Friday Fun

A couple of weeks ago, we had a PACKED weekend. We usually like to stay pretty close to the house and pretty low key, but this weekend was BUSY! But with FUN stuff!

 On Friday, the kids and I decided to go have lunch with their Daddy! The kids in his class all oooo'd and ahhhh'd over them and it was fun for them :-) Here, Mack was waiting patiently as I got us checked in at the front desk... ready to go with his sister's "pack pack"

The kids were kind of in shock of all the students in Jeff's class :-) And Jeff is laughing about the fact that I take pictures of "EVERYTHING"! He'll love it when we're old, i tell him!

After lunch, we headed home for naps. And after naps? We used a groupon I purchased months ago for some bowling, games and bumper car rides at Oasis in Dacula!

Rhyan was "hiding" b/c she didnt want me to take her picture. Geesh, 3 year olds! haha

My mom went with us. Just because :-) And she had fun (i think?!) with us and the kids!

Mack was NOT liking that he couldnt run up and down the lanes. In fact, he DID get onto one of the lanes once and Jeff had to (literally) chase him. I was DYING that I didnt have my camera in my hand b/c BOTH boys ended up on their butt's. Those lanes are slippery! Jeff was acting mad that I wasnt watching him better (I was helping Rhyan bowl, dude... you can keep up with Mack too, youknow! lol) but when he saw that we were all laughing at their falls, he got tickled and laughed, too :-)

We decided pretty quickly that Rhyan would probably have more fun (and more success) if we used the ramp. She liked it and it was easier on our backs!

Her face CRACKS me up here! That ball was HEAVY! lol

To keep the peace in the alley (Mack tends to scream if he doesnt get his way, like getting to run on the lanes) AND in the family, I took mack to walk around and check stuff out. The place was surprisingly pretty empty (probably because we went early... 4pm) so he had the run of the place!

And clearly he has no respect for peoples space. These people were nice enough to let him crawl around while they played, though :-) Nice people, i tell ya!

Of course he HAD to try Dance Dance Revolution :-)

Yeah, that'd be him doing a poopie :-) Oh joy. 5th for the day, i'm sure.

Jeff always LOVES it when i take pictures :-) I've mentioned that, right?!

Rhyan was pretty much over the bowling thing in about 20 minutes. We had the lane for an hour! Oops. So Jeff enjoyed bowling for both he and Rhyan for a while and Rhyan came out and walked around with Mack and I (Mama kept Jeff company for a bit). When Jeff was done, it was off to the bumper cars!!! Rhyan is still a tad short, but the nice lady let her drive anyways since no one else was there! Pretty awesome!

We laughed and had a blast.

For about 2 minutes before Rhyan decided she was done with that, too! I convinced her to stay on for another minute or two. Geesh. The attention span! I mean, this was FUN and she gave out so fast!

At the end, she was over it so i let her join me on my lap and the nice lady turned a blind eye and let her ride with me for a second (again, no one was there but us in the bumper car area!)

My mama is addicted to skii ball so they tried their hand at that for one game before calling it a night!

And Jeff pretended I was a cool wife and let him have another motorcycle. Yeah, i'm not THAT cool. Yes, he had one once (well, he's had 2) but not with kids! Maybe one day, babe!

A couple of cropped pics from the night...

And we even saw a TRAIN on the way home! One of Rhyans favorite things!!!

We hit up "Old McDonald" for dinner. This was our 1st time in Dacula's mcdonalds and i must say, it ROCKS! The playround area has tables set up right there with it so you can eat and let the kids play and they're not separated by glass or anything (a huge plus when you have little ones as little as mine). And they have a toddler slide that Mack loved!

And Rhyan LOVED the big girl slide!

We had SUCH a great/busy day that we were all wiped out and headed home and to BED! :-)

These Are the Days of Our Lives...

I realize that since starting the "Shepherding A Childs Heart" study that i've not been blogging about the fun family excitement we've been enjoying around here. Sorry! But seriously, here is what our weeks look like:

Sunday- Church in the morning (8:15 praise team practice/9:30 bible study/10:30 service)
              Lunch and naps in the afternoon. Yardwork is typically done here. Cleaning house and grocery       shopping is also typically done to prepare for the week.
              Potentially our Small Group (from church) meets in the evening. Although, we've not been finding     time lately (boo/yay depending on the week. haha)

Monday- Jeff works. I stay home with the kids. We stay busy, lets just leave it at that ;-)
                In the evenings, i go to "bootcamp" at church and try to work my butt off. literally.

