Just trying to keep my head above water

Every so often it seems like we need a major overhaul around here. Littles grow fast and schedules change - overnight it seems! All this time I've been so frustrated because I would make up a schedule and we would stick with it for a month or two, but then it would all start to fall apart! What made it so bad was that I blamed myself for not having enough self-discipline to stick with it.
The truth is though, all the self-discipline in the world (not that I would know, mind you) is not going to make a 17 month old stick to a schedule you made for 12 month old. And much is going on...school to do (adding Jack in more and more), a tiny garden to plan, pottytraining to begin (is there still no one I can hire to do this?) so some kind of routine is highly necessary.

So I'm working on a new routine with a lot more flexibility built in - taking into account that Christian has given up naps (waaaa!) and that Casey's work schedule is as crazy as ever. It's hard to think while the kids are with me, though. I can't maintain a train of thought while also cheering, answering, refereeing, teaching, admiring and shhhing. Hmmm, this may call for an all-nighter.

My birthday boys

Levi and Jack each had birthdays over the last month. Since it's a party year (we have parties for odd birthdays and experiences for even birthdays), we put together one party just before and one party just after Christmas.


Levi turned 9 and had a Survival Party. I hope to get some pictures soon off of Casey's camera. We had a big tent in the back yard, a campfire complete with extra large campfire marshmallows, and lots of great friends!

My little Jack turned five. He considers himself one of the big kids...not one of the little boys. Even though he and Christian are the same size.

Jack had an Animal Party ("with real animals, mom, not cartoons!")

I ran out of cake baking time and bought a simple undecorated cake from Walmart. A little blue and green frosting and a bunch of Jack's plastic animals made the cake fun.

And now to take a little time off from the birthday party circus until Brenna's birthday this summer!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,
the Millers

JOY swap - show and tell

This was the first time I had taken part in one of Monica and Carrie's Sister Shoebox Swaps and it was sooo fun! My 'sister' was Peggy and it was wonderful getting to know her. She's a mom of boys, too, and we had so much in common!
I had so much fun putting a box together for her, but it was even more fun to get a box in the mail. It came on the day of Levi's birthday party so I wound up saving it to open as a little reward for myself after the craziness.
I loved absolutely everything! Homemade vanilla maple marshmallows, drinking chocolate, beautiful ornaments, tons of crafts supplies! Even whole nutmeg! I especially love the precious little notebook with both lined and graph paper. It's so handy to keep in my purse while I Christmas shopping. There was even a little tea wallet with 4 new-to-me kinds of tea - perfect for a relaxing cup...when I can tear myself away from the chocolate!
Thank you bunches, Peggy, for starting my season off on such a sweet note!

Preparing for Thanksgiving

This is my very favorite Thanksgiving picture. See the mother in the foreground rocking baby with one hand and holding onto the toddler with the other? I relate.
I'm preparing early for Thanksgiving this year since we will be eating at home this year! Casey's side of the family usually eats together at his sister's house, but this year I asked everyone to come to us so that the kids will have the yard to play in (and the toys!). I'm looking forward to it - must be my matriarch complex:)
My mother in law always make the dressing and lots of vegetables so get to do dessert. And I always make a little turkey since not everyone loves it like I do. This year we got two small turkey "roasts" - one to oven roast and one to smoke. And I'm making gravy and mashed potatoes to go with. Plus pumpkin rolls and 2 pies - pumpkin cream and pecan - and a cheesecake. Yum.
So my week should look like this...
Saturday - I made 24 rolls and 3 pie crusts (I only need one for the pecan pie, but the other two will make a nice pot pie with the turkey leftovers).
Monday - today I'm making broth with chicken wings for the gravy, peeling potatoes for make-ahead mashed potatoes and possibly working on the cheesecake.
Tuesday - thaw the turkey roasts, make pecan pie, make mashed potatoes, and the cheesecake. Finish up the gravy.
Wednesday - clean house and decorate, make pumpkin pie, smoke one turkey and brine the other for a little bit. Hopefully I'll also have time to fix up a few things for the kids to do - I love what Monica did for the little ones at her house.
Thursday! - roast turkey, heat up the potatoes and gravy, thaw rolls and bake (soften the butter!), make 3 pitchers of tea, set the tables and put the pie in the oven to warm up just as we sit down to eat.
I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving!

