No 'poo

Yep, you read that right. No 'poo. But not what you think. I am going back to no shampoo again. I did this when I just had Andrew, but Gabe complained that at the ends of my hair, I smelled like a stinky dog. Nice, hey? :) I figured now since my hair is shorter, I would give it a go again. Oh, and I am going to go 'no poo with the boys for a while. I am just not telling Gabe.
The number of chemicals in shampoo and other bath and body products is scary. Whatever gets put on your skin gets absorbed into your body, into your bloodstream and into your organs. Don't believe me? Rub some garlic on your feet. Within a half hour, you will have garlic breath. Try it!
For my hair, I start with washing every second day, first by scrubbing my scalp with a baking soda/water combination and then after I rinse that out, I pour on a vinegar/water combination. My hair looks clean and has no smell. With the boys, I am not doing anything. It has been 4 days since they have had their hair shampooed, and they still look like they have nice, clean heads of hair.
So, that's where I am at right now. I do kind of miss the lathering and yummy smelling shampoo, though.

Talking about eBooks...

There is another eBook I have been wanting to get my hands on. 31 Days to Clean: Have a Martha House the Mary Way. I love the description they give it on facebook.

"The heart of our homes is not in the ability to keep it perfect at all costs; the heart of a home is love. We live in a thing, a non-eternal structure that needs to be maintained. The thing is worthless without the life we bring to it and through it. This book is about bringing life to the mundane in order to love well."

Each day, you get:

• The Mary Challenge -Something you do that encourages/engages your heart
• The Martha Challenge – Specific cleaning tasks

Sounds pretty great, hey? I have been wanting this book for a while, however, we are on a super tight budget. I am a fan of this book on facebook, and they just announced that today only, if you tweet about this book or blog about it, you will get a free copy! Yay for me! So I am blogging about it, and I am sure you will hear a lot more when I get a copy!

A sleepy post

I just wanted to let anyone know who is reading that I haven't given up on the 21 Days of Prayer for your son. I just found out today that I won a free copy of the e-book that you are supposed to be following for the 21 days. Yay. So exciting. I am going to start again, even though I was only on day two.

I found this book a while ago, Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys.

I ordered a copy and I am just waiting for it. I am so excited. It is by a couple who have 6 sons and 2 daughters. I read the first two chapters on google books free preview and I LOVED them. When I get the book and start reading it, I will definitely be posting about it.

Gabe and I are pretty much sitting at 99% sure that we will be home schooling our boys. The only thing that is holding me back is how social my little A is. He makes friends everywhere he goes, and every.single.day he asks me "where are we going? can we go visit someone?" He asks me to stop at every house while driving so we can go in for a visit. He LOVES people. I am coming to realize that he could still have a full social life and be home schooled, just not with kids his own age. That might be okay. He is a sponge and soaks up everything, negative or positive. We don't allow the use of the word "stupid" in our house, but we hear it everywhere we go. It's not that stupid will always be a word we don't use, it is just for now, I am not a huge fan of my 4 year old using the word. He points out every time he hears someone else use the word, and for the next couple of days, will try throwing it in anywhere he can in conversation, just to see what I will do. He loves getting a reaction. He always has. Now it isn't just because we don't allow the word "stupid" that we are thinking of home schooling.

A is busy, very busy. He is very intelligent and is easily bored. He is so enthusiastic, the most enthusiastic person I know. I don't want this part of him squashed. He would be 1 of 5 boys in a class of 26. I have worked in classrooms of mostly female students. The boys are treated like freaks. For real. I have seen it so many times. I love my child more then the teacher does, so why would they be more equipped to teach him? How are they more concerned for his welfare then I am? I could list more and more reasons. It just feels like everything is pointing us in this direction. We are praying A LOT about this, because we do feel it is a huge decision. I would much rather be out on an acreage or in a bigger center where more people home schooled, because I am sure we will get a lot of criticism in our small town where all the other children are in school. If you read this, please pray for guidance for us. Wisdom to do what is best for our boys, and for me, confidence to stand for my decision.

I have heard my sister quote Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" I hear this in my head often, but slightly different. "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with you child's wild and precious life?"

Jeepers. What would you do?

Sometimes it is hard...

...to get a blog post up and going. It has been so beautiful outside and the boys are loving every minute outside. I would love to have this kind of weather all the time. I am really enjoying the boys ages and stages this time of year. I just wish my little man E was walking full-time. He walks part-time, but prefers boogieing on his hands and knees. Little munchkin is 17 months now, and has been "walking" since he was 15 months. He jut refuses to give up crawling. He is just wayyy too fast! We are just relaxing right now, E is napping. We spent the morning at the park and E screamed all the way home because he didn't want to leave.

