Trust in the Lord

"For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: By waiting and by calm you shall be saved, in quiet and in trust your strength lies. But this you did not wish." Isaiah 30:15

I came across a Bible study tonight that began with Isaiah 30:15-26, and while I read the all 12 verses multiple times, this particular verse was what stuck out to me the most.

Waiting. Calm. Quiet. Trust. These are all "buzz words" when it comes to God. He has a plan, and we're told over and over again that if we pray and wait He will reveal it to us in His time. Yet waiting and trusting are two of the hardest things for us to do. Our minds get so anxious and loud that we talk over God. Sometimes I think we even make up "signs" that aren't really there just so we can convince ourselves that we're getting an answer. Having complete trust and quieting our minds to wait for God's direction is a huge hurdle. And, as the verse chapter continues past verse 15, it goes on to show that so often not heeding this warning can lead to harm or heartache. This is not to say that God won't redirect us after we make such choices. He gave us freewill so that we could choose, and He won't abandon us if we get off track; but, surely His original path is for our best interest. Does this mean he would keep us from every experiencing bad things? I don't think so, because from those experiences we learn and grow. Just as we cannot know how best to succeed without first failing, we cannot learn without first experiencing the lesson that leads us toward growth. The hope being, of course, that we use what we learn and the growth we achieve to better serve God and His people.

We are currently in the process of buying our first home. And as we move forward with this process I feel like I need to keep repeating this verse to myself over and over again. I know that I'm guilty of searching for signs that probably aren't there. I'm certainly anxious to keep the process moving as quickly as possible, but I also know that I need to be still and just listen. My husband reminded me of this earlier today when he relayed the story of how just yesterday I said we could "table the discussion until tomorrow" about something with the house hunting process, and then 30 minutes later I was sending him an email as I tried to hash it out yet again. My goal, moving forward, is to keep my mind and heart open to God and His plan. I'm going to try to remind myself that I can't run ahead of Him and myself by trying to create my own plans before it's time. He brought us safely to this step of the process, and now we need to keep moving just one step at a time.

Creating Our Intentional Bookshelf: Part 2

We've done some more work in the processes of creating our own intentional bookshelf. We're following the guide set in the book The Intentional Bookshelf by Samantha Munoz. If you haven't read part 1 yet (which walked us through developing our purpose and categories) you can find that here.

After I wrote part 1 and began the sorting process I realized that there were two important categories I had left out, and as I sorted books I found that there were a few more that (while not as prominent) were a part of the collection that we already had and wanted to keep. The two most important categories that I forgot were wordless picture books and sign language books. I'll explain more later.

The sorting process began a bit rough. As you can imagine, sorting through stacks of books with two toddlers wondering around can be a bit of a challenge. They were constantly pulling out books and running off with them or putting them back into other stacks. Sorting all of our books at once was just a little too much to take on during one nap time or at bedtime (because let's face it, by the time this prego mama gets both girls to sleep there's only another hour or so, if that, before I can't keep my eyes open either). So to make the sorting our books into categories a little easier I did one book type at a time. I started with the board books, and then moved onto pictures books, followed by interactive books. (Note: some of our board books are also "interactive", meaning they have flaps or finger trails or things of that nature, but for the purposes of my sorting I put those books in with the board books and kept "interactive books" as things like sticker books, color books, activity books with experiments, crafts, etc.)

Board Books
Here's what my board book sorting looked like. A bit of a mess. Many of the books could fit into multiple categories, but so if I had an abundance of one and not the other I tried to balance them out a little bit. As you can see above, the sorting was a little messy, but overall I think I got a good idea of what we have and was able to make some notes of categories that we would like to add more of.


Pictures Books

This was by far my biggest category. The picture to the right is how I store our pictures books currently when not in use, which, in all honesty isn't very convenient, but it's the best place I've got for them for now. Ultimately these books became a bit overwhelming to sort through. Not only are there just a lot of books there, but so many of them fit into multiple categories that I had trouble creating my stacks. The other issue with sorting these was that they were going to have to go back into the toy chest for storage, and while I could keep them in some order, they weren't really going to stay organized. What I ended up doing was creating a Google Drive spread sheet, and while it was time consuming I'm so glad that I chose to include this in our organizing for multiple reasons. For each book on the spreadsheet I included the title, author, book type (because I eventually added the board books to it as well), and what categories it fit in. By putting it into the spreadsheet I was able to assign multiple categories to the same book, and later when I'm looking for a particular category all I have to do is type the category name into my search bar and they'll all highlight to make them easy to find! The other thing that is super convenient about having all of our books organized on Google Drive is that I have access to it on my phone. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a book at the store or the library and then couldn't remember if we already owned it or not. This was I know what we have even when we're out and about!

