Little news "flash" ;)

Okay, so first off...



... and as you probably already know,



So I'm thrilled to announce that yesterday (and today!)...



... and am officially...



Yes, that's right!...





It's a good thing...



... and that...



... and also that...



I am...





Yes, I know we will have 5 children aged 6 and under, but...



... and...



And just in case you were wondering...



(couldn't resist that one, hehe! ;) )







We could not be more thrilled!



[If you can still see to read this line (ha!), PLEASE DO NOT MENTION THIS AT FACEBOOK!]

Bible in 90 Days - Day 90!!

I DID IT!!!!!! I finished reading through the entire Bible just before 10pm tonight!! I'm sooooooooooooo proud of myself, because of how much time it has taken and how little time I have, and how behind I have been getting this past month. I didn't think I could catch up in time, but I made it - I completed the challenge in 90 days exactly!! :D

I had 3 days' readings to cover in two days (yesterday and today), so I just took all the short letters (James to Jude) in the New Testament that I hadn't read yet, for yesterday's reading, and then Revelation in its entirety today. I find Revelation quite scary, and my name is one that is written in the book of life (how incredible to be able to write that) so I shouldn't really find it scary. But I do. I can't even get my head round it!

I got so excited as I got to chapter 20 (there are 22 chapters) and my reading slowed right down because I kept getting distracted knowing there were only TWO CHAPTERS TO GO in the whole Bible! I STILL couldn't believe I would actually read the last words in the last sentence and be DONE! Even that close, I still couldn't imagine it. When I actually did read the last words, I felt absolutely euphoric! It's been the longest and most intense challenge I've taken part in that I've actually stuck at and completed - of ANY sort in my life. I thought I would probably do something like get up and do a happy dance, hehe! But instead my heart welled up with praise to God and I just lifted my hands to Him and gave Him the glory for what I had accomplished. Because it's all His! I was determined, yes, but I still couldn't have stuck at it without God motivating me and providing moments to read in my disorganised and busy days. Also the prayers and encouraging words of others (many of whom I never knew before now!) have been another provision of God to enable me to finish the challenge on time. Thank you to those who left comments here and blessed me with encouragement and prayers!! xx

I can't believe I have read the whole Bible! It's ALL in me now. I am completely changed by these last 3 months of reading. I have learned new things - too many to even assimilate myself, let alone share with others, but I need to go back and study a LOT more in much more detail.

I feel a bit at a loss of where to start or what to do next. I am praying about it, and I know God will guide me to some inspiration. I don't want to start having days where I am not in God's Word. It's a light to my path and health to my whole body, and I NEED it.

I know I am supposed to summarise at this stage - what things I got out of the Bible in 90 Days challenge, what things inspired me, what things have changed for me, and what I will take from it and where I will go from here. But right now I don't really know the answers to those questions. I feel a bit foggy of brain at this moment, and go blank when I try to think of the answers to those kinds of questions. I want to do them justice, not just say, "What did I get out of this challenge?... Uhhmm... welllll... I guess I got closer to God..." - which, don't get me wrong, would be GREAT if that was even the only thing that I got out of it! But I mean, I got SO MUCH out of it, and I just can't think of it all right now. I will try to give it some thought over the next couple of days and then come back and write a bit more about it, to finish it off.

I am just so happy!!! Thank you Lord for helping me complete the challenge on time, and thank you for your WONDERFUL Word!!! I love you more than I knew I could.

Bible in 90 Days - Monday Update (Day 88!!!)

Well, it's Day 88!! The 90-day challenge to read all the way through the Bible is almost over! The reading plan is 88 days long, so everyone who is right on track will have finished today, but (THANKFULLY!!!) the plan includes 2 "grace days" to fill the 90 days.

Last Monday when I updated, I was 5 days behind and feeling a bit discouraged. I'm so grateful for all the supportive and encouraging messages that were left after my post, because they really gave me a boost! :) Thank you!

Over the next couple of days I read 2 days worth each day, so I am now only 3 days behind, and I am obviously using the 2 grace days, which means I am a day behind!! I am supposed to be finished on Wednesday, and if I don't catch up that extra day by then, I will have to finish on Thursday. A GREAT achievement!! BUT, not what my perfectionist self wants to finish on! ;)

Tonight I am reading Day 85 and enjoying Hebrews and James. It's late and I am not in James yet, but I will read on till I finish it. Last night I finished my reading by torchlight in bed! It was late so I knew I should just go to bed, but I tossed and turned wanting to have the satisfaction of just FINISHING my reading for that day, so I clicked the torch on and read Titus and Philemon, and felt much better! :) I have really been enjoying Paul's letters. There's so much packed into them that I feel I need to go back and study each one in much more detail.

I really hope that tomorrow I will be able to read the best part of two days' worth in one day, even if it's just a day and half of reading, and then the same again the next day to finish off. I'm SO determined (desperate?!) to finish ON TIME!

Hopefully I'll have time after my reading on Wednesday (Day 90) to update here to say whether I managed it or not, although I expect I will be up pretty late reading, so maybe the next day?! I can't believe I am almost finished. I have grown to love immersing myself in the Word of God every single day, and I feel at a loose end about once I've finished. Hopefully I'll replace it with another type of Bible study very quickly, and not lose my momentum! :)

Bible in 90 Days - Day 76! And general (bite-sized!) update.

It's THE 22ND OF MARCH!!!! The challenge to read attentively every word of the entire Bible in 90 days ends on March 31st!!! Soooo close!

BUT.

I'm FIVE days behind. Urgh. I haven't written a Bible in 90 Days update for weeks, and that is approximately how long I've been struggling with being behind on my reading. I got lazy though, it's my own fault. I was sloppy at sticking to my own rules about not switching on the laptop before finishing the day's reading. For weeks I have been at least 3 days behind - never as little as two. Right now I am five days behind, which is the furthest behind I've been, and I'm kind of struggling to keep up with being 5 days behind too. I seem to have so much else going on, either in my head, or just "to do" in the evenings (which is my only time to read the Bible anyway) that it's getting harder to fit in LARGE readings. When I'm tired I read slower too, and I've been really tired lately. I do still read as I'm settling Benjamin for his naps, but he has gone down to two naps a day now (sometimes three), so there are not nearly as many opportunities as there were at the start of this challenge in January! I think he was still wavering between 4 and 5 naps (on a bad day!) back then!

The good news is that the 90-day challenge includes 2 "grace days" (it's actually an 88-day plan)! So if I use those up then I am only 3 days behind. I am currently reading Day 76 I think, and I'm finishing today's reading with John 15. I love being in the New Testament at last! But I'm surprised at how wistful and sad I felt at leaving the Old Testament behind. One thing I've taken from this challenge is that I have really fallen in love with the Old Testament and with Israel's history, and the "Ancient of Days" aspect of God. I've nearly finished the 4 gospels and am hoping that I will get ahead with the shorter books to come. I love the letters in the New Testament! The only thing about the New Testament is that it's SO PACKED with life-changing information! I want to slow down and absorb and apply it to my daily life, but I can't because I'm on a deadline! ;) I will definitely come back and study the New Testament in more depth later this year.

I still haven't thought what to do about continuing to stay in the Word after the challenge is over. I still can't believe I will REALLY and truly have read the whole entire Bible in such a short space of time, very soon! I am desperate to finish "on time", and I know it really doesn't matter if I finish a few days late, or even a few weeks late - the point is that I will still have read the whole of the Bible in a remarkably short time, and completed it - but I doooo so want to succeed at the actual challenge! To finish it within the 90-day period would be such a sense of accomplishment, and after 3 months straight, I WANT that! ;) I love that it has been almost 3 months where I have read a significant block of God's Word every single day! How refreshing for my soul! I do not want to go back to reading none of it on any given day.

I have such an unbelievable amount of stuff to write about here, but the time pressures and such have prevented that for quite a while now. I'm really missing updating here with the usual photos, news and thoughts! I hope I'll have time to do more of that once the Bible challenge is finished in a couple of weeks.

In case I forget, a few things I want to write about, off the top of my head (to help me remember when I come back to blog about them!):

* New reading curriculum for Arthur (Rocket Phonics - thanks Kimberly for posting a review that led to me buying it for my children!). We started it last week and will include Matthew in it as far as he's able.

* Currently reading (along with Bible - hmmm, maybe that is contributing to the behind-ness of things?!) "Managers Of Their Homes" by Teri Maxwell. At the risk of sounding repetitive, thanks once again to Kimberly for posting her family's schedule recently and citing this book as the framework for the schedule. I have had my eye on it for a couple of years, and just shied away from such scariness as Serious Scheduling until now! ;) Now it's bought, and I am in the middle of the painstaking process of putting together a detailed schedule for us to try. I think it will help me a LOT, and the kids too. I'm the type who works better from lists and so on. I'm also pretty desperate for some order, so I'm motivated! ;)

* Nathan is talking sooooo much! And almost completely normally, as in, constructing his sentences like the bigger boys, and with a huge vocabulary. His voice is so so so incredibly tiny and chipmunky, and we adults (Neil and I, that is!) almost fold up into a puddle of aww-ness every time he speaks to us. *sigh* Neil wants to call him Chip, in honour of his teeny tiny little helium voice! Bless! He's such a tiny cute little boy.

