stoplight

This is our behavior chart courtesy of Micah May. They have a stoplight at school and you have to move your clip to yellow if you're having a "rough" day and to red if you're having a "bad" day. I have no idea if those are the terms his teacher uses but they are what he tells us when he has to move our clip. Occasionally he'll move one of us if we do something he doesn't like like telling him no for instance ;) We might have to talk about not using his stoplight as revenge if it keeps up!

embrace the camera: swinging

I haven't embraced the camera in a long time...well I haven't posted in a long time, we still take tons of pics! I wanted to share a shot of Zach and Connor that my sister took at my nieces 5th birthday party. They are some cute and studly folk!

{embrace the camera}

man night

Every Wednesday night I go to bible study and leave the three men in my life alone. It's always been quite entertaining to find out what they did while I was gone. Recently they started a new tradition. Every Wednesday after Zach gives them a bath they watch Bear. I'm not talking about Little Bear I'm talking about Bear. As in Bear Grylls. Mr. Manly himself! They absolutely LOVE watching all of the weird and disgusting things he does to survive. They have many favorites but the top ones are anything that has to do with eating nasty things. Micah will wake up on Thursday mornings with stories from whatever worm, snake, pig, bug, etc Bear ate and if he cooked and what sound he made when he ate it. I have high hopes that if any of our boys are ever stranded they will be able to survive due to this early training!

I-12

Ever since seeing it on Curious George (yes he still loves it!) Micah has been wanting to make a robot costume. After buying diapers and wipes we finally had a couple boxes available. After a little help from Zach and myself here it is. Meet I-12...

elodie jo

We have a new niece! She was born on August 25th. Zach and I were able to drive up the next weekend and he (of course!) took some newborn pictures. She makes niece #6 (including both sides) and is the 5th grandchild on Zach's side with two more being born in the next two months! It is so exciting to have another set of parents in his siblings. Congratulations Katie and Jered!!

sidewalk chalk

Fun with sidewalk chalk...

YL

I realized not too long ago that I blog about my kids a ton (as it should be) and myself occasionally (which is ok because I'm the one writing) but about the ministries I am involved in hardly ever. Today I plan to rectify that situation a little with talking about this one...

I have been on the committee for Rockdale YoungLife for 3 1/2 years now and I love it. A few years ago I would not have planned on saying that. In fact I would have said the exact opposite. Not because I don't like the ministry but because it didn't seem like it would fit me. Here's how it all started.

After Zach and I moved to Conyers and found a church we were invited out to dinner by newish friend (now great friend) Michael Edwards. He was the regional director for YoungLife in Rockdale County. Neither Zach nor I had ever heard of YL so we spent the evening learning the basics of the ministry. I immediately knew there was NO WAY I was doing it. Not that I didn't think it was a great concept but because the idea of hanging out with high school girls and playing silly/weird/gross/ games pretty much terrified and repulsed me. I am just not that kind of girl and wasn't in my teenage years either. (sorry if you already thing I am a boring person!) Zach of course that it was awesome and decided to start helping as their music guy and quickly was entrenched in camps, hangouts, games, etc.

After a couple years of giving monthly and donating food at certain events I felt led to give a little more so I asked about joining the committee. I have now been on the committee for 3 1/2 years and have loved being a part of it. Planning and organizing is definitely a better fit for me! Our job is to be the driving force behind the business end of the ministry so that the director and volunteer leaders can have as much available time as possible to build relationships with teens in the community.

Right after I joined committee we lost our regional director due to lack of funds and have been running on a volunteer basis only. It's been a difficult time but we have seen God's hand in the ministry still. Our volunteer leader numbers have grown and more and more kids keep coming to club as God uses our small attempts to do big things. We've also finally worked ourselves out of our debt and have a positive balance though there is a long way to go before we are able to have a staff member again.