Interactive Books
This was our smallest category to sort, which was a nice way to end our sorting adventure. Ultimately these books were mostly stored away with our crafting things because they don't usually get left out all the time.

Sorting through all of these books was certainly a learning experience. While I love our home library, there were several books that I came across that I wondered if we really needed to be part of our permanent collection because they aren't really books we ever read (even when they're out on our bookshelf) or we have other books with the same story/message that we enjoy more. I definitely think I'm going to go back through them at some point and pull out some of those books...but if you know me you know how bad I am at getting rid of things, so we'll see how long it takes me. Ha!

I'd love to hear more about your collection! Do you have a large collection or just a small shelf of favorites? Do you keep every book you get or do you go through them every so often and take out books that aren't being used?

Yet Another Attempt at Organizing

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to organize, sort, declutter, and create a cleaning schedule. I generally start with a new plan every January, try two or three other ways throughout the year, before finally admitting defeat around Thanksgiving and deciding to focus on just the main rooms (to make room for the Christmas tree and decorations), vowing that I'll start again the next year. This year has been no exception.

While I didn't start out the year making any "New Year's Resolutions," I did still have some goals in mind. At the top of those goals was decluttering and organizing before Janie's arrival in May. I'm a list person, and I love planners, though I'm not always good at using them. My problem with planners stems from trying to keep too many of them going at once. With my lofty ideas I always have several going at once: one for the bills, one for blogging, one for Usborne, and one with birthdays, anniversaries, playdates, and other plans. While in my mind it seemed more organized (looking to work on something specific, you only need look at that one planner) it ultimately meant that I was using none of them because I forgot to look at them to see what was actually happening.

In the end of November, when the planners and calendars first started appearing in stores, I decided I needed to buy one. Normally I wait until closer to January, but since we had prenatal appointments and other appointments to add to our 2017 calendar already I wanted to get started. I absolutely love the looks of the personalized planners you can buy online, but with my track record of pushing them aside by about April I decided to go cheap but effective. I bought two planners. The first was a bill calendar. While I want things to be condensed, this one makes more sense to have separate because I sit down to pay bills every payday and don't otherwise need to have that info out. Not only that, but having a separate bill planner allows me to leave it with the bill book and lets Hubby know where to find it as well (without having to sift through everything else in my other planner) if he needs to know when something is due or how much it is. I don't need much room in this calendar, so I bought a $1 planner that just has monthly spreads with a little room on the sides for extra notes. Super easy. (I also add birthdays to this planner so that as I'm figuring out bills & budgeting money I can plan for any birthday gifts or other expenses.)

 The second planner I bought was a daily planner, which includes a monthly spread as well as weekly spreads with more space. The monthly spread includes brief notes about events (names for birthdays and anniversaries, or one word notes to say "doctor", "playdate", etc.). This allows me a quick overview if I'm trying to plan an appointment. If something is listed on that day then the details are listed in the weekly spread that tell place, time, etc. I wanted to give my planner a fun look and help separate events happening on the same day, so I used stencils to help keep notes and ideas contained. Other things noted on the weekly spread include blog topics and weekly business goals for my Usborne business.

Once I had some organization to my planning, I wanted to figure out how cleaning and organizing was going to fit into these first few months of the year before Janie's arrival. I love the extra spaces this particular planner (which I found at Dollar General for $3) provides for different things. I used the notes section on the monthly spread to write down monthly cleaning and organization goals as well as a to-do list for the month that wasn't necessarily specific to a particular day or week. I think took those monthly goals and broke them down into something a little more manageable for a week and wrote those into the space at the top of each weekly spread. Other fun features include a notes section at the back of each month which I'm using to keep track of the books I've read that month; a large notes section at the end which I'm using for lists (though so far the only list is "When did I last..." to help me keep track of things like washing betting, changing toothbrushes, and cleaning out the fridge); and a two-page spread of the entire year of 2017 which I'm using to keep track of our toy and book rotation.

