honorable homemaking

I mentioned in this post that I am reading Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney. The subtitle is "Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother." She looks at this passage in Titus 2:3-5:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled,pure,working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

She focuses in on these 7 virtues: loving your husband, loving your children, self-control, purity, working at home, being kind, and being submissive to your husband.

This morning I read about the honor of working at home. It seems that our general culture looks down upon women who choose to stay home, thanks in part to the feminist movement that convinced women that they would be happier, more fulfilled individuals if they worked outside of the home.

Now before I get too far into this conversation let me say that I am in no way seeking to condemn those moms that do work outside of the home. In fact, the author does a great job (in my opinion) of also looking at the Proverbs 31 passage and acknowledging that the "virtuous woman" took care of her home but also traded goods and bought real estate. Working outside of the home is not in and of itself bad. The Proverbs 31 woman managed her work but not to the detriment of managing her home.

For us, we have been willing to make the necessary sacrifices so that I can stay home with the boys. And sometimes it has been a real sacrifice. Remember, my husband is a teacher. That is not exactly a high-paying job (though it should be, and I'm not just saying that because I'm married to one!). And we had 2 boys within 18 months of each other, a major strain on the finances. Some days, I do long for a bigger, nicer house or a gym membership or heck, even medical insurance. I admit that. But then I think of all the sweet moments the Lord has given me in raising these 2 boys and the joy that is brought to my heart to have a clean, organized home for my hard-working husband and all the sacrifices fade away. And really, the Lord has provided (sometimes miraculously) for our every need.

I could go on and on about the joys of being home with my boys but maybe a few pictures from our day today will suffice.

Being a stay at home mom affords me moments like these today:

Eating lunch with great friends

Baking homemade bread with my boys (don't you love the apron and underwear look?)

Celebrating (a little early) our survival of the first week back to school (they are singing into their forks)

She ends the chapter with this prayer: "Lord help me to build the kind of home where all who enter will find it impossible to keep from thinking of God." Isn't that a lofty goal? Lofty but not impossible and it is my prayer for our house to do just that.

coping with distractions

so this is how we coped with burrito's second day of school:

are there child labor laws against this?

he insisted on helping me vacuum and who can say no to this sweet little thing?

and burrito survived day 2 of kindergarten. he seemed much more at ease about the new routine. isn't he cute in his chapel uniform?

i've decided that i still don't like kindergarten but i am trying to get over it.

and my other distraction for the week has been the makeover of our cute little mid century modern coffee table. here are a few pictures from this post to remind you of what it looked like before the makeover.

and here is the new and improved version. i am so pleased with how well it turned out. this was my first experiment with refinishing and staining a piece of furniture and to say i was a little nervous is an understatement. and the nerves only got worse as i progressed but i think it turned out great.

and i think the java gel stain i used is a pretty near perfect match to the black-brown furniture we already have in our living area (even though the flash on the camera made it look a lot lighter here).

so now i am ready to conquer our bathroom cabinets with this gel stain. i wonder how long it will take me to work up the nerve for a project like that???

what projects have you undertaken lately? inquiring minds want to know! :)

i survived

burrito's first day of kindergarten. and without any tears (okay, minimal tears).

he was out of bed and ready to go in record-breaking time this morning. here he is all ready for his first day of kindergarten:

john was able to join us for burrito's big day and we all walked him into school. this felt a bit like walking the "green mile" to me.






once there, i couldn't really tell if he was just nervous about being in a new situation or if he was embarrassed that his mom and dad were there. we kissed bye and that was that. i had to come straight home and be with jesus to keep my emotions and thoughts in check. noodle coped by watching diego.

so with my first born under someone else's care for 7 hours, what's a mom to do? noodle and i decided to break out the old bread machine and bake it up. i haven't made homemade bread like this since burrito was a baby. something about having 2 boys 18 months apart limited my betty crocker aspirations for awhile.

so we set out to walmart to buy our necessary ingredients. bread flour....check. yeast....check. dry milk....where is the dry milk? i searched up and down aisle 8 looking for that stuff and wondering, is 1 Tbs of dry milk really that important?

i still don't know the answer to that.

but anyways, we did find one giant box of dry milk for $6.59 which seemed outrageous, seeing as how i only needed 1 Tbs!

so i thought, well target is just around the corner, surely we can find some there. nope. the guy there said no one really carries dry milk anymore and some other details about shelf life that i can't recall. he suggested we try a specialty store like sprouts, which is just a bit further down the road.

so on to sprouts we went....only to be told the same thing. they no longer carry it either, and we might have luck at a kroger or albertson's who might have some still on their shelf. lucky for us (or not, this is the 4th store now to try) albertson's did have a box of dry milk. still too large and still too expensive for our needs but after getting in and out of the car 4 times and an hour and a half later, we were getting that box of dry milk!

so we came home and donned our aprons and set to baking.


noodle took this picture of me.

i measured out the ingredients and noodle dumped them in. we made cinnamon raisin bread and the smell filled the whole house. yummy!


and somehow, the clock made it around to 2:45 and i picked up my sweet first born from school and all was right in the world again. we came home and the boys swam and we shared all about our days over dinner. it was a sweet time.

some thoughts burrito shared about his first day of kindergarten:

he was a little sad after we left but was happy again when his teacher explained that when they earn 5 tokens for good behavior, they can trade in the tokens for something out of the treasure box.

he had german today and his teacher said, "guten morgen."

he saw all his old buddies from last year at recess.

one of the computers was broken in his class (he is super excited about using a computer).

he said the boy on the computer was going to be his new favorite friend. i asked him what his name was and he couldn't remember.

so that was the first day of kindergarten. we survived. now on to day 2.

how can it be

that in the blink of an eye we went from

this

to this?

tomorrow is the first day of kindergarten for burrito. tomorrow is the beginning of my letting go of my first born son. am i being melodramatic? i don't think so. for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week someone else will be the primary teacher for burrito. this doesn't seem right. how can it be that at the tender age of 5, it is okay for him to leave my protective care? this is definitely going to be harder for me than for him. he was ready to go to school the next day after meeting his teacher last week. that was not my reaction. i want to cling to him tighter. but it is a good reminder that he is not my own. he is a gift from the Lord to be used for His glory. while i know this to be true, it does not make it any easier for me. i am sad.

anatomy of a water fight.

daddy and burrito.

noodle joins in the action.



kiss and make-up time.

where was i during all of this you may ask? i was staining our mid century coffee table. before and after pictures to come soon....

i love my barista...

and his name is john. and he is my husband. and this is his new toy.

and this is what it does.

i love him and i love this new toy.

come on over for a nice cup of coffee. or at least a virtual cup.

are you a coffee lover like us? what's your favorite?

book reviews

looking back, we love to characterize our summers by the activity we loved to do most. and summers are fun around here because we have john home from school.

for example, our favorite summer of all time was the summer of '05 when i was pregnant with noodle. burrito was little and i was hungry all the time :) so every afternoon after naptime, we would have an afternoon snack. that was the highlight of our day....what are we going to have for our afternoon snack? most of the time it was a snowcone or something to help me stay cool in the summer being 5-7 months pregnant.

the summer of '06 was the summer of the malls. they boys were little, we had the BIG double stroller and it was hot outside so the mall was our little slice of heaven.

the summer of '07 was the summer of moving. ickkk! lots of packing and unpacking and adjusting to a major life change.

the summer of '08 involved moving my parents into my grandparents' home and remodeling our kitchen. lots of house projects and swimming in the backyard.

and this summer has been the summer of reading. we are a big book family around here and i love it! so what have we been reading you ask?

allow me to share. john read Narnia and is now reading Moby Dick to the boys. they totally love it. both are children versions of the adult book but they are a little more advanced than what we've been able to do in the past with them. and they totally love it! boys love adventure stories with good guys and bad guys.

john and i have been reading this book together over the summer, taking turns reading aloud page by page.

it has been a great read and something we needed to do together for sure. we had a great experience with premarital counseling but that was over 6 years ago so it was good to read and remind ourselves of our calling as husband and wife. and i love the subtitle: what if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? we are not quite finished with it, but it has been a great read and it even has some discussion questions at the end that can lead to some good conversation!

i just finished this book as part of my time in the morning with the Lord.

john read it before we were married and it was one of those "change your life" sorts of books for him. i have some issues with anxiety and worry so this was a good read for me.

yesterday i started reading this book and i am really excited to see how the Lord speaks to me through it.

it came recommended by a friend and i love books that may help me be a better wife and mother. i'll let you know what i think of it when i am done.

and i should add, all of these books (with the exception of the Welch book which we already owned) came from goodwill for $1 or less. another reason to love thrifting!

have you read a good book lately? i would love to hear your suggestions. and when do you find the time to read? early in the morning, while the kids are napping, before bed?