Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches

At our church for the past six months we have been taking this amazing parenting class!  Amazing and challenging...some days I would walk out of class feeling like I was challenged and needed to change some things about my parenting, but most days I would walk away convicted of my sins and feeling somewhat like a failure.

One of the neat things about my Amazon wishlist is that when I hear about a good book I put it on my list.  Years (or just months) go by and I don't remember how I heard about the book or who recommended it to me, but I leave it on the list thinking, "It must have sounded good or else I wouldn't have put it on the list."  So it goes with this book.  I don't remember putting it on my wish list, much less who suggested it to me or how I found out about it, but I'm so glad it made it's way on there!!

My friend Rebecca bought me this book for my birthday last year and I had a chance to read it on our trip down to Louisiana for Christmas.  It is great!  It was just the encouragement I needed to balance out our parenting class at church.  The chapters average about 2-3 pages and take you 3-5 minutes to read.  Sounds like the author knew her audience!  Chapter Two was my favorite and lucky for you, if you download the sample Kindle book, you can read the whole chapter for yourself.  She compares motherhood to life in a rock tumbler.  We are always being rubbed by the (little) people around us and our sins are constantly being exposed.  Instead of it becoming overwhelming, we need to view it as an opportunity to become more like Jesus.

Whether or not you are the mother of little children I think the illustrations Rachel lays out will be an encouragement to you.  Relish this time you have with your littles and let God work in your life and theirs.

Buying a "real" camera for kids instead of a toy version

As I uploaded pictures today from Ethan's camera onto our Shutterfly site I was again reminded about how glad I am that we bought him a "real" camera for his big brother present.  You see, when we first got pregnant I knew I wanted to get Ethan a big brother gift and then as the day of Asher's arrival got closer I settled on getting him his own camera.  After search for days for a kid's camera I just wasn't satisfied.  According to the reviews their screens are too small, the auto-focuses don't work half the time, and the pictures are just poor in quality.  The worst part is they cost as much as some nice new cameras.

The solution?  We scoured ebay until we found a "real" used camera that was cheap (less than $40).  Result?  Ethan has a great little camera with a large screen, stabilization mode for kid-friendly picture taking, and it can take videos.  All for way less then we would have paid on a "kids" camera.  And if he breaks it?  Oh well, we didn't pay much for it in the first place.

Chick-fil-A

I've been meaning to write about Chick-fil-A for quiet a while but I just hadn't gotten around to it.  I had even forgotten about it with my new blog, new baby, etc.  Imagine my joy when Betsy sent me a post about my favorite fast food restaurant: Chick-fil-A.  The only thing I would add to her list is that the Chick-fil-As in our area give away FREE food in exchange for box tops at least once a year.

Enjoy:

Top Ten Reasons Chick-Fil-A is the BEST Fast Food Joint (especially for moms):

1. Great-tasting food

2. REAL food (you can tell those nuggets are made from... chicken! Most of their chicken is breaded in the actual restaurant and the french fries are actual potatoes)

3. Terrific customer service at the counter (they will even bring your food to you if you walk up to the counter with small children)

4. Even better customer service on the floor (I've had my drink refilled, my trash collected, my kids' meal prizes exchanged for ice cream--all without getting up from my seat)

5. Best kids' meal value: $2.89 for 4 nuggets, ample fries, a drink, and a toy that you can exchange for ice cream!!

6. Bendy straws for kids (why is this such a hard-to-find thing at other stores?)

7. Plastic placemats that stick to the table for kids to eat off of (again.... why don't other fast food rest'ts get this?)

8. Good kids' meal prizes (if you choose not get the free ice cream, you will usually be taking home a book or a CD instead of a junky plastic toy)

9. Pleasant dining environment (flowers on the table, clean, cheerful, etc.)

10. Truly amazing milk shakes 

Besides all this, Chick-Fil-A was started by a Christian family and is still closed on Sunday. 

Rain Boots, 5 stars

Guest post from Betsy:
I got mine at Old Navy, but you can find similar boots at Target, Walmart, and other stores. These are boots that children will wear without shoes; one tip is to buy a bigger size in the fall so they can wear two pairs of socks during cold/snowy weather. By the time summer rolls around, they should be comfy going barefoot in their boots!

Pros: Can walk through any wet/nasty substance without getting shoes or pantlegs dirty (if you tuck pants in or roll them up). This means that dog poop, mud, and other yucky things stay on the boots and at the door instead of being tracked in your house! They're also fairly easy to take off, facilitating removal at the door. Go puddle walking with flair and with no worries!

Cons: Can't think of any except that the fabric lined ones take a while to dry if water gets inside (like, um, if a well-meaning 2-year-old pours a cup of water inside while they're perched by the door...).

Well worth the investment. They hold up well, enable your kids to play outside in all kinds of weather, and are easy enough for the kids to put on by themselves. If you make the investment for your kids, you should get yourself some! Who's going to be going puddle jumping with them?

My Review of Thomas and Friends Play and Go Storage Box

Here is a review I posted online at Toys R Us. Ethan likes this case and it is useful to bring a small number of engines to a different room or to a friend's house, I've just been disappointed mainly in the latches.

Originally submitted at Toys R Us

Thomas & Friends Play and Go Storage Box features a built-in track layout for portable play. It's compatible with Thomas Wooden Railway track for use in train layouts. And the Storage Box holds up to 16 Thomas Wooden Railway vehicles.

Thomas & Friends Play and Go Storage Box

1out of 5

Cons: Falls Apart, Poor Construction

Best Uses: Young Children

Describe Yourself: Education Oriented, First Time Parent, Stay At Home Parent

This product does not have a good design. The little track on it has an outer loop and then an inner track. The track does not act as a figure-8, but instead once the middle track is taken the train is headed the wrong way on the outer loop.
Also the track looks like you could extend it but the ends of the tracks are four female ends so you cannot build onto the track that is on the outside of the case.

The latches on this product are terrible! They are plastic and will not stay latched for more than just a few seconds. I'm having my husband replace them with metal latches so that this can actually become a traveling toy. Also, the plastic troughs that hold the trains aren't really big enough to fit the wooden engines.

Aquadoodle!

Ethan got this aquadoodle activity set for his birthday and it is great! It consists of a four panel page that has pictures that are only revealed with water. What is so great about it is that fine motor skills are not really needed. As the page dries the set can be used over and over. It is now in our "going out to eat dinner" kit.

In addition to Thomas, there are also Dora and Sesame Street versions of this kit.