Things My Kids Say

My kids are the sweetest people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. It comes out in the things not only that they do, but the things they say.

"God made everybody."

"My heart! Jesus is in there." (This can be concerning when said child has a heart problem and pauses inbetween the word heart and Jesus.)

"It's okay Eli, Jesus IS healing your heart."

"I made this for God."

"God lives up there (points to sky) and God lives in our hearts too."

"I want Jesus to fix my heart." (Also is concerning when said child has a heart problem and says this in a very sad way.)

I love my kids and listening to them talk about God.

How Can You Help?

In the world of blogging people often have give aways and prizes to win. I don't participate often for no real reason. Well I have a blog I follow. This mother has a daughter with special needs. Look at her blog here and post a comment. For every comment left Milk-Bone® will donate $1 to Canine Assistants. A very special cause for those who need it. Let's start the Christmas season early.

Too Much Fun

I think Faith is having too much fun after nap time. What do you think?



(I'm really glad she didn't dump the white powder, which is cornstarch, all over the floor.)



In my defense my boys ALWAYS knocked on the door when they were ready to get up.

Elk Camp

A couple weeks ago the kids and I went for the opening day of elk hunting with Brice. Although it is NOT my thing, the kids LOVE it. So I go so they can enjoy the time with daddy and grandpa. Here are a couple of pictures.

Dakota helping stack wood.


Eli helping stack wood.


Faith being Faith


All three little ones.


How did I not get a picture of Christian?

Big Brother

So when it comes to Dakota, we mostly see him running around trying to get or avoid stimulation and it comes out in a LOT of ways. NON-STOP talking, not being able to sit still, closing ALL the doors in the house, playing with the lights, etc. He also:

lines up cars


and if Eli touches, thinks about touching, looks at, or is playing with his own cars near Dakota's, then Dakota has a panic attack. And YES Dakota has ALL 50 something cars memorized. So if Eli is messing with his, Dakota knows.

or movies


or at times you see this




What you can't see in the above pictures is Dakota's OCD face and how he is frantically doing this behavior. I'm not even sure I can put it into words. He runs frantically doing the above from room to room or task to task. For example if he has to go to the bathroom, he will repeat the process above until ALL his cars are in the bathroom with him. I've tried to explain this to people before and until they see it they really don't understand. Because when you see it up close it can be a bit disturbing.

So while we see these things in Dakota EVERY SINGLE DAY, we get a little weepy when he does something so very sweet and that is taking care of his little sister after we switched her from the crib to the toddler bed.

nap the first day


but the first night when we checked on Faith we found this


the second night this


so Brice put him back in his own bed.

Then last night (or I should say this morning) we found this


I think she prefers her big brother taking care of her.

Ten Things

I thought it would be good to post 10 things about me no one really knows. So here goes.

1) I am NOT a morning person. I really almost like NOTHING about mornings. I fully well expect this to change when my children all sleep until noon. Because it will be when I actually CAN sleep in that I WON't.

2) I don't like noise in the morning. Christian learned very early that I need things quite in the morning. I really wish his brother Dakota would catch on. Maybe someday when he doesn't need to talk just to hear himself talk.

3) Although I'm not a morning person and I don't like noise in the morning, that is when I get most of my chores done. I'm not sure why. I really prefer to get them done so my afternoons are free. Maybe it has something to do with nap time.

4) I didn't learn to cook until I got married. Maybe that's the way it is with most people. When I was growing up my mom worked nights so I was in charge of cooking dinner. She would always get out something like Hamburger Helper. That is probably why I don't like cooking from a box. But I didn't get to watch my mom in the kitchen. So I had to teach myself and my hubby was my tester. Apparently I've gotten better over the years.

5) I am VERY self-conscious about EVERYTHING. My hair, my house, my voice, EVERYTHING. It's why I won't sing a solo in front of people. I'm so self-conscious and get stage fright so bad I don't sound the same at ALL. At nearly 40 years old, you'd think I would get over it.

6) I really really really love being organized. If I'm not organized I feel like I can't function and can get a little grumpy.

7) We don't celebrate Halloween, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. We don't dress up for Halloween or go trick or treating at all. We do celebrate Christmas and Easter, but we tell our kids we bring the presents. I just hope and pray my kids don't go telling other kids who do celebrate Santa and the Easter Bunny anything they shouldn't. I apologize in advance if they do.

8) I use to have an eating disorder. Wow!! I really decided to put it out there I guess. I use to eat only one can of soup a day. They say once you have an eating disorder you always will. However, God has blessed me with problematic blood sugar so if I don't eat I'll pass out. And I love food entirely too much now. So I think God cured me.

9) I secretly love tools (just not electric saws as they scare me). I don't know if it's a good thing my kids are so young or not. If they weren't I would probably be doing some projects around the house while hubby is at work. He might come home to find a remodeled house. I'm not sure if he would be happy since I didn't say I was any good with them.

10) I love my Sisters in Christ and wish I could get together with them more often that just Sundays and Wednesdays. They are a HUGE blessing to me and help encourage my strength in the Lord. However, my self-consciousness gets in the way a LOT.

How Do You Do It?

I don't understand how some moms get everything done. Their homes are beautiful, their children well behaved and potty trained perfectly. Personal time for exercise, showering, bible reading, blogging and anything else they want or need to do. Oh and time to spend with their husbands. I don't get it. It's 12:30 and I have neither eaten nor showered or even read my bible. I need to do laundry and some cleaning and organizing. But everytime I clean something one of my children will come mess it up. Usually this is because one little boy is having problems with people being in the same room as him so he just moves the mess to a different room while I clean. Yes I have him clean the mess but he then just repeats the process. If I even act like I'm going to get my bible to read my children will interupt me a million times. I can patiently explain to Dakota a million times but really he talks just to hear himself talk. Just ask him. And yes he is being serious when he says yes. It's a sensory thing and he doesn't get pretending or facial cues. I really want to sit down and understand how to make this blog better, have more people read it, and make some changes that require learning technology. (Is there a technology for dummies book? If so I need it. Of course that would require time and concentration to read it and I have neither.) I also need to learn how to coupon, but I can't get the coupons to print and I missed the class they had at our church because of sick kids. If my children are home I WON'T focus on whatever it is I need to learn. I'm frustrated can you tell.

Learning New Words

So Faith being 18 months, she is learning new words. She doesn't have a HUGE vocabulary yet. In having two children with speech issues I have learned an enormous amount about what is and isn't normal speech development. For instance when children first learn to talk they typically leave off the ending of the word, they start with single syllable words and work their way to multi-syllable words, and some letters (like L and R) don't develope until MUCH later (it depends on what chart you look at as some differ from each other). Well knowing these things Faith can say the word PRAY!!

It is really important in our house to teach our kids to pray. We specifically want them to learn to pray from the heart and talk to God. So when we pray we give them every opportunity to say what is on their heart even if it doesn't make sense to us. Well the other night we were putting the kids to bed and of course Faith knew it was time to pray. So she folded her hands and said "Pay". We were sooooooooooooo excited to hear her say it. We kept having her say the word over and over. She knows the word pray!!