RAISING REAL MEN MONDAY (oops, it's Wednesday)

Okay, so Monday came and went, and I totally forgot to post. So here is my thoughts on this chapter. Chapter One - Someone To Look Up To. This chapter was all about heroes. Boys always have heroes, either positive or negative. We already see this in Mr A. who loves Spiderman, Batman, and Superman, and has never actually watched a TV show or movie about any of them. According to Hal and Melanie Young, "What we admire, we tend to become." Wow, never thought about that before, even though I already knew this too be true. We need to teach our sons that Jesus is the ultimate hero. Often, the Jesus our kids hear about and see pictures of is a man who looks, well, girly. Jesus is a real man for our boys to look up to, admire, and aspire to be. After Jesus comes the dad. Big responsibility lies on the dad's shoulders. It is the dad who give the child their first glimpse of who Jesus is.
I have so much underlined in this book. I cannot say enough good things about this.
They speak about TV, and what we allow our boys to watch on TV. We don't own a TV, but we do let Andrew watch videos on YouTube. I liked how they put it, "Isn't it better for our children to live out their own adventures than to spend their lives watching other people who are pretending to have a life for the cameras? How pathetic."
Okay, I am going to keep this short, because it is almost midnight, and I need to sleep. Sorry, a delayed post and a short one....

oh...and need to add, we never got an offer on the car. :(

My Debt Rant

I am slacking at everything lately, it seems. I haven't blogged since Monday, I haven't gotten past Day 4 on Have a Clean House in 31 days, and my laundry situation is out.of.control.

This may or may not be the result of having my hubby, the father of my children, home for 3 blissful days. I love his days off- they are like a breath of fresh air.

We actually went on another date on Wednesday. I know, 3rd date this year. Crazy! Haha. We went for coffee, our favorite date activity and donairs. I love donairs. so much. On Thursday, we spent the day with our good friends, celebrating his birthday.

Gabe is trying to sell his old car. He has a 1969 Cougar that was his baby, but he decided (with absolutely no pushing from me) that he is going to sell this car. We had a young guy come look at it tonight, and we are really hoping it sells. This will bring us so much freedom.

Gabe and I have been working on paying off all of our debt for a year now, and to date, we have paid of $37000. Dang. That doesn't even include the extra money we have been putting on our mortgage. It hasn't been easy, but it is so much fun seeing your debt load eliminated. We've sold stuff, cut back our spending drastically, and pretty much had no life. We both know this is for a season. This is what we both feel God has been calling us to do.

I digress.

If Gabe sells his car for the price he is asking, we will have $3000 of debt left (besides the mortgage) Seriously, I get butterflies is my stomach when I think about it. When we debt free except for the house, Gabe will be switching back to a week on, week off schedule.

(cue angels singing "hallelujah!)

It will be so nice to have my hubby home. This does not, however, end our thrifty lifestyle. We will then be creating our fully funded emergency fund and then paying off our mortgage.

Thank you, Dave Ramsey!

RAISING REAL MEN MONDAY

I just bought this book, “Raising Real Men” by Hal and Melanie Young. Boy oh boy, is this book ever a gooder. Seriously. I think all mothers of boys should read this book. I am trying to read this book and really soak it in. I have decided to read one chapter a week, and blog about. This week I read the introduction and Part 1. The book is divided up into two parts, Part One is called “Virtues In the Rough” and Part Two is called “Civilization for the Tough”.

This book speaks to me on so many levels. I seriously could quote this entire book. It is THAT good. Part One felt like it was describing A to a “t”. This book is helping me understand who my boy’s are, who God made them to be. I am going to quote the author’s once, because they describe the book perfectly.

“What this book offers is a biblical perspective- note “a”, not “the” – on understanding how boys think, and why that is, and what can and should be done about it….We’ve found that many of the troubles and concerns we had were clarified when we looked to what God intended them to be. The situation looked different when we truly valued manly virtues and masculinity and when we understood that we had to rebuke sin but should not change our boys into something they were not.”