Some of the organization things (like the weekly breakdown of the monthly goals and "When did I last..." list are things that I've added within the last week after looking back at January and realizing that I didn't get such a great start to my goals last month. Hopefully as the year progresses having one combined planner and a particular way of keeping track of these goals will help me to better accomplish them.

I'd love to hear about your planner organization or even your general cleaning and organization strategies. There's always room for improvement and new ideas, and I'm far from having it all figured out. I can't wait to see what you've got!

Creating Our Intentional Bookshelf: Part 1

So far 2017 has been about cleaning and decluttering and trying to figure out how we're going to fit one more little body and all of her things (how does one tiny person need so much?!) into our house. So I've started in the middle room, which tends to be a catch-all (closet, pantry, craft storage, general storage) and...well, that's all the farther I've gotten, and if we're being honest I'm not quite done in there either. But I've started, which is the first step, right?

Anyway, part of that process has meant thinking more critically about what items we should keep and what we can do without and looking more closely at what we buy and what we don't really need. As a mama to two toddlers one area I really wanted to look more closely at what our books and toys. It just happened that in January, Melissa at Rolling Prairie Readers was hosting a book club on her facebook page for the book The Intentional Bookshelf by Samantha Munoz. What a great way to get started!

I'll admit that when I first ordered the book I had visions of finishing the book with an organized and complete list of all of the books I would wanted included in our home library, which is silly, because clearly it was going to take a little more work than that, right?

In the book Munoz covers a variety of topics, including why a home library is important, how to go about collecting books for your home library, and how to decide what to include in your collection. I loved that it was broken down to be reader friendly for anyone, even if they weren't already familiar with the different types of children's books available. While I spend a lot of time with books (reading to the girls, selling Usborne Books & More, and previously working at our local library) I liked that the book offered explanations of what each type of book has to offer. Many of the things she addressed were questions that I often have answered as an Usborne consultant and sometimes it takes some thought to really be able to explain the purpose behind different types of books.

For this post I wanted to walk through the first step of creating our families intentional bookshelf, which was using the Master Plan Worksheet (found here). It sets the foundation of your bookshelf by asking you to think about the purpose of your bookshelf as well as your families values, interests, etc.

Purpose

• Our family bookshelf has multiple purposes. I want it to entertain, but I also want it to educate and engage.

Values, Interests, Etc.

• This is where our list becomes a bit extensive. To start with we want to make sure we include key values that we hold as a family:
• honesty
• love
• kindness
• family
• friendship
• empathy
• learning
• religion
• Obviously the list could go on, but for the sake of getting started these were the values I chose to focus on. When it comes to interests I had to think about what each of the girls likes. Right now they are pretty similar, but I'm sure as they get older they'll gain more of their own interests. For the sake of sorting, I used general categories like "princesses" rather than listing out "Sofia, Belle, Arial, etc." Some of their current interests are:
• princesses
• sea creatures
• farm animals
• zoo animals
• dinosaurs
• I also wanted to make sure I covered a wide variety of learning subjects. Some of these books can fit into the categories above as well. Our top learning categories at this time are:
• colors
• numbers
• emotions

While this list was by no means completely comprehensive it gave us a great starting point for sorting the books we already have. Sorting using these categories and keeping our purposes in mind also allowed me to see what types of books we wanted to add more of to our library. My goal in part two is to show you what our sorting process looked like and how we applied the concept on an intentional bookshelf to our book rotation process.

I'd love for you to share your own purposes and categories you focus on in your bookshelves! Is there a specific topic that you see more of in your bookshelves? Does your child's bookshelf reflect your family values and interests?

The Reality of Being a Stay-at-Home Mama

I am a horrible "homemaker." There. I said it. Not that we've gotten that out of the way maybe it'll be easier to come to terms with. Here's the thing: I've wanted to be a stay-at-home wife and mother since before I had my babies. Of course, there were several other career paths I tried to follow. I was a teacher for two years, and while I never got very far, I still have those pipe dreams of becoming a writer. But when it's all said and done, what better job is there on Earth that to raise my babies and take care of my family.

