My Kids

“How many kids do you have now?” The age old question people ask each other when they haven’t seen you for a while or when you first meet.
“Fifteen.” I reply with calm assurance and a polite smile while waiting for the initial shock to pass and reality to kick in.
“Surely, they can’t all be your kids?”
“Yes, yes they are.”

Brock, Justin, Xavier, Raquel, Michelle, Stacey, Andrew, Lauren, Jacque, Emily, Tyler, Alex, Kyle, Jessica, Adonis, and Allison. Sixteen if you count our dog Bella.
Their nicknames are Broccoli, Hulk, Scoop, Quel and Shelly (they are my “Twinkies”), Stace, Cuban, Laaaaren, My Girl, Emmie, Ty, Lazy and Newb. The other three have not been to camp yet and therefore have not been labeled.


I am constantly amazed at the level of “abuse” these kids receive at our hands, and yet, they consistently come back for more. We make fun of them, call them names, bop them on the head, and occasionally they even sustain injury; such as the black eye Emmie received after a wayward box of candy hit her. They’re rowdy, loud, weird, forgetful, always hungry, and sometimes smell bad. We have inside jokes (5th place ribbon) and stories that make us laugh until we cry every time we hear them.

Nothing warms this “Mommy” heart more than to see and be apart of the growth and excitement my kids experience. Joyfully serving the Lord, giving testimony of touched hearts and reaching out to bring others into the “family.”


I am by no means an expert on teenagers, as a matter of fact, every time I think I’ve got it figured out, they change on me! I raise my kids, and just when we’re starting to really get to know each other and bond, they graduate and leave for college and I am left with a whole new youth group.

“Oh wait, did I forget to mention, I’m a Youth-Mommy.”

A Little More about Routines

I told you Saturday about my Morning Routines (you can read about those here if you missed it) Most of those routines came from Flylady.net but I have adjusted them to what works best for me. Today I wanted to tell you some more about my routines to help keep our house in order and everything (well, almost everything) running smoothly.

The second set of routines I wanted to tell you about are my “Before Bed Routines.” I start working on these as soon as I get home from work or, on days I don’t work, about 4ish in the afternoon and they go on right until I go to bed.

Here is the page from my Control Notebook – I’ll tell you more about how that works on another day – Notice that everything is written in pencil, that’s so that when I need to adjust my routines later on its a lot easier than re-writing a whole new page. Any ways here they are:

Before Bed Routine

• Reboot Laundry – this is simply moving things from the washer to the dryer or drying rack.
• Make/Eat Dinner & Drink water

These are my water bottles :) Yes, they are Simply Orange bottles (That’s Kenny’s favorite orange juice) the little one came from Chic-fil-a! Anyways, the new rule of thumb for drinking water is to drink half your weight in water ounces (if you weigh 100lbs you’d drink 50 oz of water per day) The larger bottle holds the exact amount of Fluid ounces I’m supposed to drink everyday – it stays in the fridge. The little bottle is what I refill all day – its easier to carry :)

• Shine your sink – you can read all about this in a previous post called Baby Steps, Cleaning my Heart and Home - Day 1

• Check Calendar
• Finish Laundry – remember I only wash/dry/fold one load per day

• Lay out clothes for tomorrow
• Wash Face – did you know, ladies, when you don’t wash the make-up off of your face before bed it can add up to 13 days age to your skin? Not to mention your make-up is now on your pillow – yuck! Just for the record I’m not very good at doing this, so I tell myself the 13 day thing to make myself get up and go wash my face before bed.
• Get to bed at a decent time – For me, a switch inside starts turning off the lights at 10pm. Kenny can’t stand it, he’s a night owl but when my pillow starts calling… its hard to resist!

Well that’s pretty much it for my Daily Routines. Nicole over at A Living Sacrifice said that her focus for next month was going to be establishing routines. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say. Now that I’ve started with my routines I think its the greatest and I want everyone to have them! Hope you’ll check out her blog, I know I will be.

Fall Scenery

 

Here is the picture I promised. This is on Hwy 221 just as your coming into Crossnore.

These next few pictures were all taken on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The mountain peaks on the right side of this picture is a set of peaks that together make “The Grandfather’s Profile.” If you look closely you can make out the forehead, nose and mouth of the sleeping Grandfather.

Happy Fall Everyone!

Fall!

Fall is my favorite time of year, I just love all the colors that are spread across the trees and ground. I’ve always wondered why people go through the trouble of raking all of those pretty leaves out of their yards just to have the wind blow and dump a million more on the ground as soon as you finish! Its times like that that I know God has a sense of humor!

One thing that I have really enjoyed about living in the mountains are all of the Japanese Red Maple trees, they are everywhere! I told Kenny, whenever we get around to buying a house, I’d like to have a least one (if not more) Japanese Red Maples in our yard.

Just so you know the picture above, of a Red Maple tree, is from Google© (love that site!) I had taken a picture to show you of our mountain, fall leaves but I forgot to get it off of the camera and then left the camera at home, so you’ll just have to wait to see the picture I took.

Has anyone else been out enjoying the Fall colors?