Dear Weary Mom

Dear Weary Mom,

You have been on my mind for a while now.  I have been thinking about what to write you for two days now.  I haven't blogged in months because I am having issues loading photos.  Tonight the Lord brought me to the end of myself so that I could share how "Hope for the Weary Mom" has made such a difference in my life.

I will not go into details of what is making me weary.  You know.  You are there too.  It could be financial, relationships, children, a season of life, too much on the go, or a combination of many things that has brought you to this weary place.  YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!  This was one of the most powerful things that hit me and made a difference when I did this study (twice now).  I have God with me always and hundreds, probably millions, of other weary moms going through the exact same things I am.

Tonight I was making homemade yogurt after a fail attempt last weekend.  Let's just say that using a Canadian thermometer and and American recipe meant I was trying for hours to get my milk hotter than it could and ruined another batch of rather hard to find and expensive ingredients (for where I live).  That was what threw me over the edge.  I burst into tears and collapsed on the couch.  My poor young boys tried to cheer me up.  My older son (4.5years old) offered some encouraging words of not giving up and trying again.  My younger son (2.5years old) brought me a toy and a drink of water.  After a not so kindly worded reminder even helped get ready for bed.

While I was flaked out on the couch (really it was only for like 3 min) voices filled my head:
"I can't believe you messed up again"
"You can't afford to be wasting money like this"
"Your kids are watching"
"You still have to clean up the mess in the kitchen, and fold laundry"
"Hey what about xyz that you still haven't done today"
"I went to all this trouble to make this for my boys."
"I will never figure out what their digestive issues are."
"I should just give up and quite trying so hard with everything"
"Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets. Luke 5:5" 

That last voice cut through my pain.  I remembered reading about Peter's fishing experience in "Hope for the Weary Mom".  Then other verses and things I had read came to mind.  
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthen me."
"Do not grow weary of doing good."
" I am not alone"
" Maybe I'm just tired"
"Perhaps God is using this experience for something good"
"Hey I could write about this"

Well I got up and got the boys to bed.  I determined to take just one more step.  My boys were so sweet with their prayers too.  Then I came write over to write to you.  

Honestly I can tell you that last year I would have sobbed for ages, screamed at the kids while getting them into bed, cried out the the Lord in anger and held a grudge for a few days. The difference?  My new found hope.  Over the last 10 weeks I have been constantly reminded of how much I am loved.  That I am so not alone in this weary walk.  That God can bring me through incredible circumstances.  That God can use our lives for His glory and others' benefit too.  I reconnected with my God and felt more confident in my own abilities as a mother.  Being reminded that I am not perfect, I will make mistakes, this road is hard, and the other moms around me aren't perfect either (in fact they are probably just as weary as I am) me makes me feel more empowered and encouraged!

So I thank Stacey and Brooke for sharing their lives with us.  I thank Megan for leading this year's study.  And I pray for you, Weary Mom, that you may find hope and hold on to it with everything you've got.

Many blessings,
Meaghan

PS This post is linked to Hope for the Weary Mom week 10 link up....

In Christ Alone

The words from this song really spoke to me in church today. Try an internet search to listen today.

"In Christ Alone"

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

**I found the words through a quick Google search but there are probably some official ones somewhere. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nataliegrant/inchristalone.html

Bringing God your mess

I know I haven't written for a very long while.  I still haven't fixed my issue with the photos on this blog, but I'll get to it.  After Christmas (which was wonderful by the way), we got a nasty cold that lasted about 3 weeks.  So now I'm back and will write when I feel inspired to do so.

Do you know when you hear or see the same message several time. Well I'm feeling inspired to jump in and share with all of you what God has been teaching me this week.

If you haven't heard about this book yet, I highly recommend you head over right now.  Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets you in Your Mess is the most amazing eBook.  It speaks right the the heart of moms everywhere. You are just in time to join in the the book study too!

Here are some great links:
Week 1 Why God Meets us in Our Mess
Week 2 When You Weakness is all You can See

So here is what I have been learning this week through this book, my quiet time with God, bible reading on other blogs like God Centred Mom and 5 Min for Faith.

1. I'm not perfect!  I know that's shocking but sometimes and moms we try to do it all and feel just awful when we don't measure up.

2. I am not alone.  There are so many mom's that are following along and sharing their stories.  It feels so good to know that we are all in the trenches of parenting together.  We often believe the lie that everyone else has it all together.

3. God will meet me in my mess.  I may not get answers right away, but when I call out to Him I can breath and take the next step.  There are many places in scripture that remind us to lay our burdens before the Lord and He is always with us.  Here is a great post on that I read today.

4. Satan keeps feeding me lies that I need to recognize and NOT believe them.  He tries to tell me I'm not good enough, I've messed up again, no one is listening, I'm alone and more.  But I'm learnings to rise above that and believe the wonderful truths directly for God our Father who loves me!!

