthday party for Mary and one of her friends at a park nearby. It was such a great day. The kids all did well together, there was a lot of open space for them to run, and the adults enjoyed good food and company! It was crazy to put a #3 candle on the cupcake

She had fun playing games and exercising her favorite pastime: running.



And Noah got to chew on some ice when he got a little hot

She is a joyful and fun little girl. A little sensitive at times, but what girl isn't:) It's an unspeakable privilege to watch her grow.

3 years ago today...

This little lady came into our lives.

Just a recap of when she was one:

And two:

And today she is 3! All her teeth have come in now so thankfully she has returned to her usual sweet self (most of the time). She is very thoughtful: sharing toys with Noah, putting his stuff away for him, helping me pick up if I make a mess, throwing stuff away for me, etc. The other day I dropped some frozen peas and they scattered. I closed my eyes and said a prayer for patience. When I opened my eyes Mary was cleaning up the peas and she said, "uh oh mommy! It's ok." Trains and cars are still her favorite things. She likes to play with puzzles and look at books. She also has the most beautiful and contagious laugh. Running is one of her favorite hobbies. I think she could run all day...if her train tracks weren't sitting there waiting to be played with.
It seems like such a freeing age for me too. Now she will ask if she can go play with something in another room, I'll say yes, and off she goes! And I have enough trust in her to know that I will find her doing what she said she wanted to do. She is fun, caring, and turning into quite a lovely little woman:)

Anniversary Weekend

Last weekend we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary! It's fun to think back about that time, but we both agree we love each other so much more now than we did back then. We for sure wouldn't go back because it just keeps getting better. Here we are on our wedding day:



Oh yeah, Billy the Bengal was at our wedding.

And so was the Virginia reel

At one point last weekend Ian said, "This time five years ago we were in Alaska!" Ah, now THAT I would go back to! It was so awesome.


And finally, here are some pictures from our relaxing weekend together:

Equal

A couple things have come up lately that I feel like I have to get out. A couple months ago my aunt asked me if I ever yell at my kids. My response: I try not to. There may be a time for getting angry, Jesus did in a righteous manner. But I haven't come to it in my parenting and I don't think it should be a regular occurrence. There are also people who can't fathom why anyone would spank and think it is child abuse (I use to be "one of those" people). How can those two things go together?

I picked up a book on Ian's shelf that a friend had recommended to us called God, Marriage, and Family. I was getting a little bored with the first part so decided to check out what he said about spanking since it seems to be a hot topic lately. At least in my brain. I was interested to see what he said since the whole intro of the book is about how he intends to see what scripture says about everything and fully submit to it. Well, I was so irked by his spanking section that it was hard to sleep. First, he lists all the "rod" verses. Then, and I mean literally right after listing them, he talks about how spanking is illegal in some countries and how some people think it should be illegal here. He quotes different reasons people are against it. And finally (and most ridiculous and appalling) he says that because Jesus was so gentle and loving toward kids some people think that his actions abolish spanking. Oh wait, that wasn't the last thing. He then goes on to rank different training tools according to severity and says the punishment must fit the crime.

BLAH! There's just so much wrong with that. Part of me thinks 'what do you know Megan. Did you go to seminary???' But that is not a worthy thought. I may not have gone to seminary but I do have a brain. If his book is based on scripture and under it's authority why doesn't he thoroughly explain those rod scriptures??? And why doesn't he back up statements like "the punishment should fit the crime" from scripture?

I guess I just see things completely differently than this author who obviously has prejudice. We all do in some area. First, I don't really see spanking as a harsh punishment. I see it as a loving (although hard to administer) act, just like the scriptures do (see proverbs 13:24). Second, Jesus was both kind and gentle, and filled with authority, passion, and truth. I both love and train my kids. They aren't mutually exclusive. I am gentle with them even in spanking. We talk about what they did in a calm and loving way. Administer the spanking so that it hurts (why do it if it's not going to hurt???) and then talk about it again, apologize if necessary, and we move on.

And finally (I promise...then I'll shut up) when we find ourselves ranking our children's sins and going through this list of punishments on the "harshness" scale our kids are going to see that. I would never want Mary to think I care more about her physical safety than her spiritual safety. They are both very important to me and I will treat them that way. It terrifies me that she would run into the street and get hit by a car. She does get spanked if she goes into the street without us. She also gets spanked when she doesn't listen and respond to our voice when we ask her to do something. They are equally bad in my mind and I think we see in scripture that sin is sin. (Although I'm not saying all sin effects us equally) Besides, she wouldn't have run into the street in the first place if she had been taught to listen.

Oh, and this brings me to why I wrote the post: how can I be both gentle and loving toward my kids and also spank? Here it is...my kids are equal to me in value and dignity, but they have no authority in this relationship. They are made in the image of God just like me. They have the right to be treated with respect and honor because of that. But God gave me authority in this relationship and nothing can take that away or make it untrue (even if I decided not to do anything with that authority). On judgement day I will stand up and give an account for how I raised my kids and I want to say that I did everything I could to train them in the way they should go (proverbs 23:14, eph. 6:4). I have no control of my kids reactions, but I do have authority to be their parent. The could grow up and be psycho killers, but that will not be the pattern of their lives while they are children living under the authority of their parents (and hopefully not the choice of their lives as the grow either). As I train the behavior now, and more increasingly the heart of Mary, I trust in proverbs 22:6

"Train up a child in the way he should go, And even when he is old he will not depart from it."

