In my first post, we discussed the importance of our own prayer life, and how it is to be an example to our children as we try to lead them in learning to speak with the Lord themselves. In this post I’d like to discuss a good time to teach your children to pray: When in need.

We all have needs, and we all get into sticky situations where we really could use a “hand”. Even our children experience times when they feel like they need to ask for help. And as our children observe what we do in a “bad” situation, they will subconsciously learn from our example as to how they should react in similar circumstances. If we freak out and panic, this is what they will learn to do. They will grow up, and when life throws them a curve ball they will become fretful and full of anxiety, wondering how they will ever get through such a crisis in their life. But if we teach them to lean on a Higher Power, and to put their trust in the Lord (where it rightfully belongs), then they will learn to give their burdens to the Lord and trust whole-heartedly that they will be taken care of. Imagine the relief and stress-free minds of those who have no worry for the future. Isn’t this the peace that we want for our children? Shouldn’t we want this for ourselves as well?

When things aren’t going your way in life, how do your children see you react? Do you get angry and yell or say ugly things? Do you wallow in self pity, wondering why things always go so badly for you? Or do you lift your voice toward heaven and call upon the Lord for help? You may think that your children are sitting obliviously in the backseat, but believe me, they are watching, they are listening, and they are learning.

I’d like to share a story with you:

We had just moved into a new condo in town. Me and Jada, then three years old, were home alone while my husband was away at work. I was about 6 months pregnant with baby Titus. It was a beautiful, sunny day so I decided to take Jada out on the back deck to play for a little while. There was an ugly sticker on the outside of the kitchen window that I thought I’d work on scraping off while Jada played, so I grabbed a chair and a razor blade to work with and we made our way out the sliding glass door.

As soon as I closed the door behind us I heard a horrible sound… “Click”; it was the lock, sliding into the locked position! I immediately tried to open the door up again, but just as I had feared, it was not budging. We were locked out. Now, it wouldn’t have been so terrible, but this wasn’t just any sunny day, it was sweltering! The deck was in full sun, and we were absolutely baking in it’s fury. My cell phone was inside on the kitchen counter, and hubby wasn’t due to come back home for another 5 hours!

Instantly my mind began to race as I brainstormed my possible options. Jada, who had heard my nervous “Uh-Oh”, was watching, wondering what Mommy was going to do. I wasn’t freaking out, not yet at least. I’m not one to panic very easily. I calmly told little Jada, “Well, we’re locked out. Let’s see, what can we do…”.

I looked around, hoping to see somebody who might be able to help us. Nobody, not a single person in sight. The decks being on the backside of the condos, facing woods, nobody would see us unless they were behind the building. I thought about using something to reach across the gap to the next condo’s window to see if I could tap on it and get somebody’s attention, but I noticed that the neighbor’s car was gone, and I knew no one was home.

My next thought was that maybe I could climb down and go for help. I looked over the railing down the 10 ft. drop, trying to find something that might help. I seriously considered climbing over the side, and shimmying down the posts. I really didn’t want to do that though, being so far along in the pregnancy. It would have been really dangerous. And besides, I wasn’t sure what I would do about little Jada being up there all by herself, and I didn’t want to leave her to go find somebody. So that idea I saved as a last resort.

I paced, racking my brain. I felt out of options. I could not think of anything else that I could do. I told Jada that we needed to pray. I told her that we needed help, and that I wasn’t sure what to do. So, we prayed. As Jada listened, I begged the Lord to help us get back to safety. I prayed that He would show me the way to get us back inside. After I prayed, I felt calmed, and renewed.

Then, I had an idea.

