stream of consciousness - january 2014

i have never been so sporadic with blogging. ever. even through babies being born. or traveling to third world countries...this is crazy! but i have to dump some stuff out of my brain and document our lives. so here we go.

friday night i SAT with the kids and watched a movie. sawyer was in my lap (always). and i looked down and saw my grandma's hand. that's what i remember her hand looking like (but she was 60 and i'm 36...scary!) i LOVED those hands of hers. i have such sweet memories of them. what i wouldn't give to sit down with her...

saturday was full of basketball games and contractors installing appliances and more electrical work and birthday parties. it was crazytown. i looked over one time and this was them:

we have a WHOLE big house and they are ALWAYS this close (AND within 3 feet of ME!) i know it won't always be this way. and i will miss it. right?!?

we were totally dorky and decked ourselves out in krochet kids and createdforcare and sevenly stuff for church on sunday. we also helped kick off this AWESOME program that we are super excited about and got a GREAT response from!

he sure loves me! ;-)

i MADE him take a nap sunday. this was 2 hours later. after "but i'm not tired, mom!"

monday was my SWEET mom's 60th birthday!!! we have something BIG coming up to celebrate her...but i got to facetime with her and see her sweet face!

monday was a holiday. kids AND pat home. my kids are handling all this "living in the basement" stuff better than me, for sure!

"I have a dream that one day... little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." Martin Luther King, Jr. 

his dream is reality in my family. thanks to him and MANY others!

and then they were supposed to go back to school. but it SNOWED!

and there were workers patching and painting our kitchen ALL day. and pat came home early from work sick. and i sat on the stairs in the foyer and just felt STUCK. it was too cold and snow pelting your face to go outside. it WAS pretty to watch!

later in the afternoon, i made them go for a walk with me.

and they were home again today. today i did school with lincoln instead of going sledding. and then ran errands for 3 hours instead of playing games. both of those things needed to happen. we DID make snow ice cream. and we DID get chick fil a for dinner (first time we've eaten "out" since the kitchen reno started - not bad!) and while we were running errands, we got the news that school is cancelled AGAIN tomorrow AND friday!

oh.my.goodness!!

i've dug as deep as i can this month. between snow days and the kitchen and trying to still figure out homeschooling and planning a big PARTAY for my mom and God using His people to reveal mind-blowing things about myself (trying to find some moments to process that - but, um, WHEN?!?) and joshua's birthday is coming up and desiring to HEAR from Him and LIVE for Him and failing at it so miserably because of some silly life circumstances? it's a GOOD thing i didn't know what this month was going to look like going in! there have been 22 days (as of this friday) since our kitchen renovation started on january 3. the kids SHOULD have gone to school 15 of those days (the rest were weekends). they have gone to school 8 (8!!) of those days.

i'm trying to be thankful in all things. thankful for the extra time with my kids. thankful that we're mostly healthy. thankful for the luxury of renovating our kitchen. thankful for friends to text with and keep me laughing.

thankful for a God who loves me no matter what.

hopefully tomorrow will be a sweet day. hopefully we'll sled. hopefully we'll enjoy each other. but we will also have to find time to do school with lincoln (i can't just NOT do school all these days? right? i just don't know!) and i have to make a grocery/menu list for the next week and go grocery shopping friday. and we also have guys coming to install granite. and guys coming to adjust the cabinets and put on drawer pulls. and guys coming to deliver our new floors. and someone coming to pick up our old fridge and give it a new home. and it's supposed to be insanely cold. and i'm struggling BIGTIME to eat the way i should. like, i haven't struggled like this since...?? maybe last spring? just yesterday. yesterday was REALLY bad. today was better. and i'm sure there are things i'm not doing that i should. i have no idea. i have no MINUTES to think past what's right in front of my nose! which at times is refreshing. except that's not how i roll usually so it kinda makes me panic a bit.

ok. i have NO idea if this makes sense. but my head is about to explode and i'm just going to hit publish. hopefully i'll be back sooner than later. but with my track record this month, we'll see! my heart misses this place. it really does.