Prayer Wall

I started a prayer wall yesterday. I've been thinking about it for some time, but yesterday I found some fabulous printable Stations of the Cross with amazing art, and I wanted to make sure I was introducing them to my family as I should. Lauren, Caleb, and Abby were infatuated with the pictures. It took me awhile to get them to sit down so I could begin prayers.

My plans are to keep pictures on the prayer wall for those we are praying for. We always pray for "our Godparents, our grandparents, our aunts, uncles, and cousins.............new babies in their mommy's tummy, our soldiers who are protecting us, and the leaders of our church and our country." I just think it will be nice to see their faces while we are praying for them.

As soon as I get more pictures on the wall, I will post a picture.

Making "Clean Up" Fun

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, I die-cut some shamrocks at the school where I teach. I was trying to think of a fun game to play with them and then it came to me: I will write bead amounts (if you don't know about my bead system for doing chores, read here) on some shamrocks and hide them under the kids' toys in the playroom. The kids will have to pick up toys to find the shamrocks and they can not have their beads until the toys are put away.

Naughty Leprechaun

For instructions on how to make this cute St. Patrick puppet, visit the author here.

Oh my goodness I love the holidays! I have such fond memories of my mom decorating the house for each holiday. I don't know that she did much more than that, but the teacher in me looks for as many ideas as I can find to make holidays memorable in our home. Yesterday, I found this idea on "Many Little Blessings" on Facebook and today, Family Fun posted about the shenanigans that a little Leprechaun tries in homes everywhere.

"Green milk? Green toilet water? Green footprints? Trails of shamrock confetti? "One year the kids woke up with green kiss marks on their foreheads," recalls mom Monique, still clearly shaken. "

Despite powerful bait (Lucky Charms cereal!), their traps have caught only chocolate gold coins and candy bars, accompanied by notes taunting them with "Good try," or "Can't catch me!" As everyone knows, leprechauns hoard pots of gold, and if caught, must reveal the treasure's location to their captor. But that's not the payback Jacob seeks. Because the elusive elves are always leaving him chocolate, he figures they must have even more of that than gold!

"It's for the sake of Jacob, Elise, and all the other St. Patrick's Day mischief fighters that we offer here three state-of-the-art leprechaun traps. Each is easily made from ordinary household materials and uses lures and baits drawn from the latest research in leprechaun psychology. But please take our designs and customize them to make something unique: leprechauns, as we all know, won't be fooled by the same trap twice!"

More ideas:
green bath water

For fun St. Patrick's Day food ideas, check out my cooking blog.

What it's Like With 4 Kids 6 and Under (and a Half-Time Job)

Just when you think you REALLY can't handle any more, God proves you wrong.

Things were already overwhelming before with me working 7:30-11:30 and Stephen working 12-9 plus some weekends PLUS taking classes online. Monday nights were crazy with having dinner on the table by 5 so we could get Lauren to dance AND Caleb to soccer, both at 5:45. Hmmm... Every other Thursday night Lauren has Girl Scouts.

My dad moved in with us on December 29. Even though there are many things we are working through right now, this really is a GOOD thing. Dad was not taking care of himself and I was sending people to check on him, only to call me and tell me they had to put him in the hospital. I was a wreck always wondering about his health.

So now we are adding my father's MANY doctor's appointments to our schedule plus some other issues we were dealing with that really were taking hours out of our weeks.

My fabulous friends from church heard my cries and got together to make meals to stock our freezer. What a blessing! Think about doing this for any friend in need. It not only saved me the time of making dinner, it saved time of going to the store to buy the ingredients, putting the ingredients away when I got home, and cleaning dishes, etc... Even with that help, my husband had to take a break from classes.

This week has been particularly stressful for me. Caleb turned 5 yesterday which means a party tomorrow. Stephen took off of work last night so we could have our little family party. We had not bought Caleb any presents so here is how yesterday looked after work:

-home/lunch/naptime
-2:45 woke all the kids and went to pick up Lauren from school
straight to Wal-Mart to get a cake for the evening plus order a cake for Saturday (this hurt because I had to admit I did not have enough time to make his cake this time), bought presents with Caleb in the shopping cart
-rushed home to feed starving baby
-got everything ready for Caleb's soccer and evening out (thank goodness Girls Scouts was cancelled)
-took Caleb to soccer and wrapped his presents in the van
-party at Chuck E Cheese
-8:45 home and prayers/bedtime only an hour late
-fed starving baby again
-tried to clean a little for housekeeper

Today will prove to be just as crazy:
-pick up Lauren and straight across town to the party store to get more goody bags
-home to get Lauren ready for her first sleepover
-church for Mardi Gras celebration...Lauren to sleepover late
-home to get the kids bathed and in bed

Saturday will be tricky as well:
-Caleb's game is at 9
-We are supposed to pick Lauren up in the next town at 9
-Pick up the cake and buy the food for the party
-Home to decorate and stuff the goody bags
-3:00 PARTY TIME

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!