My Mom Heart

Wow! I feel so full! Full of love and inspiration, encouragement and conviction, ideas and ideals. I have recently returned from Sally Clarkson's Mom Heart Conference in Dallas, TX, and I am ready to go! Ready to be the mom that I am supposed to be. Ready to have a change of heart for my kids. Ready to change my focus from raising happy, successful, well-adjusted kids to raising kids who believe and love Jesus! Ready to be a different mom.

My eyes were opened to the negative energy that I bring to our household. There is a phrase that I use when I am disciplining my girls: "I love you too much to allow you to act that way." This weekend, those were the exact words God used on me. He loves me too much to allow me to act this way. I heard myself saying to the girls, "you chose to disobey", "you need to change your attitude", "you need to have self-control", and I realized that it was me, not them. I'm the one who often times has a bad attitude. I'm the one who needs self-control. And I'm the one who disobeys God's word ("do not exasperate your children"-Eph. 6:4, "do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen"-Eph. 4:29). But God is not punishing me for it. He is graciously bringing it to my attention and showing me a different way, His way.

One thing Sally said during the conference really struck a chord with me: "Aren't you glad that Jesus doesn't require first-time obedience from us?" Oh yes. I am so glad! I realized that I need to have alot more grace with my girls. Teach them and train them and even discipline them, but do it with love and grace instead of with a stern voice and a frown on my face. I want my girls to know that I am HAPPY to be their mom. I was God's first choice when he was choosing a mother for my kids. And I am so glad he chose me.

Heidi Update

Our little Heidi is getting quite big! She has doubled her size in the last 6 weeks. She now weighs a whopping 6 1/2 pounds!

House-training is going pretty well. Especially now that it's warming up a little bit. She does not want to go outside when it is cold, especially when it is cold and wet. So those days have been very hard. But she is getting better and more consistent every day. So I am hopeful that we'll be fully house-trained before too long.

The hardest thing now is the biting. When she get's in a bitey mood, she is no fun. Her little teeth can latch on to the girls ankles and then it get's loud and crazy with screaming and growling and running! And then I want to scream. I don't really know how to train her not to bite. I'm assuming she'll grow out of it, but that might take a long time and I'm not keen on just waiting it out. I think obedience classes may be in our near future.

She is SO cute though. Just in the last few days, she has started being able to stick her ears up a bit and I love it! She looks at me with that curious little face and those ears sticking half-way up and I just have to kiss her.

Sweet Recognition

One day last week when Princess got off the bus, she ran to me waving a green piece of paper and yelled, "Mom, I got invited to the art show!!" "Oh, that's wonderful!", I said, not having any idea of the implication of being invited to the art show. The invitation said that Princess was invited to attend the Elementary Artwork show on Thursday night. I asked Princess if her art was going to be displayed and she said , "yes, my city picture". So, of course, on Thursday night we went to the art show to see Princess's picture.

There were a bunch of people there, walking up and down a very long hallway that had artwork displayed from the 50 different Elementary schools in our school district. When we finally found the Hamilton Elementary section, and Princess found her city picture displayed up on the wall, I teared up! I was so proud of her!! I've always thought she was a very good artist. I'm so proud that her art teacher thinks so too!

(I forgot to bring my camera, so this is a very poor picture that Drummer Boy took with his phone. I'll post a better one when she brings her picture home.)

Got It!

Princess has had a loose front tooth for about 3 months. About 6 weeks ago, it became very loose when she was using her mouth to hold onto a leash that Pumpkin was pulling on. For the last few weeks, it has been hanging on by a thread, but just wouldn't come out! She looked a little funny because it kind of stuck out and would show a little when she smiled. We've been telling her to wiggle it and eat apples and I even offered to yank it out for her, but she insisted that it be left alone!

Finally, last weekend, Drummer Boy and Princess were out running errands and he told her that if she got her tooth out, he would buy her a special treat. Amazing what a little incentive will do! She pulled it right out.

Now she has that typical little girl smile. What a cutie!