Busy! But GOOD Busy!

Yep, that describes life right now. Doesn't it for almost everybody? It's that time of year. But this kind of busy has been different for me. We've made a point over the last few months to stay home a whole lot more. During the day, I keep the kids in as much as possible. We do enough playdates to not lose our minds, but we're not overscheduling our days like we used to. And it's been really nice. Sometimes a little lonely for a sanguine like me, BUT the good has far outweighed what is sometimes difficult. I feel so good about where we are in life, and I'm so grateful that God has given me this opportunity to love, train, and invest in my children's hearts all day each day. So. I'm trying to make the most of it. I know I blogged a few months ago about how my heart had really been turned more towards my home, and now I can say it just keeps getting more and more that way. It's been a perfect example to me of how we can influence our emotions to follow the choices we make. I chose to make home life a priority, and now several months later, I can't imagine it any other way. I love it! I loved being a stay-at-home mom before, but I realized I was finding a lot of satisfaction from my connection with friends during the day and the Lord showed me that some of that had become plain ol idolatry. So I've had to reshift a lot of my thinking about how I plan our days. They must now revolve around what God says is good for the family that day, and I'm still tempted to make it about what's fun for me a lot of the time. But this is a good place to be. I'm really liking it a lot more, the more I make these my habits.

But what's been great about not overscheduling our days or overcommitting to regular activities is that it frees us up to be available for whatever opportunities God brings our way for ministry that we have never planned for. And He keeps bringing them for sure! I've been available for unplanned, divine conversations and opportunities to help out friends. And it's been such a good practical lesson for me to "say no" to a lot of good things because I've been freed up to do a whole lot more! Taking a "break" from some ministry things hasn't really been a break at all...and isn't that the way Jesus does things? In the gospels, we see His "breaks" of practicing solitude and stillness always interrupted by needs and needy people coming to Him. And I love that He does that. Because even though I want to spend much more time at home with my kids, more intentionally investing in their hearts, I want them to see their mom serving! I want to do it so much more than I do. And I really wish there wasn't this battle against selfishness that I have to go through each time one of those opportunities comes up. I have sooooo far to go on this. I really want my heart transformed in this area. I want to really see interruptions or unplanned opportunities to invest and serve as what they really are: divine intervention that serves a purpose so much bigger than myself but that I am blessed to be allowed in to participate. And God is definitely taking me seriously! He's bringing me opportunities to learn this and battle my selfishness. I have a feeling there will be a lot more of these opportunities, as I am a slow learner!

So that's the kind of busy I've been. And our evenings and weekends have been pretty full lately too. It started the first week of November and probably will continue that way until after the new year. Speaking of, I can't believe how close 2009 is! Crazy.

Life with the kiddos right now is fun. Parker turned 6 months old on Sunday, and this mama is so sad we are closer to her one year birthday than her actual birth day. She's a precious baby! Really, so happy. Last week was a little rough with teething. She was up a lot at night every night for almost a week. It sent my body into a little shock since she'd been sleeping through the night for quite a while. And she was fussier than usual. But we've been back to normal the last few nights, and that's been great. No teeth have come through yet, but two on the bottom look almost there. She is trying to sit up on her own, but she isn't quite there yet. That's actually my favorite first-year milestone. The time between being able to sit up and crawl is the easiest, I think! It was a really short time with Jonah, and some moms have babies crawling before they even sit up. But I look forward to her being able to sit up and play more with things. She is still laughing a lot at her brother. They have something sweet going on.

And Jonah has seemed like such a little man lately. A few weeks ago, we went through a bad period of resistance at bedtime. He started to protest it for a short time last night, but thankfully it resolved quickly. But that's his main issue right now. He's been pretty helpful and sweet most of the time. I love having conversations with him. I wish I could record them all. He is SO imaginative. But I love listening to his imaginative talk so much right now because it's still so innocent, little boy-ish. It's always about animals. I know the superhero life is just right around the corner, and that will be a fun stage too I'm sure, but for now I'm so glad he cares nothing about Batman or Spiderman. He just "plays" giraffe and zebra and lion and so on. He recently went camping with his dad (and Ame's husband and son) and it was his first time to sleep in a tent...he loved it! It was such a big deal to him.

We did some Christmas shopping yesterday...I'm getting a little bit closer. I really like to have most of that done before December gets here, so I can really have time to enjoy the holiday time with my family and not be running around like a crazy person trying to get things done. I've been that person a lot of Christmases! But I really hope I can get more of it out of the way by the end of the month because I want to be able to do all of those fun advent activities with Jonah that we did last year. Last year was kind of halfhearted because I was feeling so bad from being pregnant. So this year I want to do a lot more!

This once a week blogging is a little crazy because so much more has been happening than that frequency reflects. I really want to do better with keeping up with it. I have things to say, people! I need help to do a better job with this. Any of you have permission to make me blog more. And ridicule me until I do. Because I know I've been saying I need to do better with this for quite a while now.

Happy Pre-Christmas Season, everyone! It's almost here....