Happy 6th Birthday Ellie Kate

Six years ago, you burst into our lives and it hasn't been the same since:). 

I can't believe I get to be your mom. 

I can't believe I carried you in my tummy for 38 weeks and then had the experience of giving birth to you.  Something I never thought or dreamed I could do.  

You. Are. A. Treasure. 

My first daughter.  My first born second child. 

There will never be another you (although I think Annie is a close second:) Ha)

I love your zest for life and your shining personality. 

Everyone loves you because you are so fun and so sweet and so smart. 

You are passionate about what you love and what you hate. 

You still pitch fits and you are still very stubborn. 

You might tend to be a little bossy when it comes to your siblings especially Abigail.

You love hard and you are full of emotion! 

You have grown so much this past year and I am just so proud of who you are and who you are becoming. 

You love school.  You love your friends. 

You never stop moving and you never stop talking.  I love that (most of the time).

You have a hard time saying your sorry and you do not like to be wrong.

Your favorite thing to do is play with friends and draw.  You love to color and write things out.  

You make beautiful pictures for me and daddy everyday.   

You love to "talk" at night in bed about important things:). 

You are a sassy little diva and we love you soooo much!

Happy 6th Birthday Silly Girl!!!

Anna Mitchell's Room

It's not as great as her original nursery from our old house, but I still do love Annie's room in the new house as well.  It's very soothing and soft and will grow with her I hope!

Again, this room (or any in my house for that matter) is not a decorating dream or anything.  We use mostly furniture that is given to us or that I buy at garage sales! 

I just love documenting my kids rooms because they do tend to change a lot:).  Ha ha!  I am not known for keeping things the same for long.

Most of the same details from her first nursery are in this one.

  I did find a mirror for a steal and a moved a bookshelf we already had into the room, but I think that's the only new things I've done in her space.  Oh, and I did add a bumper pad.

Her old nursery post is HERE

You can sort of see the little built in "desk" area behind the chair.  Well, that is Anna Mitchell's changing table:)

That awesome chalk painted mirror I scored for $30!  What a steal! And yep, that small frame in the front up there...still has no picture.  Good thing I'm not OCD about those kind of things:). 

This beautiful baby book was made by one of my friends mother!  This was her gift to me:).  It's beautiful...and currently empty.  Better get on that! Ha ha!

And here is the wild woman herself.  This girl is crazy y'all!  She is beginning to have quite the personality these days too!  I love my itty bitty baby girl so much. 

 

Our LOVE Day

I love valentines day! Pink is one of my favorite colors so I love to spice up our house with lots of pink from now until Easter. It's great! 

I also love to think up fun valentines for my kids to give out.  This year I actually did three different things.  I don't know why I do that to myself! 

I used a blogger friend's free printable and idea for valentine smores with pink peeps for Ellie Kate to give out.  She loved these and loved addressing all of them to her friends! 

So Samuel now has to be "cool" and was horrified that some of the valentines I got for him said "Be Mine".  He said he absolutely could not give any of those out because people would think he was in love with them:).  Oh my!!!  So, he picked those out and went for the more generic greetings!

Abigail and I made valentine popcorn (popcorn, melted white chocolate, and pink sprinkles) for her to give out.  She also LOVED addressing all her cards to her classmates and friends.  She is growing up so fast and getting so good at writing, sounding out letters, and spelling things. 

My three big valentines...

I clearly love banners...

This little valentine wouldn't stay still long enough for a picture.  She is into everything and the busiest baby!!!  But I love her to pieces.  

Jeff brought home some cheesecake for us to enjoy after the kids went to bed and it was so yummy!  I love him so.  He is soooooo good to me:)! 

The greatest love story ever told though is God's great rescue and redemption of me through Jesus. 

"His banner over me is love..."  Song of Songs 2:4

"For God so loved the world, He gave His only Son..." John 3:16

 

One Year Comparison

 I go back and forth with who Annie looks most like.  There are some days she looks just like Ellie Kate to me but most people outside our family say she looks just like Abigail.  In this comp below she does look more like Abs.  I just love seeing the uniqueness in each girl but also noticing the similarities that they all got from Jeff and I.  So thankful for each of these little beauties!

And I couldn't leave my best bud out.  I love looking at pics from when he was little!  He was actually right around 4 in this picture even though he looks barely two.  We had him home just short of a year here.  

My little buddy.  How cute was he? 

The Power of Prayer

The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness.  Come overwhelmed with life.  Come with your wandering mind.  Come messy.  

Instead of trying to see through the clouds of uncertaintly up ahead, fix your eyes on Jesus.  He can show you the way forward where there appears none. 

The gospel frees us to ask what's on our hearts.