* Nathan's stats - only 32.5 inches tall at his 2nd birthday (double that and according to something-or-other, he'll only be 5ft 5in when he's fully grown!!), but he grew an inch in the 6 weeks that followed, and my mum said I should double that instead, given than he was born a month early. So, 5ft 7in, like Matthew's measurement was! :) This month (2yrs, 2mos) he weighs 24.5lbs! He's at the 9th percentile for height and weight. So teeny! He's my tiny little precious, as I probably tell him at least 50,000 times a day! :)

* Benjamin had his 8-month check. Flying colours, etc :) He is 70cm long (don't know the inches) just under 50th percentile, and weighs 19lbs 13oz - catching up with Nathey!

* Benjamin's general news - crawling all over the place, pulling up to kneel on everything and everyone, and then screeching with frustration when he can't figure out how to get "down" from kneeling. He is pulling to stand on the sofa, but it is the biggest exertion I ever saw a baby make, and his chunky little legs go all quivery with it! He wants to do this all the time and gets rather frustrated about not being able to yet.

* Breastfeeding update - Benjamin nursing probably 6+ times during the day (on demand) and waking 3-6 times (yes, you read that right) over night/evening and nursing then too. Tired mama. BLISSFUL mama. Which cancels out Tired Mama easily :) Matthew still having a bedtime breastfeed (yes, he'll be 4 in June) as Arthur was still doing at his age. Considering a 3-hourly routine for breastfeeding Benjamin during the day as part of the new schedule... Hoping for a new nursling by this time next year though, God willing! :)

* School - long break after Christmas. School in bits and pieces since then, involving mucho guilt-tripping for me, and (in hindsight) surprisingly large amounts of academic learning for the two older boys! Not sure how! But there we go! :) Spent last week reviewing a lot of maths, and are back on track with the Right Start Math curriculum this week. Arthur absorbing it much faster than he did before Christmas.

* Matthew STILL not potty trained, and starting to get concerned... He is hugely anxious about doing a poo all the time, and needs much reassurance the whole time he's trying to do one. He's never constipated, so it's a mystery. It's been like this for a long time. Way back into last year I think. Still doesn't appear to be ready control-wise with the wees either. Considering asking my GP about it.

* Neil is out of work again! Mutually agreed separation from his job the first week of March, and he has 3 months of paid "garden leave" (just leaving the job but still being on contract and getting paid), and then a month of full UNTAXED pay in May! :) No anxieties at all about the future and finances. God is sovereign, mighty and good. We have no cause to be anxious about anything.

* Need to move house! Currently exploring possibilities, but job situation throws spanner in the works a bit. Neil is working on becoming self-employed, but we're not talking much about that with anyone outside the family until it looks like it will pan out. Will be sure to talk more about that here at a later point! :) We are letting God order our steps, and He is doing so! :)

* TV officially DITCHED!!! Woohoo!! I am on Cloud 9, seriously. It has now been one month since we switched the thing off (the boys have not seen any TV at all since then) after Nathan pulled the phone cable till it snapped out of the extension thingy, and we had to plug the phone in next to the TV instead. Not enough plugs for everything, so we chose to unplug the TV, and wow oh wow, what a wonderful difference it made, even just that first day! By Day 3 I was begging Neil to let us continue to have no TV, although originally we planned to buy another extension cable so we could plug the TV back in again. Obviously we CAN plug the TV in, but we are not doing so. Now we have moved it out of the living room and into the kitchen, where Neil does his "work" (the vague stuff I am not talking about yet) for several hours a day - he uses the TV as a computer monitor. The living room feels just so much nicer and cleaner without the TV, and the boys are flourishing without it. I am even more anti-TV than I ever thought I was before, now that I've seen the startling effects! Never going back. Nevvver. They'll watch educational DVDs from time to time though, I should think, when we figure that kind of thing out. We have so much more time for play, school, just character training, imaginitive things, etc. They complained a fair bit on the first day or so, but I was surprised that they have not missed it at ALL since then. TV is subtley BAD BAD BAD for children. Mine used to watch such a lot of it, and I had no idea, and now we've done this I really see it for what it is with my own eyes. NOT good for children! Glad to be rid of it for mine! :)

* Also letting God order our family size, and waiting and hoping for news of a new little blessing, perhaps soon? I had a chemical pregnancy last cycle with a couple of faint positive pregnancy tests, so I see that it's definitely a possibility! So exciting! Neil 100% on board with completely trusting God to open or close my womb as He sees fit! Yay! :D

Probably tons more, but that's the mainstay of it in a nutshell. Will hopefully be back soon to pad those subjects out a bit more, and post long-overdue photos! Thanks to those who have let me know they're missing my updates! It makes me feel special! And motivates me to hurry up and do so! ;) *hugs*

A Memory Treasure

Yes, it's 1.55am.

And I just HAD to post to record a memory so that it's never lost.

Oh how THANKFUL I am at 1.40am in a dark room, to be swaying and bouncing gently with my arms FULL of baby. Not a tiny baby any more, but a big gorgeous chubsome almost-8-month-old baby boy. Full. And extra squidgy in his baby sleeping bag. Thankful for the weight on my arms and the ache in my shoulders, his dear little head slumped heavily onto my shoulder. I was waiting for that burp, the one that was surely lurking down there after such a big luxurious feed, but he was so unconscious that nothing came. As I turned to walk to his little hammock to put him down, he gave a big sigh and lifted his head off my shoulder. Still fast asleep, he stopped with his head fully upright and his cheek plonked sideways, right onto mine.

So, I didn't put him down. In fact I could have held him like that all. night. long. Even if I had have ended up palpitating with exhaustion and with trembly limbs.

I stood there with that warm, soft little cheek pressed up against mine, his sweet fast baby breathing, all sleepy and rhythmic an inch from my ear. I stood as though I didn't know what to do next, or what on earth to do with myself. I just stood frozen. I felt overwhelmed with something and didn't know how to express it, and I also didn't want to disturb the moment with any movement. I stood and closed my eyes and focused on the squidgy heaviness of his little body in my arms. The pull of his weight on my shoulders. The soft warmth of his cheek against mine. The sound of his breath in my ear. And suddenly I was whispering out loud (it being 1.40am), apparently to God, "Oh thank you! Oh thank you! Oh THANK YOU! Oh thank you!" and I couldn't stop saying those words over and over and over, because it was all I could feel and more than I could contain. I had no other words, because I could only see those ones, and they eclipsed everything else in my head. The only thing that stopped me saying the words over and over was the point where my heart swelled up until it blocked my throat with an enormous lump and I couldn't say anything more.

And I put him down then. I watched him sleeping for a moment and then I came away, wanting to record what I had seen and felt, completely bewildered as to how I could come to be as blessed as this. I remembered the verse in 1 Samuel where David says to Saul, "Who am I, and what is my family or my father's clan in Israel, that I should become the king's son-in-law?" (1 Samuel 18:18), and just kept saying to God, "Who am I, and what is my family that you have chosen to bless me this generously?!" because I felt in such awe of God's blessings to me in my children. Who am I that God should bless me to be the mother of FOUR SONS?! I literally stand with gaping mouth, not knowing what to say or do as I think of it. I am understanding deeper and deeper as God works on my heart about this, what this verse really means:

"Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man {or woman!} whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." (Psalm 127:3-5)

"Thank" and "You" are two such small words. But right now they just sum it up perfectly.

Thank you Lord.

Bible in 90 Days - Monday Update (Day 53) and general blog update!

I think it's Day 53?! I am reading from my own Bible so I'm losing count quite easily now!

I didn't update last Monday! The last 2 weeks of Bible readings have been more of a challenge, and I haven't even dropped in ONCE to any of the online communities taking part in this 90-day challenge for accountability and support. Which, I can now definitely say, makes a big difference! I didn't intend not to, I just got busy and distracted, and didn't quite meet my quota here and there, and just got complacent thinking I would "just catch up" another day (bad thought pattern!!). So I have been more lazy than before, over the last two weeks. I have found myself up to 3 days behind and then worked over the next couple of days to catch up, and managed! And then relaxed a little the very next day (d'oh!) and thus fell a little behind again, and so on. It has been a fortnight of falling behind and catching up continually, never staying on an even keel. I am not being as disciplined as I was with the evenings, giving the first part of the evening to reading until I had completed my Bible reading for the day before switching on the laptop. Actually I've been REALLY slack on that, totally. And it has borne fruit - getting behind and losing focus, and everything else has sort of become a bit chaotic and disorganised in my life as well, strangely enough.