5. There are so many people that need prayer.  Please feel free to leave a comment and know that I will spend time each day praying for you.  I know that others have prayed for me and it means so much to me.

So my thought are not too profound.  I hope you are able to see God working in your life today.
Many blessings to all,

Meaghan

November catch-up

PLEASE NOTE: If you happen to look for older posts and they've gone missing here is what happened.  I got a message that I had used up all my photo storage space.  I could purchase more space but I decided to delete some old posts that didn't have too many views.  Unfortunately it didn't make any difference so I just lost some good posts.

I have been given several suggestions on what to do, but I think it would require me reformatting all the old photos and re-posting old posts.  With over 200 posts I'm not loving that idea.  So I can't share what we have been doing all month with you.

We have had a great November.  We have been playing dress up, eating new healthier foods, and finding new activities to do outside.  November is hard for me because it isn't quite winter/Christmasy but in Canada we are done with Thanksgiving/fall.  We made lanterns for Martinmas, and focused a lot on Jack Frost.  We also enjoyed our first snow fall.

Next week I'll be gearing up for December and creating our advent calendar.

I hope to be back up and blogging soon.

Many blessings to you all.

Fall Harvest Party

This past weekend we had a Fall Harvest Party.  In our wonderful stories (see resources below) Super Sam and his friends had a fall harvest party so we decided to have one too.  All month long the children followed along with Super Sam's adventures and also created their own invitations, snacks, decorations and games. On Saturday morning cousin E and one of our daycare girls came to celebrate in the fun.  Unfortunately not everyone was able to attend, but we still had a great time.

Welcome to the party

Fall Nature Table

Yummy treats

Bowling Squash

Pumpkin bean bag toss

Decorating coffee filters as jack-o-lanterns

Circle Time

Fall decorations

Dressing Up

Fall sensory bins

We are using Waldorf Essentials kindergarten curriculum that comes with their Thinking Feeling Willing program.  I can't say enough about how amazing Melissa is.  The children lessons are adorable and all the kids love Super Sam.  The mom lessons have taught me so much about Waldorf I feel much more prepared to homeschool now.  Of course the support from Melissa is invaluable and always so helpful. I do encourage anyone new to Waldorf or needing some help to check out this program.

I am really excited about the rest of the fall and into the winter.  We will continue to use the Waldorf Essentials and also have included some wonderful themes from Seasons of Joy Winter.

Check out the giveaway at Seasons of Joy this week and join their link-up!!

I'll be linking up throughout the week:

Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy
Happy Family Times
Natural Suburbia
It's Play Time

Fall Fun

Well I lost the camera somewhere on our way home from our Thanksgiving weekend (or it is still in a bag somewhere waiting to be discovered).  So I have finally downloaded all the photos I've been taking off my camera.

Over the past two weeks it has been all about fall around here.  Leaves, pumpkins, harvesting gardens, and more leaves!

Leaves, toadstools, pinting with leaves

After Thanksgiving (here in Canada) the boys played in leaves a lot.  We have been using our sandbox trucks to push them around, raking, filling tarps to take to the compost pile, jumping, rolling, throwing, using snow shovels... We also made little toadstools to look like Super Sam's house from our stories.  I had found some paper-mache mushrooms on clearance at the end of the summer.  We used red and white tissue paper to decorate them for the nature table. The next day the boys used leaves to make prints.  They experimented with a few different painting techniques and even painted with some pine needles.

We have visited many farms over the last month.  Early in the month we went to Robinson's Farm (one of the daycare boy's grandparents own the farm).  Over the summer and early fall we also went to Frootogo for apple picking.  Recently we have been to Parkside Farms and Simpler Thyme organic farm. Of course we also harvested our whole garden plot and cleaned it up for the winter.  We ended up with a tone of green tomatoes.

Ducks at Simpler Thyme Farms, Chickens at Parkside Farms, playing with toy phones, Another visit to Parkside Farms

It was such a delight for me to visit Simpler Thyme farms as the lady who runs it is so kind and lovely to talk to.  We also met up with another family from our area who is doing Waldorf Homeschooling.  TJ played soccer with their boys for over an hour in the cold wind and can't wait to do it again!

We have made are more contact paper and leaf collages to hang in the window. On a particularly busy day for the daycare we made collages of fall coloured material and yarn.  Lots of baking has been going on.  I used up all the green tomatoes to make 2 apple-tomato pies, 1 bunt cake, 2 loaves, 4 dozen muffins, and froze the ones that ripened.  I'm now working on the apples next.

