Christmas Words

Smiling a thankful smile for these these words my girls made this morning.

p.s. I found these blocks at Goodwill. :O)

NEW HOUSE!!!!

 

Main Floor living area...

 Also on the main floor is the mudroom, laundry and home school room.  I will post a pic of the home school room when it is more organised.

Upper Floor:
 Master bedroom!  I am loving the color!!!

 Mia's room

 Ksena's Room-they both picked blue but Mia insisted they could not pick the same blue.  Mia's is much darker than the pic shows...

 Esmé and Brie's room...

 

The Landscape of Writing

I’ve thought before that sometimes blogging can present a perfect world.  We gush about the things we love, the people we care about, the things we are learning, new Spiritual insights etc. It isn’t necessarily the intention of the writer to present things as perfect but it can be interpreted as ‘all good’ and even stir up jealousy.  It’s hard to be vulnerable in writing (or in life for that matter) and I’ve heard an author say that there is a fine line between honesty and privacy. 

I don’t know about you but when I read blogs, I read between the lines.  I know that what I’m reading is simply a glimpse, a snapshot into someone’s world.  It’s not the whole picture and on some level you have to take what they are saying as what they are willing/able to share.  Some things are meant for the ears of trusted friends-which isn’t to say that we are allowed to be dishonest in our sharing but that there are boundaries for things we put out in public.  For readers I suppose there is a fine line between judgment and insight. 

The other thing I think about it is that when words are written, sometimes they sound beautiful simply because they are written.  Writing tends to zoom in and even create perspective.  For example I could tell you that today my mother-in-law took all my ladies to a concert.  I could tell you that while my kids were gone, supper was made and a friend stopped by with freshly baked cinnamon buns.  Sitting down and enjoying a cup of coffee with a cinnamon bun while the sunlight penetrated though the window was incredible! I could tell you that my husband was in his office for the morning and back for supplies shortly after he left and that it makes my heart warm when he is around.  These things sound amazing-and really they are amazing.  Putting it into words sometimes makes even me, the one who experienced these things, see them in a different light.

I could leave you, the reader, with this picture of pleasant gifts and trust that you know this is not my ‘everyday’ but my today.   However, I could go on and tell you that sometimes when I write about good gifts like these, in my heart I struggle with wanting to be defensive about the break I am having from my children.  I want to qualify to the world that mostly I am home with my children all day because I home school.   I want you to know that the concert started a noon so you don’t think my kids were gone at dawn.  Part of me may want to clarify that just because Dan was home this morning, doesn’t mean I get to see him or have his attention like I want it. I might want to hide the fact that although the concert was a noon concert, my girls didn’t get home till 4:30.

So if I present the first perspective of all the sweet gifts I received today, would the reader know all the other things?  Does the reader need to know?  These thoughts show me a whole new level of gratitude that I am missing in my life.  They zoom in on something that I could choose to write about or leave for my own contemplation. 

So here, I go, zooming in further just to show you that the lens can focus closer even if it makes me squirm.  If I have these good things, why do I feel defensive?  Because deep down I want people to recognize the things about my life that I think are hard?  Is it that I appreciate the good things I was given today but that part of me is not fully thankful-there is a ‘but’ in the thankfulness-almost a mistrust of the gifts God has given instead of a humbled, in awe of His tenderness, fully abandoned of self, gratitude?  Sometimes writing exposes more for the writer than for the reader! 

I want you to know that I AM grateful for the gifts God gives me.  I am not saying that I am not.  What I am saying is that the contentedness does not always go deep down even when there is gratitude.   I could stop at all the beautiful (or what I recognize as beautiful because all of the hard stuff is truly beautiful too-that’s a whole other blog post!) and leave it there and still be being honest and trust the reader to know that life isn’t all roses.  The other choice is keep writing and expose a bit of my soul.  Does that make me more honest?  I don’t think so-it broadens the lens and opens up a bit more of the landscape but that is a choice not a requirement. 

So I think what it comes down to is the perspective of both the reader and writer.  Writers have to keep in mind how they present things and readers have to keep in mind that the lens of words cannot expose everything all at once.   Words paint pictures, some of them are black and white, and some of them are full color. Some of them are zoomed in; some of them are zoomed out.  Sometimes, you might have to guess what is in the surrounding landscape and sometimes the author displays it.

 

Scrunchy Face

 

This isn't as scrunchy as it gets but it's all I could capture.  This face is Brie's way of engaging you in conversation and ensuring that you take her seriously.  It's big girl conversation baby-cause as much as she LOVES being our littlest, she needs to know she is one of the big girls too!

A Terrible, No-Good School Start

Monday-I was happy it was a holiday as we had gone to MBC from Friday night to Sunday.  It was a house cleaning, get ready for the school year day!

Tuesday-I started out very eager and armed with school schedules and meal plans. I ended up wondering (but knowing that God is able) how I could face the next day of school. It had been a terrible no good start to school. We ended up at Nana's who had a birthday present for Ksena and a listening ear for the home school Mama.

Wednesday-we skipped school! Seriously, the second day of school and we skipped! I hesitated doing this and wanted to stick to our schedule but had two good reasons to allow the day to slip and use it for what was necessary. It was Ksena's birthday and she thought that having a day off school would be fun and we had an appointment in London with a urologist at 11:15.   