Something to think about

Since Levi accidentally broke my camera the other day, I don't have any pictures to share. But I ran across this very interesting post about boys that I wanted to pass along.

Making My Home a Haven - Thursday

Well, wow. I started this week with a picture of all the projects I was going to cross off my to do list and how neat my house would be...everything in its little place. That's what I pictured when I thought of a haven. But this week hasn't been like that. I haven't actually gotten much done at all - in fact, my house may actually be in worse shape than when I started.

But maybe a neat house and completed projects aren't the only definition of a haven.

Christian's tantrums came to a head this week. He's not terribly vocal for a 3 year old...he can repeat anything we tell him to, he just isn't communicating much that way yet, and I know that frustrating for him. It's frustrating for me, too. Usually we handle the tantrum pretty quickly and move on but this week he and I have been caught in a tantrum spiral. He can't seem to stop himself from screaming and I can't seem to settle him down. It sure didn't seem like a haven around here with a screaming toddler, an edgy mom, and stressed kids. Looking at Christian, I kept thinking of the chapter Monica chose for this week - Psalm 107. He was very much "crying out in his trouble" - loudly! - and I could choose to try to repsond the way that God did, disciplining him for his own good and yet still bringing him out of his distress and blessing him. "They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven." (Psalm 107:30). And at the same time, God is doing all of that and so much more for me! So now, while Christian naps quietly in his own bed, I do "give thanks to the LORD for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for men (and mommies and three year olds!)" (Psalm 107:31).

Making My Home a Haven - Wednesday

A new day! A good night's sleep (well, better than usual anyway!) helps so much. I woke up this morning with renewed determination to create a haven for all of us.
I plan to begin with a few minutes of prayer on my own...probably while I'm getting dressed. Then prayer all together - I think it helps the kids as much as it does me!
I am definitely, like Monica, staying home today. Hopefully, that'll give us all a chance to get caught up. I also plan on starting supper during my morning routine. Supper is probably the worst time of day lately...too much chaos while I try to cook and that spills over well after we all sit down. So today I'm going to make beef stew and bread during the day - no last minute cooking. And I think I will try feeding the baby early so he can just snack with us or maybe even just play with a toy.
And I need to catch up on chores - the laundry and the kitchen especially. But I also want to do something fun with the kids. I'm thinking maybe some apple cider outside and a little extra playtime.
So my plan for the day...

• prayer
• a peaceful supper, cooked ahead of time
• lots of outside play in the fresh, crisp air
• catch up on the laundry and clean the kitchen

then, as I have time....

• complete our school plans for today (school will get done, but I won't stress if we don't finish every little thing on the plan)
• make a menu for next week and a grocery list (Thur is usually grocery day)
• clear my desk
• do a science experiment with the kids

My home was not a haven today...

I saw a lot of areas that need work today...especially the "witching hour" while I fix supper. But plan on spending time tonight praying about it and in the morning I hope to wake with a new attitude and a new plan!

Making My Home a Haven - Fall Edition

I just love it when Monica starts back up with her Make Your Home a Haven series. It seems to always come along just when my home is getting desperate! Here is Monica's post for this week. She's so encouraging!
My morning got off to an abnormal start since I had to run to the library first thing. Our morning routine got off to a slow start! But the afternoon is going nicely so I'm going to pick up where I am...
The first thing Monica recommended was refreshing our own spirit. My quiet time is usually shared with the kids - I just can't squeeze it in without them right now - and we usually read a Proverb to go with the date. Today, though, we read Psalms 107 along with Monica. The kids focused on the idea that no problem is to big for God, while I thought about the haven He provided.
They were glad when it grew calm,
and He guided them to their desired haven. Psalm 107
Calm in house with 5 little ones is hard to come by...impossible without His help. But with Casey working overtime this week, calm is just what we need.
So I'm spending a bit of time this afternoon on planning my week. For today my main goals are to finish our school work for the day, do two loads of laundry, plan the week and cook a yummy supper of chicken pot pie (x2 to put one in the freezer for another night) and salad.