The small kitchen window, several feet up, was facing just over the deck. I looked up at it, and prayed once again out loud, “Please Lord, please let this window be open!” I did not think it was. Being new in the neighborhood, and not being used to living in a busy town, I was extremely paranoid. The first night we moved in, I had gone around and made sure that all of the doors and windows were locked before going to bed. I was sure that I had locked this window as well. But I had to try. I pulled that chair that I had so conveniently brought out with me up to the house, just below the window. I got out the razor blade that I also happened to have grabbed and as I stood on the chair, used it to pry the screen off the window. Then, with pleading prayers that the window would open, I tried to slide the sash…

It moved. It opened! I could not believe it. The window slid open! I was overcome with relief! Okay, that was good. But the next trick was getting in through it. I considered raising Jada up and through the window so that she could let me in. But being so small still, it would have been hard for her to get down off the tall counter top, and the sliding door was heavy, and would have been difficult for her to pull open. I wasn’t sure she would be able to do it. I thought about having her call her Daddy once she got in, to have him come and open the door for me. But I didn’t want to bother him at work, and I didn’t want her to be inside by herself for so long. I decided I had to try to squeeze in myself.

Now, I’m pretty short. Just barely over 5′ tall. And even with me standing on the chair, the window was still above me. And it was a very small, sliding window. I wasn’t sure I could fit my big pregnant belly through it. But I decided that I must fit. The Lord would not have let this window be open for nothing. So, I pulled myself up and squeezed through the narrow opening. I made it! Once inside, I climbed down off the counter top, and opened the door to let my poor little, red cheeked, sweaty daughter inside into the cool air conditioning once again.

I was elated! As I opened the door to let Jada in I yelled “Thank you Lord! Thank you! Thank you!” And I exclaimed to Jada how thankful we were that the Lord had helped us. She was very excited as well, and joined in my praising. I immediately saw the opportunity to teach, and explained the whole situation to her:

“Baby, do you know what happened? We were stuck, weren’t we? That door locked us out, and we were really stuck outside! But what did we do? We prayed, didn’t we?! And the Lord heard our prayers! He helped us, didn’t he?! He made that window be open, and we had the chair that we needed to climb in, and he answered our prayers! Isn’t He wonderful? Thank you Lord! Thank you for helping us!”

I went on to explain that any time we are in trouble, any time that we need help with something and don’t know what to do, we should pray, because God always hears our prayers, and is faithful to answer them.

I know she understood. And she learned a very valuable lesson. I know the Lord allowed that situation to happen to give me an incredible tool for my child. I was so glad that she was able to learn something about prayer that day. And I know she understood because for the next week, every time we had trouble with something, she would stop and pray right there that God would help us. When my car wouldn’t crank I heard her little voice in the backseat say, “God, please help Mommy’s car to start. Amen.” How precious that was! And you know, when the car did finally start, we were able to give Him the praises He deserves.

So, my hopes in telling you all about this is to challenge you and your reactions to hard times. The next time a crisis occurs, or a troubling situation arises, stop and think for a moment that maybe the Lord is opening a door for you to use this as a teaching opportunity for your child. Instead of freaking out, blaming God, or crying in self pity, use this chance to show your child the power of prayer.

I am sure He won’t disappoint you!

And then, teach them to give Him the praises He so richly deserves.

Here is a good little memory verse to teach your child:

“If one of you is having troubles, he should pray!” James 5:13.

It’s finally here! Tomorrow is moving day. 8 months of working on this house and finally we are ready to move in. We still aren’t completely finished with the fixin’ up. But, we are close enough that we can get in and finish up the rest while we’re living there. Since many of you enjoyed my “before and after” pictures, I thought I’d share a few more with ya. I’m very proud of them If you didn’t catch my first post about our “repo” home, and before and after pic’s of the living area, check it out!

Okay, so here are a few more for ya:

Before: Master bedroom

See how nasty it was?! Obviously the carpet had to go! Lucky for you this blog doesn’t come with “smell-o-vision”… yuck!!

After:

Clean, new carpet. We pulled the strips off the walls, filled the holes, and painted them a nice neutral shade. Add some new trim, a fan, and it’s set!

Before: Bedroom #1

All I can say is “Blah”!