I hate being lazy!!! It's such a weakness of mine! It just feels like such hard work to push against it, especially when I get a wave of the lazies. I get distracted easily and with the pace of the reading in this challenge, just a day or two of being lazy can put a HUGE gap between where I am and where I should be in the reading!

About a week ago I found a distraction, unexpectedly. I found a sunrise/sunset map of the world, which is continually updated in real time, showing where the sun is rising and setting on the world at any given moment. I just thought that was amazing! I was reading Psalms and dwelling on the awesomeness of God's creation, and how wonderful His works are, and that just topped it right off to see that at a glance. I would pop over to that site for a few moments at random times of the day, and before bed, just to see where in the world the sun was rising on a new day RIGHT at that moment. Then I hit on the idea of googling live web cams! What an incredible resource is available to us in this day and age!

But within a few days, I could tell that this fun and awe-inspiring activity actually had the potential to become quite addictive! I quickly bookmarked various web cams that worked well with good views, and enjoyed "chasing" the sun rise for about 6 hours straight through from early evening to very late at night! Every evening I would take Benjamin to bed at 7pm or so, and be able to do this amazing thing! I would breastfeed him, put him in his little Amby hammock and start to rock it with one hand, and with the other I would flip open my laptop, give a quick glance to the sunrise/sunset chart to confirm my suspicions that the sun was about to rise on the east coast of Australia, and pop up my Sydney web cam! ;) I would sit rocking my baby in cold and rainy England, and watch - LIVE! - the sky turn silver, then pink, then gold, in Sydney where it's summer still, and then actually have the privilege of seeing the sun burst up from the sea in beautiful colours. It boggled my mind to know that was actually happening as I sat there! Then I hopped right on over to Melbourne and waited for the sun to reach there. As soon as it rose there, I hopped to Adelaide and watched the pink and orange sky till the sun rose there too. In the evening I like seeing the sun rise in a fishing village in the Philippines. Amazing to be able to see it!

I started to watch the sun SET somewhere just after watching it rise somewhere else. Rio de Janiero and various east coast US web cams served this purpose, while England sat in the middle of it's "night". It was just AMAZING to behold. I became interested in learning about countries I was watching, while I waited for the sun to rise there, and just reeled at the ability to just clickety click and zoom in on a satellite photograph from orbit to hut-level in Bangladesh, for example. Amazing. I learned about cities and languages, and time-zones. It was amazing, but VERY distracting, and almost "too much" to know, you know? To have access to that kind of knowledge felt a bit strange, like it was too lofty.

The last couple of days I did that stuff, I felt increasingly strange with it. I really wish I could describe the exact feeling, but there just are not words to translate it. Suffice to say that I am very familiar with it from even back in my teens and older childhood, and I have come to understand it as the way it feels to begin to wander from God in some way, in my deepest core. It wasn't particularly noticable in any other way, outwardly, or even inwardly in my usual thoughts towards God and so on. Not just to wander off, but to take steps INTO something else, that pulls me away from God. There's a certain feeling, and it gives me a strange melancholy pull that I never feel in any other circumstance, which comes alongside feeling unhappy with some (or many) aspects of my own life, and a certain feeling of escapism. This is my whole past, before I became a Christian. It resurfaces when I take actual steps towards some activity or thought pattern that is in the opposite direction to God's path. When I pursue something sinful, knowing I am pursuing something sinful. Or when I revisit thoughts and memories of past times which I know God has called me OUT of. Things like that. I am beginning to recognise it more and more with each occurrance, and it doesn't happen much any more. But anyway, that was the feeling.

So with the ability to recognise it more quickly each time it happens, and also my increasing understanding of who God is and who *I* am in Him, this time I acted very quickly to put a stop to it. Often I am reluctant, because usually it's something "fun" or "nice" and although I know I should stop, I don't really want to. I usually don't have my eyes on God by the time I really recognise what's going on, and that makes reluctance more easy to come by as well. This time my eyes are still on God, I recognise that feeling, and I do not want to step outside His will for me. At all. So I stopped visiting the sunrise/sunset chart and the webcams. I feel better :) I would LOVE to watch the sun rise in Sydney when I'm tired and it's dark and rainy outside and I'm not doing much whilst rocking my little sweetie in a darkened bedroom - HOW I would love to! But I am choosing not to for now. I think it's an amazing thing to be able to see online and will probably choose to use it as part of school at some point with the boys - what a springboard for endless enthusiastic geography lessons, all of which can easily embrace and acknowledge God's handiwork! But not for me, for now.

Now I am working on catching up on my reading, and giving the first of my evening time to it before switching the internet on too. I still read when I can during the day while I am rocking Benjamin, and if he's taking a while to settle then I can get quite a bit read. I was three days behind yesterday, in Isaiah. Isaiah is 66 chapters long so it's quite a few days of reading in the 90-day challenge. I'm supposed to finish today at Isaiah 61 (and tomorrow head into Jeremiah) but I have read from Isaiah 16 to 40 today. In Isaiah it's about 12 chapters a day, so I am happy to have read a couple of days worth today. I don't want to be left behind in Isaiah when I am supposed to be in Jeremiah though, so I am eager to catch right up and then MAINTAIN it this time! :)

I found Psalms and Proverbs quite hard going, when I had eagerly looked forward to them as potentially easy reading. They were lots of little bits and pieces, and I could only take in so many bits and pieces before I had to take a break, and it was hard to get enough sessions (and breaks!) in during one day. I initially got behind in Psalms (by a few days, eventually) and was still in Proverbs while the rest of those on the challenge had already read Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs! I found those two books much easier to read, so whizzed through them to catch up. I love Song of Songs! It's so beautifully sensual and romantic! :)

Isaiah has so far been quite hard to read, because so far it has been all the prophecies against various nations, and 35 or so chapters of that in a row is quite hard! I'm excited about the rest of it though, because I know it is full of encouragement and blessing from here on.

So that is my update! Long-winded, but explanations were necessary! It was my birthday yesterday (I'm 34!) and so I didn't read as much as I would have, because I was sleeping in (lovely husband!) and on the phone to my family, etc, during times where I might otherwise have picked up my Bible to do some reading. So I'm glad to get caught up today. And I had a lovely birthday! Low-key and relaxing. I had no presents at all until Neil felt bad for not having organised himself (I baked my own birthday cake (and decorated it PINK - oh joy! Hehe!) and we ate a frozen meal that I had previously cooked!) and took the boys out late afternoon, returning with chocolates and other yummies, and some sweet figurines that I have had my eye on (more on these another time). He also made cards with the boys while I lay in during the morning. But even when I got up and had essentially no cards or presents, no special meal or plans, I did not feel unhappy or bitter about it at all. HOW I have changed since just a few years ago! When I see the changes in the way I feel over various things, I feel so surprised, because it's a really REALLY big change for me. It is 100% God's work in me, especially the last year or two, while I have been praying for this kind of change in my heart and attitudes. I am learning to be content and to give more of myself than I used to, especially regarding my husband and children. I am waaaaaaaaaaaay from "arriving" but am very encouraged at the changes I am already seeing. I would have been whining and miserable 3 or 4 birthdays ago if Neil had not done a thing for my birthday! ;)

This time I am just thinking how blessed I am to have four precious children. That is it! SUCH blessing has been bestowed on me that I pretty much don't feel a need for anything else, and if I start to think otherwise then just stopping and thinking of how God has blessed me with four little ones (so far!) fixes that instantly. Also, I lay in on my birthday (a Sunday) and it seemed kind of normal to me, not - Wow! What a TREAT! My hubby let me lie-in today, especially for my birthday!!! No, it's normal because my husband blesses me with that kind of generosity EVERY SINGLE weekend. So I'm not lacking in special treatment! :) Also, knowing I would receive some money from my parents, and having reached a point in my photography book where I'm starting to learn more about aperture and light, I decided I wanted to spend that money on a (second-hand! They're so expensive!) new camera lens. I won one at eBay (50mm 1.7 if anyone is interested!) a week before my birthday and it arrived during the week, so I had that WONDERFUL birthday present already! I admit I have also been somewhat distracted by taking endless reams of photographs since then, hehe!

I will finish this long entry now, but this is my favourite photo that I have taken with my new lens since it arrived. I'll post more of this kind of thing soon in my photography blog but I wanted to share one here that shows the difference this lovely lens makes to my photographs! :) This photo is straight out of the camera (unedited):

Nathan, aged 2 years and 1 month! :)



Sweet little boy! I will update again soon! :)

Officially four mobile children!!!

My Benji-bean started crawling today at lunch time! He has been army crawling consistently for exactly a week, and starting to pull himself along on his elbows for a week or two before that. He's been rocking on all fours for a week or two, and starting to do independent "things" with his individual hands and knees when on all fours this week, so I knew it wouldn't be long. When I posted the last video of him army crawling (6 days ago I think!), I said to Neil that I thought he might even be crawling in about a week from now, and I'm surprised that I was spot on! ;) I don't know why I even thought that, because all the others have rocked on all fours for much longer (3 weeks or something like that) before actually setting off crawling. Not all of them army crawled before crawling either.