Birthday boys

It's taken me awhile to get our traditional pictures on the steps posted from when my boys had birthdays.
Christian turned 3!

And Baby Luke is a big 1 year old now! Please ignore the giant bruise in the middle of his forehead. Learning to walk is tough!

Cornerstones - An Organized Woman

This chapter is taking us a little longer to work through! Apparently I had a lot of work to do in this area:)
One project, convienently enough, was to plan a birthday party while sticking to a budget. Brenna had so much fun helping me with the party for Christian and Luke. I really enjoy planning parties, but I must not always show it because Brenna asked me several times if I liked doing so much "work." I assured her that I do love planning special things for my family and remembered to smile a lot more!
I also organized our school materials and two storage closets. The decluttering is firmly underway!
I do have one more project from this chapter for this week - organizing the kids clothes. It's just about time to switch over to fall/winter clothes and that will be soooo much easier with clean, organized closets to start from.

Birthdays!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Christian and Luke both had birthdays - Christian turned 3 and Luke was 1! - so we split the difference and had a Vintage Toys party for both of them. It was so much fun! I got a lot of inspiration from this darling party, but I like to keep things simple and I didn't want to completely blow my budget ($40 for the whole party!).

Invitations were made with "borrowed" scrapbook paper and stamps. "Borrowed" because I could not find anything in town that I liked and no time or inclination to shop out of town.

These cookies were every bit as much fun to make as they were to eat! And they were really yummy!



I bought myself a cookie jar to use for the party...and because I think mommies should get a present, too.



I found alphabet charts at the dollar store and thought they were suitably "vintage."



The cake was red velvet on the inside...

Luke enjoyed it.

Christian enjoyed the presents...except for the ones he was scared of. We don't know why - he loved them later:)

The New School Year - 1st Day Pictures

I love taking first day of school pictures. I always take them in the same corner of the kitchen so I can see how they've grown.

Brenna - 2nd grade

Levi - 3rd grade

Jack - Pre-school

A Wise Manager

Reading, c.1865 by Jerry Barrett

For my Cornerstones project this week I decided to work on the chapter A Wise Manager. The first project in every chapter is to study and memorize scripture so I thought I would share a few of the scriptures.

Proverbs 12:24

Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in slave labor.

(in my own words....Excellence in your work leads to influence, but laziness leads to dependence on others.)

Ecclesiastes 4:9

Two are better than one, because the have a good return for their work.

(in other words...many hands make light work!)

Another project was to list all of a mother's (my) jobs and highlight the ones that could be delegated (or partially delegated) to children. That was eye opening. With a little training, the kids could be contributing so much more than they are. And not only would our home run more smoothly, it would also keep them out from in front of the TV. Always a plus:)

The New School Year - Our Morning Board

I wanted to try this out for awhile before I bragged on it, just to make sure it worked as well as I thought it would. But now that we've been back to school for a month, I can say it's definitely a hit!

I know I saw the idea somewhere and I wish I could remember exactly where to give credit...

We call it our morning board and it's just one of those wonderful foam project boards that I turned into a calendar with plenty of clear pockets to hold various things we're working on. Everything that isn't in a plastic pocket is laminated with shipping tape.

The pockets are sheet protectors cut to fit or, for the smaller ones, mini photo album pages. They hold cards with our name and address (mostly for Jack to memorize), catechism questions we're memorizing, our Bible card for the week (from Veritas Press - I love these cards and wanted to be able to see them through out the day), the kids' Bible verse for Sunday School, and President flash cards. As we go through the year I'll change things out to reflect new things we want to memorize or read about.

It's so helpful to have the little things that didn't exactly fit in a subject all in one place. And memorizing is so easy when you go over it every day - I'm even remembering things!

My baby girl turned 6!

