Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Random news

Wow! I tried to prepare myself for having two more home from school for the summer. In hindsight, I'm pretty sure it is impossible to remember how much more noise, more "interpersonal conflict," more food consumed and more mess comes with just two more home. On the flip side, there is also more laughter and more funny comments.

One of the things I keep reminding myself these days is that this cleaning up, making messes, cooking, laundry, etc, is life. It is not something that we get done so that we can do life. It is life. My prayer for the summer especially is that I can live this life abundantly, with joy, so that my children work and play with contentment and joy. I don't want to miss it because it is a lot of work.

We've been hard at work at the acreage.
Our fabulous "hired" help demolished the upstairs bathroom.
We discovered that the insulation was not very good, so we are also in the process of tearing out plaster in the other rooms upstairs to more fully insulate the exterior walls.

The other afternoon, I went out in hopes of helping Joel a bit by cleaning out some of the torn down plaster. That had already been done, however, so I ended up weeding around the rhubarb plants while the kids played. It was so fun to see the kids disappear and play. They embarked on a covert operation to sneak around me, starting behind the pine trees and then crouching in the tall grass and dashing across the lawn when they didn't think I was looking. And there it came. Peace in my heart. Whenever I start to think that it's too much work and maybe we shouldn't even try to get out on an acreage, God gives me a glimpse of my hearts desire when I started praying for an acreage. . .the simpleness of living and growing as a family, together.

Some random reports:
  • Josiah thanks God every night, in some way, for the acreage.
  • Ezra told me today that my hair looked nice, "since I combed it". Apparently, the way I've been doing my hair hasn't looked so combed. . .because I really do comb my hair. . .every day. . .
  • On Sunday, we took the kids to Sioux Center, picnicked and played in the park, and got icecream as a treat. The icecream was a special treat for the kids working so hard on Saturday at the acreage. The conversation in the backseat on the way home started with that fact and then someone said something along the lines of "well, Mommy shouldn't get icecream because she didn't work." To which Simeon replied, "Mommy works every day." Thank you for noticing my dear son!
  • In typical competitive fashion, the three older boys were dividing up people for teams for something the other day. As I recall, Mommy and Evelyn were put on one team, to much dismay and then Simeon yelled out, "Oh yeah, baby. . .we have Jesus on our team!"
  • I bought an air freshener this week. It's for the basement. That's where the older boys sleep. I'm sure it is the first of many I will buy attempting to mask the smells of boys. Sigh.

Well, off to bed. The morning comes quickly. . .


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