Baby steps~Focusing on even the smallest of accomplishments

Remember back when your babies were actually babies. Even the tiniest of learning and accomplishments brought on joy and celebration. We oohed and awed at baby cooing and smiling, we cheered at their first steps, and for sure rejoiced the moment potty training was successful. We realized that no matter how small, the fact was that we had made it through to the next era. Once toddlers and big kiddos started showing up we quickly seemed to get lost in all of the hustle and bustle of just keeping them from killing each other or destroying our home, and forgot to acknowledge all of the tiny achievements that our kids master. The last few days I have purposed in my heart and really prayed for God's guidance in this area of focusing on even the smallest of deeds. We have had a tough time with our oldest and math, with our middle and focus and desire, and with our youngest and attitude. It's really been some times of thinking "am I cut out for this homeschooling as part of who I am as Mama?" I refused to let myself beat up on me and I refuse to just quit. So I began praying. I asked my husband to pray. I asked others to pray too, the ladies I know I can depend on to truly pray for me and the kids and our schooling when they say they will. God has not spoken through a mighty burning bush. He didn't call out to me in a dream or even make it very obvious by speaking through His Word in my studies. He spoke in that still small voice. That voice that says "listen, I'm all around. I'm still here, and here's your reassurance." It first came when my Hannah sat down for math yesterday and not once complained about multiplication tables. It came when I had the ingenious DUH moment of breaking them down just a few per day instead of overloading her. It came when she lit up because I rejoiced with her for knowing and memorizing them perfectly in just one day! He spoke in a hushed voice when I overheard my little Sarah say "come on Noah let's go play. You're my best fand.", and watched as the two of them bounced on the trampoline without a fight. God then embraced me as He so lovingly does when the day was done and Noah ran to his Daddy with sight words in hand excited to share the new words he had learned that day. Oh, Father, how You love me. The ways that You show me You care are too great and far beyond my deserving. I will celebrate the smallest of achievements, even the tiniest of baby steps!

Busted pipes and a dose of reality.

Today started as a normal day. I started to prep for breakfast and stepped out on the back porch to get some sausage out of the freezer. I was digging through and realized I heard something unusual...running, no more like, spewing water. My very first reaction was that my kids had left the hose running. As I walked over that way I ended up ankle deep in a mini pond that had been created from water running out from under our house. Keep in mind that not only is this the third plumbing leak in less than 6 months that we've had but this time it also falls while my husband is at school (working on his bachelor's). I mentally put on my super woman cape and attacked the siding around our house to get to the pipe which in fact was spewing all over. I found the cut-off valve and turned it to the off position all while moving like a ninja when I felt the cobwebs hitting my arms. YUCK! I was actually hoping that was a cut-off to just the one particular pipe but it in fact turned out to be the water main and turned off our whole house. So it was, from the beginning, a day of no "quality H2O" for us. I knew I would not need water for breakfast so I went on with the morning as close to normal as possible but just about an hour later. We then took the time after some morning lessons to bring as many jugs and buckets as we could find to my mother-in-law's home to "collect" water for drinking and other uses. Boy, talk about a dose of reality. How dependent we are on today's age of electricity, running water, and technology. We really are living in an era of ease. Life seems so difficult and so chaotic. Yet, we live in so much freedom. We flip a switch to have an entire room full of light at night. We don't have to find a lantern or a candle. We don't have to go to "sleep with the chickens" if we don't please to because we can actually still function at night with more than a small flame as light to guide us. We turn a faucet to endless amounts of clear (hopefully healthy) water for our every liquid need. We cook, wash our selves, clothes, dishes, floors, we serve our thirsty children. Never do we have to "fetch" a bucket or "draw" from the well. In fact most of us don't even have the worry of having to keep up an electric pump and a dug water well anymore. We're all mostly on central water these days. I can thank God indefinitely just for the one, possibly vain, reason that I do NOT have to wash two loads of clothes per day by pumping up my water and scrubbing the stains out all by hand. Have mercy! What a relief! The little things in life that we have so much faith in yet take for granted on a day to day basis are often times the things we should be the most thankful for. I often find myself worried that I spent too much time on one thing and not enough on the other. Whether school lessons, house cleaning, or loving my family something always seems to lack when the other is blossoming. 100% of Mama stretches thin on a chart of all the different "hats" we associate with our must-do lists. Today, though, I stop and realize that if I didn't have my microwave oven or Heaven forbid my laser printer (imagine having to handwrite all those birthday invitations) then I would be pulled so thin I would be weak and more vulnerable to those feelings of inadequacy. We have to remember the old saying "When you think you've got it bad just look around someone else probably has it worse." Thank God for the items, people, tools, electricity, and absolutely the RUNNING WATER that make our homes so much easier to live in.

"D" Home Academy

Today I woke up with great expectations and many prayers on my heart. As I cooked breakfast I was actually nervous. Me? Nervous? Why was I nervous to sit down in front of three children under the age of 8 and teach them just as I had done the past three years? It was all those great expectations. Expectations, that I myself was doubtful yet hopeful of all at the same time. I had prayed so hard for today to go better than years past. Even the first day of school has been tough for us before. What should hold excitement and curiosity would lack both to say the least. We just couldn’t seem to get it all together. After two very hard years of flip-flopping curriculum and lack of learning, I found myself questioning what it was God would have me to do to make things right within our home walls. Today was the sigh of relief I had been praying for. We woke up, ate a well-rounded breakfast and lunch, did morning chores, completed all of our lessons all before 2 pm! That is huge, I repeat HUGE for us. The D’ home academy does not normally complete tasks very well. Something, whether lessons or chores or even baths, gets spilled over into tomorrow until sometimes tomorrow is long gone.  So what made today different, besides being covered in prayer? I stopped the planning, preparing, and pondering overload and began the “D” home academy new school routine! The “D” now stands for not only Daniels, but also disciplined, determined, discipled, dedicated, driven, and delighted! (I had to throw in delighted because I have to be excited for school for my kids to follow my example) Today we were all of these things, ALL of us, and believe me I need more work on these than my kids do. I am beyond excited that we had such a wonderful day today and I can’t wait to see what our school accomplishes this year putting all of these principles into work! Stay tuned!