Anyway, I am SO PROUD of my tiny little man! :) I can't believe that I have four mobile children now! :-O

He was on the living room floor playing with toys when I was making the boys' lunch, and when I sent them in to eat, I just nipped into the living room to sit on the floor with Benjamin for a moment. We had homemade pizza (with sliced sausages on - Arthur's request!), and Benjamin eats the crust, but not the topping yet. I haven't got as far as trying him on tomatoes yet, and am still working through various foods. Though he now has quite a good range of things he is eating, including wheat and dairy with no apparent problems, which is good! I always feel nervous about introducing wheat or dairy, but so far so good with all of them! :)

So anyway, I brought my plate of pizza in with me to grab a few bites while I sat with him, and the second I sat down on the floor with the plate of pizza on my lap, his eyes went "BING!" (you know how babies' eyes do that when they see something suddenly that they WANT RIGHT NOW!), and he happened to be on all fours when he saw it. He just set off crawling towards the plate on my lap! It wasn't far, and his crawling "steps" were ever so slow and doddery (it was so cute!) but he didn't flop onto his tummy once, and kept going till he reached me! I was so excited and called to the boys that Benjamin was crawling. Matthew and Arthur were really sad to have missed it (they've been waiting and watching for weeks now!), so I put him back where he was and he did it again! The boys were so excited! When they went back to the table, I put a piece of pizza crust on the floor across the room (nice and hygienic, lol!) as bait! ;) I set the camera up this time, and he crawled over. This time he got a bit more excited as he was almost there, and sped up just a tiny bit! :) Here's the video clip!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

So my baby is crawling! He is exactly 7 months and 1 week old today. Nathan and Matthew were both 6 months and 3 weeks I think, and Arthur 8 and a half months.

I distinctly feel my ovaries twitching... ;)

Look at Benjamin!! And park photos :)

Benjamin is sooooo teetering on the brink of crawling! Today he went through all the motions, just on the spot, hehe! For ages too. He lifts all his individual knees/hands up independently on all fours, whilst staying strong and balanced on the other three. He has also started to lift a hand up and reach for toys and drag them to himself, whilst on all fours. He doesn't wobble when he leans out or back in again, so he's really gaining strength ready to crawl. I wonder if he will actually start crawling in the next week or so? Seems like he will, to me. He has "kneed" forwards today but then not remembered the hands that should follow, haha! And he seems to just crawl on the spot with all his limbs without actually moving forwards, which I MUST get on video as it's so sweet and funny! ;)

Talking of video - Benjamin IS army crawling properly now, and he can scoot around the floor pretty well today to get to a toy he is interested in. It's so nice to see him able to move himself FORWARDS consistently, instead of having to roll around and hope he reached his target eventually, hehe! Poor boy! Anyway, I set up the camera and Arthur built a little stack of cogs from a cog-powered toy (he loves these), and we waited! Here's the video of him scooting along! My clever boy! :)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

It just seems surreal to me that we'll have a crawling baby all over the place again in a matter of weeks! I feel in many ways like I have just blinked and here we are again! So wonderful! I confess I am getting really broody lately! ;) I appear to have conceived last cycle, but my luteal phase is still too short (due to breastfeeding, in my case) to support a pregnancy yet, unfortunately. We do not prevent pregnancy, so I'm excitedly hopeful for the coming months! :) God's timing is perfect and I'm so excited to see whether He will bless us again! I can hardly breathe sometimes for thinking that He actually might! Could we really be that blessed?! I hope so!

We all went to the park on Sunday afternoon. It was freeeezing and quite windy too out in the open areas, but Benjamin was toasty in his snowsuit (the same one that Nathan wore (long-winded post, but the photos ARE there, honestly! ;) Scroll waaaay down!) sitting in the snow in our garden last February! How crazy that it has only been a year and another boy is wearing it!), and the others all ran around constantly so they were fine! I wanted to take some photos of the boys for my depth of field photography assignment thingy, but they didn't stay still long enough! When they did, it was fleeting, or they did a forced smile or waved an arm blurrily or something! So I just took photos, and some came out quite nice so at least I have a nice record of our cold afternoon! We do turn heads out and about as a family now, I've noticed. Everywhere we go, without exception. We sometimes did with three, though I think it was more to do with how close in age they were, but with four it seems we're a definite circus! ;) I'm getting used to it (a work in progress! I'm not crazy about being noticed!). I do like attention on my little ones though, because I think they're lovely and I'm so proud of them! :)

Anyway, lots of photos. I'll just post them all in a row. When I looked at the photos after we came home, I was really struck by how much older Matthew suddenly looks to me. He seems taller and leaner lately (he really can't get much leaner! He was a lean baby to start with!), and his face is a little more boyish rather than toddler-ish. It caught me offguard, because I am always watching Arthur for the next new sign of him looking older, since he's the oldest and every new change is a first for us as parents. But I hadn't stopped to think that Matthew is right behind him, turning into a proper little boy with no babyness left to his face any more! Well, maybe just a little! :) But it has really disappeared lately. He is four inches shorter than Arthur, having grown over an inch in the last 3 months. Arthur grew just under an inch in the same time period. Nathan is 6 inches shorter than Matthew (he's so little! He's my shortest just-turned-2-year-old by far!). They're sweet little stairsteps! :)

Anyway, photos! Matthew was worried about Arthur up in the fallen tree (the one where he's standing looking up. He kept getting such a scared expression and making involuntary whimpering sounds! Arthur is his best friend and he always gets anxious that something bad will happen to him when he takes risks! ;) Actually Arthur does the same exact thing when watching Matthew do similar things. Little Nathey did loads of walking and running, and got quite tired eventually. We walked around a herd of deer which were right across the path we were going to take, and the boys were being so noisy that we took a WIDE berth! I took a photo of them though. They were all stags. Benjamin was perfectly good and didn't make much of a peep! He fell asleep just before we headed home. Nathan kept coming over and stroking his forehead with a finger (he's so LOVELY with Benji!), as it was pretty much the only part he could access through the snowsuit!



















I have crazy-much to say, but it will have to wait (again!) because there's just no time! Will update again as soon as I can.

Bible in 90 Days - Monday Update (Day 39)

Is it Monday already?! The weeks are going so fast!

Well I feel like I have reached "the middle" of the Bible at last, being that I have started the book of Psalms today! I have enjoyed all the history, and feel kind of sad that the bulk of it is behind me now. I admit I have been a little lazy more than once of this past week, and - ahem - totally NOT stuck to my discipline of finishing my reading for the day before my laptop is switched on! Not once, or even twice, but a fair bit this week! :S The result has been that I got a full day behind on two separate occasions. BUT I have caught up both times. I had the whole of Job to read in one day (except the first 6 chapters - there are 42!!) yesterday, but I did it, and now I'm ON TRACK - woohoo! - starting Psalms.

I love the book of Psalms soooo much! It's probably the book in the Bible that I turn to the most, and have done consistently throughout my time as a Christian. I have been eager to read it, and I still am, but straight away I am finding that these songs and poems are things I want to linger over and take away to dwell on for a bit, rather than power through them one after another at the pace of this 90-day challenge! That's okay though. It's harder for me to keep up the pace of the reading right now (in fact I still have more to read tonight before bed, but I couldn't continue any longer. I just felt like I needed a break and to come back for more later, otherwise it would just sort of be WORDS, instead of liquid joy and sorrow and praise and anguish, tangible and real.

I'm also looking forward to the wisdom of Proverbs which comes next! :)

I'm continuing to think more about what I want to do with the Bible after I finish reading it on March 31st (or 29th?! It's actually an 88-day plan with 2 "grace" days!). I am already feeling pretty confident that there is no better way to start every single New Year than to spend the first quarter of it reading through the whole Bible, so I now intend to do this challenge starting on January 1st every year. Then I have the remaining 9 months of the year to do more in-depth studies. Oh how ALIVE it will make me!!! How equipped and strong, and how much wisdom I will gain!! I feel quite breathless with excitement at the thought of getting that much of the Word INTO me over the next few years! I do want to nourish myself more intensively and in specific areas over the 9 months each year that I'm not reading through the Bible at a faster pace. I don't know what that is yet, though. Maybe a study on Psalms? Or another book? Or maybe character study? An online study with a group for mothers? Wives? I like the study I'm seeing people setting out to start in various bloggy communities in February or March, based on the names of God. I LOVE the sound of that, and I'm already part of those blog communities, but they all start before I finish my 90-day challenge, so I don't think I should participate while I still have this on! Or maybe just a study which simply increases my adoration of God (like the names of God one), or my awe of Him? There seem to be endless wonderful options for Bible study! It is hard to choose what kind of thing I should pursue, and I would also love to study as part of a community online if possible, so I will have to pray and ask God to guide me. There will be time for quite a few different kinds of studies in 9 months, but I do want to have a feel for the 9 months as a whole, rather than just having no idea and then jumping into a study the day it starts, you know? I will pray and research! :)

I think that is all for this week's update! :) Next Monday will be the half-way mark exactly!!! Exciting! :) I can't believe I am really reading through the Bible and DOING IT, and enjoying it, and really really truly on my way to reading the whole thing in such a short time! And it's DOABLE, really it is. And it's changing me more than I had any idea it could. God is so amazing to me!

