I'm loving...

I'm enjoying:

Josie is fascinated with reindeer. When we drive in the evenings, we are all about looking at Christmas lights and in particular, reindeer. From the back seat comes a sweet little voice saying, "I don't see the reindeer! We need to find more reindeer, mama!" It is a bonus to our light viewing adventures.

Seriously, the best I can get of her. But look how long her hair is getting!

Going to church with three kids has been less than enjoyable for us. The older two egg each other on and create problems one minute after the next. We get a short reprieve during the message when all three kids are in nursery/kid's class but then we have to endure the last two songs all together again before church is done. We know it is important to have the kids with us during the service and that we have to diligently teach them how to behave in church, so it's worth it, but man it's been hard. This week, though, was wonderful. They didn't yell (much), they didn't run away (much), we got to actually hear what the speakers were saying, and we could sing along to the songs without many interruptions. I was so impressed with them. I have no idea what was different or if they just finally figured it out, but it was fabulous.

We also ate out for the first time, just the five of us. Fast food, in and out as we were going to do a few errands (a brave feat also). It went great. I was so proud of them. We sat in the corner booth so that we could barricade the kids in, kept them busy eating their foods, took potty breaks, and people watched. It couldn't have gone better.

Playing too hard to smile for the camera

I went to the library last week with the lfb and we got loads of Christmas books to bring home. I think we might have brought over half of their total collection home with us. I made a point to not just get a bunch of Santa oriented books, and it's amazing how much easier it is for Josie to understand what Christmas is all about when what we are reading is Christ centered. I had been getting frustrated with how her view of Christmas revolved around Santa even though we didn't emphasize it. We aren't completely avoiding it but we aren't encouraging it either. The outside world does that enough for us. Now that we have been reading about it, talking about it in the car, and singing old sacred Christmas songs instead of just the catchy songs on the radio, it's improved a lot. I know that she's young and that she'll have time to learn about this in the future, but we don't need to start habits that we can "change later" when they are "old enough" for the real deal. Why not just start it off right?

We had oatmeal this morning for breakfast, something I haven't made in longer than I remember. Most of the time when I make it, it just turns out kind of blah. This time, I used milk instead of water, cinnamon, and more brown sugar than I usually do (I can be very skimpy at times). You guys. It was amazing. All the kids absolutely loved it and the clean up wasn't half bad. We'll be doing this again. Like tomorrow. And the next day.

While I'm a little busier this week with some evening commitments, the kids are staying home and their routines aren't going to be interrupted. I'm loving their regular schedules and the good behavior and sweet hearts shining through that occur when our days look like this.

What are you loving?

Rare glimpse of them playing together, right before Josie pushed Audrey over (gently, but with poor intention). Ahh, sisters.

Fabulous Friday with a side of random

Oh hey there. Glad you are still reading. It's been quiet over here, and I'm okay with that. I've lost some readers though, as a quick glance at the good old stats noticed a drop of page views per post. 

Good thing I'm not on the prowl for high reader numbers. :)

Why so quiet, you ask? I'm having a hard time being motivated to sit down and write. Picture editing has been bumped up a notch now that we have a third kid photographed that isn't supposed to be posted online. Honestly, it's kind of exhausting to take pictures trying to keep him out of them (I think he can tell when I'm doing that so it's not ideal at all) or taking pictures with him right in the middle and then editing him out later. It's a lot more work than I'm interested in.

I have posted a lot more one-kid pictures on Instagram (follow me @livingwithintention if you'd like) but other than that, don't expect much from me in that regard.

Life has finally slowed down. We're all breathing again, and the kids are behaving a little bit better than a couple of weeks ago. I'm trying so very hard to be creative and intentional with our time. I don't want us to just sit around bored, driving each other crazy. We go outside when we can which is huge for attitudes and energy levels. Unfortunately, it's been ridiculously, unseasonably, cold this late fall/early winter and we've been trapped inside more than usual. It's going to be a long winter if all of the days have highs of 0 or less. I just can't even think about it without getting depressed.

I think the biggest thing freaking me out is that I can't go very many places with all three kids. When our lfb (little foster boy) isn't at school, I'm stuck at home for the most part. I (we) so desperately want to be out and about but it's so stressful and overwhelming. I just can't keep track of all of them and the older two aren't great listeners yet so I can't trust them at all.

So we sit at home, trying to keep sane and happy.

We've been doing advent calendar activities. We've skipped days here and there when life got busy or it just didn't fit in to the day, and I have no guilt about that. We do what we can. Some we have done to date: sang Christmas carols, made Christmas cookies (from the box, nothing fancy), called someone and sang "jingle bells" (we called auntie, grammy, and papa and they all loved it), watched a children's Christmas movie, and colored a picture in just green and red. I've noticed that the arts and crafts projects haven't really happened as much since the kids can't all sit still very long but again, I'm okay with it. It still give us something to do when the days get long.

