I was in the dressing room over the weekend and my friend was in the dressing room beside me. It was pretty crowded in there, so we had to speak up if we wanted to talk to each other. As I was trying on clothes, I noticed my shoes were filthy…so I said, “Gross! I desperately need to wash my crocs!” My friend Teresa burst out laughing, but wouldn’t tell me what she was laughing at.
When she came out of the dressing room, she grabbed my arm and said, “You might want to say “shoes” instead of crocs next time! It sounded like you said, “GROSS! I desperately need to wash my crotch!” LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was mortified! But, of course, I was laughing hysterically at the thought of hearing someone else say that in a dressing room.
Be careful what you say in crowded places! :)

~audrey

I know I’ve written before about trying not to do my housework while my boys are awake. I really strive to spend as much quality time with them as possible while they’re awake. However, I have new goals for February…even though there are still six days left in January. :) I’ve been so convicted lately about how much time is completely wasted in my day. If Owen is napping and the boys are watching a movie, I can easily spend two or three completely mindless hours in front of the computer. I love to read and I also love to journal about what God is doing in my life and the life of my family, but I rarely make time to do those things. I love reading parenting, homeschooling, and marriage books; constantly striving to do better at all of these things, but I don’t have time to read. I heard a statistic over the weekend that stated, most americans have FIVE hours of screen time a day. That includes video games, computer, and television. That is sickening…unless you are paid to stare at the computer…like my husband. :) Think of all the things you could be doing if you just cut that time in half?! Although it seems like a LOT, it is probably accurate for me. I don’t watch TV during the day, but I do spend a lot of time at the computer in the afternoon and my husband and I can easily watch two or three hours of TV at night after the boys go down.
I’m saying all of this because I want to do better. I want to spend more time in the early morning preparing my house for the day. I would like breakfast to be made when my boys wake up, I’d like to already have lunch and dinner on my mind at 8am so I’m not scrambling at noon and 5pm. I’d love to do “old-fashioned” things like make our own bread, sew some of our clothes (at least for the kids), and have a vegetable garden in my backyard. I would have plenty of time to do these things if I will simply cut out some wasteful items in my day. In a few months, those five hours that used to be screen time could very well save my life. We will have two to three foster children in our home, in addition to our own three children. There will be extra laundry to do, extra food to be cooked, more bodies to bathe, more hearts to be trained, and probably a few less hours in the day. I want to be prepared. It is a proven fact in my life that when you are prepared, you are far less likely to fail.
And finally, I want to laugh more. There are so many opportunities to laugh in my day. I want to say “NO” less often, and overlook the little things that I allow to stress me out. Do you know that stress is the number one factor in aging and health ailments? Stress affects your entire well being. I once heard this phrase: “Life is a big playground…Adults have just forgotten how to play.” I want to be a kid at heart and enjoy life to the fullest…while still being orderly and organized. I think a balance of the two is totally achievable…and I’m going for it!

~audrey

As many of you know, everyone seems to have seen snow lately.  Whether you’re burried in 15 inches, or just praying for snow to fall from the sky for the first time in YEARS, we’ve all had a taste of it lately.  Yesterday happened to be our snow day.  It started snowing at 9am and it snowed rather heavily until about 3pm.  Unfortunately, not a single flake stuck!  However, it was WAY too cold to play outside for more than thirty minutes at a time, and in a house full of boys, that makes for a rather high energy day of playing indoors! 

After dinner, we all played games at the table, as a family.  It was a lot of fun and I know the boys enjoy because they are game FREAKS!  When we finished playing games, it was time for them to brush their teeth, have one story read, and off to bed…well, unfortunately, they were still WIRED!  I had gone into the bathroom to brush baby Owen’s teeth and this is what I found when I came out:

I always wondered why people would use the phrase, “my kids are climbing the walls!”…I guess there are some weird kids out there who take that phrase literally…and mine are some of them!  :)

Thank goodness, today was a new day…no snow…and a little warmer. 

~audrey

Here I am, 24 hours later, and I already have more to tell you about how God is continuing to bless us.
Ashley was kind (and brave) enough to keep all three of my kids this morning while I worked for a new client, which was the first blessing. Then, as I’m sitting in Ashley’s living room, I got a phone call from an old client I haven’t heard from in at least a year. She needs me a few days next week and also asked to pay my husband to help her move a few small things from her mother’s house this evening. Overall, it is about $200 of work. I am amazed. I keep hearing the song, “Lord I’m amazed by You. Lord I’m amazed by You. Lord I’m amazed by You; How you love me.”
More Lord!

~audrey