This week I have actually managed to have a couple of other entries, rather than just week after week of only "Bible in 90 Days" updates! ;) I updated yesterday (or the day before??) all about Benjamin, who will turn 7 months old tomorrow! So if you haven't seen that then please do! I posted photos! And he's such a sweetie pie! :) I totally plan to be back before next Monday again, maybe even a couple of times. I much prefer updating frequently where possible, and will try to keep that going! But definitely back next Monday as usual with the Bible update! I'm so enjoying it!

Benjamin at almost 7 months

ANOTHER update!!! Gasp! ;) I do have to admit, I am a day behind on my Bible reading and have 18 chapters of Job to read tonight if I am going to catch up! More entries at my blog are evidence of this, because in order to fit in allll the reading I have to do each day, something else has to give. If I blog, the reading gives. And the reading SHOULDN'T give! But I'm a day behind (and shouldn't really be online posting - as per my own rule! Tsk!). Thankfully it's weekend and I have a bit more time to catch up than usual.

Thanks for the sweet comments on Arthur's answers to the questionnaire yesterday! They were very encouraging and kind! :)

I took a few photos of Benjamin today, at first just to play about with depth of field for my next photography assignment at my photography blog, and ended up getting a couple of really sweet ones of my lovely baby boy! He will be 7 months old on Tuesday! Where is the time going?! I can't believe he'll be 7 months old. Six months was like a big milestone that I was looking ahead to, but never beyond for some reason. Now it is passing by, I am only just starting to realise that my tiny boy will be an "older baby" pretty soon!



Benjamin is such a darling! He is easy-going and happy, calm and placid. He is beginning to show me a new side of his personality, that of asserting himself, and making a few demands in a rather angry way on occasion! He's soft and squidgy and cuddly, and I have no idea what on earth he weighs or measures (not since he was about 6 weeks old, I think!) but I think he's likely keeping close to the curve he was originally on - big! ;) He was at the 91st percentile or something before. That would put him around 20lbs now? I'll have to check the chart. But I don't actually know. He seems so big lately! He comfortably fits (length, girth, foot-size, etc) 9-12 month clothing, and his larger 6-9 month items are now too small (the smaller items in that size have been put away for a while!). He is outgrowing size 3 disposable nappies and we are using the last few up to move him into size 4 this weekend! Nathan and Matthew wear size 5, though I'm actually starting to potty train Matthew at the moment - hopefully successfully this time! ;)

When Benjamin turned 6 months old, he was doing a lot of lying on his tummy and pushing up high with his arms (like this!):



He didn't do anything much with his legs, but a week later he started getting up onto all fours on the living room floor. I took a photo (okay, ten!) the first time he got onto his hands and knees at 6 months and 1 week old, while his brothers and Daddy were out at the park (a little space to try new things, perhaps?!):



He is now practising his all-fours thing constantly. He started rocking in that position a week or so ago, and today he moved his knee and hand forwards on one side, one after the other, but then seemed stuck and couldn't figure out how to coordinate the other side! :) He's eager to be more mobile, although he can get places pretty fast at the moment already. He rolls and swivels and rolls again to get where he needs to. He pivots 360 degrees on his tummy by "grabbing" himself round and round with his hands on the carpet. He can now do this in a matter of seconds! He reverses very nicely on all fours by pushing with his arms, but this frustrates him no end because it is not the intention! ;) While I popped upstairs to wipe somebody's bottom (a necessary part of motherhood but not exactly my favourite!), he reversed from the middle of the floor underneath the school table! He went under a chair and panicked when he tried to lift his head and it bonked on the underside of the little chair, poor baby! I couldn't even see him at first when I came running down! Nathan was all concerned, saying, "Benji stuck!"

This week Benjamin started army crawling! If he wants a toy that's a couple of feet ahead, he just gets on his tummy, digs his elbows determinedly into the ground and HAULS his body forwards to the object! His eyes never leave what he's aiming for and he gets such a determined look on his face! He has been doing that for maybe 4 or 5 days, and getting faster and better at it each day. He still mostly rolls to get places though. I think he will be so pleased to actually crawl around!

Benjamin is very interested in ALL toys lately. Very little seems to bore him, except perhaps he's starting to lose a bit of interest in the very early baby toys like teethers and rattles. He still likes anything bright or textured, and he loves books. He actually quivers with excitement when I sit him on my lap and open a book to read to him! We have lots of touchy-feely books and he really loves those. Instead of batting the pages vigorously as I read, he is now seeking out the textures frantically, and when he finds one, he stops and slows down, feeling carefully with his fingers. It's lovely to watch him explore and discover! He likes all of his brothers' toys, unsurprisingly! He especially likes any vehicles, the wooden railway track, and the cube with the wires on top that have beads strung on them (whatever that's called!). He'll play with the latter for a LONG time (15 minutes even) without stopping or losing focus. He's very intense about play when he's into something. He loves paper (chews it up! I have to watch that boy!) and the drawer knobs, especially if someone has loosened one and he can make it go round and round by batting at it. He loves crackly packets (like food packets) and will play with an empty biscuit wrapper or pasta packet for ages! Or a sealed ziploc bag with nothing in it! Fascinating stuff! ;) He likes Nathan's rainbow blocks too:



Benjamin started sitting properly unsupported (as compared with his "tripod" sit that he had been doing unsupported since 4 months old) at 5 months. At 6 months and 1 week, I sat him down on the floor, and instead of sitting behind him as I usually do, I needed to get some laundry from the kitchen to fold, so I put some soft padded stuff behind him and left him there for a minute. He sat there for the best part of 20 minutes!!!! He keeled backwards twice, and looked very stunned and confused, and I sat him back up again straight away. He looked around, played with toys in his hands, had his photo taken (zillions of times, lol!) and enjoyed interacting with Nathan from a sitting position. So he sits now. He prefers to sit I think, but once he's bored with that, he likes to do a bit of moving about. He's very happy spending all his awake times practising sitting and moving about at the moment! Here are a few photos of his first long unsupported sitting time:



Drinking in the wonder of the moment in meditative peace, haha! ;) Or maybe just blinking while I took the photo, but I couldn't resist posting this one anyway! He has Neil's long eyelashes like all of his brothers!



Nathan was so excited to see him sitting, and wanted to sit with him and bring him toys and pretty much anything he could think of that would involve being with his baby brother. Nathan is so precious, and shows such love for his brother, even though he's so tiny himself! Little love :)



Another new skill this past month for Benjamin - waving! :)



"Heeheeheeheeee, Nathan is so hilarious!!!" ;)



He has started doing all sorts of crazy babbling and vocalising. He's very noisy! He also likes to screech and scream as loud as he can! Matthew was a real screamer as a baby and I sometimes used to have ringing in my ears at night from it. It was a problem really! He still has a tendency to make shrill noises when excited or playing. Arthur and Nathan were not screaming babies. They were very noisy in their own ways, but never the types to screech and scream loudly for pleasure! Benjamin seems to be more like Matthew in that respect, but thankfully he's not as into screaming as Matthew was! ;) He does "shout" his babbling though, hehe! His favourite babble sound right now is "brah, brah, brah, brah" and "gwah, gwah, gwah, gwah", so we hear that a lot. He makes such a funny shape with his mouth when he says it, and it makes us giggle! :)

Benjamin is eating now and then. I don't push food at all, and some days he gets offered some and other days not. If he is napping when we eat, he doesn't usually get offered food. If he's awake then he gets offered something. He has now tried yoghurt (sour faces! But eager for more nonetheless!), bread (gagged till he threw up on a piece a week or so ago, but has had no further gagging on anything since! Yay!), chicken (not that impressed), sweet potato (absolute FAVOURITE food ever, hehe!), parsnip (likes this), mashed potato (likes), carrot (not overly impressed), banana (seems to like it well enough), rice (prefers playing with the texture but has also fed himself some happily), and broccoli. I gave him a little floret of broccoli to hold by the stalk, and he munched a few of the tiny bits off the top with his gums. He moved them to the back of his mouth, swallowed them, made a "urgh, what was that?!" face for a millisecond, and started to cry like he was really sad! I guess he doesn't like broccoli then! ;) I offered him a sippy cup of water but he won't take it yet. He just pushes it away and gives me a look that sort of says, "What are you trying to DO to me, woman?!" ;)

