First Day of School

Landon has not been very excited about school. He is a smart cookie and I think he realizes that his days of carefree video gaming are over (until college...well, and maybe summer breaks!). :-)

Today was his first day of kindergarten as a Teravista Tiger. He woke up right on time, and after only telling me once or twice that he wasn't going and he was too tired and seven hours was too long, he got dressed in his new Batman shirt, gathered his things, and I took him to school to eat breakfast. Our little friend, Madison, met us in the cafeteria, and we took her to her classroom first, and then went on to Landon's room. His teacher, Mrs. Goertz, greeted us, and had playdoh out on the tables for the kids to play with. Landon went right over to his table and sat down. My "Mr. Independent" was ready to go....see ya, Mom...thanks for five years of fun....now it's off to the "real" world to learn to read and write and all that other good stuff. ;-)

Lincoln, Leia, and I picked him up after school and he was in good spirits. He said the best part was free time where he got to play with blocks and playdoh. He also liked PE and recess. His teacher said, "it was an okay day for the first day of kindergarten." Hah! She has a challenging job, to say the least, and I'm already trying to show her we appreciate her by bringing her treats. The boys helped me make cookies tonight that we will bring tomorrow, and today we brought some Avon treats and a Sonic drink after school. I'm all about bribery and giving gifts and treats is my preferred way to encourage others and show them I care.

addicted to instagram

it's so fun to play with...and I check the app way too often to see what other people I am following have posted (this is just another confirmation for me that I would waste way too much time and be way too voyeuristic if I had a Facebook page).Here are some recent pics.

more on Ministry of Motherhood

Most Gracious Lord,
Help us remember, in all the moments of our days, that taking time to cultivate a close relationship with our children is what will open their hearts for you. Give us strength and grace to listen to their dreams, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to make ourselves available for their needs. Help us to remember that they want our attention more than our service. Thank you that you make yourself available to people and that you always make time for each of us.
Amen. -From Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson

...my kiddos want my attention more than my service...ouch. the way I show love is to serve...and I'm not so good at giving quality time. ouch. I am convicted that I prefer to take care of the "needs" of cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc, and not give much undivided attention. I have "attention deficit disorder" of the mommy variety. After just a few minutes of legos or reading books or imaginary play, I am bored and thinking of all the household tasks I could do, or e-mails I want to write or check...and so on. I fear that my children will not have many memories of my just playing with them and loving on them with quality time and focused attention. Oh sure, I know they will remember all of the fun outings and play dates I plan and take them too, but I am much better at getting out and doing activities with them than I am with staying at home and playing. Guessing maybe there are a few other moms out there that can relate to this....think it is mostly my sinful selfishness rearing up again, among other sin issues, but this chapter and prayer in the book made me pause and reflect and realize that I can do better, and in trying to give more attention and model Christ, perhaps the relationship that I build will help open my kiddos hearts to Christ. And that, is worth all of the lego sessions in the world. I will play "piggy" and "doggy" and "super heroes" til I am blue in the face if I can "see" the bigger picture of their eternal salvation and my role in guiding them and leading them to Christ...it just keeps slipping away and getting blurry as I focus on the practical needs...so easy to lose that bigger picture

Mission and Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson

I've been on a reading kick lately. Started with the lovely trip to Cancun, and I've been devouring books ever since. And, if you know me, you know that I can go through a book in about three hours, and I've been reading every night for the last few nights, and during the day when I can, especially if I have a book on the kindle app on my phone (side note, I LOVE the kindle app and I think ebooks and kindles are great, EXCEPT for the fact that you can't share the books when you are done, and I never re-read a book and usually pass on the ones that I have enjoyed. now, they have added a "loan" feature, but the publisher has to approve it and allow it, and out of 15 or more kindle books I "own", only one can be loaned and this one for only 2 weeks to one person and that is it! so, that is my beef with kindle and I am sure the nook is the same...anyone have any ways around this? I would purchase ebooks all of the time if I could loan them to others and pass on the reading love).

So, recent favorites have been Divergent by Veronica Roth, and the "Uglies" series by Scott Westerfeld (all of these are dystopian lit of the young adult genre). In the non-fiction realm, I completed The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson shortly after Cancun, and found it to be inspiring and challenging, but also kind of unattainable and frustrating. However, I am about four chapters into the next book by Clarkson, The Ministry of Motherhood, and I'm loving this one and finding it inspiring, encouraging, challenging, and thought-provoking. My good friend, Linda, who is a prolific blogger, has started an encouragement post series on her blog http://mamamiamcmasters.blogspot.com/search/label/encouragement
and I've been trying to use the ideas to do one thing each day to encourage each of my kiddos. I've found, to my dismay, that I am issuing commands and being critical for most of the day, and I don't want to be that way, and think it is detrimental to my "mission" of motherhood to model Christ and make disciples of my kiddos and point them to the unconditional love of their Heavenly Father....so, to come back to the topic of this post, one of the chapters in the Ministry book addressed this topic, and at the end of each chapter there is a prayer...this one was spot on and just what I needed to hear and pray....

-A Mother's Prayer-
Father of Encouragement,
Thank you for taking the time to show your love to your disciples by affirming and encouraging them. Help us remember that our well-aimed words will carry life to the hearths of our children. Teach us to extol their positive characteristics whenever we can and to resist the temptation to use words only for correction. Give us lips that speak grace and that show the heart of your love through the things we say. Amen.