Our culture, myself included, wants our boy to behave like girls. We want them to play like girls, sit still like girls, be quiet like girls. We want them to be girls, basically. This is such an insult, not only to our boys, but to God. God created both man and woman in his image and what we are telling him and his creation is that they are wrong, they we should all be made to be like woman. They need to do things our way. How messed up is that? I even find myself doing this with my husband – wanting him to do things my way.

I need to throw another quote in here. “Women are praised to the extent they act like men, and men are praised for how womanly they become.” Ouch. That one stings me.

I am not saying that boys are to run wild and be disobedient. I am learning that boys need to be boys, and we need to stop pushing them to be girls.

The book explains how boys are born with the virtues of men, but they are just untaught. We need to teach them, and allow them to be boys. The virtues that we love in a man are the very virtues that drive us the most crazy in our boys.

One more quote. “:What are the manly virtues?...competitiveness, aggression, a desire for adventure…heroism, courage, endurance, fortitude…protectors, persistent, honorable, intrepid...Those virtues are present in seed form in our boys. Will we cultivate them and help bring them to fruition? Or will we trade the opportunity for a little more peace and quiet, and hope their future will take care of itself?”

Mothers of boys, you NEED this book. Seriously. Hal and Melanie Young have six sons, and two daughters, so they have had a lot of experience raising boys. I have never underlines to many things in my life. I cannot recommend this book enough.

For more information on this book and where to purhase, visit the Young's website.

A tired day

So I have missed two days in a row on my Have a Clean House in 31 days challenge, but I have an excuse...sort of. Gabe's brother and his wife along with their two sweet boys came for a visit yesterday. I spent the majority of the day tidying things up and getting beds made all the while chatting on the phone with my sister. Our company arrived for supper, then boys to bed, a short visit, and then off to bed. An early morning (their boys wake at 6 AM, wayyy to early for this mamma who's babes rise at 9 AM.) After breakfast, they were on their way. A super short visit, but I am left feeling exhausted. I had a rough night with Mr E. and then a early morning. So, I did what seemed like the best idea for a tired, cranky momma. I stayed in my pajamas, made a big pot of coffee, and spent the day outside just resting my body on the ground as the boys played. We made 'er through the day, but my head will not stop pounding. A few pictures from our day.


Little E has discovered the well worn path through the trees between us and our neighbor's house. We have this sweet old couple that live behind us that always have cookies for our boys. Whenever we go for a walk, A always asks at some point to stop at their house for a cookie. This year, A spends a lot of time outside on his own, and we have learned that he pops over often for a cookie, and then comes back to our yard. Now E tries to make his way over their on his own.

I know A may look angry in the next picture, but trust me, he isn't. This is his dinosaur pose and his dinosaur face. We get a dinosaur boy in our house many times a day.

I had been telling A about how tomorrow is Mother's Day and how it is a day to show our mom how much we love the them. I found some dandelions in our yard (yay) and as soon as A saw them, he ran and picked two and told me he had some beautiful flowers for me for mother's day.


And whatever big brother does...

Happy Mother's Day to all you mom's out there!

31 Days To A Clean House Day 4

Today's challenge. The oven and the microwave.
The microwave: easy peasy. I almost never use it, so it was pretty much good to go.
The oven - not-so-much. It was gross. Like, I had a fire in there a couple of months ago and threw baking soda on it and left it like that. The worst part is, I have a self-clean oven. I just always forget to put it on when I am leaving the house and I really don't like using it when we are in the house.

Bad, hey? I used the self clean TWICE and still had to put in a lot of elbow grease. It is not even near to being 100% clean, but it is good enough for now. I wasn't home most of the day. I went into our nearest city and spent the day drinking coffee with a friend while our kids played happily in the park. Gabe's brother is coming for a visit tomorrow, so I am looking forward to the company.

As for the Mary Challenge, can our company that is coming tomorrow count as my inviting a friend over? I hope so. We just had friends over this weekend and let them "put their feet up".

I asked Gabe what made him feel most loved and he gave me a really long description, but he basically meant that the things I do already make him feel loved. He loves that I always have supper cooked for him, keep the house somewhat tidy, and care for our children. I love that man.

