KiddoBlogging

I finished the sewing project about which we would not have a discussion had I not finished it.

Assuming you have recovered from the headache caused by the above sentence, I present…my first quilt!

It’s a simple design, and all of the parts that I feared would be very difficult were actually easy. The most time consuming and surprisingly the most difficult part of it was the binding. I learned all the techniques that I used in making this from the Quilter’s Complete Guide, a book I recommend if you enjoy learning at home rather than taking a class. I used this kit and only changed the color of the binding to add contrast.

Hmm, what should my next project be?

1. When did spending an hour at the doctor’s office become the most time I get away from the kids? I think I need some time off.

2. Patrick was in California last week. The more often he has to travel, the more respect I have for Mom and all the times she had to take care of my sister and me alone while Dad was traveling all over the world. Parenting alone is not for the weak.

3. We went to Discovery Gateway on Monday for a friend’s fourth birthday. It was fantastic! Nathaniel got sopping wet at the incredible water play area, but that didn’t slow him down a bit. Both boys loved every minute, and they have talked about it so much yesterday and today. Nathaniel especially loved the “beehive” area where he could put balls in clear tubes and they would whoosh away over their heads. Oh, he also enjoyed shoplifting cheese and a carrot out of the play market area. He even put it in a nearby car and tried to make his getaway. I never knew he had it in him!

4. Also at Discovery Gateway, Timothy enjoyed building with large legos, magnetic shapes, and many other unique items that kids could use. He also enjoyed the construction area with trucks and cranes that lifted foam blocks from one level to another. We spent two hours there, and could have spent several more and still not seen all they had to offer.

5. On Sunday, we were surprised by several inches of snow, enough that we could not get the car out onto the unplowed streets and make it to church. We made the best of it by getting the kiddos into their snowsuits and playing! Many snowballs were thrown and there was much laughter. The boys did not quite get the concept of snow angels, and Molly didn’t help by walking through just after one of the boys did make a decent one. Maybe next time.

6. We started preschool last week! I ordered the Sonlight P3/4 curriculum, and we have been reading new stories and having so much fun. It starts with a lot of reading aloud with the kiddos at this early age, which of course is something we parents do a lot of as it is, so the only transition is making it an organized part of each morning, after prayer, catechism practice, and a Bible story. After breakfast the boys start begging me to “read school,” so I couldn’t skip it even if I wanted to! They love it, and so do I.

7. Patrick is off work all this week, which is wonderful. He has been working so much lately that he needed some time to spend with the family and unwind. I’m so grateful he has a boss that allows him to take the time he needs when he needs it so he won’t get burned out. We’re coming up on a season of even more travel, and I am happy that he is spending free time with us now, because he may not have much of that for some time.

8. My workouts on the treadmill continue, but I could not finish the last run that I was supposed to do, due to soreness from shoveling snow the day before. I will try again tomorrow morning, and I hope I can run longer this time.

9. Those of you that talk with Timothy often will be pleased to hear that he is making improvements in his speech. He has always understood us very well (evidenced by his ability to follow somewhat complex directions), but has had trouble communicating his thoughts to us. In the last few weeks, his speech has become more purposeful and clearer in meaning. He is answering more questions all the time, which of course is the main thing he has long struggled with. He is even asking more questions, such as “Where is Daddy?” when Patrick was in California, or in the gas station, or in the bathroom. He asks “What is it?” 73592 times every car trip, which is a hard question to answer when all I can see is his head whipping around to look out each window of the car, and he asks again before I saw the last thing he was looking at. The newest question he asked (only one time so far!) is “Why?”, but he did ask it three times in succession to get more information. I was so moved by the fact that he finally asked that question that I had to go the the kitchen and cry a bit before I could compose myself! He is seeking so much information about his world right now I can hardly give him enough to satisfy his curiosity. This is what I knew would come once he found his voice, and I am thrilled to be able to answer as many questions as I can keep up with.

10. Timothy continues to make friends everywhere we go. He talked to a woman waiting in line for the restroom at the doctor’s office, telling her that he had just gone and that Nathaniel was going now. Fortunately she had a great sense of humor and enjoyed conversing with him. As we were leaving, he made a point of telling some workers doing construction on a new office in the building what a good job they were doing, which they found very funny. Maybe I expected to have a child who would be introverted like I am, but I am having to be much more social than I used to be comfortable with because Timothy believes all the world is filled with new friends. Difficult for me, but rewarding to see Timothy making even the grumpiest looking people smile and laugh. He has a real gift with people.

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Make that a dognap.

Yes, he would sleep in the dog bed at night too if we let him.

Here’s the new four-year-old blowing out his candles and eating a cupcake!

Thanks to Abbey, I found myself choosing one word to define what I want out of this new year.  One Little Word to capture my goals and plans for 2011.  My word came to me almost immediately:  FREEDOM.  2010 was a good year for the Griffins, and I am happy to feel like I am continuing in a positive direction rather than having to take a whole new course in the new year.  FREEDOM is the end of all the positive changes that have already begun in my life.

I told Patrick about my choice, and we sat down together a couple of days ago after the kiddos were in bed and talked about our life.  We are more pleased with this past year than we have been with other previous years, and that just feels so good.  We talked about FREEDOM, and we came up with categories in which we want to be free, such as FREEDOM from debt, from junk in our house we don’t need, even from any chronic health problems that we can actually change (such as back pain, sadly there is no cure for type I diabetes yet).  We also have some other personal goals that we might share as we go farther down this road.  We set out some concrete steps we can take immediately to achieve our goals.  In this way it feels so much more like a process than a New Year’s Resolution…and I like that.  Resolutions are easily broken, leading to discouragement then failure, but it’s so much easier to just have a few steps to take, finish those, and continue taking steps in the right direction.

I’ll go ahead and tell you a little about our goal of FREEDOM from debt.  We have been loosely following Dave Ramsey‘s steps to financial peace, but have continued to have some nagging debt due to Patrick’s master’s degree, and also due to lack of intensity in paying the rest of the debt off and getting rid of it once and for all.  We have been good about spending cash rather than credit (Christmas was completely cash-flowed!) so we are headed in the right direction, but we just need to focus and get the last credit card and student loan out of our lives forever!  We created a wall chart to give us a constant visual reminder of how much we have left to pay.  We hope this will keep us on track when we want to spend instead.  We are pretty excited becoming debt free (excepting the mortgage) this year, and we even have a reward planned for ourselves when we meet our goal!

Happy New Year to all of you!  Thanks for reading and for praying for us along our journey.