After:

This is going to be Titus’ new room. These colors might look crazy, but when I put in his bed set, with the pale yellow bedding, it will really look nice! My dad and I put up the chair rail and new baseboards (He cut; I nailed, caulked, and painted). Check me out:

You didn’t know I was so handy, did you

Before: Bedroom #2

Nasty, nasty, nasty!

After:

If you couldn’t tell by all of the girlyness, this is Jada’s new room. I free-hand painted butterflies and flowers around the boarder. It took me forever, but I love the outcome! And the fan I just adore. I had been eyeing it for months, and one day I went into Lowes to look for other things, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw the exact same fan on clearance for $40! I was so excited, and scooped it up immediately!

Here’s a closer shot of some of the detailing:

Jada loves her new room.

Before: Master Bath

Check out the floral wall paper!

It had potential…

After:

Much better. Though I still need a new mirror to hang there on the wall.

Nothing major. Just some new vinyl flooring, and paint on the walls. (Not to mention some elbow grease!)

Before: Bath #2

Who puts carpet in bathrooms anyways?

After:

This green will look great with my beige and white dragonfly shower curtain. I’m kinda wishing I’d gone with a different vinyl flooring, but oh well…

Before: Dining Area (Sorry it’s so dark!)

Filthy carpets. Mud splattered walls. Dark and dingy.

After:

Much better!!

So, that’s all I have to share for now. I don’t have good pic’s of the kitchen or den yet. When they are done I’ll update this post to show them too. The kitchen is HUGE though, compared to my little trailer kitchen that is. Can’t wait to show it to you as well.

Anyways, I guess I better go now. I still have lots of packing to do for tomorrow. It will probably be another week or so before we are settled and I have my office space back together again. I’m so excited to finally be moving in!!

Yippee!!

Your blogging buddy,

I am SO SORRY that I have just disappeared for so long! I totally didn’t mean to just drop off the face of the earth. I’ve just been extremely busy with things around here. I’ve decided that until we are moved into the new place, and settled, I won’t be doing much more blogging. Once we get all situated I will be back at it again though, so don’t leave me forever I’m hoping that we will be moved into the new place in two more weeks. Hopefully! I wanted to share a before and after picture with you guys of my new living room area. We still aren’t totally finished with everything. I still have painting to do, and baseboards to put up. But we are very close to being done! After 7 long months of mostly do-it-yourself remodeling! Check it out:

BEFORE:

Notice how NASTY it was?! Evidently the previous owners let a couple big dogs run in and out throughout the home and they tracked red mud everywhere. It was even splattered all over the walls! Along with who knows what else. Yuck! And that strange platform built underneath the windows… what was up with that?

AFTER: (well, almost done…)

Much better, right?! Yes, I painted those walls. And my dad pulled out that hideous platform thingy. But we did hire a professional to do the laminate floors. I wasn’t about to try to mess that up! So, it’s coming along. I’m very excited about finishing up, and finally being able to move in!

So, that’s a little taste of what’s been going on around here. I’ll share more with you guys later, when I can. Hopefully it won’t be much longer before I’m back at blogging again.

Miss you guys!

As parents, we all make mistakes. Even from infancy a seemingly innocent practice can lead to a really hard habit to break in a very short time. Fortunately, if we start early we can avoid a few common mistakes that parents make which can easily create bad habits in our children. Now, these are not behavioral problems that would warrant discipline. I’m simply talking about kids doing things that aren’t so cute after a while. Here are a few things that I have tried to avoid in my own journey as a Mother, things that reinforce bad habits in children. Some I have had to learn the hard way!

1. Letting your child sleep in the bed with you.

Now, before I get a bunch of comments from all of you who co-sleep, let me explain myself. I don’t see anything wrong with responsibly sleeping with baby. I did it with both of mine for the first three months, and it was wonderful. It becomes a problem, however, when you allow baby to sleep with you for much longer than this. The longer baby sleeps with you, the harder it is for him/her to learn to sleep independently. I’ve seen it lots of times. And, sorry to say it, most of the time the co-sleeping continues because for Mom it’s easier, or it just feels good. This is selfish. You are developing insecurity in your child. And believe me, the longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be to stop the habit.

