The handmaiden of the Lord

I wanted to bear my testimony today but I had to stay home with sick Taylor. So I thought I would share it here.

I have been blessed with a wonderful visiting teacher. She rarely brings a "message," but she has taught me the most powerful and important lesson I have needed to hear these past few months. She came into our home and showered us with love and affection. She tells me every time how incredible and priceless my children are, asking "Aren't you just overcome with absolute ecstasy? Can you even believe that God gave you such jewels?" she has such a cute way of putting things. But her words get into my mind and I think of them often. Lately these words have reached my heart. What an amazing thing she is teaching me. This is the most important lesson I need to hear, and only Heavenly Father knew that.

These past two days have been incredibly trying. Staying up all night carrying Sick Taylor so he can sleep, while sick myself, while living out of a suitcase and a few boxes. Yet I have been comforted and not emotionally weakened. Because I am serving and caring for such a priceless jewel! Then this morning it hit me... Everything we go through for children ..from pregnancy and childbirth to sick nights, tantrums, financial and time sacrifice, even sacrificing our pride and at times dignity! Just think of the VALUE of something you invest into in such a way. Children are worth more than any riches. But think of how carefully we treat our fine expensive things. Now shouldn't we treat. Hidden just as lovingly and respectfully?

I was reading the nativity story earlier this week and was particularly struck at a certain scripture. When Mary is told she will bare God's son and she mulls it over, she says "Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord!" basically saying Yes, I am His. I consecrate each day to Him. Whatever he asks, I will do. What a wonderful attitude of service. I want to think of this quote every morning as I begin my duties as a mother in Zion. Yes Lord, I am your handmaiden. I will serve with no recognition, I will listen to fits and whining, I will clean up the same mess over and over again, I will repeat myself ten times before they learn!! This is what He has asked of me. And I am rewarded with the most priceless gifts.

Princess Party!!

Elisabeth and I threw a party, just for the heck of it! Whenever Dad and Rychen go somewhere, I say "You and I are going to have a GIRL party!" So this time she wanted to invite some friends. Plus, I had an old "princess party" kit to use up, so I thought it would be fun!!
One of her friends has several princess dresses and brought them to share, how nice!

Our 5 lovely princesses wearing their homemade crowns. Mulan, (Rapunzel), Belle, Cinderella, and Aurora :)


Painting nails!!

Family Portraits

Holding Taylor

Elisabeth asks to hold Taylor several times a day. She also tries to pat his back (but ends up whacking him pretty good) to help out with him.

Yarn Cross stitch

Rychen P. likes crafts a lot, especially learning new kids of big kid crafts. He has been making bookmarks with plastic canvas and lacing for months now, and I remembered how you can do a kid cross-stitch with yarn. I couldn't find a book of patterns so we made something up. I colored a pattern on graphing paper and taught him how to copy it. (He lost interest half-way through, otherwise I would show you a finished product!)

Zzzzzz

So, remember Elisabeth needs to go poop in diapers. This is her daily routine; she lets us know when she needs a diaper and proceeds to disappear in the bathroom for upwards of 30 minutes. This is her "girl" time... We find her in there painting her nails, or squirting liquid soap all over the floor, and other random acts of mischieviousness before she proclaims herself "Done."

Well one day last week she had a cold and was really sleepy. She asked for a diaper at some point in the afternoon and closed the bathroom door... We forgot about her. Quite a while later we found this:

2 month update

Taylor is just a peach. I am so in love with him. He is very interactive now (provided he is well-rested and fed) and will smile and coo (which I call a "near-giggle" .. basically vocalizing while smiling) and its just so much fun. He sleeps so much still that it is a real treat when he is awake and ready to socialize! I can't say enough just how sweet he is.

It's nice how it reminds me of Rychen as a baby, which re-bonds me to him as well :)

Taylor sleeps well and cooperates much better than either Rychen or Elisabeth did!! I have awful flashbacks of having to bounce Elisabeth (quite violently) to get her to sleep, and then putting her in a swing in the laundry room with the dryer on!! Both of them learned to nurse to sleep and would only go to sleep for me, and then it seemed like everytime they stirred, they expected to nurse more!! I was a total shut-in in the evenings for 5 years because of this (but it makes nice birth control :-)

But TAYLOR <3 <3 I can't say enough good things about. Maybe I am more on top of things, with baby cues and what not? But he is getting into a real nice habit of laying down in bed and sleeping on his own without needing anything from me. Without meaning to, I also got him into the pattern of nursing upon waking up (because he sleeps so long!! woo!), rather than needing to nurse before he sleeps. Don't get me wrong, he is not in a solid pattern and still has days where he does nothing but cat nap and wants to be held all day, but I think that is due to gas.

Meanwhile Elisabeth is also doing pretty well, sleeping in her bed all night. She is an independent sleeper - much sooner than Rychen P. was. My flashbacks with him are of having to be in his room for an hour, waiting for him to [stop talking and] go to sleep! He just had more separation anxiety and took YEARS and years to go to sleep on his own.

So all the kids are doing well - if you overlook the sheer noise/energy level which Rychen and I still can't adjust to (Yikes, kids!) and the fact that Elisabeth STILL won't give up her nightly diapers.

Card Pockets - the new to-do list!

I have recently become obsessed with the Duggar family, I just think they are the greatest thing on earth. I'm reading one of their books and WOW they have such awesome family discipline. WE ARE IN NEED OF SOME OF THAT!!!! Our home is chaos; inconsistent parenting; no discipline; bad habits galore. So we are changing that. (starting with the parents, but that is a post for another day) But I digress...

Anyway the cool idea I got from Michelle Duggar is these "card pockets" to-do list for the kids, where they do tasks independently and move their card from one pocket to the other. You can give them incentives for cards, etc. Our rule is you do 2 cards, you get 15 minutes of play time. (We have been doing that with checklists, but I wasn't present enough to see that its being done consistently)