peelosophy

I’m blogging about my mornings this week because I want to be intentional and accountable about how I spend my time without kids.  To see how I came to be with out kids and how I desire to spend my time click here.

This morning I had time after I dropped the kids off to go home. I started my coffee maker and decided to “piddle” around the house until my lunch date at 11am.
Dictionary.com’s definition of “piddle” is this:
1. to spend time in a wasteful, trifling, or ineffective way; dawdle (often fol. by around): He wasted the day piddling around.
2. Informal. (esp. of children and pets) to urinate.
3. to waste (time, money, etc.); fail to utilize (usually fol. by away).

My friend Missy uses this term and I love it.  Although I think our meaning differs from the dictionary’s definition.  My definition is to “leisurely get things done around the house”.  There is no agenda for what I get done, if I get distracted – no big deal and it’s done  at an enjoyable pace.

Well, I piddled for only about a minute and  sat down on the couch to read a devotion and dozed on an off for an hour.  I was somewhere between not fully asleep and not wanting to move because I was so comfortable.  It was great.

I got up in time to meet one of my best friends from high school, Lvav, at lunch at St.Louis Bread Company.  We only get together once every 3 months or so and the time is always too short but sweet.  I got the new Chopped Cobb Salad and an Iced Tea.  I wouldn’t get it again, it wasn’t a traditional Cobb salad, there was no egg or avocado – the best part.

Am I sad my week of free mornings is gone?  Not so much.  I’m ready to get back into our routine.  Like I said yesterday, I am very challenged at getting everyone out the door at 8am.  It makes me cranky.  God help us when the boys are all grade schoolers.

I am:

eating…Mike and Ikes; they are part of Henry’s potty training bribes and so good!

relieved...to have this upholstory project off my hands and into the pleased hands of the owner

listening…to JJ finshing up his Lego Star Wars game & Henry and Freddie  punching each other with Incredible Hulk gloves

looking forward to…going to bed early tonight with nothing I “have to” do

plotting...our trip to Branson next week – SO excited!

praying…for my sweet friend who had a miscarriage this week

hoping…that strong elves will magically appear in the middle of the night and move the 12 cubic feet of pea gravel from our driveway to under the playground

My husband John is the most amazing man I know.  He’s 32 today, always a year younger than me, and I wanted to celebrate him in this post by listing 32 things that I adore about him.

1:  He is SO thoughtful.  I really fall short in the thoughtfulness department, especially in our marriage.  If he is getting “a treat” at the store, he always picks up my favorite too.

2:  He is very generous with his time.

3:  He has a great sense of style.  I know this sounds crazy, but ask him his opinion, you’ll see.

4:  If he knows I’m interested in something, he’ll be interested in it too.  For example, I went to a purse party and asked him to look on the company’s website before I left to see what he thought of the bags.  He looked and pointed out a few, but we couldn’t pick one I loved.   At the party, I was undecided.  And without me calling him first, he texted me, “Check out the Charlotte (the style), it’ll be perfect.”  he was still looking for me even after I went to the party.  What guy does that?!?!

5:  He has amazing taste in women.

6:  He knows how to fix stuff.  From water heaters to Transformers to cars to gadgets.  And if he doesn’t know how to fix it right away, he’ll learn how or point you in the right direction.

7:  He understands and appreciates the fine art of teasing.  This is a big deal to me. I can’t really explain it.  But I like to be able to laugh at myself, and teasing allows us to not take ourselves so seriously.

8: He goes clothes shopping with me.  He brings me different sizes and some that “you should just try”.  He shows me the freedom of looking beyond the sale racks.

9: He is a good friend.  If a friend is in need, he does whatever he can to help out.

10: He rubs my feet whenever I ask.

11:  Every night when John comes home, the boys run to the door when they see his car and try to lock him out of the house.  They will be pushing with all their might from the inside, in turn, he will be pushing with “all of his might” from the outside.  All the while saying “Oh no! I can’t get into the house, how will I ever get into the house?” He eventually get in and they all hug and love on each other. This happens every night.  The boys think it is a riot and I am giggling just thinking about it.

12: He takes my ideas seriously.

13: He takes me seriously.  When I was suffering from chronic nightmares about zombies (i love zombie movies), he made the nightmares go away.  He came up with a plan.  He told me, when the zombies came, and he was still at work (which always happened), I would take the boys and the animals and drive to our friend JP’s house in Sullivan, MO.  John would meet us there.  He reassured me how perfect this plan was because, Sullivan was in the country and zombies migrate towards the city to feed.  JP has lots of guns and we would be safe.  And that was all it took, no more bad zombie dreams.

14:  He lets me know when I am being too serious.

15:  He knows my limits and picks up up the slack, most of the time without me asking.

16:  He exercises humility regularly.  When he is wrong, or if he is unsure he’ll admit it.

19:  He’s practical.

20:  He is a patient teacher.  He has taught me how to do a lot and is very patient when I don’t catch on right away(which is always). He is also like this with the boys- they are going to learn a ton from their Daddy.