I had a single-mom friend who had her little girl in the bed with her from the time she was born. By the time her child was 3 years old, Mom was ready to have her bed back. But by then, the habit had been long nurtured, and wasn’t going to go away so easily. For many nights she tried laying her daughter down in her own bed, but by the middle of the night, the little girl had wandered back into Mommy’s bed where she stayed until morning. If Mom tried to put the girl back in her own bed, she cried and screamed and fought until her exhausted mother gave in. The frustrated Mom didn’t know what to do, and the poor little girl didn’t understand why all of a sudden she wasn’t allowed to sleep in the comforts of Mommy’s bed as she always had. Sleeping in a whole different room, in a cold and lonely bed (in her mind), was too intimidating for the toddler.

It is so unfair for you to do this to your child. So, start off right by forming good sleeping habits early. Co-sleeping for breastfeeding or whatever early on is great. But by 3 months a baby can sleep 8 hours through the night. Don’t make it harder for your child then it has to be. Teach them to be able to comfortably go to sleep on their own, in their own bed. Believe me, you’ll all get a better night’s sleep!

2. Using “White Noise” to help your child go to sleep.

When you put your baby to sleep, don’t debilitate him/her by creating a sleep crutch. Insisting that you turn on a fan, white noise machine, music, or some other sound in order to help your child go to sleep faster is only creating a bad habit. I’m not saying that you should NEVER do it. There are times, like when you have noisy guests over, or are at somebody else’s house, when using a pleasant sound is good for helping to drown out the background noise that would otherwise keep baby awake. But you should put your child to bed without a noise for the majority of the time, so that he learns to put himself to sleep in the silence of his own room.

My husband is a prime example of this. He simply cannot go to sleep without a fan or something creating a low humming sound. If we sleep somewhere away from home, where there is nothing to make a white noise, he tosses and turns and goes crazy in the silence.

My dad also told me of a man on his softball team who has this same problem. Every time they have a game out of town, this man brings a small fan with him, just so he can go to sleep. There is no reason to create this stumbling block in your own child’s life.

3. Using a baby wipes warmer.

Sure it sounds like a pleasant thing to wipe your new little baby’s soft tushy with a soft, warm baby wipe. And I’m sure that baby loves the feeling of it. But what happens when you are out to eat and you have to change baby in the bathroom using a little pack of room temperature travel wipes. I’ll tell you what happens. Baby is suddenly shocked at the cold thing wiping her bottom, and cries in protest wishing for the cozy warm wipes that she’s so used to.

I’ve never had a baby cry about being wiped with baby wipes right out of the box when that was all they had ever known. There is no need to create this habit of needing to have warmed up wipes. In my mind, it’s simply overindulgence, and when reality hits baby is confused and upset.

4. Allowing your child to carry around a special blanket or stuffed animal everywhere you go.

Limit it to bedtime only. If you allow your child to carry his special thing around with him everywhere you go, you create several problems: If you forget to bring it in the car with you, you will have to deal with your child being upset about not having it. If you accidentally leave it out wherever you were, your child will be devastated to have lost it. And, your child will become dependent on this thing to bring him comfort throughout the day. You want to teach your child to depend on the Lord, not on material things.

** Let me say it again; some of you seem to be misunderstanding, or just not completely reading what I’ve written. I’m not against a child having a comfort item. My own little one has a special blanket that he would carry everywhere if I let him. My suggestion is merely not to allow them to form the habit of carrying it around with him every single place he goes.

5. Feeing your child off your plate.

Seems innocent enough, right? But I promise you, if you begin feeding your child off of your own plate every now and then, you will soon create a little beggar. You will not be able to sit down for one little snack without your little one toddling over, climbing up in your lap, and begging for a bite of whatever you have. You will never be able to eat in peace again if you start this habit! If you think your child is hungry, sit him down at the table with his own plate of food to eat from.