We have a family of bears living about a block away from us. Yikes! A big mama and her three cubs. We went (in our van) last night and watched them for a while. I took some pictures, not too clear, though. If you click on it to see an enlarged version, I circled each bear.


Now, my laundry is calling me. Then again, it always calls me. I will probably just ignore the call and maybe call it later.

What a great day!

I never blogged yesterday because I was out on a hot date with my hot hubby. My mom watched the boys and Gabe and I went out for lunch, then out for a long coffee (this is our favorite thing to do on a date) and did some browsing and walking and then went and bought groceries. It was really nice. We came home to boys with full tummies who had already been bathed and were ready for bed. We spent about a half hour with them and then they were asleep.

Today was a beautiful day outside. As soon as we finished breakfast, all of us headed out. Gabe wanted to do an oil change on our van and on his old car, so while he pulled out his ramps and got everything set up, the boys and I played.

Poor Mr A with his scratched up face. (He had rubber boots full of water and misjudged how high to lift his foot when stepping on a sidewalk - this injury is over a week old!)






I went inside to make lunch and decided that we should have a picnic outside. So nice! No floors to get messy outside. Haha! I bought a rotisserie chicken yesterday, so I sliced that up, sliced up some pickles, cheese, cucumbers, celery, carrots and some fresh french bread. It was tasty and perfect for today.

After lunch, I took Mr. E in for a nap while A stayed outside with his dad. When E woke up, we went back outside until suppertime. This was our first all "outside"day this year. I am so happy that is it is spring and we can finally do this!

As for the 21 days of prayer for your son, I only rememebered to pray for my boys to submit to authorities a couple of time two days ago, so decided top redo again today, and once again, only remembered a couple of times. SOOOO...up for a redo again tomorrow. This may be more like 1000 days of prayer for your son. Prayer never hurt anyone, though.

I have to go. My hubby wants some caramel popcorn!

Momma said there'd be days like these..and 21 Days of Prayer for Sons Day 2 (Submission to Authority)

What a day!

Seriously, today was a pretty crazy day in our house. It started off pretty nice. We woke up, had a quick breakfast and headed out to story time at our local library, just like we do every Monday morning. Story time was nice and there are a lot of puddles between our house and the library!

Anyways, we got home, and I decided to tackle the laundry that seemed to build up so quickly while I was sick. I was putting away the first load and I heard a bang, breaking glass, and E scream all at once. My stomach dropped. I went running and there was E, sitting amidst a broken toaster plate and a broken glass. And there was blood. I picked up E, praying out loud that everything was okay. My panic-y voice was making A panic. I washed off E's hand (that was where the blood was coming from, and I could see quite a big gash on his finger. I talked calmly to A, reassuring him that it was okay and to help mommy get the band aids. He got his Disney Car's band aids, and started digging through for which one he wanted. I got angry with him, because he was leafing through them so carefully and I needed one NOW! E was bleeding so badly that every time I would bring the bandage close to his finger, the whole thing would be covered in blood and wouldn't stick. Two facecloth's and three band aids later, I finally got one on the big cut. I looked at his hand and found 5 more cuts. Ughh. 5 more band aids. E didn't like them on, so he would bite them off. Ughh. I used packing tape to keep the band aid on the worst cut.
I thought he might need stitches. I called Gabe, who was an hour away. I called my mom who came over. We took of the band aid, it was still bleeding but not so bad anymore. We both decided it looked okay. Thank you, God!

Now, I was praying often for my boy's obedience. Wouldn't you know it, A was so disobedient today. He was driving me up the wall! Laying here now, thinking about it, his disobedience was a way God was reminding me to pray.

Now little E, today he has become the busy body of the family. Those of you who know A, know that he is a very busy boy. E was like a mini A today. He was pushing chairs up to everything and wreaking havoc wherever he went. Countless times in the toilet, with or without the plunger, dumping cereal all over the floor, eating the markers, throwing stuff on the ground.

I felt pretty crazy today with my busy-bodied little one and my missing-ears big one. But momma said there'd be days like these....

Day 2 (Submission to Authority)

Another quote from Brooke McGlothlin:

All of their lives, our sons will find themselves needing to submit to someone. From parents, to teachers, to bosses, to government officials, and even to God Himself, they will always have someone in a position of authority over them.

Thought: When was the last time you told your son you were proud of a choice he made to submit to authority. Even when they’re little, our boys need to know that mama sees and rejoices over their wise choices and cries out to God over their foolish ones. Today, make a point to lavish love and praise on your son when he chooses wisely..even in the small things.
“But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” ~Acts 5:2

I am not sure how much I will be popping in here during the next three days because my hubby is on days off. Woo-hoo. And we're going on a date! Yay! Good night.

