March

Whew. 
Three kids is no joke. 
It's awesome and fun and there's just so.much.love and it keeps me busy
but it keeps me busy. 
With my kids being the ages that they are, I feel like I pretty much run from near disaster to near disaster all day long, just trying to keep the peace, clean up messes, and avoid meltdowns from all sides. 

I remember feeling similarly when Ellie was about this age. It's a tough phase physically for a mama.
And so some of my favorite things, like recording our lives here, 
has been lacking.

But I'm going to do my best! Christian is now (mostly) sleeping through the night, yay!, so I'm trying to carve out a little time each morning before the rest of the family wakes up.
Time for me. To study and pray and hopefully do a little bit of writing down our history as we go.

March: 

Kent started his new job, 
which meant that the lovesac we'd been storing at his former office during our move needed to come back home.
We don't have anywhere to put it currently.
So it spent a week or so smack dab in our living room.

Not very pretty, but oh so comfortable 
and as you can imagine, the kids loved having it right here to jump on, roll on, tickle-wrestle on all day long.

Toddlers love Easter Eggs. 
Lucky us, we've got probably a hundred of them or more.

My little walking boy. He's desperate to go outside. When Kent leaves for work in the morning he has to sneak out when no one's looking, because Christian will screech and cry and throw himself on the ground in tears if anyone ever opens the door without letting him go out.

We spend a lot of time outside here,
and it's going to be so nice when this cul de sac of ours gets more landscaping. 
Our yard has a long way to go.

But I saw these colorful pots at the store and thought they'd be just the thing to bring just a little bit of life and color to our outdoors.

I spent a lot of March feeling frustrated and annoyed and even angry at times, as we learned that our corner lot is actually on the corner of what will soon be the main road in and out of our little city.
Lots of traffic, lots of noisy, busy, fast traffic will be coming right past our home all day long.
And that is not what we'd expected when we chose a home out here.
But we're here. 
And this is the right place for my family. The friendships the kids are making, that I'm making, are invaluable. I need to remember that there's more important things in life than not hearing cars when I open my windows. Really, it's such a small thing, 
and so many people I love are dealing with such big heartbreaking trials lately,
I feel a bit ashamed that I let this bother me so much.

So I've decided that each time I hear a big cement truck rumble past, I'm going to look out and up at these mountains and remember why we're here. A home for my family, outdoor space for the children, and new friends.

And thank goodness for our fenced-in yard!

Ellie gave herself a tail one afternoon. (excuse the blurry face--I was holding a squirmy one-year-old while trying to take a picture.)
This girl is the epitome of magical. She lives in her own little world most of the time, literally frolicking from one thing to the next. It sometimes means she's slow to hear what we're asking her to do, and sometimes she makes messes that are baffling, because the toothbrushes become princesses and need to go swimming in the toilet, 
but if I pay attention, watching her world, seeing her find the fantasy and imagine the magical around us,
it's why being a mother is the best job in the world.

In March we instigated a new rule: we only let the children have screen time on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

And this has changed our lives.

We're back into the habit of creative play, working together. There's less whining and fighting and more being outside and making up their own games, like racing rolls of washi tape down the stairway.

  The women's conference came on a perfect day. It had been a rough day for mothering. The house was messy, the kids were whiny, and I was not being the best I could be. 
To close the door and listen to God's word and His prophets for an hour? It was just the thing I needed.