From Our Family to Yours

Potty Training Update

I don’t want to go into all the dirty details here, so I will be brief.

{ha, a pun!}

Yesterday was day one of potty training. Carl was at work so it was left up to me to get the job done, or at least start the process. We had decided to follow the 3-Day Potty Training Method, and I was certain that it would be a perfect fit for Benjamin.

I ended up breaking down a few times within the first five hours.

If you haven’t tackled all-or-nothing potty training {I mean, potty training with a purpose, not just on a whim}, you might not understand why I had my breakdowns. But I do know there are those of you who do understand. It’s exhausting, discouraging, frustrating, and boy does it try your patience.

After his nap we had better success, not perfect but better. I went to bed feeling pretty good about it, thinking that today would be so much better after we all were sort of familiar with it all.

Wrong. Wrong. wrong wrong wrong.

This morning was worse, it seemed. Carl and I both were getting pretty discouraged and we questioned whether or not he is really ready for the potty. However, we pressed on. Before lunch, it got better.

What have we learned? Methods aren’t always the answer. Sometimes you have to deviate from the ‘path’ to find what fits for you. I felt very discouraged because I was doing what the method said and I felt like we were getting nowhere. Maybe I didn’t give that method enough time, I don’t know, but we have found a different way that seems to work so far for us.

It is all a learning process. For the kiddos and for the parents. It’s a good time to pray for patience because you’re going to need it. It’s a good time to exercise that patience and self control and kindness and compassion and understanding toward your child who is learning more about his body and the various functions, wanting so bad to please but sometimes just not understanding or getting there fast enough.

A quick thank you to a few friends, Lisa, Rebecca, and Amber, for their advice and understanding and empathy, support and encouragement! There are others, too, who have offered consolation when I thought I was losing my mind, and I am really grateful for that! Where would we be without each other?

A bigger thank you goes out to Carl who has been patient with my short fuse the last couple of days and who has been running to Wal-mart for me when I needed a few things. I am so blessed with a loving, kind, and understanding husband!

Anyway, Benjamin should wake any minute … and then we are back at it again!

Rest Assured: You Can!

There are some people who are turned off of Christianity because all they hear about are things that they can’t do. A lot of the time, Christians mostly focus on the things that you shouldn’t do – and I am guilty of this as well. A lot of the time I may see something that someone has written, an article or blog post, and repost it because I believe it is something that needs to be read by many people. Ignorance is never an excuse and I never want to be held accountable for something because I didn’t pass the word along to someone when I knew that I could have.

However, I want to take the time right now not to focus on things that you can’t do in your Christian life, but things that you can do.

Maybe you never realized this but Christianity is more about what you can do over what you can’t do, although the two go hand in hand most of the time. The blood of Christ frees us from the bondage of sin and gives us freedom under the law of Christ! Christianity is not supposed to be a burden on us and the law of Christ is not supposed to be grievous {Matthew 11:30; 1 John 5:3}. It’s not so much about what you can’t or shouldn’t do, but what you can and should do.

So what can you do?

Well, for starters, you can cast all your cares upon Christ. As Christians, you have the privilege to carry all of your burdens to Christ and letting Him take care of it for you. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you.” The way I read that doesn’t just mean that Christ cares about you, but that when you cast your care upon Him, He takes care of it for you. He cares for you so that you don’t have to do it.

By doing so, you can have peace of mind! Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Be careful for nothing could be translated as, “Don’t worry!” – achieved by casting all our cares upon Christ! And then? We can have peace! The peace of God, which surpasses all that we can ever understand will keep our minds and hearts! We can be at peace with whatever we are going through because God grants us this peace when we hand things over to Him. Sometimes it feels like everyone around us has too many worries to count, and wouldn’t it just be nice to be able to not worry? To have a peace of mind for once? Well in Christ, you can!

Also, you can have hope in eternity! Isn’t that what drives us, as Christians? Knowing that in the end, when this life is over and we have won the victory, we still have hope in heaven and in heaven we will be with Christ Jesus our Lord! Those who do not obey God and who do not know His love do not have this hope {Ephesians 2:12}, but as Christians, you do have this hope and it makes all the difference in this life. What makes our trials and temptations bearable? Knowing that “this world is not my home”. We are sojourners in this life, merely here on earth for a time and later we will go home to be with God the Father in eternity, in heaven where Christ is preparing a place for us! “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” {John 14:2-3}

{How can you? I was in the midst of writing this when Amanda posted this wonderful blog post that fits right in with this point. Take the time and go over to her blog to check out what she has to say on the matter!}

What you can do as a Christian is much more important that what you can’t do, though it does not negate the need to obey God’s commandments concerning all things. You can’t do any of the above if you don’t obey, but when you do obey, you can rest assured that you can be blessed.

Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship, and when you are in the right relationship with God and with Christ, then you can enjoy the bountiful blessings that can only be found within Christ Jesus our Lord {Ephesians 1:3}.

Growing Up

I have been looking at old pictures of Benjamin lately. I know that pretty much everyone who has ever had kids will tell you straight up that you should enjoy every moment while they are young  because they grow up entirely too fast. I have found this to be extremely accurate. I feel like just yesterday Benjamin was doing his first ever Easter egg hunt through the house {with Daddy’s assistance, of course, ha!}. He is just not the same baby as he was back then, in fact I realized today that BabyCenter sends me emails calling Benjamin ‘your preschooler’. Preschooler? My baby? Already?

But it’s true. He isn’t such a baby anymore. In fact, as many of you probably have heard already via Facebook, Benjamin will be hardcore potty-training starting tomorrow. I don’t know how many of you know of the 3-Day Potty Training Method, but that is what we are going to do and we are praying that it will work because first thing tomorrow, all the disposable diapers go bye-bye and the cloth ones get put away. Cold turkey.