Soooo proud of himself

I was in the other room putting away laundry with A, and when we came back, we found E had gotten into the markers all by himself.

one of those days

E took off his diaper by himself, crawled over to A, where he then proceeded to poop and pee on the floor. It happened right beside our linen closet, so I pulled out an old hand towel and threw it on the pee, stepping on the towel so it would soak up all the liquid. I went to go get some toilet paper so I could pick up and flush the little log. I came back to find A, who was so happy to be helping, with the towel on top of the log. He was also stepping on the towel. What a mess! :)

21 Days of Prayer for Your Son (Obedience)

So I just came across a blog that had this really neat idea. They actually started April 1, so I am almost completely missing it, but I thought I would do this for my boys starting tomorrow. The idea is based on a blogger's e-book, Warrior Prayers.

The idea is to pray for your son(s) everyday, at least 10 times a day, in the areas of life that they need it most. You are actually supposed to buy her book to follow along, but we are on a tight budget, and I have already bought a new book this week that I am super excited to read (that will be a whole other post) Anyway, I am going to just read her posts, what the specific area of my boys life I am praying for, and just pray, without having a book tell me what to pray. Make sense?

So tomorrow, I will start praying for an obedient heart in both of my boys. Sometimes, A is so wonderfully obedient, and other days he loves to push every button I have. Boy, does he know how to push my buttons.

I will end this post with a long quote from the author's blog.

Obeying God is intimately linked to loving Him. If we focus too much on forcing our boys to change their outward behavior, and forget to hold out the great depth of love that sent a Savior to the Cross, we’re running the risk of raising little Pharisees.

Thought: As we pray for our sons to have obedient hearts today, let’s examine our own, and ask our Savior to help us live out His great love for us so that our sons will see how truly valuable it is.

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” ~John 14:21

Sweet singing face

I am feeling much better, but I am afraid E is now not feeling too hot. He was having a nice nap this afternoon, so after A played outside for a while, he came in and we decided to make homemade buns and hamburgers. He loves to help cook and is such a good helper. While we were waiting for the buns to rise, he decided he wanted to sing for me. Such a sweet, sweet boy.

So sick

I am so sick right now. Probably the sickest I have been since I was in high school, yet here I am, on the computer. I have a fever, and I keep on switching from freezing cold cannot-get-warm-enough to sweating hot, soaking my clothing. My glands in my neck are so swollen, you can actually see how puffy they are when you look at my neck. My throat hurts, I am hungry, and whenever I eat anything, it feels like I am swallowing glass. To top it all off, whenever I stand up, I get dizzy and feel like I am going to pass out. I am so achy and sore and I have had the nastiest headache.
I just gave in and took two tylenol, and while I am still weird cold/hot, my headache is gone. (woo-hoo)! Enough of my pity party.
I just feel bad for my boys because they did nothing wrong, yet mom can't get out of bed. I went to my mamma's house today. SO nice! My mamma made me homemade chicken noodle soup, smoothies, etc. and her and my dad watched the boys so I could sleep. Gabe has decided to take tomorrow off so he can help out with the boys while I try to recover.
We got more snow this morning, and it snowed all.day.long. So tired of the snow. It will be gone soon, right? Right? Please?

So here goes...

I have seen so very many cool blogs these days. I kind of silently creep on most of them, rarely leaving a comment. Do I have something to share with the world? Maybe. Maybe not. But maybe.

Where to even begin, well let's see. I am a mom to two of the most sweet-faced boys I know. A and E. Is it okay that I want to keep their names private? I don't have to ask anybody if it's okay. They are my kids, I get to do what I want!

I am also very blessed to be married to the man of my dreams. Seriously, he may have a few quirks, but I could not ask for a better man. I am not saying that to be nice. Gabe is the kindest person I have ever known, and he picked me! Hurray for me!



I am deepening my relationship with Jesus everyday, and I thought this could be a place where I share my joys and my struggles.

The title, "A New Creation"- that is me, that is all of us in Christ Jesus. I am no longer who I used to be, for I was crucified with Jesus on the cross and I was resurrected with him. How cool is that? I love the words to this song:

How many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?
Only one did that for me.

- How Many Kings by Downhere

Pretty powerful stuff, hey?


Well, that is all for now. I cannot guarantee this will be the most interesting blog, in fact, I can guarantee that this will not be the most interesting blog. Just a way for me to write down my thoughts for myself and for whoever might stumble upon them.