6. Never making your child drink plain water.

For whatever reason, when we would run out of juice I would always find myself apologizing to my daughter as I handed her a cup of water saying, “I’m sorry baby. We don’t have any juice. We only have water.” When one day it dawned on me… what a terrible message I was sending her! I should never be apologizing for giving her such a wonderful drink as the one that the Lord intended to quench our thirst. After that revelation, I decided I was not going to buy juice any more. I started giving my children cups of ice water instead, and now they love it, and even ask for it! Drinking water is a wonderful habit to instill in your child, so don’t feel bad about it!

7. Cutting the crust off the bread; always peeling apple slices.

Just because you didn’t like eating the crust when you were a kid doesn’t mean that you should start this habit in your own kids! You are only creating picky eaters. If they don’t like it, they can eat around it. You have too much to do in a day, you don’t need to waste your time slicing the crust off a sandwich! The same goes for peeling apples. Unless it’s for your baby who can’t chew up the peeling yet, let them eat around it it they don’t like it.

These are just a few innocent mistakes that we all easily make with our children. I’m sure there are a billion more that I haven’t mentioned. But just keep in mind that it’s easier to create bad habits then to break them. The point of this post is to encourage you to avoid these problems, and fix them if they have already begun, before they get out of hand and become a nuisance.

If you want to share any tips or stories that you may have about creating bad habits in our children, I’d love to hear from you! I’m sure there is a lot that I can learn from you as well!

It’s that time again! Time for another week of minimizing our homes… clearing out the clutter in order to free our homes from the burden of too much stuff!

I feel like I should take today’s post to explain the point of Minimizing Mondays for the newbies. This isn’t meant to simply be motivation to organize your things. What this is about is living with less! Not simply clearing out a junk drawer, but actually getting rid of things that are taking up space in your home but serving no real purpose, yes, even possibly things that you like but don’t necessarily need. I am here to inspire you to let go of the material things in your home that are cluttering up your life and taking valuable time away from your family.

Let me explain that. Having tons of clothes leads to piles and piles of dirty laundry to wash. Cabinets overloaded with cups, dishes, and tupperware containers cause you to waste time digging through them looking for one particular item. Shelves lined with doo-dads and whatchamacallit’s take plenty of time dusting and cleaning around. An excess of kid’s toys all over the floor… how many times do you clean them up every day? All of these things, when in overabundance, cause waste of time in our lives. I am urging you to rethink what you actually NEED in your home, not just what you like to be able to say you HAVE.

So, when I give a challenge, it is not merely to organize what you have (though it is wonderful to have your things nice and tidy and in their place), I am provoking you to rethink what you actually keep in your home and allow to take up space in your life. So don’t just rearrange the shirts in your closet… get rid of half of them! Don’t simply find a creative way to store the ridiculous amount of toys in your home… donate the majority of them, your kids won’t die, I promise!! Getting the gist of it? Less, less, less!

LIVING WITH LESS!! Free yourselves of the material burdens in your life! Give your time back to your family and kids and off of these things that distract you in little ways every day. Now, go for it!! I want to hear what you think and how you’re putting these thoughts into action in your own home! Let’s continue inspiring each other to have less and live more!!

Although I’ve been teaching Jada really since she was an infant, now that she is technically “school age” I really want to make sure that I’m giving her a well-rounded education. I’ve been searching for a good First Grade Curriculum, as Jada is already pretty much through Kindergarten level academics. I’m just not even sure where to begin! There are so many different curriculums and publishers, I just can’t tell which one would be good for her. I’ve searched Homeschool forums for advice, but I haven’t found any help.

So, I thought I’d throw the question out there for you, my faithful friends. If any of you have homeschooled, or are homeschooling K-1st grade, do you have any advice for me? I’ve been just printing stuff off the internet, using worksheets from activity books, and pretty much just making up her lesson time as I go. I’d like to have a consistent curriculum for her, one that I know will be thorough.

