Embracing the Chaos

One of the things that trips me up the most about motherhood is the chaos that comes with it. The inability to plan things or to have things go as planned. I like to organize and frequently visualize how I want days or experiences to go. My kiddos all seem to have their own ideas though...seriously, it's like they thing they are people or something 😉 They have their own agenda, or crises, or even moments of delight that interfere with all my well-thought-out plans. I've learned that sometimes our expectations do nothing but kill our joy. I'm striving to grow in my ability to roll with the punches. To engage in and find delight in whatever the day brings. To not fight the chaos but to embrace it

Yesterday, I woke-up to find a huge branch in our yard. I also had a head full tasks I was planning on accomplishing: school work, spring cleaning, laundry, etc. As soon as I saw the branch, though, I knew it would draw my kiddos in and bring them delight. I could fight that delight and try to check off all the school tasks I had on my list, or I could embrace it and join them in their fun. I chose to just roll with, and we had the best morning.

Since the older kids had already had the chance to explore and climb all over the branch; it was easy to convince them to do our daily reading within it's center while Baby Z laid down for his morning nap.

The city came to collect the branch right after lunch. I didn't get as much as I had expected to get done, but we did knock out some of the schoolwork, I scrubbed the kitchen, and Jeremy helped with the laundry that evening.

I still struggle with clinging to my own expectations and fighting any distractions that comes my way. Someday, the Lord will root this selfishness out of me but it it hasn't happened yet. It is so silly because every-time I let my expectations go and just embrace the day and whatever chaos it brings - we have a splendid time! The "have-tos" always seem to find a way of getting done and the "want-tos" are silly compared to the joy that flexibility can bring.

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A Little Red Cardboard Barn

We've finished our farm unit and are moving on to a new theme tomorrow - but before we do I wanted share the barn we made. The wooden farm animals came with a beautiful handmade ark that we gave Big Buddy for Christmas a couple years ago. I would someday love to have a wood barn but it's currently not in the budget. So in the mean time we decided to improvise and make our own. I stumbled upon this perfectly sized milk box (4 gallons per box) while subbing and thought it would be sturdy enough to handle play. Hubandie and the boys used an x-acto knife and wood glue to build a barn shape. to get the doors to fold out hubandie used an x-acto knife and scored the inside of the cardboard We then painted with a basic primer and outlined a window and a door with painters tape. cardboard is very porous so priming is a must if you want decent coverage Big Buddy however insisted that we add more windows so it...

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Preschool Syllabus: Dr. Seuss

Normally I'd do a Dr. Seuss unit in March around his birthday. We had to do one now though because on Saturday Big Buddy and I going on a date to a Dr. Seuss exhibit . The exhibit is only at the museum until January and I'm afraid if we don't go now we might not get the chance. We are of course reading lots of Dr. Seuss's books. A great advatage to studying Dr. Seuss in November rather than March is that all his books were available at the library. I also found a great children's biography which is perfect for preschoolers. Pebble First Biographies: Dr. Seuss We've read it a couple times and Big Buddy loves reciting all the facts he's learned WRITING CENTER ADDITIONS big buddy's name in sand paper letters, coloring pages & mazes from seussville.com skills practiced: fine motor, letter recognition, creativity, reading comprehension LEARNING "TRAYS" - I rotate these, setting out about four a day from which the boy...

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Jack-O-Lanterns on the Fridge

Last fall I saw the idea for refrigerator pumpkins with face pieces in FamilyFun Magazine and have been anxious to recreate them ever since. It was pretty quick and easy and since the only thing we didn't have on hand was magnetic sheets ($1.50 with coupon at Joann's) it was also very cheap. my supplies: magnetic sheets, orange & black construction paper, white pen, tacky glue *i know they have self adhesive sheets but my Joann's didn't carry them glued (very messily) and ready to cut Both the boys were quite enthused when they discovered them after rest time :) Hopefully it will keep them entertained until we carve real pumpkins.

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Joyfully Weary

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