To MOPS and back!

Hi All!

Just letting you know that I'm still alive and well, just a bit tired. I returned yesterday from a 4 day trip to the MOPS Convention in Orlando, where I managed to sneak in a few hours of sleep here & there :) I think we spent more time having fun, though, which was sort of the point, I guess. As a group, the MOPS Convention offers a great time for steering teams to bond and get to know one another, as well as allot of learning opportunities for everyone in attendance.

This year, participants were offered 3 separate workshop opportunities, so here is a brief synopsis of those that I chose to attend:

1) Fun & Exciting Family Time, with Kirk Weaver. This workshop offered some great ideas, meant to bring families together. One of the biggest points that really stuck out to me was the statement that "spiritual training was never meant to be provided by only the church, but that it should start within the home". This is something that I know very well, and I was surprised by the fact that it stood out me like it did, but the reality of my life is this...my kiddos don't get enough of me & Michael. They get some of us, but not all of us! Teaching our children spiritual values should begin when they are very young, not when they are older and it's too late to train them. One example he gave to us was this: Give your 3 or 4 year old child a magazine (he suggested something like "People") and ask them to pick out 3 or 4 examples of 'modest' clothing, then 3 or 4 examples of 'immodest' clothing. Once they complete that task, then discuss their choices with them. He said that by discussing modesty to them at this age, the discussion about purity will be a natural step as they get older, then abstinence, etc. He said that waiting until the teen years to begin discussions of modesty will only become a tug-of-war and a battle-of-wills that no one will win. Good points!!! Check out their website at www.famtime.com.

2) Creating an Intimate Marriage, with Dr. Jim Burns: Really, I don't have allot to say about this one because the title speaks for itself, but I did manage to walk away with some good points from this workshop that had little to do with intimacy, and more to do with marriage and husbands :) First, he gave 3 really good points that I thought I should share: (1) Have a non-negotiable date night, even if it includes the kiddos! It doesn't have to cost money to be a date night, so child-care isn't always required. (2) Only be out of the house, away from the family, 3 nights a week - less is better! Don't let life, careers, commitments, etc., take you away from home. (3) Give your spouse VETO power. Let them say NO to something that you want to do and respect their decision. But, that VETO can should go both ways, so that you can say NO as well. He also spoke about the "Pain of Discipline" versus the "Pain of Regret". This, in a nutshell, means that you can either suffer through the good decisions that aren't always easy, or make the easy choices now and suffer through the consequences later. Pretty simple! He will have several books available soon that discussed these things in more detail, so visit his website at www.homeword.com.

3) Creating a Great Dad-Great Mom Partnership, with Dr. Robert Hamrin & Dr. Jack Elwood: Wow is about all I can say about this one. These 2 men have a ministry to dads and offer "Great Dad" workshops. Our MOPS group is going to see about setting one up for the men in our lives this year!!! I cannot imagine that any man in attendance wouldn't walk away with something positive. I took lots of notes on this one, but the biggest section is titled "The 3 Know NO's": (1) No complaining, (2) No Comparison, and (3) No Criticizing. Such good, basic principles, and so hard to follow. I know what I'll be working on...

So, there you have it. My MOPS Convention workshops in a nutshell. I cannot even begin to describe the blessing that MOPS has been to my life! The blessings just roll-over into my family, my marriage, and my friendships - which is the point! The women that God has placed in my life, at this moment in my life, are all heaven-sent and I love each & every one of them very much. Getting to go to convention with them? Well, that's just bonus!!!

Teaching & Learning

Ever wonder how exactly one might teach a 2 year old patience? Yeah, me to!

I've discovered that trying to teach Ian the words "Wait" or "Just a minute" is about as easy as bathing a cat. He just doesn't get it, and doesn't seem interested in getting it. He's relentless when it comes to repeating himself - one cannot say the same thing over & over again quite enough, apparently.