I'm working my way back from my (unannounced) summer blog hiatus. While I was "gone," Brenna turned six year old. I'm amazed at how grown-up she seems lately and reminded of how fast this time with her is flying by. She's truly lovely and so sweet. I'm so grateful to be her mommy.

A New Project...for me

I stumbled upon this book, Polished Cornerstones, at the homeschool booksale in May. I had seen it online before, but it seemed like something we might use when she's older and it was $48 so I didn't consider buying it right now. For $5 (in NEW condition) at the sale, though, I picked it up just to browse through. After all, I did commit to focusing on raising my young lady this year.
Well, I'm just now getting to really look it over and I love it! It's easily worth the original price. There are literally years of projects in this book for girls from preschool on up. Each chapter (and I think I counted 52) deals with a character trait or skill set and has between 25 and 50 projects to choose from. Everything from "A Patient Woman" or "A Woman Who Handles Money Wisely" to "A Modest Woman" and "A Teaching Woman." Some of the projects will be do-able even for non-readers and some are better suited for young women. All of them are adaptable and it's easy to pick and choose. Brenna and I could easily go through the book over and over again as she grows and, if she were to ever have a little sister (maybe, one day), she could use the book, too.
Actually, reading through it, I was wishing I'd had a book like this growing up. But it's never too late! SO I'm going through and picking out projects for myself as well. I'm hoping to get a project done every week between now and Thanksgiving...and maybe I'll get some batteries for my camera so I can share some pictures!

Brenna's dollhouse

For Brenna's birthday she asked for a bike and a Barbie guitar (thank you, Grandma!), but I had lots of other ideas. She had lots of dollhouse furniture that she loves to play with, but she had long since outgrown her toddler-sized dollhouse. I'm hoping to get her a collectible dollhouse kit when she gets a bit older, but she needed something to play with now. So in my internet research I ran across this. Adorable and just what I wanted, but did you catch that price tag? So I kept browsing. And browsing. Until I came up with this. I started cutting out pictures to hang on the walls, but I only did a few because I knew Brenna would have definite ideas about what she wanted so she is adding to it (already she's had me cut some fabric to make tableclothes and rug, make a couch, draw a fireplace and make a tv (but she drew the show). I kind of want to make one for myself now, but Brenna says she'll share.

Time to catch up...

Even for me, it's been awhile since I posted. We've been busy, busy, busy over the last month and a half. We wrapped up school for the year and we're taking the whole month of June off to catch our breath. Since summer is so miserably hot, I'm planning to start next year in July, right after the 4th, and take a few weeks off in August/September. The weather then should be perfect for some little trips and lots of playing outside. Almost accidentally, I managed to work out our calendar for next year so that we have some time off around every child's birthday (except Jack who still will get his big day off).


While we've been off, we've been busy relaxing:) Casey had some time off to go with us to Dauset Trails and Indian Springs! It was so good to get away even just for a little bit all together. We will definitely have to plan another trip!

The kids and I took another short trip with my family to the beach. We had a wonderful time with my parents and grandparents and favorite sister. As a kid, I was blessed to get to spend a lot of time with my grandparents and I'm always so thankful for my kids to get to do that, too. We attempted to take some family pictures on the beach, but some of us were less than cooperative...

We did get some good pictures, though, and we had a great time. Watching the kids see the ocean for the first time was so good for me. I was surprised at how refreshing even a short trip could be - we may have to squeeze in another quick trip before too long! And I'll definitely have to post some more pictures later.

And now I'm ready to jump back into life at home. I have so much planning still to do for next school year. I'm so excited about everything we're going to study! And I'm debating about squeezing in a yard sale. I would love to haul everything to the Salvation Army and be done with it, but our thrift stores are terribly disorganized - tons of good clothes get sold for rags because they simply don't have the manpower to sort it all. So I would rather have a yardsale with extremely good prices and just donate some of the money. I'm just trying to decide if I have a free Saturday and if the kids will need to be relocated:)
We still have fun stuff planned. Father's Day, Brenna's birthday, VBS and the fourth of July are coming right up, after all. I'm already looking forward to the relative slowness of our school schedule!