He nurses on demand around the clock and still wakes several times a night. On a bad night he wakes almost hourly and can stay awake for up to an hour once or twice (on a VERY bad night - most nights he goes right back to sleep after feeds). He starts out in his Amby hammock, and I put him back in there through the night until I am too tired and half-asleep to remember, and thus he is always (every single morning) in bed snuggled up next to me when I wake in the morning :) Which I like! I would LOVE more sleep than I get, and I am truly exhaustulated every single day at all times, but you know? I am changing. Each baby it is getting more noticeable. I am less stressed about these things, but it's a gradual thing - a bit less each time. Also, I am cherishing each baby that bit more, I think. I don't know why - and I wasn't ever aware of NOT cherishing my first and second babies to the absolute max! - but I just am. The combination of cherishing every second and not bothering with the stress of a baby at such-and-such an age not sleeping well at night, or me being tireder than a tired thing with tired stuff on top, or the once absolutely insanely difficult frustrations of nap-related issues - means that I am different now than I was with my first couple of babies. A nice different. I don't think I've done anything to bring it about. I think God has been incredibly gracious, but also I have just kept having babies, and really, many things in life take practise! ;) I think the intensity of it helps too - the not having any sort of gap or return-to-normal between babies. I haven't slept a solid night since Arthur was born 5 years ago, and once upon a time it was my biggest, all-consuming stress. I cried over it, ranted to my husband over it, spent endless uncountable hours searching the internet and forums for answers, poured much of what little energy I had left into trying to change the baby/toddler who was causing me such stress! Etc. Now I still feel too tired and still really really want to sleep and for little tiny persons to nap and sleep predictably, but only somewhere in the back of my head. Mostly I just enjoy holding and snuggling my baby boo-bean at night. I hear his Amby creak and clank gently as I rock it in a pitch-black room in the middle of the night, and feel a sort of peaceful calm. Like that is the familiar norm of my night, and what a precious place to be! Rocking a baby. What a gift! And I think about how I'll practically BLINK and it will be time to transition Benjamin out of his Amby and put it away. And then I'll blink again and he'll be like Arthur, up on the top bunk where I can't so easily watch him sleep and kiss his face, with only memories of his babyhood. All the inconvenience pales into insignificance, and I treasure everything with all my heart!

Well, it's very late (I'm up late on Saturday night baking a late batch of cinnamon rolls, and they're taking longer than I expected!), so I will finish for now. I'm sure there's so much more I could write about my tiny Benji-boy. But I will have to stop for now! I'll leave you with a couple more photos that I took this morning after Benjamin and I had a lie-in and the boys went out with Neil - me with my tiny boy (found a timer on my camera! Whaddya know?!):



I love this one! I almost thought to post it for my depth of field photography assignment (and maybe I still will?) but I am going to try to take some outdoor photos tomorrow for that, when we all go to the park (weather permitting!). Benjamin's expression looks so funny, and I love it! He's beaming a big huge smile here, but juuuust starting to change his mouth for a good old babbling session, so that's why his chin is sort of solid-looking, hehe! I love this one :)

21 Questions About Mummy! - Arthur's answers

Oh it was aaaages ago that I saw this little questionnaire thingy circulating my favourite mommy/mummy blogs, and I so wanted to participate with my little ones, but just never got around to it! I had the list of questions written out, and today I was searching through a pile of papers for something and there it was! So I got the camera and asked Arthur if he would like to answer the questions, and he was very eager to do an interview! :) So, here is a video clip of Arthur's answers. I find the volume isn't loud enough, or else it isn't a great microphone or something, because although your ears can be distorted with Nathan excitedly saying, "ARTHUR!! AAAAARTHUUUUR!!" as he sees his brother in the display screen on the camera (hehe!), I can't always hear Arthur's answers clearly. So I'll post the video, and then a written version of his answers just in case translation is necessary anywhere! ;)

Benjamin woke from a nap halfway through, so there was a pause to go and breastfeed him, and then bring him downstairs before we started up again. Also when I got to the question that says, "How are you and Mummy different?", Arthur straight away pointed out the obvious difference using the correct anatomical words (!) which Neil would rather I didn't post online! I asked him if he could think of another thing right after his initial answer anyway, so I clipped his first answer out of the video! ;)

So here it is (at last!):

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

1) What is something that Mummy always says to you? "Can you go in the porch please?" (this is where he gets time-out sometimes - well, obviously ALWAYS, not sometimes, haha!)

2) What makes Mummy happy? When I obey you.

3) What makes Mummy sad? When I'm naughty.

4) How does Mummy make you laugh? When you do funny noises on the camera (this is when I make farting noises to get them all looking and genuinely smiling/laughing at me at the same time!), and you munch on us. And when you go "Bleurgh!" when you find out that you're eating boy. (I often seize an unsuspecting child walking past me and declare them to be X item of food that I really like (cookie, sausage, etc) and munch on them till they're shrieking hysterically. Then they get their breath enough to yell, "I'm not an X! I'm a BOY!" and then I will exaggeratedly act disgusted and do lots of "Ptheurgh, bleurgh, I can't believe I ate BOY!", etc! They LOVE this game! ;) )

5) What was Mummy like when she was a little girl? Cheeky.

6) How old is Mummy? Um... thirty-six nine.

7) How tall is Mummy? Um... forty five hundred degrees.

8) What is Mummy's favourite thing to do? Play with her boys.

9) What does Mummy do when you're not around? Settle Benji and do your own stuff.

10) If your Mummy becomes famous, what will it be fore? Being kind with her boys.

11) What is Mummy really good at? Being Mummy. (this made my heart sing!!!)

12) What is Mummy NOT good at? You're not very good at catching us when we escape you. (Matthew was calling me in the background at this point, saying, "Benji's woken uuuup!" and then getting annoyed that I wasn't acknowledging him! I stopped after this question to get Benjamin up!)

13) What does Mummy do for a job? Look after her boys!

14) What is Mummy's favourite food? Lamb and bean hotpot? (definitely one of my favourites! Recipe here!)

15) What makes Mummy proud of you? Being really good.

16) What do you and Mummy do together? Play.

17) How are you and Mummy the same? We've got really long legs. (He has no real understanding of the fact that his Mummy has the stumpiest legs for miles around, haha!)

18) How are you and Mummy different? You've got floppy down hair and I've got bald hair on... all this hair on my head. (Wasn't sure where he was going with this one, hehe! He initially pointed out the obvious male/female difference, like I said earlier! I told him he was right, and asked if he could think of another thing. There was nothing wrong with his answer at ALL, but I knew Neil would not want me to post it online!)

19) How do you know that Mummy loves you? 'Cause you never are really really really really really really really really really cross with me. (!!!)

20) What does Mummy like most about Daddy? Her wedding cake... (Not sure WHERE this came from, lol! After a little persuasion, he came up with something else, equally hilarious, hehe!) ... He helps you with the bins and he sometimes puts them out. (True!! Hehe! But not actually the thing I love most about Daddy!)

21) Where is Mummy's favourite place to be? In our house!

This was so much fun! :) Matthew could answer the questions, but he does not want to at the moment, so I will wait as long as necessary before he's interested and then do the same with him! I love hearing what they come out with for their answers! :)

I have so much more to write (as always) but this is all for tonight. It's late! Back soon!

Bible in 90 Days - Monday Update (Day 32)

It's Monday again! Already! The weeks are just flying by, and I'm noticing that my blog just has Bible in 90 Days updates at the moment and nothing else in between! :S That was not the plan! But I guess I am using blogging time for reading the Bible quite a lot. I really do want to update here with non-Bible stuff soon!

So this has been a slightly unusual week in terms of the Bible reading. I haven't got a print-out of the passages I'm supposed to read each day, and I am reading from my own NIV Bible, not the Bible in 90 Days Bible. Our printer ran out of ink a while ago and we hardly use it so we haven't put out money for new ink yet! So every day I go to my bookmarked link which takes me directly to a PDF file which is a list of each day's reading to the specific verse. To my immense frustration at the end of last week, Virgin Media (our internet service provider) had a technical hitch in our area which took THREE DAYS to fix!!! Three days people!!! I was suddenly all too aware of how "attached" I am to the internet! It is a big social outlet for me, and I use it daily. Also Neil is doing a training course online once a week and he had to put off his lesson, which was very annoying! So, I couldn't check to see where I was supposed to read to each day. I figured since it's usually between 12 and 16 chapters a day, if I took 15 chapters per day then I would at the very least be up to date, and maybe even ahead by a few chapters after a few days! So that's what I did for a couple of days, and then I read 10 chapters the third day and felt too tired to read any more (I was in 1 Chronicles and reading lists and lists of names at that point!), when BING! Our internet came back, and I was amazed to find that I had read what I needed to to the exact VERSE that day! :)

Yesterday, I didn't get any reading done during the day because I visited my brother in hospital (he got appendicitis! They only just took it out in time! It was gangrenous right up to the intestinal join! Blaargh! Thank God he is okay! He is in hospital for a quite a while on a long course of heavy-duty antibiotics, and Sarah's due date with their second baby is THURSDAY this week - please pray that the baby stays put for a bit! Bennie will need 4 weeks of rest apparently. Yikes!). So then I had all of it to read in the evening, and it has been a while since that has been the case. I have gotten used to having only 4-6 chapters to read in the evening, and some days none at all, due to reading bits and pieces through the day! So yesterday I confess I got lazy and STARTED to read the Bible but put it down without hesitation when Neil got a movie out to watch! And forgot about it afterwards. So today I have caught up on yesterday's reading and started today's, but it's now pretty much bedtime and I have only read 3 of today's 15 chapters in 2 Chronicles. So I am behind at the moment, but not by too much, and I will catch up quickly if I put my mind to it.