A few weeks ago Leslie and I were able to go to one of the YL camps for Committee Weekend. The weekend is designed to give us a taste of the experience teens get as well as having different sessions available to give ideas to help your committee run smoother and build up the ministry. We started off the day a bit overwhelmed not only with the amount of information given but the amount of work our area still needs to do to improve. However God took those fears and turned them into encouragement as we realized how many people and resources there are available to accomplish it. The largest resource we found was HIM. The whole time we felt prayer being an overwhelming theme in our needs. Were we praying for every aspect of the needs in our ministry before, after and during? Were we praying for what decisions to make? Were we praying for guidance? The answer was inevitably not nearly like we should be. We came home from the weekend and shared our findings and after prayer decided that our first course of action is to pray. We've planned a monthly prayer night to pray for YL and seek God's guidance it what are the next things to come.

I am asking you to set aside some time Tuesday evening October 11 to pray. If you live near Conyers we are meeting at LightHouse Village. If you live elsewhere please just spend some time lifting up the people and future of this ministry we call YoungLife.

If you want more information about how to give financially please visit this page to set up an account and choose Rockdale County area # GA132.

my crazy heroes

baby book

I purchased a baby book for baby brother a.k.a baby boy #3 a.k.a we can't tell you cause it's a surprise.

I am slightly obsessed with memory keeping. You might have noticed this if you paid attention because I blog and scrapbook and baby book it all. I scrapbook so my kids can see real pictures of what we and they did plus I like the artistic part, I blog because my family and friends can't see the scrapbooks and there are other day to day things that pop up that aren't worth their own page and I baby book so I can look back and compare my kids plus I really liked looking back at my own baby book with Micah so I could see how similar the two of us were when I was a new mama. Recently I read this post that made me feel much better about my memory keeping OCD :)

31 weeks

This week, your baby measures over 16 inches long. He weighs about 3.3 pounds (try carrying four navel oranges) and is heading into a growth spurt. He can turn his head from side to side, and his arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath his skin. He's probably moving a lot, too, so you may have trouble sleeping because your baby's kicks and somersaults keep you up. Take comfort: All this moving is a sign that your baby is active and healthy. ~babycenter.com

The weather is changing and it is amazing! I finally feel comfortable in shorts and a tank top while everyone else is donning their jeans and/or hoodies. I'm feeling really good right now since I'm in the not yet miserably uncomfortable stage. I feel huge however because I can't bend over at all and have to be hauled off the floor. It's seriously amazes me how big a body can get during this process. I won't share how much weight I've gained but I've only got 16 pounds to go until I match the weight gain from Micah and Connor. Hopefully I only tie and don't feel the need to beat any records! I can't believe there is only nine weeks (plus or minus) to go until we meet our 3rd son. 90% of me is fine with him staying in until necessary since I know what is to come when I can't just carry him around inside wherever we go. There is that little 10% that is just so curious about who he will be and what he will look like and how Connor will feel about being a big brother that I'm ready to just dive in to the craziness. However that is just 10% so hang in their buddy!

I was listening to my Sara Groves playlist the other day when this song came on. I've heard it tons of times but apparently I HEARD it this time and if I hadn't been driving it would have stopped me in my tracks. I felt like I it was releasing my hearts thoughts. Hope you enjoy and understand :)

I do not know how I am to pray for this child
as a mother I don't want my baby denied
but in the waiting in the waiting
I learned

every instinct in me wants to shield him from pain
take the arrows of misery, heartache and blame
but in the sorrow in the sorrow
I learned to hold on

I only have two eyes - be all seeing
I only have two hands - be everywhere
I do not know enough - to be all knowing
I give this baby up into your care

I do not know how, how to pray for this child
I want to guard her from everything wicked and wild
but in the trial in the trial
I learned to hold on
And in the trial, in the trial
I learned to hold on to the heart of God

my little crafter

If I would take the time to stop and make a list I could find numerous ways how Micah and Connor are like Zach and numerous ways how they are like me. This is actually a cool idea...hmmmm...

