Enough!

I woke up Friday morning to two sweet kids curled up in my bed with me and a steady stream of thoughts rushing into my head.  My to-do for the day, the weekend, the month, my life came flooding into my brain; it went sort of something like this:

today you need to: finish planning that Children and Worship lesson for Sunday, stop at the store to pick up stuff for the Valentine's Party this afternoon (the one you've known about for three weeks), get kids up, fed, lunches packed, off to school, go to Bible Study, go to kids class parties, drive Kaylee to dance practice, pack bags for kids to be at Matt's, send those emails....

and don't forget about...paying the bills, organizing stuff for work, finish re-doing Isaac and Kaylee and Abbies bedrooms, folding the laundry, cleaning the kitchen (and the bathrooms and the entry way and the living room and the playroom...) putting stuff on craigslist that you took pictures of two weeks ago, and you need to run (10K training starts next week!),  and  make a meal plan for the next 2 weeks, plan Isaac and Abbie's birthday party, and...

At that point I reminded myself that most of things are actually do-able and/or not really a huge deal. Then I started thinking about how I wanted to: find a way to help a friend who is going through a really tough time right now, make a decision about going back to Haiti, offer words of advice to someone about her marriage, make sure my kids know and feel how much I love them, figure out a career path for myself....OK, this is bigger stuff and if I wasn't before, now I was feeling just a little overwhelmed.

With Isaac and Abbie sleeping peacefully next to me, I started to pray. And then it happened again, as I  started to pray for one person, the names of 2,3,4,5,10 other people/things came rushing into my mind.  I couldn't concentrate and my prayer became scattered and jumbled.

Feeling rather overwhelmed and completely incompetent to #1 finish my to-do list and #2 have a meaningful prayer time, God spoke these words to me, "The Lord is my Shepherd, That is Enough."  This was the message preached at my Grandpa Sternberg's funeral on Monday, words that have been rolling around in my brain  all week (probably crashing into my prayer and to-do lists) Thankfully those words came back to me at just the right time.

All this stuff that I need/want to do is good stuff (and some things like feeding children are sort of necessary) but in the end what really matters is my relationship with God.  Yes, there is work to be done, He does want me to be in prayer, but He knows my heart, He is My Shepherd and that is enough.  What a much better and more beautiful way to start a busy day.

Thank you Lord for speaking to me and for guiding me through what is so often an overwhelming season of life.  Let me be faithful to you in all that I do, every day.

How to successfully enrtain three children for an entire weekend

Some weekend we have stuff going on...some weekends we don't.  

Now, if it was just me by myself and a whole weekend of nothing to do I would be fine (ok, more like giddy with excitement) But a weekend with kids and not much to do can go bad real fast.  So here is how I (mostly) successfully entertained the kids last weekend, and had fun doing it!

Friday night

Not super exciting, but the kids each had a friend over after school.  We made individual pizzas and they played until bedtime when I brought their friends home...

the girls doing...well I'm not really sure

The boys (and Abbie) building a fort and....again not really sure

Saturday 

A trip to the children's museum

First, let it be known that I did not exactly wake the kids up at dawn and drag them out.  It is Saturday after all.  But after three hours of staring at a screen I informed the kids it was time to get out of the house! 

The conversation with Isaac went like this:

Me: OK Buddy, time to go

Isaac: Go? Where?  (I had only told him approximately 7 times the plan for the day...)

Me: To the Children's Museum

Isaac:  Oh, I don't want to go there, it's boring, it's for babies, can Nathaniel come?

Me: I don't care, no, and get in the car

Isaac super bored building with widgits

And he just hated the spinning table

yeah, making huge bubbles is just no fun! 

this area was so boring we only spent like an hour there! 

Kaylee's super creative creation

*Insert picture of Isaac's fort...that would be nice if I had remembered to actually take one! **

Trust me, it was pretty impressive 

I did get a picture of them all dressed up (and standing in one spot together) though...and that is pretty impressive too!

After 3 hours of boringness at the Children's museum, I was ready to go...they apparently they were NOT.  Isaac and Kaylee talked me into just a little more time.  So they spent the next 45 minutes "delivering" mail all around the museum while Abs and I hung out in the little kid area. 

Conversation on they way home:

Me: so, did you have fun?

Isaac: Yes! Can we go back tomorrow?

Me: Remember when you said it was going to be boring?  See how mommy was right

Isaac: silence....yeah I guess so

(I'll take it)

Saturday night: popcorn and the Lorax on netflix, oh and a glass of wine for me

Sunday

After the required hour long "quiet time"  (also very boring!!) we headed over the local elementary school for some sledding

There goes Abbie all  by herself!! 

We picked up a couple of Isaac's friends

They were super calm and didn't try anything crazy.....

(like tying sleds together or using the sleds on the slides )

When we got home I decided to make waffles for dinner.  I had seen this great idea on pinterest...

how cool is that?  It's also so obviously easy to make that reading instructions would be a total waste of time

the batter all mixed up and ready to go! 

see, totally easy and JUST like the picture! 

Then Isaac saved the day by asking if we could have ice cream clouds. 

So at least it was yummy! 

So, there you have it...how to entertain three lovely children for the weekend

And then...Monday was a snow day and I was out of ideas

So I let them do this: