July 29th, 2010
Yesterday I was talking to the 2 bigger boys about the 10 commandments. Working through the first five rather quickly. I was using How to Bring Your Children to Christ..& Keep Them There: Avoiding the Tragedy of False Conversion
and one of the suggestions to talk to your kids about the “Honor thy father and mother” commandment was to begin figuring up how much money it would cost to raise a child from before birth until they are out of the house. Another suggestion was to show your kids pictures of their births (or the times surrounding them, you know, using discretion, of course) to let the kids see and begin to understand the loving sacrifices we as parents make for our children. I did this. Gently and with love. Some of the pictures that I showed them were surprising to them. Though they had seen all of the pictures from the most recent baby’s birth, I pointed out some things they had not noticed before.
How I was looking really scared in this one.
How I had an IV in my arm in this one and how I had to have oxygen and lay a certain way for the baby’s heart rate.
And then I showed them this one and we talked about how I looked so different just a few minutes later. How, even though I was still in pain, the IV was still in place, I have a look of relief, joy, and absolute love all over me. How I sacrifice so willingly for them. How much I love them.
And we talked about expectations. The feeling of entitlement that we all get. That more and more and more is somehow owed to us. When really it’s not. When really all that we should have is gratefulness. And respect. And honor. Because most of the time we don’t see the behind the scenes of the people around us. Loving us.
We don’t see how messy, painful, and rewarding love can be.
July 28th, 2010
I don’t have a picture for these yet. You’ll just have to trust me when I tell you how yummy they are.
I think there may be a misconception that all of my recipes are these hard involved recipes like the unbelievably amazing tasting Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. There’s a lot of work there. Made much less if you cook ahead a few of the ingredients, none-the-less pretty involved, but oh so worth it. I promise not everything I do is difficult. I’d lose my mind if it were.
So, are you ready for, like, the easiest recipe ever?
Ingredients:
- 3-4 pounds country style pork ribs, boneless (or boneless pork chops)
- 1 family sized can cream of chicken soup (you could use cream of mushroom, but I don’t like cream of mushroom, therefore I use chicken)
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Put pork ribs in crockpot. Pour soup on top. Add a little salt and pepper. Cook on low for 8 hours.
I normally don’t double this recipe since I serve it with veggies and rice – it usually makes enough for our family for one meal. Want leftovers? Double up!
I serve this with those in-the-bag steamable veggies found in the freezer section. I put some garlic salt on the veggies with a little margarine. I serve the Creamy Pork Chops with rice and pour the “gravy” they cooked in over it.
That would be it.
July 26th, 2010
Some of my friends seem to think I have it all together. That my school room/dining room always looks like this. That I plan perfectly. That I keep my kids perfectly busy all the time. I know I’ve fed this misconception by posting a lot of my How I Do What I Do posts. Those are loose guidelines that I aim for. More often than not this is what my life looks like. Now on with the Not Me-ness!
I never miss the naptime window and let my 9 month fall asleep standing up.
My school room never looks like this.
I have not had the same words written (read: scribbled) on my chalkboard for a minimum of a week and a half.
I did not misspell the word “ark” as “arc” when writing our copywork sentence on the board. I did not discover it after all three children had written it in marker on their pictures.
I do not have the word “SiN” randomly written by a child on the chalkboard.
There are not oatmeal bowls attracting flies on the table because I always have my children scrape their own bowls and put them away in the sink.
These are not my children vegetating in front of The Backyardigans instead of doing schoolwork midmorning. While I dreamed of curriculum and played on Facebook.
My children did not look like this on the way to my oldest’s baptism. Nor do they normally look this excited to be going to church.
I did not take blurry pictures of these things and slap them on my blog unedited for the world to see.
Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
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