Tuesday- Jeff and I both work while the kids are at Tracy's.
               Jeff has his masters degree classes this night and is gone from 6:20am-9pm most Tuesdays :-(
           
Wednesday- Jeff and i work and the kids go to Tracy's.
                    After work, Jeff gets the kids. I get off late so we all meet at church at 6pm and have pizza at church (i love that our church does this!). Then I lead preschool worship at 6:30, school age worship at 6:50 and we lead a parenting class (Shepherding) from 7-8pm. Its a full night ;-)

Thursday- Jeff and I work. Kids go to Tracy's.
                In the evening, I do bootcamp.

Friday- Jeff works.
            The kids and I run errands/ use this as a day to meet friends for lunch sometimes. Its our "out and about" day at home. Again, we stay busy, busy, busy.
            We spend the evening as a family, usually. Cause we miss each other from the busy week we're too tired to do anything different :-) UNLESS, Jeff has to tend to the parking lot at Archer for the friday night football games. In that case, he does the parking from 5:00-8:30ish and the kids are in bed when he gets home.

Saturday- We do whatever needs to be done. Visit family. Clean house. Go for run's/walks. We try to keep it lazy, but somehow it ends up being anything but lazy...

So, this is really for myself. To remind myself of what this part of our life looks like. Because honestly, its kind of a blur while i'm in the midst of it. I check the calendar at the start of the week to see what it holds. I cant look too far ahead b/c i get overwhelmed. But i like the busyness, really. The change of scenery. The change of pace from having a newborn who needed so much sleep (dont get me wrong, both kids still nap 2.5-3 hours a day and get 11-12 hours of sleep each night, but they are more flexible on times, now).

Life is busy, but its good. Really good for the most part.

Of course, theres the struggle of Mommie's health thats a constant roller coaster (and adds to the schedule above) but I'd add to my schedule all day every day to have her here and well. So we keep praying for healing and trust that in one way or the other, she will receive it.

We are blessed beyond measure! And these are the days of our lives...

Wise Words for Moms

My Shepherding friends!!! I wanted to share an invaluable resource that will be a MASSIVE help as we all look for ways to dig to the depths of our children's hearts!

My friend/parenting mentor Terilynn turned me onto this chart a couple of years ago. It now hangs in my kitchen and is used almost daily. I am amazed at the way it has helped ME memorize scripture!

It is a chart called "Wise Words for Moms" and gives (in a chart format) the wrong doing, scriptures that show WHY the action is wrong, some heart probing questions, some suggestions of right actions and some scriptures to back that up, as well! Have I mentioned that its FABULOUS?!

Just click HERE to check it out on amazon. Its only $4! And worth its weight in gold in our home! What a great biblical method of put off/put on/renew! The bible encourages us to 1.Put off the old ways 2. Put on the new and 3. Renew our minds. This little jewel will help you do just that!

Remember that our goals this week are to identify our motives in discipline, pray over our own hearts and the hearts of our children and offer a better way!

Enjoy!

Shepherding: Intro and Chapter 1

Getting to the Heart of Behavior

If  you have joined in this virtual study, WELCOME! I'm so glad you're here. I pray that we will all learn greatly from the experiences of  one another. I presume that we are all here because we are looking for a better way to raise our children. A better, more effective way to apply discipline in our family.

What better place to look for such answers than the bible. The God of the bible who created all (including our more "challenging" children!) has a plan. Now, unfortunately (for those of us who are task oriented) there is not a clear cut list of do's and don't s in child rearing. But the great news is this: there is only one major concept to biblical discipline. 

WHY > WHAT

 WHY our children behave the way they do is ALWAYS more important than the what that they have done.

Why is this? The bible tells us in Proverbs 4:23" Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." 

Not only this, but we also know from Jeremiah 17:9 that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

So if we remember nothing else from this study remember that behavior is NOT the basic issue. It is the SYMPTOM of a much, much deeper issue. As Tripp states, "Your childs needs are far more profound than his aberrant behavior" (pg 4). And more importantly, "A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable" (pg 4. emphasis mine).

