spiritual amnesia...

i have decided this is an affliction that i have to battle more than i'd like to admit. often, i am in church, i hear something in a song or scripture that resonates with me. it gets me thinking about how that applies to me, or perhaps it stirs some conviction in my heart, etc. i can even be moved to the point of tears during a sermon or time of worship...and then often before i even make it all the way home the amnesia strikes. the "i really need to spend some time thinking/praying/reading on that" somehow dissolves with the needs of my children, the piles of laundry, the school responsibilities (another post entirely) and the other stresses that happen to be in my personal/family life right now.

if you read the previous post you can tell that this is kind of an ongoing battle for me at the moment...who i want to be and who i am are worlds apart right now.

New photo

My sister has started to spend more time on her interests with photography...when they were in town we had our little neighbor take a family picture, which is what you see above...don't you love how cooperative lily and jude were? ah, well, at least the rest of us look good!

Help me, working moms

Okay. This post is a plea for help in time management. Whether you're a mom who works at home or out of the home, if you have small children then your time is not your own.

My current situation is that I'm teaching, I try to leave the house between 7 and 7:15 so that I can leave right after school if possible, which puts me home around 4:30ish. Usually I'm dying for an hour break but I don't have long before my kids go to bed, so I play, feed them dinner, bathe them, etc. Jude goes down at 7:30 and Lily at 8:00. Most nights I do have schoolwork that could be done, and so I have to choose between that, hang out time with Justin, alone time for myself, or trying to see a friend and maintain some kind of social life, time to pray/do bible study...you get the point. And honestly, by the time we put Lily down at 8:00 I'm so tired, I could definitely follow within the hour.

I know I'm not the only one...so how have you found ways to "do it all" that you can suggest? I want to do all things well, and I feel like I need some help to do so...

Halloween Pics

Okay friends...I've surfaced once again in blogland to put some updated pics of the kiddies out for yall to see...Halloween was fun this year...went up to a church in the neighborhood, taking along Dr. Lily and our little monkey Jude. Why are they so grown up already???

Pumpkin Patch...sort of

Okay, so the flu has waylaid us this week. Here is our first attempt to do something out of the house...you can see that my children aren't quite back to their normal selves yet...Jude didn't actually have the flu but is fighting sinus infection/ear infection and has three teeth coming in, so he's been a little under the weather too. We might try to get some better pics later but for now...

Haircuts

Last weekend we ventured to the local salon to get haircuts for the kids...here's a few of the shots we got on our not-so-cooperative old school digital camera:

This is Lily's before shot...she's such a nut...


Getting a haircut is serious business and she can't be bothered with trivialities like smiling or chatting. The girl is focused.


Finally, she begins to relax...and yes, I know it's not all that different. But it's not as crazy as it was, and I'm sorry but I can't bear to cut the curls off just yet. So there. By the way, you can see Jude's "before" hair in the background of this shot if you look closely...but don't look too closely as this was not a day when I dressed cute or applied makeup...wasn't planning on making the pictures!


The trick to cutting a 7 month old's hair is to provide a refreshing beverage with which to distract them from trying to grab the scissors or move their head from side to side. You can have that advice for free, friends.

the kiddies

These are two of my favorite pics from the summer...my mischievous daughter with a twinkle in her eye and my chubby cheeked boy with his amazing sweetness...i must confess that while i feel we're on the right track and definitely seeing light at the end of the tunnel in this tough year we've been having, i'm still struggling to take things one day at a time and not be overwhelmed by all that is swirling thru my mind at any given minute. i want to be someone who demonstrates grace and peace despite circumstances. i don't want to snap at my children or my husband. i want to laugh more. i want to rest well when i finally hit the pillow at night. these are my simple requests before the lord this season...i will let you know how he moves...