Hi, everyone! This is our most recent half decent family picture ?. It was taken on the 4th of July. As you can see, our middle daughter is holding a duck. She has two of them and loves them very much! Our dog Zoey is also constantly hanging out with us while we work in the yard. Our few acres provides our family plenty of opportunities to work together as we care for the animals and land.

We have 3 kiddos, ages 11, 8, and 2. They are a lot of fun and also constantly forcing me to rely on the Lord for parenting wisdom and strength! The oldest loves reading, Legos and guns. The middle one loves ducks, frogs and pigs. And baby girl is very fond of shoes, babies and cleaning!

I enjoy teaching barre twice a week at the YMCA, playing piano at church, keeping up our home and “mini farm”? and writing for Texting the Truth! ?

Right now I’m reading the book Boundaries and I’m learning a lot — like what I’m responsible for and what I’m not. Learning to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and actions, then acknowledging I’m not accountable for others’ choices is very freeing.

I don’t know if you’d consider ClickList (Kroger Pick-up) a product, but it’s amazing! Right after our youngest was born, I started grocery shopping online and found it to be the most convenient thing ever! I could grocery shop in my rocking chair while nursing the baby! And I didn’t make any impulse purchases or have to haul three kids to the grocery store who would also talk me into buying extra things! It’s a win-win in my book.

Recently I made shredded pork in the crockpot from homegrown pork. I served it as tacos with all the fixings. It was super simple and really yummy.

My 6th grade son had an oral report due and he waited until the night before to start working on it, even though I had reminded him about it a couple days previous. (Ahem… anyone else have a procrastinator in their family?!)

Right! So when he finally did ask me to help him, I told him that I was busy with something else for a few minutes, but then could help him look up a current event for his report. He took that to mean that I was never going to help him and I didn’t care about his project… and it was all my fault that he was going to fail. ?(Insert — drama king…) I went on to explain to him that this was his project, not mine, and that he needed to take responsibility for his own failure to begin working on it earlier. Also that I would indeed help him like I said I would, just on my own timetable, not his. After some time thinking about it, he came to me and apologized for his attitude, for freaking out, for blaming me for his lack of diligence. And guess what?! I happily helped him find an interesting topic for his project!

Thanks. But I was thinking — isn’t this just like we are with God sometimes? I know I am impatient and prideful at times, insisting on my own way. “God, I want this to happen, and I want it to happen now.” The problem is, God doesn’t operate on my timetable, nor does He tolerate my prideful insistence. He is patient and kind and merciful, but just as I teach my children to respect me and my time, God also tells me to wait sometimes. It’s my choice how I will respond. Am I going to throw a fit about it or choose to trust Him? I love what God can teach us through mothering our children! After all, God is our Father and He desires to give us good things! Maybe just not on the timetable that I have planned!

We live in the country and the fly population has been extraordinary this year. I even hung some fly strips around the house to help with the problem!! I am constantly swatting flies, and will every so often vacuum them off the floor. Needless to say, the other night as we sat down to dinner, there were a few dead flies on the kitchen floor.

My middle daughter loves frogs. She has several frog stuffed animals and she decided it would be nice to have a couple of them join us at the table for dinner. (One of them is as big as she is!) Not only did she settle in her frogs at the dinner table, (complete with baby sister’s bibs tied around their necks), but she also got a paper plate and went around picking up all the dead flies for her frogs’ dinner! ? (The creativity of children cracks me up!)

You are your kids’ mom for a reason! He will give you the strength and wisdom you need when you need it. He promises to never give us more than we can handle without His help.