One day we went to Parkside Farms with our cousins E and baby J.  The children all picked out some larger pumpkins to decorate.  When we got home we made fun faces on the pumpkins with playdough. It was neat to be able to take it off and start again.  Then we pulled out some paint, glue and glitter for the kids to go wild!  TJ and MJ are so proud of their creations.  Cousin E made a great start on her large pumpkin, and even baby J liked playing with his.

decorating and playing with pumpkins

 In our stories (we are using the kindergarten lessons from Thinking Feeling Willing at Waldorf Essentials), Super Sam takes a little boat to deliver invitations to his Harvest Party.  We made little boats out of apple sauce containers and origami paper.  Once they tipped over TJ realize we could just use leaves from outside as the sail.  As a daycare we are hosting our own harvest party next weekend.  The children are excitedly planing and baking to get ready.

material collage, boats for Sam, clearing leaves with snow shovels

The weather has been on and off, but we are outside every day.  TJ has been working to move the log pile around and our rope swing is getting a lot of use.  We have had some on and off days too.  Now that everyone is getting used to each other we are learning to respect people's space and to use our manners.  Communication for preschoolers and kindergarteners is difficult but we are working on talking to each other (politely).  Behaviour around here is slipping and mommy is getting very weary, but I'm making steps to turn things around.  I'm hopeful to have a shift in the mood around here next week.

I'll be linking up to some great sites during the week.  I encourage you to check them out for more wonderfully inspiring ideas!

Week 5: The acorn family

I realized that I hadn’t written about our week.  Here are some highlights.

New veggie we found at the garden plot

 Woody, Pip, and Hazel

On Monday we visited the garden plot and found a new veggie to explore.  We also spent a nice day around the house.  In our stories we were introduced to the Acorn family and friends. 

Pumpkin rocks to give at Thanksgiving

On Tuesday we went to the early years center to meet some friends.  We hadn’t been in quite a while and had a nice time.  In the afternoon we had to go downtown to get our police checks done.  Not a very exciting afternoon but the kids all did well.  Later in the evening my friend came to visit and the boys decorated some rocks they had painted orange for their pumpkin rocks.

On Wednesday the kids helped me to wash all our pie pumpkins.  After I cut them up to bake I thought the children would enjoy scooping out the insides but they all thought it was too slimy.  Because I was busy with all the pumpkins it was a bit chaotic.  But we did end up with 14cups of puree and everyone learned to play by themselves a little more.  During quiet time I we also opened a new box of window crayons which was fun.

Yummy pumpkin pancakes

All our friends out on a walk

 On Thursday we started our day with some delicious pumpkin pancakes.  We had plans to meet a new friend, but our plans changed.  Since the weather was so beautiful we decided to take a picnic lunch down the hill to Kern Cliff Park.  We saw several people painting and hope to do the same some time.  It was great for the boys to climb and run about. Thursday afternoon my sister came for a great visit.

The boys climbing rocks

Sam and Mr. Squirrel out on our walk

Beauty of fall!

On Friday we had a full house and loads of fun.  It was painting day and the children worked on invitations for the fall harvest party they are hosting at the end of the month.  We painted their hand to make a tree print and then they used their fingertips to make little leaves.  It turned out very well.  Our new songs for circle time are also being learned quickly.

Finger painting fall trees

MJ making leaves

This week I did a lot of baking and packing for the weekend.  We first went to Meaford on Saturday to visit one set of grandparents.  It rained on and off all day but didn’t let that stop us from looking at all the scarecrows around town and visiting a local market for apples.  The boys loved playing at their house. 

The next day after a late start we visited my husbands' aunt and then headed off just past Orillia to visit another set of grandparents.  At the cottage our boys went fishing, played outside all afternoon, made a big fire and enjoyed visiting cousins and relatives.  Although they didn’t eat much of the dinner they were sure to be ready for a yummy dessert (we brought pumpkin cake with Nutella icing).  It was nice to not have to run off and head home again, as we decided to stay the night.

Thanksgiving Place Mats

Monday we got going late from the cottage and then got stuck in traffic for several hours.  We went straight to my parents for another lovely dinner.  The kids made fun place mats using clear contact paper and leaves.  They were rather restless by the end of the weekend.  The food was delicious and it was wonderful to see my family.

I realized that although we did a lot of fall activities this week I forgot to focus on Thanksgiving with the boys.  We do talk about being thankful daily, but I know I could have made more effort with that.  We did talk more about it on the weekend though.

Upon reflection of the week, I’m noticing that TJ and I are becoming increasingly frustrated with each other.  I’m reminding myself not to get into an argument with a 4 year old.  I’ve got to work on actually liking the kids next week and catching them being nice. UPDATE: just read the most amazing articles on 4 year olds over at The Parenting Passageway that really helped put things into perspective.

Linking up this week:
Hip Homeschool Moms
Happy Family Times
Seasons of Joy Waldorf Wednesdays
It's Play Time