where has the time gone?

I was able to declare that it is officially time to lower the mattress in our little one's crib. This came to be after my little man stood himself up using the sides of the crib to brace himself. He then proceeded to lean over the side of his crib, grab my cup of water sitting on the nightstand, and turning it upside down spilling the contents of the glass on the crib, nightstand and floor. Sigh. He's growing up too fast. Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but one minute he's my little man rolling around on the floor, then next he's starting to crawl and dumping my water out while standing in his crib. He's not the only one. It seems like over night my little girl has gone from this little flower starting to bloom, into this beautiful and extremely smart 4 year old that has a mind of her own. Now she is in school. When did they go from my babies to my kiddos??? Why is it September already?! I have no concept of time anymore. I go to sleep, it's June. I wake up, it's September! My life is in the HOV lane these days, at speeds exceeding the limit. I am reminded of James 4:14, "...For what is your life? It is ever a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away." This verse makes me want to slow down...enjoy every single bit of these days as I can. My mind runs a mile a minute and a majority of those thoughts don't even matter. They take away from the time and enjoyment of just watching my kiddos grow up. I need to let go of the nonsense, get rid of the junk, just focus on Jesus and my family that He has so graciously blessed me with. Sometimes it means moving past something that has been holding me down or saying goodbye to someone that might be bringing me down. I need to live up to my full potential as a wife and mother in this short time that the Lord has allowed me to do so.

new beginnings

As the last week of summer vacation comes to an end, it marks the beginning of a very big step in my little girl's life...the start of school. Even though I am homeschooling and I will see her everyday, I still can't help but feel like my little baby is growing up. I was sitting amongst a pile of school activity booklets and lesson plans, trying to figure out how it all worked, when she came running in and immediately started grabbing things and telling me what they were for. She would say things like, "This for counting mommy!" or "Look! A B C...that an apple! A for apple!". I was starting to wonder if they had an AP version of this stuff...something that would be challenging to her, but once I started flipping through the work books, it was made clear in about a month or so she will be getting that challenge. She just amazes me with how smart she is. Her brain works like a sponge, she soaks up every little thing I teach her. In the teacher work book it says to spend the first week or numbers learning colors. It says, 'Your student may not know their colors so spend the first week introducing them.'...I was like, "Ah! she knows them better than I do most days...what do I do for the first week?!". It's all good, I figured it out. We will be playing games...with colors...or something along those lines. I'll figure it out. I'm really excited to start this new chapter. I love doing the lesson plans and getting her "classroom" area all set up. I wish we had more time before school started so I could have everything ready before the first day, but unfortunately our paycheck wasn't on schedule with the first day of school...that and I decided at the last minute to start school earlier than planned, since I want her lessons to coincide with the holidays. I will be better prepared next year for sure. I'm praying for a good first day of school and a smooth semester...not just for my daughter, but for everyone going back to school this week.

goings on

The youth mission team made it home safe, praise the Lord. My hubby had a great time. He had lots of stories to tell me, which I was grateful for. My heart goes out to those people, the victims and their families. If only there was more we could do for them. For now, prayer is all I have to give.

On a different note, our little man is getting so big! He started clapping...mostly to worship songs (love it!)... and army crawling, he's so close to just taking off across the room!...and he said "mama" for the first time a couple days ago! He's very attached to me though...he still won't take a bottle, and he gets quite fussy when I am away from him for long periods of time. We are working on that. So, that means he's going with me to the woman's conference this weekend! So looking forward to that!

I'll leave you with a picture of my little man sucking his toes...because it's just so darn cute!