If you know that you, like Jesus, can't do life on your own, then prayer makes complete sense.  

If you give God the space, He will touch your soul.  God knows you are exhausted, but at the same time he longs to be part of your life.  A feast awaits. 

Suffering is so important to the process of learning how to pray.  It is God's gift to us to show us what life is really like. 

It took me seventeen years to realize I couldn't do parenting on my own. If I didn't pray deliberately and reflectively for members of my family by name every morning, they'd kill one another.  I was incapable of getting inside their hearts.  I was desperate.

excerpts from A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller

Last week I mentioned on the blog that we were struggling with Samuel.   And oh how we were.  There were a few nights last week that I was literally scared of my own sin and thoughts towards my son.  I was scared for our future.  I was helpless and felt hopeless.  Jeff felt the same.  We were exhausted and weary of fighting this fight.  For 7 years we have loved Samuel and put so much energy into getting him the help he needs from heart surgery to various therapies to finally ADHD medication.  All of this because of 3 stupid years of neglect.  The 3 most important years in my sons life have messed up his brain and it makes me sad and angry all at the same time!  I have dealt with guilt and frustration that we haven't been able to get more help for him and wondering why he struggles so.  ADHD is a monster.  It can wreck families and it was truly beginning to wreck ours.  I'm not exaggerating.  It had gone from bad to worse.  School was great (thank goodness he's apparently an angel there), but home life with Samuel was exasperating. 

At our wits end early last week, God took us to the pit and showed us that He was our only hope.  Duh.  Why had we neglected to cry out to Him?  I mean, not just give him lip service...but really and truly cry out to our Abba Father.  Cry out to the one who fearfully and wonderfully made Samuel just the way he wanted him to be.  Who intricately knows the way his brain is wired and who intricately knows our exhaustion.  Why had we failed to do what was most elementary in the Christian faith?  We had forgotten to pray.  We had tried and failed to do this parenting thing on our own.  The Holy Spirit so prompted our hearts to get real about this and ask for His help.  

A lot of this was beginning in my heart because of a book I recently started reading (thanks Sarah for the recommendation) called A Praying Life.  It has been so good!  God has truly used it to wake me up.  

So, back to early last week.  I texted some close friends of mine to pray.  I got on my knees and had some time in confession and then crying out to the Lord.  Wed morning at my Bible Study I shared with my group what was going on and each of them prayed bold prayers that the Lord would help us and help Samuel.  Wednesday when Samuel got home from school I prayed with him and asked him to pray for the Lord to give him strength and self control.  Jeff had a friend praying as well. 

Wednesday was by far the best day we have had with Samuel in a long time.  It's not a coincidence.  Our God is powerful and He is merciful.  He is the giver of all good gifts and He is also the great physician.  He gives us power.  He gave Samuel His power that day and I got to witness it.   I've seen the Lord perform some miracles in my life and in our family (Samuel's heart healing, getting pregnant 4 times now, having three babies, etc) but this one has just touched my heart in such a way that has made me fall in love with my God again.  It has made me fall in love with my buddy again.  It has made me long for the Spirit's power in my life like never before.  I cannot do this life on my own.  I am such a hot mess.  The best part was that Samuel got to see God's power.  He was so happy and so proud that he declared "God's displaying His glory in me!" YES INDEED HE IS!  

The days following have been much of the same.  Full of bold prayers and full of God's power.  Is Samuel perfect? NO.  Not one child is perfect.  He still struggles against the monster of ADHD but now He knows there is ONE greater than that monster.  He knows that he doesn't have to fall into it, but that he can pray and ask the Spirit of God to help him.  I love seeing Samuel's faith grow.  I love seeing the Lord grow my own faith that has gotten stagnant in this season of chaos.  I don't deserve any of it.  But that's the beauty of the gospel and our God.  He's so amazing.  I don't pretend to think that from here on out we are golden.  I know what can lie ahead. I know that Samuel won't be fully healed until the glory of heaven.  But I know now who to call on and who to depend on in this task and I will continue to do it because I so fully believe that is my only hope. 

With my voice I cry out to the Lord 

with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord

I pour out my complaint before him

I tell my trouble before Him. 

Psalm 142:1-2

Shared Girls Room

So like I said in my previous post, I have been a busy bee painting Ellie Kate and Abigail's furniture that was given to us by Jeff's grandmother and mom.  It's a pretty classic French Provincial style set that was very popular in the 50s.  The before wasn't necessarily bad, it just blended with the walls and didn't really go with the other stuff I already had in their room.  So, I decided to give the set a makeover.  I love how everything turned out! However, I may not be painting anything again in the near future.  I got my painting fix for awhile:).  Ha ha! 