The other advent calendar we are doing is the Storybook Bible story-a-day calendar. We are only two days behind, which is kind of amazing for me. Right away when we started doing it, lfb was not interested at all with sitting down and reading a story before bed time. I mean, hello, it's a lead-in to bed time. The kids aren't stupid, they know that. But now, he (they) has accepted that it's just what we do, and with a lot of animation in our voices, they listen happily and enjoy the story. It totally warms my heart to read to them about Jesus and have them get excited about it. I'm so glad we are doing it.

Today we will be making reindeer pictures and maybe snowflakes. We might make cookies and we'll hopefully take good long naps. 

Here are my very few and totally random pictures to share with you. Happy weekend!

Totally happy hanging out under the coffee table.

Proof! We did in fact play outside and the baby wasn't even screaming the whole time. Victory.

Hair drama

Remember when I was obsessed with cutting my hair? I talked about it to everyone, in person, on the phone, facebook, instagram... I was annoying, which I'm fine with since to me it's a huge decision. I mean I've had long hair for years and it's so hard to grow it back out with that awful middle stage... you know the one, where your hair is right below your shoulders and just looks bleh. Well, it does on me anyways. But I digress.

I was all set to chop it off. I had the appointment made and childcare all set up. I was so excited. Then we got hit with illness and I had to cancel it. I was so disappointed but life goes on and now it's been two weeks and I haven't been able to figure out a way to schedule another appointment. Having three kids means finding childcare is difficult and me-time is unheard of. My hair has been in a high bun for... well longer than I can remember! At least it's low maintenance and kind of in style right now. I'm grateful for that. :)

Someday I'll have a ton of time to go get my hair all pretty and sit in quiet without any screaming, wrestling, or giggling surrounding me at all times. I can look polished and well rested later. 

For now, I'll just keep the long hair, high bun, concealer, and coffee and enjoy my nap time peace when I can get it. It's all I've got right now so I might as well, right? Leaving the house (alone) is overrated anyways.

Bullet points for a catch up.

It is so hard to write a post after getting out of the habit of it. How do I fill you in on everything that has happened lately? it doesn't seem possible, so bullet points it is.

• We had a good Thanksgiving. Unfortunately I can't say great, because we have three toddlers that are all in challenging phases and two tired parents, but it was still good. We went to the lake to celebrate with my side of the family. We spent a lot of time in the chilly outdoors, went to town to see my grandparents, and ate a lot of food. That pretty much sums it up!
• We came back on Saturday, so that night, hubby and I went to town cleaning up the house and getting as many Christmas decorations up as we could while the kids were asleep. It was relaxing and fun. We had a fire going and Christmas music on. We each had our projects and the house was relatively quiet. Honestly, it was just what my heart needed.
• The next morning, Sunday, our little fb woke up with a stomach bug and the day kind of went downhill from there. The excitement of Christmas!decorations!everywhere! just caused problems all day and like I said earlier, the challenging phase we are in with the three of them just escalated. It was a long day and not the best way to end the weekend.
• This week is nuts for me. Absolutely nuts. There is way too much squeezed into way too little of time and I can hardly breathe waiting for Thursday to be done. Since I'm super scatterbrained because of it, thank you to those who are helping us out this week (and just lately in general). I do so appreciate it!
• Despite being busy, I so want to enjoy this Christmas season. I have to keep telling myself to keep it simple for the kids. I can already tell that they are in a "me me me" mindset with gifts and new toys coming in left and right, so I want to minimize that as much as possible and spend more time on our Advent calendars, reading books that aren't about Santa (good grief, we have way too many of these), and singing Christmas carols that have real meaning (along with the fun ones too of course). I want good moments, not just good presents. Does that make sense? They don't have to be perfectly staged, but I want this season to be special for the kids in a simple, pure, Jesus-centered way. 
• It is snowing here, yesterday, today, and I'm sure tomorrow, so it looks like winter is here to stay. I love how pretty it looks but I don't love how hard my hubby has to work to clear our driveway (so huge compared to our old one). I also don't love how hard it is to play outside with a one year old that can't walk in her snow pants. We all suffer because of that! If she can't walk, she's unhappy, then we have to come back inside, and the older two are sad that they can't play longer. It is so much work to even get outside in the first place, I'm not sure we'll make many more attempts. 
• Whew I needed this post. So much swirling around my brain and writing this out just helps. Thanks for reading my mind dump. :)

A little blurry, but yet so fabulous. These two are quite the pair.

My mama and me.

Found this on our nature walk (one of many).

These look photoshopped, don't they? They aren't though. I made that pretty hat myself. :)