This week I have loved reading about the miracles in 2 Kings, and been somewhat horrified at the extent of the violent wars and gruesome desperate measures (eating their own children during a terrible famine, for example *shudder*) later in the same book. I have ploughed through the lists and lists of names that I can barely pronounce, half of which look the same! I found that easier if I just read those passages out loud with a bit of rhythm, like they were poetry. I took them in quickly and easily that way, and - bonus! - got to actually understand each name by pronouncing it, as opposed to just skimming over a bunch of letters without bothering to take the time to form them into a pronouncable name!

I have been amazed at the vastness of one or two things, just facts and figures really. Like when Solomon built the temple of the Lord and he sent a message to Hiram king of Tyre, asking for men to cut cedar, pine and algum logs and send them from Lebanon for the temple construction. I loved what he (almost casually, it seemed to my reading eye!) said at the end, "I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors of ground wheat, twenty thousand cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of olive oil." (2 Chronicles 2:10)

That part of Solomon's message seemed to me to read something like, "Also, send me cedar, pine and algum logs. My men will work with yours because I'll need lots of timber, since the temple must be large and magnificent. Soooo, how about I give your woodsmen 120,000 bushels (4,400 kilolitres) each of wheat and barley for their trouble? And I could throw in 95,000 gallons of wine and the same of olive oil. Deal?"

ACTUAL QUANTITIES, folks!! Those were the translations in the notes at the foot of that passage! My eyes about fell out of my head when I read them (since I have no idea what cors or baths measure!). I just can't fathom 95,000 gallons of ANYTHING, let alone wine and olive oil!! ;) It just seemed so incredible to see it written so normally as an amount to send off as payment for the men's labour!

Also the Sea that was made of bronze outside the temple, the huge container that was cast and made for the priests to wash in (ceremonially) - it held three thousand baths of water! That's 14,500 gallons!!!!

Another thing that warmed my heart this week amongst the lists of people and their descendents was in 1 Chronicles 26:4-5:

"Obed-Edom also had sons:
Shemaiah the firstborn,
Jehozabad the second,
Joah the third,
Sacar the fourth,
Nethanel the fifth,
Ammiel the sixth,
Issachar the seventh,
and Peullethai the eighth.
(For God had blessed Obed-Edom)

I LOVE that little "p.s." explanation for why Obed-Edom had so many sons! That's my personal feeling on it too! :) Exactly one chapter before that, 1 Chronicles 25:4-5, there wer lists of the singers set apart for service at the temple, and I LOVED this bit for the same reason:

"As for Heman, from his sons:
Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shubael, and Jerimoth; Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti and Romamti-Ezer; Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir and Mahazioth. All these were sons of Heman the king's seer. They were given to him through the promises of God to exalt him. God gave Heman fourteen sonds and three daughters."

I love it!!!! :) The Bible calls those with many children BLESSED. It's taken me a while to open my eyes to that way of thinking over recent years, but I am sooooooooo there now. Obed-Edom's descendents (as well as his sons - his grandsons too) numbered 62, and were "very capable men" who had "the strength to do the work". God really did bless that man. I am in the trenches of broken nights, discipline crises, potty training, teething, GIVING to several (I don't know if I can call them "many" just yet, especially after reading the above lists, hehe!) dependent little children all day and all night. And it's HARD WORK. It's tiring and wearing, and stretches me as thin as I feel I can go. God enables me, of course. But THIS is the bigger picture. A generation or two down the line, I could be looking at a large branched-out family from our many small children. I can barely imagine it now, but what if it IS more than a few dozen, just my children and grandchildren and their spouses, in total? And what if we DO manage to raise our children right in God's sight, and train them up in the way they should go? How He could be glorified in the lives of our offspring!!! Surely the more of them the merrier, for God's purposes! I wonder if there really will be a day when we suddenly stand back and realise we are the "top layer" of a large, branched-out family made up of very capable men, leaders in their families, with the strength to do the work God has called them to do, for His glory. What an AWESOME vision to aspire to, and to pray towards! I really do not think, when I consider it in this light, that one can have too many children.

Well, my smallest one is waking for a midnight feed, so I will finish here! Back BEFORE next Monday hopefully!

Bible in 90 Days - Monday Update (Day 25)

So I am past the three week mark, and almost one third of the way through my challenge to read through the Bible in 90 days!! I'm so excited!!

My personal weak point with sticking at ANYTHING comes somewhere between 2 and 3 weeks, usually more towards 3 weeks. But this past week has been steady and my motivation high. I have not fallen behind at all this week, and several days have finished a chapter or so ahead because I have just been too caught up in the story to want to stop at the place I'm supposed to. I now do at least half of my reading every day in bits and pieces as I rock Benjamin to sleep for his naps (he takes 3 (occasionally 4) per day, plus bedtime), and then read the rest as soon as I go downstairs after tucking the boys into bed. I don't let myself do a thing until I've finished my Bible reading - except get a drink and a snack sometimes. I pick up my Bible from the bedroom on the way downstairs from the boys' bedroom at bedtime, and then take it straight to the sofa, sit down and open it. Keeping that as a habit is the solution, for me. I go straight to it, the same every evening, and just keep going until I have finished. It is MUCH easier to do now that I'm diving into the Bible throughout the day when Benjamin goes to sleep.

I'm so enjoying it!!!! I'm really excited that I'm finding it so straightfoward, because I was REALLY nervous about starting. I was worried I would not be able to stick to it, and would get behind and not have the self-discipline to continue and complete the challenge. I wasn't sure I could do it. I know I am not even a third of the way through it yet, but I am 100% confident that I can do it! :)

This week none of the reading has been hard to take in, and I have been really caught up in parts of the story. There has been more gruesomeness with all the war in David's reign and the time of the judges, and I'm pretty glad to be past that part! But it's all so fascinating. I'm not supposed to do anything but just attentively read the verses. But these last few days I have also been reading some of the notes in my Bible (it's a Life Application Bible), and looking with interest at some of the maps and things relevant to the stages of the story I'm reading, in my Bible. Yesterday I broke down and put the laptop on halfway through my evening's Bible reading, because I just HAD to see a model of Solomon's temple and palace as I was reading about them. I was reading the measurements and not really being able to picture it in my mind's eye. I didn't think it would pull me off track from reading, because I was just so enthusiastic about reading it, and having some pictures to make it come to life a bit more.

There are zillions of links out there (I googled), but here's one that I found:

www.bible-architecture.info/Jerusalem.htm

It was helpful to see the pictures, and I did get slightly side-tracked reading another site that I can't find now I've googled again, about archaeological finds in Jerusalem. I'm so fascinated by archaeology, and have been since childhood, so I couldn't help myself! :) I did finish my reading right after that though!

So I am now at the end of 1 Kings. I find myself wanting map and pictures and time-lines to look at, just because I'm eager for more to learn about it as I go along, but I am trying to remember that I'm here to just READ the Bible for this challenge. What I'm a bit worried about is that once I've finished, it will be all "over and done with", sort of, and I won't actually keep up the habit of reading my Bible. I really want to get some tips well in advance, of the next thing I need to do. I think I will be better following another plan, or a Bible study of some sort - a structure that I can follow and be accountable for, because it is working so well for me at the moment. I think if I just randomly attempt to keep reading bits of it once I've finished reading the whole thing, I will simply not keep it up, and probably pretty quickly too. I think at the end, I will feel like I'm sort of wandering aimlessly about without a clue what to do next with my Bible! And I don't want to be in that position, so I'm thinking about the next step already (hoping for some advice!).

Well that is all for this week's update! I am on track and loving the challenge! I feel closer to God and uninterested in more "worldly" stuff at the moment, which is always a good place to be! :) Hope to be able to say the same thing next Monday! I hope anyone reading who is on the challenge has had a good week, and that God will reveal Himself to you through your reading over the next week too!

Bible in 90 Days - Monday Update (Day 18)

I'm almost 3 weeks into my challenge to read through the Bible in 90 days! This is my second regular Monday update, to link back to Amy's blog where she's hosting the challenge. What a week it has been since my last Monday update!