When I imagined what life would be like as a stay-at-home mom I thought I had it all planned out. (Don't we all?!) I devoted not one but two Pinterest boards to the topic of being organized. (One for ideas, the other for printables.) I was going to keep a clean house, have the laundry and dishes done, grow as much food as possible in whatever sized garden I could manage, always have fun, educational activities to do with my babies, do all kinds of crafts and sewing during naptime, and continue to walk or go to the gym on a regular basis. Doesn't that all sound amazing?

Now let me tell you what really happens...
The laundry and dishes sometimes are completely washed and put away once a week, but never both in the same week and sometimes neither happens. My house is rarely clean, aside from the playroom, which I try to pick up and vacuum every other day because I don't like to wonder how long the Cheerio the baby found and is eating has been on the floor. (At least this way I know it's no more than a day old.) We do have a garden, though it's not very big nor does it have much in it, and my gardening approach is something like: water every one to two days if it doesn't rain and only weed what seems to be killing my vegetables. While I don't always "plan" educational/fun things for the girls to do, they do have access to all of their toys, which includes puzzles, blocks, and other learning manipulatives. That being said, Lissy is addict to watching Sofia the First and we watch more t.v. than we probably should. To be fair, she does play while it's on, so at least she's not just sitting and watching? But honestly, sometimes it's the only way to keep her occupied long enough for me to wash a sink of dishes (what I wouldn't give for a dishwasher) or take a shower (when I'm lucky). As for the crafts and sewing, I've probably started a million projects, but rarely do they get finished. Usually I've just set one out and started the prep work when one or the other baby starts to stir. Some things take longer than others to finish. (I still need to put the binding on the quilt I started for Grandma last June. It was officially a year ago this past week that I started it.) So far the only projects I've been able to finish in a day are Rosaries. (Maybe Mary has a hand in that? Perhaps the prayers of "please keep the babies sleeping" as I work on them are really being heard!) The last things on my list of things was walking and going to the gym. While I don't think I've even set foot in a gym since having babies, the girls and I do go for a walk almost every day when the weather is nice. (This past winter was a different story, but maybe when they're older we'll be able to get out more then too.)

I guess here's what I'm getting at: life isn't always roses. There are days (and weeks) when things just don't get done. And while I tend to beat myself up over them, I'm starting to realized that it's not worth it. Because happy, healthy babies who love their mama and are learning and growing before me are the most important things. And while I'll continue to push myself to get things done in a timely manner, I'm sure the dishes will still get done on more of an "as needed basis" and I'll still run out of clean socks and underwear and have to do an "emergency load of laundry." But that's okay. Yes, I could sit my babies down more often. I could let them cry while I got chores done and I could make them nurse on a schedule as opposed to on-demand so I don't feel like I'm constantly sitting down to feed them. But why would I do that when the snuggles make us both feel better and the smile on their faces as we build tower after tower just to knock them down is way more precious than a spotless house. Someday I'll have a clean house and I'll have all of those things done that I imagined, but when that time comes it won't be because my babies have finally realized that Mama has a to-do list a mile long. It'll be because I no longer have "babies." It'll be because they're grown and those snuggles and little moments aren't a part of our daily lives anymore. And while walk around dusting or putting away the last of the clothes I won't be thinking, "So this is what I've been missing." I'll be thinking, "I miss the days I spent with my babies."

Learning to Communicate

Communication is one of the keys to life, and it's a skill we develop as infants. Newborns communicate through cries. These eventually are replaced by words which become sentences, paragraphs, and so-on. As a parent I get to watch the girls communication skills grow from day one, and it truly is amazing!

Lissy will be 18 months old in March, and I'm loving watching her communication skills grow! Her first words were the standard: mama, dada, dog, cat, duck. At around 9 months she started signing "milk" when she wanted to nurse. (We started signing it to her and saying it every time she nursed around 6 months.) By the time shew as a year old she knew at least five signs well enough to communicate them clearly, said several words (though many were still a little fuzzy we could understand them), and knew a while host of animal sounds. Shortly after that we added "please" and "thank you" to her signing vocabulary, followed closely by verbalizing them.