Anyway one way I know Micah is like me is he is a crafting/coloring/art making machine!! He goes through phases (as all us crafty types do) of not only what he likes to make but of how often. He is on a binge right now and has been coloring, drawing, gluing, stickering and cutting up a storm in his room and in the kitchen. He has a jar in his room full of random stuff I've collected like pompoms, clips, stickers, pop sickle sticks, etc. The idea is from the art jars that many stores sell except that they are way more expensive then the actual stuff is separately. I used an old container from some animals Connor got for Christmas and just began throwing stuff in occasionally. The jar is almost empty! The past two days has been a flurry of creativity. He has mostly been working on book marks. They are not for him either. He has a specific person he makes each one for and I have been enlisted to pass them out. He's also made a toy robot, a picture frame, poster, patch, watch, wrist band, mario costume, a psp and ds and a variety of other things. I love that he can and will make anything that pops into his head!!

(this is the bin on his desk where all his creations are collected.

It is OVERFLOWING right now!)

tiger time

Football season has started again and Micah and Connor are really excited about watching this year. Micah has already gone to a high school game with Zach and spent the whole time picking out all the numbers which is pretty much what he did during the Auburn game except added a few go tigers and war eagles this time :) My parents were in town for the first game helping get things organized for the nursery and bringing up a carload of awesome goodies (will share that later).

Micah and Connor parked their tiger chairs in front of the TV and we all enjoyed and stressed over another game. Our players sure do like to make it heart pumping interesting!

robin of christian woods

Micah has become quite fond of Robin Hood the last week or so and has really gotten into pretend play aspect of it. Micah likes to be Skippy. He's the rabbit at the beginning of the movie who has his birthday money stolen by the mean old sheriff and then gets a new bow and hat from Robin Hood himself. He and Zach 'play' Robin Hood every night and act out that whole scene. It's beyond adorably cute.

This weekend Zach made Micah a Robin Hood hat out of paper and then a bow and arrow set out of sticks and a kite string. That bow could seriously make those arrows fly. Micah was pretty good at it! Zach even made a 'target' for Micah to shoot at. Look closely at the pictures to find out who that bad guy was ;) It is so much fun watching his mind work to try to really connect to things he sees and watches!

rearranging

At least one room of my house has been in complete disarray for almost a month now and if you know me you know there's a good chance it's driving me crazy :) My brain just tends to work better in an organized environment. Making room for baby brother has proven to be a time consuming task. One reason is because if I want to actually be a good mother to Micah and Connor I have to work in small time frames and the other is because there has been A LOT to do. It's kind of like the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. One thing requires something else to be done which means something else has to be done which means...you get the picture.

It started with Connor and Micah moving into the room together. This required a hand me down dresser/desk to be painted, bunk beds found and in our case painted, toys to be gone through and condensed so they'd fit, walls to be painted, new bedding to be purchased, closets to be cleaned out and shelves to be hung, then there were the couple of crafty projects to do for the cute factor of course.

Next was the new nursery/guest room. This required walls painted, closet cleaned out, new bedding purchased, mattress purchased, crib being put together, room rearranged a thousand times until it all fit without being cluttered, a dresser and bookshelf painted, and there are still projects to be done to make it 'finished'.

Still to be done is to get the piles of stuff that came out of the closets and is currently sitting in Zach and my room gone. I have an overwhelming desire to clean out the junk from my attic to sell, donate, organize and put back (I blame my cousin in law Hannah for this because she did it to hers and it just inspired me!), the consignment sell I do twice a year is in the beginning of October so I need to go through the boys clothes and toys to see what we don't need and price it, and then there's getting all the baby equipment back down and cleaned and put in place.

Zach and I were talking last night about all of the things I needed to do and wanted to do before baby brother gets here. I shared that my goal is to POWER THROUGH the month of September and use every available time I have so that the last month and a half of this pregnancy are spent resting and enjoying our last weeks as a family of four.

just a thought:

I am aware that some people just wouldn't care about some of this and that's ok. I am quite aware that I'm picky and like things to look a certain way and I honestly I think that's ok too as long as I don't obsess or put 'looks' above the important things in life like my relationship with the Lord and the time I spend caring for and being with my husband and children. I pray that the time and effort I spend making things comfortable and beautiful for my family will enable them to feel at peace and protected in their home and help make our times of play and rest more enjoyable :)