Raising our little ones: Mud and Manners: March Madness or March Monotony?!

Guess what season it is here? MUD Season! I’m pretty sure this is one of my kids favorite seasons, but it’s not exactly Mom’s favorite season! However...”this is the day that the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

We are pushing on through this month of March, which in truth, is a bit of a wearying month for me. There’s academic fair projects galore, lots of days of school, some warmer days, some colder days, and sometimes just a lot of the same things! I am very thankful that the bit of warmer days have allowed me to get outside to go running again. Chandler has been going with me sometimes, and it’s been nice to have him along. I’m pretty sure that his motivation for running is so that he can beat me in our school’s 5k race next month, but oh well! He is going to be a fast runner someday if he keeps it up. Chandler is the most competitive of all our children, which can be both good and bad. It can drive him to keep working at something until he is good at it, but it can also be a hinderance when playing with younger children. Hmm...balance! I am happy to have him run with me. I don’t usually listen to music or podcasts when I run, simply because its another opportunity just to pray and enjoy God’s creation. I certainly don’t have anything against music or podcasts, but our society is so inundated with noise, that it’s sometimes nice just to be in silence!

Last Friday, we attended a bowling event with our church family. We had a good turnout, and it was fun to fellowship with those in our church body as well as a few other families. All of our children are better bowlers than I am, except may be Emma! I’m very good a rolling the ball into the gutter, and if I think of bowling as a game of golf (lowest score wins), I’m very, very good at it!

Saturday night was “spring forward” in time. I truly do not like the days following either spring forward or fall back! I think the state of Arizona has it right in the fact that they don’t do daylight savings time! The first day does not seem to bad, but this week of getting up has been hard on all of us. I usually bound out of bed, but I’ve been dragging all week. Even our kids have been sleeping in until about 6:15, and they are usually all up by 5:30am. I do like the longer afternoons of daylight, but I have mixed feelings about the longer days. Roger is until later in the evenings, so it makes it much harder to hold off the piranhas (children) for a later supper. Its okay though as I am very, very thankful for Roger’s job! We have to take the good with the not so good, and just be content regardless!

Roger and I have been enjoying our time with the teens on Sunday nights, and we’ve had a steady group of teens that keep coming. Roger would admit that he is not a gifted speaker by nature, but he has been studying hard for the lessons that he teaches. I’m thankful for this season that we get to work with the teens especially as we now have kids old enough to go!

I don’t think that teen group or any other ministry should be a substitute for good family time around God’s Word, but it is a ministry that can come alongside a family to encourage teens in their walk with God. I don’t want our children to see church as something that is optional or that we go to as long as nothing better has come along. I just recently read an article this week about driving teens away or towards church fellowship. I’m referring to this article. I certainly do not agree with everything I read, but this article certainly did catch my attention.

Monday we paraded back to school again...another week! We have seen great progress with Emma and her school progression. Her teacher has been tutoring her some, and Emma seems to be grasping the concepts more clearly. I am so thankful for each teacher and person that invests in the lives of our children. While we attend a small Christian school, I am thankful that our children have the opportunity to be taught by well-educated teachers that not only have a passion for teaching but also for pointing our children to Jesus. We are blessed.

Hannah (my sister) and I had the rare opportunity to get together on Tuesday afternoon. Originally I was going to have Emma with me, but my friend, Claire, offered to let Emma come over to her house for the afternoon. Emma was excited about that, and I was delighted to have some one-on-one time with my sister. We squeezed in a run, a trip to T.J. Max and Goodwill, and lunch...all in a short afternoon! It was a good time, and I was able to pick her brain about Haiti and such. I am thankful for siblings.

Haiti currently has a travel advisory in effect. They are at a travel advisory level four which means travel is not advised. But praise the Lord, we serve a big God! He knows all about our needs, and the needs of those we are going to serve. Please pray for Haiti, as well as for the travel advisory level to go down. I’m certainly not going to worry about it, but instead to pray diligently. We serve a big God!