13 months

Noah is 13 months now! He has started making A LOT of noise now. Not really many new words, but lots of sounds. I bet he would learn more words if I worked on it with him, but I never really do. My favorite is when he signs all done and says it too. We'll ask him if he's all done and he'll shrug his shoulders and put his hands palms up and say "da da!" I really need to get a video of it because it's hilarious. He's walking all over now and prefers it to crawling, but he still does his spider crawl a lot. He's gotten really fast at the spider crawl, so it's pretty funny to watch legs and arms flailing as he zooms across the floor.

He's become a champion eater like the rest of us! But he still wont eat certain things. Mostly just blueberries, raspberries, and grapes. He just looks at them. If I can get one in his mouth he smiles and eats it, but then wont touch the rest. I don't get it, but I'm sure he will start to eat them eventually because they are yummy! And the molars are slowly making their appearance. One point on one of them is through...the rest are still just huge bumps in his mouth. Poor guy.

Here he is after Mary kicked him out of the car. He came to tell me all about it but the camera was between us cause he's just so cute!

toy drawer

Noah and I were in his room the other day and I was reading my book. I heard him laughing really hard so I looked up and found him here:

I went to grab the camera and he of course climbed out to follow me, but he got back in. That's why he doesn't look as happy as he was in this picture. Whenever he sees the camera it's like he forgets how to smile!

Milk

We love the take n toss cups. They are cheap and work pretty well. But if the kid drops the cup...

The lid might come off just a little so you don't realize it when you hand the cup back to him. Then when he goes to take a drink...

He will be covered in milk. But he will still be a happy camper after. He is a boy after all!

First client

For the first time...I have been hired as a doula! I'm so excited to start this ministry of encouraging and supporting women during this exciting, beautiful and sometimes challenging time of life. God has really been providing for this creative outlet in my life. He provided an awesome mentor doula for me. She is also a homemaker, raising 4 kids and homeschooling while she also works with women as a childbirth educator and doula. We met at Noah's birth and connected pretty quickly. She has been so willing and helpful even though she just had a baby! Then, through the referral of a friend, I have my first client. I'm pumped!

So...this is happening! If you know anyone who desires support in labor (no matter what her desires are for medical/non-medical birth options) send her my way! I can't wait to get this party started!

New videos

We have a couple new videos! The other day Noah started doing this thing where he "fishes" for his cup. It's super cute:


Both of the kids LOVE playing outside. They haven't gotten the memo that it's a million degrees outside. But it stays a little cooler with all the shade in our backyard and they will play for at least an hour which means reading time for mommy and daddy! Here they are enjoying the great outdoors:

Recent reads

I finished the Duggars first book recently. It is SO good! They are such faithful people it's really challenging and encouraging to learn about their lives. And they share in such a humble way. I hope we can be like them as we grow. Maybe not so much in the 19 kids area, but in other ways we very much look up to them and aspire to have a family like that. I highly recommend that book. Also, they talk about a system called managers of their chores. I'm considering getting that product too, but I might create my own thing based on what the Duggars talk about. They have chore packs that each kid gets after breakfast. It's a pack of cards that they flip through until they are done. For younger kids those cards have pictures on them. So you might have cards that say: get dressed, brush your teeth, make your bed, take out the trash in the bathroom, check in with your buddy...etc. I really like their buddy system too. I mean you kind of need that with 21 people around! But it could be a good family building thing even with smaller families. Anyway, it's a great read.

I also just finished a short book called Birth Your Way by Sheila Kitzinger. This woman is a very well known author in the natural birth circle so i was expecting good things from this book. But I wasn't super thrilled. There were some good things about natural breech deliveries and shoulder dystocia, but beyond that it wasn't much new. I guess if you haven't read much about birth options outside of a hospital then it could be informative, but I think there are some much more comprehensive books out there that also include this information. So basically, if you're not training to become a doula, or have no interest in home birth...then this book's probably not for you. It's also old. Not sure why I read it, but it was from the library so no skin off my back!

Deceptively Delicious

I recently started making recipes from this cookbook Deceptively Delicious and I have loved every single one of them! Each recipe contains a vegetable in pureed form. It is a super easy way to incorporate veggies, especially if you make a big batch and freeze. Most of the recipes call for half a cup of pureed veggies, and a muffin cup is about half a cup. So I've made a few batches of pureed veggies and frozen them in muffin tins. Tonight I made meatloaf with carrot and mashed potatoes with cauliflower. You seriously couldn't even tell! I've made a few of her muffin recipes and they are so delicious. Today I made peanut butter banana muffins (with carrots!) and they are so so so good. Ian ate 4 of them before I asked him to stop and told him I made them for breakfast! She also adds a half cup of sweet potato puree to pancake mix (along with some cinnamon) and it is seriously good. My kids eat veggies pretty well...it's ME who hates them. So this cook book has been a God send. There is a recipe for chocolate fondue that is half avocado! I served it to some guys who were over helping with the basement and they said they loved it. Then I mentioned it was mostly avocado. They couldn't believe it.

This book is worth it. And if you can make the trip over to Ollie's in Forest Part it's only like $4. So good!