Happy Birthday

Today the Little Man turned 4. Yeah, Ian!! Happy Birthday, Sweet Pea!"

Since everyone has been passing THE BUG and a cold back and forth for the last three weeks, we've been a bit low key about the birthday this year. I'm exhausted from little boys waking me up 2 hours early and not going back to sleep. The birthday boy has been doing this for two weeks or so. I keep putting him back in his bed and he returns about every 15-30 minutes or so just to let me know that he can't sleep! Since he shares his room with Lumpadump (aka Shane), all this walking back and forth and opening doors has been waking up Shane as well.

In other news, Hubbie & I have started to take a class online called "Speed Spanish". It's really great for me. I know next to NO Spanish, but am regularly meeting Spanish-speaking people! Hubs on the other hand speaks Spanish very well, but hasn't studied it before, so he decided to take the class with me. Unfortunately, we are two lessons behind and this week we get two more lessons! What's the Spanish term for "YIKES!"?

A Wake Up Call

Today was such a beautiful day: blue sky, bright sunshine, a few clouds. A perfectly crisp, cold winter's day. Perfect for those of us who actually enjoy northern winters! But it wasn't the weather that gave me chills as I drove down the road with Little Man (almost 4!). Nope, it was this comment from the backseat: "Mom, I see a trumpet in the clouds!" Whoa!! I said, "What?!" My mind was racing! Where the heck did that come from?! What's he talking about?! Is this it?! Is Jesus coming back RIGHT NOW?!! Then Ian explained that the cloud he saw was in the shape of a trumpet.... Oh. Kind of a let down. :)

So here's my question, dear reader, when was the last time you thought, "Maybe today...."? Do you know that there is a crown reserved in Heaven for "all who have LOVED His appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8c)?

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

Vampire Bugs and Menu Plans

Here at Whispers of Grace, our family is still fighting the little bug that the Little Men brought home with them. It sure is strange. I'm going to call it the Vampire Bug. Except for a general loss of appetite, this thing only manifests it's symptoms at night! For the first 3 nights that Ian-almost 4 years- was ill, he woke up around 11:45 at night with a fever. The rest of the day he was "fine"! If he hadn't been waking up with a fever and aches, I'd never have known he was really sick. (See previous post!) Since then, he just wants a little extra sleep, but that's about it. The last two nights, just before bed, he's had some other symptoms running thru his body, if you get my meaning. But again, I say, that's it!

So with that lovely segue, I'm contemplating this menu for the week. But I'm not going to be very strict about it, feeling rather blah myself.

Monday: Pasta with vodka sauce
Tuesday: Fish & Potatoes
Wednesday: Teriyaki Pork & Rice
Thursday: Chicken Pot Pie
Friday: Homemade pizza
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Breakfast! :)

Check out what else is cooking at "I'm an organizing junkie"

Plagued by Whining?

The problem with 3 year olds is that they whine. Some days they whine A LOT! Some days they whine to get out of things. Some days they whine for no reason at all. So when one of them whines at breakfast and tells you that his arm hurts and his leg hurts, you take a look, give it a smooch and then tell him it will feel better when he eats something. Then at lunch, when he whines that his eyes hurt, you kind of roll your eyes privately and then tell him to eat his lunch.

Okay, that was my "full of compassion" mothering moment for the day. Turns out though his eyes really were bothering him. They were red and stingy, so I figured he had rubbed them with his fingers. Dutifully, we washed them. We rinsed them several times over the coarse of an hour. Then we sent the Little Man to preschool with instruction to tell his teacher to call me if he wanted to come home.

They didn't call. He didn't want to come home. Now don't get me wrong. I think it's great that he loves school so much, but when Daddy picked him up, the child looked like he had the plague! All around his eyes and lips, the skin was RED! By the time we got him home and into the bath/shower, we realized he had a fever as well.

So there you have it! First illness of the year! Yay. :P As you may imagine, I am feeling like a "bad" mom today. For not believing the boy in the morning, for not believing the boy at lunch, and for sending him to school (against my better judgment) to infect the whole class. Go Mom!

Brotherly Love

Little Man (aka Ian-almost 4) and Lumpadump (aka Shane-1yr) were riding in the back of our car this morning. As I pulled into the parking lot of the local Dunkin Donuts, Ian said, for no apparent reason, "I love you, Shane!! You're my BEST friend!" I looked back and saw that they were holding hands between their carseats. Aw!

Happy New Year!

This year all my resolutions are related to simplifying my life with a goal to become more Christlike. We live in a great age. Everything is at our fingertips. Anything we want to know, research, read or buy is just a click away. I LOVE it. I HATE it!

Meanwhile, I have unfinished (and unstarted) projects filling up cabinets, closets and our pantry! Yes, our pantry!! Some of these were started before our first son was even a glimmer in our eyes. I never found the time to work on things then, but somehow I continue to deceive myself into believing that I will NOW, two kids later, suddenly find some free hours to cross-stitch the Christmas tree skirt, rubberstamp birthday cards and Christmas cards, scrapbook the last 10 years of my life (thousands of pictures), organize and try the new recipes buried in a folder, order wedding pictures (from almost 10 years ago.... Yep, haven't even gotten a wedding album yet). Don't even get me started about all the programming books I have stacked on my bookshelf, half-read.

So the goal this year? SIMPLIFY, Simplify, simplify!! I need to kill the clutter in my home. I need to be ruthless in tossing out the projects gathering dust. I need to focus on my goals, and rid my life of just about everything that does not help me reach them! I find that I can't even THINK at times, as the physical clutter (carefully and tastefully squirreled away, mind you) seems to lead into mental clutter.

To that end, I am determined to Simplify my life, organize the stuff that survives the cut, sell or toss the stuff that doesn't, and beautify my surroundings.

How about you? Any resolutions to share?