  The only thing new is the furniture. Everything else was already in there.  We just rearranged a bit since before this we had bunk beds.  This is not a decorating show piece by any means.  Just a fun little girls room that my 4 and 5 year old truly enjoy and play in (because we don't have a playroom). 

I did spray paint the hardware with some oil rubbed bronze spray paint I already had on hand. 

I used oil based paint for these pieces which was sort of a pain, but will hopefully hold up well over time!  It's White Dove by Benjamin Moore.

I decided to give the beds a little pop of color with some pink!  Don't know that color off the top of my head but if you want to know, just leave me a comment and I'll add it back in the post:).

I got this bedding a year or so ago for the girls with some of their Christmas money from Pottery Barn Kids.  I still love it! 

This is their little play corner of American Girl and Bitty Baby Twin dolls.  They also have a walk in closet with a good many books and toys in it in addition to their clothes.

Just a small gallery wall...

Oh the tree is a fabric vinyl that is removable.  I got it on Etsy a few years ago and I love it because it can be moved.  I kept the tube and plastic it came on so I could move it with us wherever we go or if I decide to move it around the room. 

This sweet girl wanted to get in some pics.  Of course I obliged:)...

Abigail loves her pretty new bed!

(so does Ellie Kate, but she was at school when I took pics)

And here is what the set looked like before...

 This is the original brochure that came with the furniture.  What a blessing to have this set in our family!  We are so thankful!

I Am Still Here

Geez, this has probably been one of my longer blogging breaks and it was not intentional.  Life has just gotten in the way I guess.  I love this blog.  I usually love posting pics and writing and keeping a diary of our life in this space.  However, it has just not been in the top priority lately.

I have said it before, but life with ministry and life with our 4 children is very full and very busy.  If you want more of a day to day snapshot of what goes on, follow me on instagram! Here are a few bullet points of what's been going on...

• The kids have been sick a lot the past few weeks...fevers and bad colds.  It seems like one of them has been sick every week for the past month to so.  Nothing terrible, but enough to wear us down. 
• Did I ever mention that Annie stopped sleeping through the night before Christmas? Nice.  Basically she had a little stomach bug a few weeks before the holidays and it totally messed with her sleep.  FINALLY, in the last week she has started sleeping through the night again.  Thank you Lord! 
• One reason I haven't blogged is I've been doing lots of painting.  Jeff's grandparents generously gave me a bedroom suite from their house.  Well, I guess they were going to give it to Jeff's mom who then decided we could have it.  So she was generous too:).  It was actually the set she and her sister shared growing up so it has twin beds, a long dresser, a tall chest of drawers, and a nightstand.  I have been busy making them a little makeover...thing is it takes forever when you can only do painting like once a week on the weekends or at night.  I am so close to being done and I will post pics of their room once I'm all finished. 
• I've also gotten into chalk boards and chalk art and have had fun doing some of that. 
• Ellie Kate is doing fabulous in gymnastics and can now do a back walkover all by herself!  She is a very determined little thing and is excited about her birthday coming up in a few short weeks. Abigail also just started gymnastics and is already improving. 
• Samuel is doing great in school and getting awesome grades which we are SO PROUD of.  His behavior and ADHD issues continue to be a struggle and many days we are left feeling hopeless and helpless as to how to help him.  I just bought 3 books at Barnes and Noble on this very issue, so hopefully I can read them all...but that will probably mean not a lot of blogging! Ha! 
• I'm helping plan our church's women's conference in March with one of my best friends.  Another reason for the lack of blogging.  It has been fun, but it will be a slight miracle if it gets pulled off with the two of us running the show (there are 7 children between us who none of them can seem to stay well which means the mama's are a little ragged).  
• I've also started exercising (doing some intense workout videos) and taking on this pregnancy weight once and for all (since I am DONE birthing my babies).  I have already lost several pounds but more importantly several inches.  I am finally back into my pre pregnancy clothes but want to get more toned and back in shape.  I am proud of the progress I've made, but trying to find 45-50 minutes to work out 5 days a week has been a challenge.  Most days, I'm doing it around 9:30pm after the kids are in bed.  I guess this is reason 5,432 that I have neglected this blog:). 
• Through it all, I am learning that most important is that I connect with the Lord.  It's sad really that my time in prayer and time in the word is usually last on the list...when I need it most!  I desperately need God's wisdom and strength to make it through each day as a wife and mom.  I fail so often in parenting these four children I've been entrusted with.  There are days I want to walk out the door...I'm not kidding y'all.  But there are also days (thankfully) that my heart is so full of joy and emotion that it could burst.  The physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion has set in with me for sure.  I am slowly learning that I really can't do it all...which is not easy for me.  
• I will be back soon (I hope) with more exciting things than bullet points to post!