31 Days To A Clean House Days 3 (and part of Day 2)

If I am going to be completely honest, I did not enjoy my Martha Challenge at all today. It was cleaning the tops and fronts of all of my cupboards, the top of my fridge, and cleaning the fronts of all of the appliances. Ugg. I was up on the phone with my sister last night, having a really good, deep conversation. I really miss my sister, and I enjoyed talking to her SO MUCH last night! I love you, Laura, one of my only two readers. Hi, Crystal! (my other reader)

Anyways, the tops of my cupboards were disgusting. Seriously. Like never-been-cleaned-since-or-cupboards-were-installed-two-years-ago disgusting.
I actually had to use my fingernail to write those words in the dust because it was not just dust, it was a greasy dust. Ughh. I scrubbed and scrubbed and finally got them nice and clean. It took me a looooonnnggg time.

Then there is the top of my fridge. My fridge is tall, so I don`t see all of the stuff I have "hidden" up there. Stickers, coupons, pictures, random papers...



Here is my shiny clean kitchen. I didn't scub my cupboards as well as I should have. I wiped them all down, but I was kind of spent already. They are clean, just not perfectly clean.


Yes, my son picks his own clothes and no, it is not warm enough to be wearing shorts. He wanted to be in every picture.

Laura- this is for you. Just in case you are feeling bad because you haven't started- my kitchen may look like this picture above, but this is what my laundry room looks like.

This does not include the dirty pile behind me or the clean load of towels on my couch waiting to be folded. Plus their is a load in the washer and in the drier. I love laundry. *please note sarcasm*

I never elaborated on my yesterday's Mary Challenge. On how I can give live to my home, my husband, and my children. My sister and I spoke on this a lot last night. I have been really struggling a lot lately with all of the "stuff" we have, when there are so many people who have nothing. I have been in a state where I feel guilty for buying anything for myself or my home, anything that isn't a necessity. I still feel like I am struggling with this. Like my sister said to me, "At the end of the day, you still need to wear a bra. If your old bra's are worn out and the wires are poking you, it will make you cranky with your husband and kids. Go buy a new bra." In a way, I have been trying to make myself suffer to "earn God's grace". Not cool. We can't earn in. All our righteousness are like filthy rags. So - to give life I am continuing to learn to die daily. Stop living in the flesh. Stop trying to do it on my own.

My March challenge today is to ask the people in my house in what I do in caring for the home that makes them feel loved. I asked A. He said I cook him eggs. I asked Gabe, and he says he needs some time to think about it....

31 Days To A Clean House Days 1 and 2

I started the "Home Makers Challenge" yesterday. Day 1's challenges were pretty easy. Make a mission statement about why you want a clean house. (Mary) and (Martha) look over all of the Martha challenges to get all the supplies you need. My mission statement is: I want a clean house so I can worry less and spend more time focusing on the things in life that are truly important.
I place a tidy house often as more important then spending time with my kids. "Mom, will you come play a game with me?" "Not right now, I have to wash the dishes." On the other hand, you need to clean. Your house would be disgusting if you didn't. Then there are the days that my house looks like a hurricane went through it, and I just don't feel like picking it up (and those are always the days that someone unexpectedly drops in) Ughh. I need to find a happy medium.

Day 2: My Martha challenge was to clean out my fridge and freezer. My fridge wasn't terrible. My mom taught me to always do a wipe down before you put the new groceries in. There wast just a few crevices that needed a good scrubbing.




My freezer on the other hand, was gross. I don't use it all that much. We have a small freezer (and now a giant freezer that was just given to us for free!) in our garage where we store all of our meat. I don't think I have cleaned in at all in the past two years. Gross, hey?



Look at all the nastiness in there. It was gross.

My Mary challenge is to figure out ways I can bring life to my home, my husband, and my children. This is a huge challenge, and tonight I think I will blog more about this, because it seriously needs it's own post. Whew!

I haven't blogged for a couple of days. We have had Gabe home, and it has been really nice. We spent the entire weekend with good friends, and we feel really blessed to have such an amazing family to call our friends. Gabe and I have never had another couple where he likes the man and I like the woman so much. Usually one of us is good friends with one of people, and their spouse is more like an acquaintance to the other one of us. Make sense?

Mr A is teaching his little brother all kinds of things. Their newest thing they do together is A will tell E to praise Jesus, and this is what they do. Such sweet little monkeys.