And, it seems that he's doing a bang-up job of teaching his brother & sister this same technique. I always figured that the older kids would teach the younger kids both good & bad habits, hoping against hope that the good would out-weigh the bad. But, it seems that while the younger kiddos seem to be oblivious to the good habits that he/she might learn from the older kiddos, the older kiddos have discovered that if you say something enough, and drive your mommy & daddy bonkers, you will either get what you want, or get punished. Most of the time, it's punished, but every now and then I find myself yelling "OK" just to get them to zip-it! Maybe not the best parenting move, but I like to tell myself that I could always do worse. Gotta pick your battles right?

And, you would think that the punishments would be enough to prevent them from repeating themselves, but not our kids! Nope, they have short-term memories and seem to completely forget that their constant badgering does nothing to help their cause. But, you have to give them credit...they are definitely persistent...and they get that particular characteristic from both mommy & daddy.

Isn't persistence a virtue?

Being Negligent!

I've been a really bad blogger this past month, haven't I? My life feels as if it's completely out of my control and in the hands of another person who joys in seeing me run from here to there and back again!!! I thought that once school started, life would slow down just a bit, but it seems that I was sadly mistaken. This past week found me running even more than the previous week, which meant that I managed to neglect my blog again. Here are a few 'Back to School' pics that Michael managed to snap as we shuffled the kids out the door this last week. Hooray - school is back in session :)

This is Alex on his first day of 2nd grade. His smile looks sort of weird and...well, gummy! I'm starting to wonder if his top front teeth are ever going to grow in??? I cannot believe my baby is a 2nd grader!!!

This is silly-girl Morgann on her first day of school. This was almost the only picture we got of her smiling. The rest of her pics are very pouty, as she found herself left behind while her best friends, Kate & Emma boarded the bus for Kindergarten. Her birthday falls in December, which means she is only in Pre-K this year, much to her dismay. But, at least we got 1 smiley picture. Her current infatuation is braids, thus the double-pigtail-braid look. Too bad I never learned to French braid - Cori :)

And finally, this is Ian getting ready to leave for his first day of preschool. He will be attending 2 days a week with Morgann, which means I have 2 blessed days all to myself! He did really well on the first day at drop-off. The 2nd day he cried for more than an hour. Talk about feeling a little guilty. He is my 'cautious, don't make changes to my routine & schedule' kid, but I keep telling myself, "This too will pass!" Hopefully I'm right, or this is going to be a long, hard school year for him.

Gearing Up for Another Year!

School starts on Monday and we've been busily getting ready - getting back to earlier bed times, getting up early, and buying new backpacks & lunch boxes. You know, the general 'Back to School' hub-bub that has basically overtaken the nation for the last few weeks - we've been right in the middle of it. And, once the kids go back to school, my life will get back to some semblance of normalcy and I will be back to blogging on a more regular basis.

The agenda for today - do my best to get some of my work done this morning, finish up a few MOPS agenda items, then spend the rest of the day in the pool - after all, it's the last day of summer!!!

Stuck in a Storm

Well, as promised, I'm here with a tale to tell!

As I mentioned before, we left Houston for South Padre Island a week ago last Thursday (that would be the 26th), departing home around 10AM and arriving in SPI at 6:30PM! It was a long drive, but actually passed fairly quickly thanks in large-part to fact that we had never made the drive before so the very 'nothing-ness' of terrain was new to see. Of course I can't go without mentioning that we also had portable DVD players on board to occupy the masses :) With a quick stop in Corpus Christi for lunch about half-way through, the kids did extremely well and, I'm thankful to report, gave me nothing to blog about.

Then Friday rolled around. On our first day there, we (and I do mean all of us, kid's included!) slept in until after 9:30AM, so we lost a good portion of our morning just trying to get breakfast and dressed for the beach (you have no idea how long it takes to sunscreen 3 wriggling children - unless you have them!). Anyway, after much ado, we managed to get down to the beach with the help of my dad and our mini van. Though the beach was less than a block across the street from where were staying, our apparent lack of decision making meant that it required our taking the van down there to carry all of the stuff we felt we needed. We took 3 bags of beach toys, a beach umbrella, 3 beach chairs, a large bag full of "stuff", towels for 6, 2 or 3 boogie boards, a cooler full of food, drinks & ice, and probably other paraphernalia that I've forgotten about. Anyway, after unloading, dad said that he would just park the van on the side of the road so that we could load it up to get everything back home. Then he left.