Somewhere between 16 and 17 months she started to noticeably verbalize more words. She now uses gestures as well, and in the last couple of weeks she's begun taking me by the hand and showing me what she wants along with saying it. Don't get me wrong, she still babbles incoherently a lot, but I love that we're starting to understand her! Every time she uses a new sign or distinctly says a new word I am over-the-moon excited. Maybe it's because she's my first and it's all a new experience to me too. Maybe it's because I've taken classes on language development and understand some of the amazing ways her brain is working and growing. Or maybe it's pride in knowing that I helped teach her those words. Whatever the case may be, she's definitely talking, and if she's anything like her mama, you'll never get her to stop! ;)

Our journey with communication and learning is just beginning! Gwyn (who turned 6 months old last weekend) said her first word last night! "Dada" is officially the favorite! ;) She's also been moving her hand when I sign "milk," so I think we're getting pretty close on that one too! I'd love to hear some of your favorite memories about your kids (or yourself, or someone else you know) learning to communicate!

Fresh Start

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. 2016, here we go!

I suppose the usual protocol would be to start with new year's resolutions...but you can look back at the last few posts on this blog and see just how well that's gone in the past. Every year I make a list, and every year it's fallen to the wayside by the end of February. (Does anyone ever make it past February?!) So this year is going to be different. This year I'm starting with a little bit of a different perspective, and while I wish what's happening wasn't, I'm going to take it and use it to shape the rest of the year.

Around the 4th of July in 2014 Papa (my maternal grandfather) was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We had a world of confidence that he would overcome it as he underwent treatment at the University of Iowa. During a checkup in May of 2015 they discovered that it had come back and made an action plan, but the doctors said that in all honestly we would be lucky to keep him with us through August and until then we should make the most of it.

Granny & Papa at Thanksmas with 13 of their 21 grandchildren.

The week of Christmas he finished his final dose of yet another round of chemo. Couple this (I believe this was his third round total) with the radiation he'd already endured and you can see the long hard battle he's been fighting this past year. This round was supposed to take care of it. It was supposed to be gone. He had felt good and we all thought he was on the mend. More than once on this journey Papa had said that if it came back he wasn't going to treat it again, only to change his mind when he heard the dreaded news.

Dancing with Papa at our wedding.

This past week was his two week check up from the chemo he received before Christmas. With a swelling mass under his chin the news that came was expected...it is back, and more aggressive than before. This week he goes back to the hospital for a six day stay. During his time there he'll be hooked up to an i.v. to receive one last round of chemotherapy. It's the last possible thing they can give him. Outlook isn't great. They say it's not strong enough to really get rid of something this aggressive, but it should at least give some hope of feeling a little better.

When I heard all of this I cried. I mean I cried all night. I would stop crying and one look from my husband or a simple "Are you okay?" would send me into another bout of tears. I was thankful for the extra time that we'd been given, but still sad. When my mom told me the news I tried to stay positive for her. "We've had him with us for a lot longer than they said we would. We'll spend as much time with him as we can from now on." I tried to stay positive, to remember that God has a plan and that Papa has lived a full life.

I regret not asking him more, not listening better, not recording more of his stories. By the time I though to do so Papa had suffered a stroke and had trouble remembering many of the stories he had once told us. Some of those memories seemed to come back, but then he was headlong into treatment for his lymphoma and I hated to keep him awake when he needed his rest.

Besides all of those unanswered questions and lost stories, what I really want to ask him...the thing I really want to know...is "Are you scared?" I'm genuinely curious, but also, I think that if it were me, I'd want someone to ask me that. We spend so much time being brave and hiding our vulnerability. It isn't easy to keep fear hidden. And if he's not afraid I'd love to know too, because I'd love to know how to find that peace. And honestly, selfishly, I think dealing with what seems inevitable would be easier for those of us left behind knowing he was at peace with everything.

Lissy & Papa in November of 2014.

So as we go into 2016, I want to live life. I want to really be conscious of how I treat other people and how I go about interacting with them. I want to take life slower, stop stressing about what I can't change, and be more present in the moment. I want to ask people for their stories, collecting their memories to pass on to my own children and learning from the way they've lived. I don't care what I weigh, how many books I read, or how much we have saved at the end of the year. I want to smile. I want to help other people smile. I want to make an honest effort to ask people how they're doing and really listen to their responses. 

2016...Let's do this!