An appointment time of 11:15 is smack dab in the middle of a day and really messes up routine. We also had a beautiful birthday dress to exchange while we were in London for a different size. So the day was spent dealing with a doctor appointment and then celebrating with a lunch at the mall for the birthday girl before finding the right size dress at The Bay.

I tried a couple of dresses on myself, for my sister Amy's upcoming wedding.  This made me once again realize the wisdom in not shopping with four little people in toe the change room. On our way home we kept the birthday treats coming at the Tim Horton's drive through. When we arrived home it was 2:00 and time to start prepping Ksena's birthday supper.

By the end of the day, I realized that our summer rhythm still needs to work it’s way out of our system and its ok to ease into the new school year. I had texted a friend from our gymnastics class to see how her school year was going and she said that they were taking it slow. It dawned on me that in my eagerness to have an organized year, I had dumped us right into hard work and regimented schedules. That is like dumping cold water on a sleeping person!

Thursday-the 'it's ok to ease into a new school year' voice started becoming clearer. The girls woke up and pulled books off the shelf without their mother insisting that we must follow the schedule and eat breakfast and do chores first. We finished up our core subjects in hopes of making it to Park Day (which is still part of the summer rhythm).

Dan had also asked me to bring some papers to the bank and I had some mail I had to send out, so I had put the mail, bank papers and cell phone on the mat by the front door.   I sent the kids to the van as I was putting on make-up to compensate for my bed head (which could not be fixed without a shower, blow dry and straightening) when Mia informed me that the dog had eaten through the envelope that had to go to the bank and I heard Esmé screaming because she fell out of the van trying to get in. We dealt with those disasters as well as situated the girls in the back seat of the van along with a desk I had bought from Wal-Mart the evening before with plans to return it.

We were on our way when Sen started shriek-crying  “WE, OWE OWE!!!” and the Mom responded with "USE words! I am driving and can't look at what is happening! etc etc"

The box with the desk in it had slid onto her leg-ouch. We arrived at Super Store, where we do our banking at PC Financial. I marched in with my band of children and promptly handed the papers to the bank man. He asked me what the phone number on our account is, at which point my blood pressure started to rise.  I asked the bank man if my bank card would suffice as I frantically texted Dan to ask him which number to give the bank man. You see we have moved and changed our home number twice and we each have cell numbers. How could I know which number we have listed on our account? It seems that whenever I have a simple errand to run for my husband, it gets complicated.  

My eyes darted around to ensure that all four children were by my side (which they weren't). I ordered the two littlest children back to my side The bank card worked and we continued on to Park Day-late as usual but happy to be there. I called Dan on the way to the park and told him that Ez had fallen out of the van, the dog had eaten through the bank envelope, the desk had fallen on Sen, and the bank needed a PHONE NUMBER!  The humor of it hit me, through the blinding stress of mundane frustrations, as I rattled off all the disasters to my Dan.

Friday-we are in one piece, the house is clean (Dan said it had a clean 'aura' last night. lol), the core subjects are finished and the weekend is ready to take over with Sunday school teaching beginning and birthday coffee to prep for.

I just took a deep breath of knowing that God loves us in all of these busy and sin filled days-He wipes us clean of the ugliness of shouting, fighting, being easily frustrated etc. His grace is our garment and with that I am armed- not for the school year but for each step of everyday.  The whole of the school year is still hard to see past and I will need His grace to help me remember to take one step at a time.

Thanks for reading through this school week! I've SO enjoyed all the back to school excitement on Facebook!

A Month of Summer

 

An impromptu Olympic Opening Ceremonies party

 An evening at the beach.

 Grandpa Luiting says Ksena is Mel and Tiana is Taunya...He would know.

 Esmé lost her fist tooth!

These two cousins LOVE each other!!  It is so sweet.

 You know the proverb that talks about falling into your own trap...

 ...well the girls found out exactly what that means.  They had built the hole for U.Derek to fall into but I advised them against it.  They had fun falling in themselves. 

 Have you ever seen Puff Balls?  ...or tasted them?  We have them in our back yard.

 

 Hey, you!  You wanna play?

 Gotcha!

 Nana gave Brie an early birthday present. Her birthday is on Sunday and we hope to be at MBC for the weekend.

Beautiful new dress and a special card with a pic of a dog that looks just like our puppy.

Say what!??!  OH!  SO sorry!  Have you been waiting for an update on the house.  My apologies.  The framers have become a little disgruntled that my lack of blogging could make them look slow.  Let me assure you, they have been busy and will probably be finished tomorrow-they are far from slow!

 The boom truck broke down during the middle of lifting trusses!

Pouring the basement floor-a fabulous new place to bike!

Apparently not afraid of heights...

 ...Derek is blending in with the trees in this pic...Do you see him?

One Week of Work!

My Dad is framing our house between his other jobs.  Remember this back on July 11? 

Since then my Dad has had a full week to work and it looks like this!!!!

The second deck is up and the walls for the second floor are in process.  The rooms are framed in on the first floor which makes the house seem so much more real.

 This little lady was not too impressed that I set her down to take some pictures.