So, there we are at the beach, playing and having a wonderful time when we suddenly begin to feel sprinkles. They were very sporadic, but an alarm started to sound in my head. After a few minutes, the sprinkles started to come closer & closer together and before long, we found ourselves huddled under the beach umbrella hoping that it would just 'pass'. No such luck! The sprinkles became a light shower, and the light shower became a full-blown rain. About that time, my sister & I decided it was time to load up and head home! Of course, getting Michael's attention to relay that information wasn't quite as simple, as he was out in the surf riding the waves and having a good old time, oblivious to the fact that it was raining. Well, actually I think he knew it was raining, but just didn't care.

My problem was that by the time I had decided to load up, it wasn't just raining, it was pouring! Buckets & buckets of water, I swear!!! Michael was angrily heading back to shore by this point and my sister & I were busily grabbing shovels, buckets, towels, bathing suit cover-ups, and whatever else we could grab. The kids were just standing there crying - not because it was raining and we had to leave the beach after a short 45 minutes, but because they were getting wet!!! Quite the sight, I am sure, if anyone had been looking, but everyone else was doing the same thing we were.

Anyway, once my arms were filled with the first load of gear, I dug out my keys from the "stuff" bag and headed to the van. Since I was a muddy, soggy mess by the time I got there, I decided that moving the van closer to the beach entrance might be a smart move. So I jumped in, started it up, and hit the gas - my car rolled exactly 2 or 3 inches, then sunk! Apparently the solid, well-packed sand my dad had parked the van on wasn't quite as solid when it got wet! I immediately put the gears into reverse and hit the gas again, sinking the tire even deeper into the mud. Nice huh?!? I sat there for a second pondering my next move and decided that I should just run back down to the beach for another load, and maybe a kid or 2. About half-way there, I met my sister who had 1 crying child in each arm - so I grabbed one and headed back to the van to drop them off. Of course, having children in the running van meant that I couldn't run off again, so there I stood, looking like a homeless person in the rain, waiting for Michael & Melody to return with more stuff.

Around that same moment, a nice family of non-American origin walked past me so I decided to see if anyone spoke English. Thankfully 2 of them did, so I asked if the 3 large, strong men in the group wouldn't mind giving me a quick push to see if we could get the van out of the mud. Thankfully they agreed, so I jumped back into the van while they pushed from behind; the van moved forward onto solid ground without much fuss :) I was so thankful that it didn't take much work, and told them over & over again how much I appreciated their help, even though I don't think they could understand me.

By this point, we were in full hurricane-type rain! In case you're not familiar, it rains so hard that you can hardly see your hand in front of your face, and the wind blows it in every direction making it even harder to see. It's the kind of rain that you don't want to drive in, and if you are driving when it hits, you contemplate pulling to the side of the road until it lets up a bit. And, here we were, running around in it!!!

Anway, the van was loaded up with muddy, wet kids, toys & towels, and Michael had the umbrella in hand, so while he walked back to the condo, I drove the rest of us home. My sister, who had run back earlier to get help from my dad when the van got stuck, met us at the door with clean, dry towels. While she stripped each child and threw them into the tub to warm up and rinse off, Michael & I made a few trips up and down the 3 flights of stairs to get what we could out of the van (like our lunch!). By this point he was fuming mad and mumbling to himself while I was laughing hysterically. I couldn't help myself. I figured there was no reason for the both of us to be upset that our first day at the beach was rained-out, so I decided to try to make the best of it. I was also hoping that if it was going to rain, that it would all happen on that day and not stretch out over the course of our vacation!

My next task was to figure out what we could do, indoors all day, in order to occupy the troops while it rained almost continuously. Answer? We ate our picnic lunch indoors and played Wii Sports. Hey, at least we got some exercise, and thank God we brought the video games! :)