I admit that I am pretty nervous about this whole process. This means that there is no going back. No falling back on diapers. Go big or go home, right? Well we are going big. This means that I will have to be right with Benjamin every waking minute of the day for the next three days. I have to catch him while he is in the process of ‘going’, each and every time he goes. Tonight we went on a last minute walmart run to buy one more pack of “big boy unnies”, a bunch of drinks, some special dinosaur cups, and some bananas.

So I apologize, but I won’t be around much the next three days. I won’t be able to do the Morning Glories posts because it takes my attention away from Benjamin for too long. Hopefully the next time you hear from me will be with good news about Benjamin’s potty training. Say a prayer for my sanity if you will, ha! And maybe Benjamin’s too because I am sure by the end of it we will be tired of spending so much time together.

So my big boy is growing up. I think he is ready. And I think I am, too. But we’ll just have to see when the three days are up! Bye-bye diapers! 

Morning Glories: Glorifying God

“Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:16

One of my daily goals should always be to glorify God. I will be the first to admit to you that I am not perfect and that I do not always have my head in the right place. I need verses like this one to remind me that my purpose should be to glorify God in my daily life, and how exactly to do it.

Let your light so shine. We know that Christians are often described as being lights in a dark world. Am I living up to this? I like to think that I am living up to this description with my daily life. The way I dress, the way I talk, the way I handle certain situations. There have been times in my life even recently where I knew that I was struggling to shine my light for others to see and in those situations what do you do? For me, I had to eliminate those situations from my life.

Prioritizing can be so hard sometimes because we are all the time finding new things to do or new places to be. Our schedules are filled to the brim and it’s hard to ‘make time’ for the things that really matter: Bible study, prayer, teaching others, doing good deeds for others.

It is said that it takes 32 days to develop a good habit. Maybe if we do our best to prioritize better for 32 days it will just come naturally for us!

This is just a little reminder to me, and to you, what the goal of a Christian should be. Glorifying the Father with our good works by letting our light shine in this dark world. You can’t be seen if you hide out in your house or if you do everything in secrecy. Let your light shine today and every day and make it your mission to glorify God in everything you do!

I hope your day is filled with blessings! If you have tips or ideas on how to prioritize and keep on track, please do share in the comments!

Teach Them Diligently Unto Thy Children

I am pretty sure that every Christian parent or every Christian who desires to be a parent some day knows that teaching their child about Jesus, God, the Bible, and the Church should start early. Getting your roots in deep is so important. We know that the Bible stresses teaching our children all throughout the day no matter what we are doing.

“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Deuteronomy 6:7

I am always looking for new things to help making learning about the Bible fun at home with Benjamin. I wanted to take a little time out to share with you a few things that we have found that have really been fun and have helped us, and most importantly that Benjamin loves, and also ask you what sorts of things you use!

1. AP Reader Series: Learn To Read

My mom bought all 6 of these books for Benjamin while we were in Memphis. So far he has really enjoyed them. He has the Goose, Moose, and Mongoose book memorized and I am pretty sure he is about to have the Dogs, Frogs, and Hogs one memorized as well because that seems to be his second favorite. Anyway, It talks about different qualities of each of the animals, but most importantly talks about God creating the animals and tells which day they were created on. Benjamin really loves these books! If your kid is very interested in reading books plus animals, I would definitely recommend these! You can look at them here.

2. AP Creation Cards

 

We have had these for a long while, actually. Benjamin has been looking at these since he was a year old and he still loves to look at them. Basically, they are cards which have pictures on them (The Creation ones have things like trees, grass, water, etc; the Animal Kingdom ones have dogs, cats, horses, fish, etc) and the names of whatever is pictured as well. On the back, it has information about whatever is pictured and talks about God creating them and on which day. These used to be really good in services to keep Benjamin quiet and content, but now he sometimes likes to tell me all about the card so the quiet isn’t always achieved there. Ha! You can check these out here and here.

3. Each Little Dewdrop

This is a CD that we got last year at the Lectureship but didn’t really start listening until a few months ago (mostly because I left it at a friend’s house who lived in a different state). It has songs on it that cover a variety of topics all throughout the Bible, starting with the Books of the Old Testament and going all the way through to Eutycus and then some! Benjamin absolutely loves this CD and rumor has it that Reagan is a big fan as well! Benjamin’s favorite happens to be the song about the valley of Dry Bones and Ezekiel. And I have to admit that even I have learned from these songs, so there you go! They are fun and catchy, and a capella as well! You can check this out here.

{By the way, I learned how to spell Deuteronomy flawlessly with this CD HA!}

4. Hannah’s Hundred

As you can see, Hannah’s Hundred is a CD of 100 verses of scripture in [a capella] song. We just got this CD at the lectureships this year. There are more than one volume but this is the one that we have. They are very fun songs which makes for a fun way to learn scripture together. We have not listened to this one all the way through yet because all Benjamin ever wants to do is listen to Each Little Dewdrop but it’s all good. What we have listened to we have liked! You can check out this CD here.

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We have a few other things too and maybe at another time I will get those written down as well for y’all. Anyway, those are the four things we have used a lot recently. So tell me what you use. Do a blog post if you’d like! What is it that you use with your kids that you all have really enjoyed?

Photo Challenges

So, I decided to join in on a few photo challenges this week! Here’s the roundup!

Sweet Shot Tuesday @ Life With My 3 Boybarians

The Trendy Treehouse: Blue

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge: Self Portrait

Simplicity Photography Challenge: Routine

{I love to settle down with a book every night before bed!}