Last Monday when I updated here, I was a day behind, because I was preparing for Nathan's birthday on the Tuesday. By Wednesday (Day 13) I was getting so behind! I had caught up on Day 10's reading, but still had three days worth of reading to do, and one day usually takes me a good hour! Thankfully I had people praying for me to be able to catch up, and I was pretty determined not to fall badly behind, so I read the Bible for almost 5 hours on Wednesday evening from when the boys went to bed, until maybe midnight or later! And I caught up!!! I was sooooooo proud of myself! :)

Since then I have stayed right on track. I had trouble focusing on the words on Thursday evening and it basically took me most of the evening to read it. I was crazy tired for some reason, and my eyes kept closing and my head kept nodding every couple of LINES! I probably should have just gone to bed, even though it was early, but I was determined not to get behind again so soon. I got up and stretched and ate snacks every now and then, and was more able to focus for a while after those things, so I did finish it before bed. I think I was just worn out from a VERY late night the night before Nathan's birthday (it took me a long time to bake and decorate his birthday cake!) and then all that intensive reading the next night.

So now I have read through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and these past couple of days, Joshua. I am reading Judges right now and will finish that tomorrow. This past week has been mostly the "law" books and then the Israelites moving in to possess the Promised Land. I have found quite a bit of it hard to read, because of the bloodshed and the intensity of the wars and, well, massacres really. Also the details of the sacrifices and the consequences of the people's sin. It has been kind of gruelling! I also worried at first that I was going to be so "put off" by reading such things that I would maybe question God. A helpful Bible in 90 Days email (I get them daily) around that time said I should allow myself to be amazed instead of appauled, and I kept that in mind!

I did not need to worry though. The past 7 days has been incredible. I think I said it before, but I'll say it again (and probably again and again over the weeks!) - the PACE of the reading is the key to the whole thing. I feel like I'm absolutely IMMERSING myself in God's Word, not just getting drip fed with bits of reading here and there. I'm soaking myself in it. It all links up and runs together, and I have no trouble piecing together the history or the events. It's all one story, and it reads smoothly (so far), but I never got that from a more drawn-out reading in the past. I had to look up things to remind myself what this or that was in reference to from earlier history. I am absolutely LOVING this challenge! I am enjoying reading every single day, even with the bits that have been hard to read, and particularly loving the effect of the fast pace. The fast pace is hard work, and you have to sacrifice time. It's 100% doable for ANYONE who chooses to do it, but you can't do it without sacrificing something of your usual time. But - sooooo worth it folks. I really do urge you to give it a try the next time this challenge comes around. I think there's a summer one as well, from what the emails suggest. I am also noticing how important it is to do the challenge as part of a community, not just on your own with nobody to be accountable to.

All week I have been finding myself thinking of things that I want to blog about in this update, and trying to remember them. Next week I think I will try blogging bits as I go along in a draft post, and then edit it and finish it on the Monday and post it. That way I won't forget stuff! And there's so much stuff. As I get further into reading the Bible in this way, I am starting to be.... affected by it? That's the wrong description, but I can't think of the words I mean right now. I am really starting to feel that God is changing me on the inside as I read and learn of Him. I'm excited about it!

A couple of things I am particularly noticing over the last 7 or so days is a real awareness of God's holiness. Seriously. And ohhh how grateful I am for Jesus, reading over and over and over the requirements and intense pressure on the Israelites to atone for their sins with sacrifices, and allll these rules and regulations, so that they might present themselves holy before a holy God, who cannot tolerate sin in His presence. I would never keep up! I would be instantly burned to a crisp before Him if I had to do those things, because I am too wretchedly sinful pretty much on a daily basis. I can't wait to read the progression of this beautiful story into the life and death of Jesus and beyond. I can't imagine how moving it will be to read that as part of the intensity of this fast-paced reading, even though I already know the story well and have read it before. Because without Jesus, where would I be?! He became the ultimate sacrifice, dying one time for all sins for all people, so that all people could be acceptable before a holy God. By taking ALL my sins upon Himself, I am free from the burden of laws and atonements, and free to approach my very holy God with boldness, knowing I am able to stand in His presence without fear of death!

This week's reading has served as a stark reminder of WHY Jesus came, and the depth and impact of His sacrifice for us. And seeing the alternative, I'm soooo freshly thankful!

Another thing for me this week has been a new and healthy FEAR of God. Understanding His power and holiness, and what He is able to do for those who are faithful to Him, as well as to those who are NOT, has really caught my attention!

A couple of other things of note are the way I lately want to worship and praise God at random moments of the day, and this weekend when Neil took the boys to the park and I stayed with Benjamin to clean and tidy and play with my sweetie pie, I put a Chris Tomlin CD on for some "background music" and not 5 minutes later had abandoned the tidying for jumping around with my hands in the air singing my heart out to my God! There's a song on this CD called 'God of this City', and before now I have enjoyed the song and sung along, but this time one little line changed the whole thing into body-and-soul worship for me. Just one line - "There is no-one like our God..." And it really tied in to the reading I've been doing this past week, and transformed the meaning of the song for me. I've been reading about Israel's God from ancient times, detached from me and my life, and the modern day. But in Exodus, Moses said to Pharaoh, "It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the LORD our God." (Exodus 8:10), and that has been echoed throughout this week's reading too. And hearing a modern worship singer saying the same words - "There is no-one like our God..." - OUR God. Today! Mine! All of a sudden I saw afresh how Israel's God is MY God. The same today as yesterday, and all the yesterdays before that. This same God who parted the Red Sea and fulfilled His promises to His people, giving them the land as a possession all these centuries ago. That's MY God, the one I serve today. It was just an awesome realisation, even though it's not news as such - I already knew it, but I didn't really have my eyes open to how amazing it really is.

I have suddenly become really interested in Jewish history, and wish I had Jewish friends in real life so that I could ask them about their heritage. It would be amazing to follow that history right up to modern day!

When I was trying to catch up with the reading after Nathan's birthday, I started trying to squeeze in bits and pieces of reading any time I put Benjamin down for a nap during the day, because to settle him to sleep, I put him in his Amby hammock and rock it with one hand. I thought I could maybe read the Bible whilst rocking, since I am able to check my email on my laptop with the other hand so I should be able to read the Bible instead! ;) It worked so well that I have been doing that every time I settle him for naps. If he takes a while to settle, or takes more naps than usual on any particular day, I find that I can actually get quite a few chapters read like that! On Friday I actually read 10 chapters and only had like 4 left to read that evening, which was great! So I'm doing that every day and then reading whatever I haven't managed in the evening as usual. Another bonus of doing this is that I am literally dipping into God's Word all day long, and the evening too. It's ever so good for me, spiritually! I am really feeling the benefits.

I am usually rocking Benjamin to sleep around 1am after a change and feed, and I often am soooo tired at that time that it's the closest thing to feeling like a chore (without being one - I am still blissful!). I rock and try to do it for the least time I can get away with, and then feel frustrated that he stirs awake again and I need to start rocking again to re-settle him. Well the other night after I started rocking him in the dark at 1am-ish, I didn't even notice when I started to pray, but I did. I prayed so long and so fervently and with such enjoyment that I eventually came back to earth with a bump and realised that I'd been rocking a completely-asleep baby unnecessarily for 15 minutes, hehe! ;) So, I kind of look forward to praying at the 1am "rocking" now :)

God is definitely changing my heart. I am finding myself less and less able to tolerate certain things, like basically all TV (which I barely watch anyway), since there's very little TV without some sort of sex, violence, swearing or ungodly attitudes. I feel repulsed by such things lately. Neil watches aggressive and violent TV programmes pretty much exclusively every evening, and I can't STAND it. I was not happy about it before, but now I just can't bear it. I feel like it's poison. It's polluting him and polluting our home, and by extension it's polluting me and the boys too. I am committing myself to praying for God to change his heart daily (well, 1am-ly, (hehe!) since that's when I started praying about it), to cause him to find such viewing repulsive and just want to SWITCH IT OFF! Urgh! Horrible stuff on TV these days. I want to throw the whole thing away, but Neil is very attached to it!

Well this is a very long update! But I had soooo much to say this week, and it's all good! :) Oh, one more thing before I sign off - on Friday Benjamin was difficult to settle for naps and seemed more fussy than usual, and so while I rocked him in the Amby I tried singing to him quietly - lullabies and such. It helped for his first nap, but the second nap was taking a while to achieve and I wanted to read my Bible! So I opened it to where I had got to, and started to sing the words to lullaby tunes, hehe! That way I was reading it, and he was getting his soothing lullabies. Genius. Until my sweet baby boy heard this to the tune of Golden Slumbers:

"Iiif two men are fiiighting,
Aaand the wife of one of them
comes to res-cue her husbaa-aand
from his aaa-ssai-lant,

and she reaches ouu-uu-uut
and seizes him by his private parts,
you shall cu-uut off her-rr-rr hand.
Sho-ooww her no pii-ii-ty."

Ahhh, nighty-night... Sweet dreams darling! That verse is Deuteronomy 25:11-12. No, I did not need to look that up! I didn't even realise what I was singing until the words were out, and then I stopped and the words of the verse combined with the soothing tune sung in that setting tickled me for some reason and I laughed and laughed (disturbing the baby, but oh well!)! So, the verse is committed to memory! ;)

I will be back next Monday!! I'm so excited about this next week's reading! And totally determined to succeed at the challenge! :)