Before we go any further in our discussion of our children, lets first revisit my first blog post. I had stated that my realization that change was needed in our home came by seeing a mirror held up to my face... in the form of my three year old daughter. Certainly, I am not the only one who has read the introduction and first chapter and thought "but before I can change how I discipline my own child, I need the Lord to change ME!". Are those crickets I'm hearing?! ;-)

Matthew 15:8 gives us a picture of what it looks like to see this external change without ever addressing the internal: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me".

So as we pursue righteousness in our children, I pray that we would pursue the One who offers righteousness to each of us! "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12) As Tripp states (in his handbook, pg 8) "Unless the Word of God dwells richly in you, you will be ineffective in using it as a means of helping your children understand the overflow of their hearts"

I am not suggesting that before we deal with disciplining our children, we ask the Lord to perfect us. Why, we'd never discipline our children! But what i do suggest is that we keep in mind that no matter the age, we all need to be striving for pureness in heart. And this, dear friends (as I have learned from experience) does not come naturally. It comes supernaturally. So as we begin this journey together, I pray that our focus is not only on seeing changes in our children, but in our hearts as well!!! This requires PRAYER and dependence on the Lord!

One of my favorite suggestions that Tripp makes is to ENGAGE OUR CHILDREN! We cannot, however, believe that it is only important to engage our children when disciplining! Think of yourself in a work situation (whether you currently work or not, most of us have worked at some point I assume?!). If you have a boss who only attempts a heart to heart with you two or three times a year in order to increase your productivity, you are likely to be skeptical of his motives. But if this same boss spends time with you day in and day out and truly invests into your life as a mentor, engaging you on a daily basis, you are much more likely to accept constructive criticism positively. And so it is with our children. Regardless of how much we know we love our children, if we only spend time with them when we are correcting, they are much less likely to be impacted by our correction. For me, this means remembering to set aside times in the day that I can check my email, etc and to stay away! from the computer during my kids playing hours! (hence, this post coming at 8:45 at night! nothing like real time application!)

Identifying our weaknesses as parents is KEY!

1. Am I leading by example by being willing to apologize to my children for my past wrong motives/actions in disciplining them and am I willing to lay out for them the new biblical mindset? (for older children, laying our the new approach will be important, for the younger children perhaps not)

2. Am I currently recognizing that authority has been given to me by God over my children but that I also answer to the authority of God? Am I willing to be the parent to my children or am I afraid of confrontation? ("The purpose for your authority in the lives of your children is not to hold them under your power, but to empower them to be self-controlled people living freely under the authority of God" -Shepherding pg xx)

3. Am I currently or have I been in the past a "behaviorist"? How have I attempted to change behavior without tending to the heart issues?

Finally, we must TRUST that God's promises are true for us and our children! Ezekiel 36:26 promises us that "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh". Oh, that we might desire this softened heart from the Lord!

Application for the Week:

In addition to 1. searching our hearts regarding our previous motives in disciplining our kids (anger, frustration, laziness, etc) might I suggest that in our attempts to engage our children, that we 2. offer a "better way". Meaning? Well, we must first remember that kids are ALWAYS learning. Its interesting how we tend to treat kids like kids at times and then expect them to act like adults at others ;-) (guilty!). For my three year old, this may mean that I not only instruct Rhyan that we do not take things from her brother, but that I suggest that if he is interested in playing with a toy that she is currently playing with, that she might find some equally interesting toy for him so as to show him love without having to give up her toy. No, i do not want to promote selfishness in my 3 year old, but nor do i want her to grow up thinking that the only way to handle this kind of confrontation is to give up what she is playing with. So, offer an alternative! When you show your children a "better way" to handle a situation, you give them knowledge in application. And lastly, find a prayer rug, friends. Or we may just rub holes in our carpets! 3. Biblical discipline requires prayer, and lots of it. When you feel that frustration over your childs actions, you may need to take a step back (or onto the back porch!) and pray for discernment over your own heart first (are you angry or frustrated because in your own pride you are irritated that your children do not behave as you wish?! deal with your own heart first so that you can have a clear heart and mind as you look to your child). If we are anything alike, this first week may be spent more on THIS part of the application than anything else!

Looking forward to some great discussion!