She is already reading, writing her letters and short words, counting to 100 and doing simple addition. I’m just not sure where to go from here.

Can anyone tell me what I need to be teaching her for K-1st grade?

Do any of you have any suggestions on which books are the best for each subject? I’ve heard that some publishers are better in one subject than another.

Any good websites for printable worksheets??

Hopefully some of you might be able to help guide me along!! Thanks so much for any advice you can offer!

Sorry guys, I’m gonna have to skip Minimizing Monday today. I’ve had entirely too much to do lately! I’ve been painting my new house until midnight for the past 5 nights in a row, trying to pick up the painter’s slack so the carpets can be installed tomorrow. I’m DYING to be able to move into our home! Anyways, it’s after 1am, and I’m exhausted, so I won’t be writing anything new for today. But, if you need some inspiration you can always catch up on past Minimizing Monday’s. Perhaps there is one that you missed! And if you did any minimizing today, I’d still love to hear all about it in my comments section! Thanks for your understanding

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You may remember my post My Toy Box Overfloweth! a while back, well, I thought I would post it again in honor of Minimizing Monday, for all of you who still need some encouragement to tackle your own toy box.

Go ahead and say it, I know you’re thinking it. It’s what I thought too, Oh my goodness! That’s ridiculous! How in the world did my kids get SO MANY TOYS? And believe me, I’m a purger. This isn’t because I’ve been hoarding everything. These are the things that have just accumulated in toy boxes and baskets. It’s time to DE-CLUTTER! I’m tired of the kids pulling EVERYTHING out, and then them being overwhelmed when it’s time to clean up the mess. I’m taking this thing by the horns.

So, I went through the house and found every toy that I could find. I know it’s not all of them, some are in my mother-in-law’s basement for storage, but unbelievably all of these toys were hiding in the corners of my humble home. So, I spread everything out (while the kids slept of course), and began the daunting task of separating into boxes: TO KEEP, NOT TO KEEP. As I went along, I found it to be harder than I thought. Emotionally I mean. As I sorted I found myself wanting to keep more than I had intended. The problem is that my daughter really does play with most of the things I wanted to oust. What do I do? Do I get rid of them just because there are too many? She honestly has a good time playing with them. And then there were the toys that she used to play with a lot when she was younger, but now has grown out of. Baby boy might like to play with them when he gets a little bigger, so I decided to keep them too. Oh, decisions, decisions!

So, I ended up keeping some, boxing some up to sell, and boxing some up to store. I guess this is a good compromise. Initially I thought, I will let my daughter keep 10 toys, and get rid of the rest. Well, it didn’t quite work out so nicely. I have a love for educational toys, so most of what I kept are “lesson time” teaching toys. That’s okay, right? I did let my daughter go through her My Little Pony collection, and choose only 3 to keep of the tons that she had. Surprisingly, she happily chose her three, very decidedly I must say, and had no problem with me getting rid of the rest. Good for her.

So, here’s what I boxed up. These boxes were actually quite big, though they don’t look it in the picture. Stuffed animals…see ya! Small toys, almost all are gone. All of the Fisher Price Little People things were sold on Craigslist. And a select few toys remain.

Need some more tips to clear out the toys? Free your home from it if:

• it is broken, or missing pieces (puzzles especially!).
• it hasn’t been played with in a while.
• you have more than one.
• there is something in your home that could double as a toy like it (ie: cookie cutters for play dough accessories).
• you can take it to grandma’s house for junior to play with there.
• your child can honestly live without it (they truly don’t need so many toys, so even if your child still plays with it, consider keeping only a few select favorites.)

Now it’s your turn, and I would LOVE to hear how you did! Just write a post on your blog, and then link back here to share with the rest of us, or you can tell us all about your job well done in the comments section. And as always, you are welcomed to share with us any other way that you have minimized your home as well. Encouraging each other to simplify our homes, one section at a time! Thanks for joining in!

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