21:  He’ll watch chick flicks with me.

22:  He gives great advice.

23:  He tells me when I am being crazy, in a nice way.

24:  He loves his mom and his sisters very well.

25:  He has alot of forethought.  He’ll be going to Walmart for something for him, and without me prompting, bring home some new socks for the boys because he noticed them getting holey.

26:  Henry said, “I like it when Daddy wrestles with me.”

27:  He is a great kisser.

28:  JJ said” That he plays Lego Star Wars with me and he lets me buy guys.”

29:  He knows so much stuff.  This can drive me crazy, but sometime it comes in handy.

30: He makes sure I have time for myself and time with my friends.

31: He makes me laugh like no one else does.

32: He loves me unconditionally and very well.

Kara is the little girl I have babysat twice a week for over four years.  I have cycled several kids in and out of babysitting, but Kara (and her brother Jacob) have been the ones that have gelled the best with our family.  The dynamics just work for us on Mondays and Wednesdays.  I do love the time I get to spend with her, the house gets an extra shot of estrogen twice a week – it’s great.

My friend Dana, Kara’s mom, sent me this email a couple of days ago and I thought it was the sweetest thing ever.  Here’s what it said:

I had to email you before I forgot this.  Yesterday when Jacob was napping,
I heard the sweetest thing come out of my daughter’s mouth.  She was
playing hard core with her barbies, and all of a sudden went into prayer.
It went something like this.  “Dear God.  I really want you to give Ms Jill
a baby girl.  She really really needs one.  Thanks.”

Adorable.  She might just know what’s best for me or maybe she thinks that they’ll be Barbies at my house if I have a girl.  If Kara can promise that the baby girl will come out with her sweet personality and excitement about everything under the sun – I’ll take her.

F.Y.I. I won’t know till July….

We get so much of “all your boys look so much alike” – I never see it.

I have never had their pictures taken professionally.  The main reasons are because I don’t  want to go to Sears or the like, the photographers that I would want to take their pictures are more than I want to spend – especially because I would want them photographed once a year at least.  So I’m not doing it for now, but we do take a ton of pictures at home, and those are the ones that I love from my albums growing up – just the simple snapshots.

One of the consistent pictures I have taken off all of them is each in the duck robe at 3 months old.  Can you guess who’s who…scroll over the picture with your mouse to get the answer.

I’ve tried  journaling before and it just doesn’t work for me.  Maybe it’s perfectionism, maybe it’s the fact that when you write something down somehow it’s more permanent or maybe it’s that I don’t feel the need to look back on my past.  Another thing,  is the idea of a journal to me is a commitment that I may not keep be able to keep up with on a regular basis.  So my solution no journal =  no guilt.  I known I’m warped.

On the other other hand, I am “in my head” a lot and like to chew on ideas but I have a bad memory – so I need to write things down.  Long story short, this is where my little books come in.  I was originally given one of these books from one of my long-time mentors, Sue, her idea was to use it as a prayer journal b/c it’s small enough to keep with you and you can pull it out whenever.  I did use it for this purpose in the beginning, but then it evolved into hold scripture, quotes, ideas, reflection questions – basically anything I wanted to remember and take more time to digest.

Read more…

This week was tiring and amazing.  I don’t even know if I can explain it.  But I’ll try.

It started because I had the opportunity to help my friend Rachael out with her kids a couple days last week.  Her kids are so great – and I’m not just saying that because I know she is going to read this- they really are!  You can read her blog here.  So I had a few extra kiddos in addition to my own and my regular kids that I watch normally.  I was within my comfort zone (which basically means kids vs. me ratio) and knowing it was only a couple days-  I felt fine about committing to it.  But, I also knew it was going to be harder than my normal days, so I went into it mentally prepared.

It turned out to be awesome!  I couldn’t believe how well all the kids got along and how our day just fell into this laid back rhythm.  I was tired at the end of each day and by Thursday night I was wiped – with no Kids Day Out to look forward to on Friday morning.

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I didn’t realize till Friday that John had arranged with his mom, Peggy, to watch the boys overnight on Saturday.  We talked about it, but I never knew it went through.  Great surprise for me. We are really blessed to have such great parents that happily watch our kids for us when the need arises.

To preface, we were really in need of a date night.  The last 3 weeks with John’s job has been a bit out of control.  He’s worked a lot of overtime with a couple of overnights at the office.  It’s been really hard on him and for us back here at the ranch.  But let me tell you – I am SO thankful he has a job, that was basically my mantra through the last month.

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My sweet first born is 5 today (yesterday really I posted late).  I’m definitely more sentimental then I was expecting.  I guess just with kindergarten right around the corner, I’m realizing how big he really is now.  It kind of crept up on me.

JJ has turned into this amazing little man.  He is very smart, sensitive and has the greatest smile ever.  (thanks to his dad and his Aunt Katie – they have the same one)  He is totally goofy but also shares with me some very contemplative thoughts.  I find myself wanting to know what he is going to say next.  I love his expressions.  He is sweet on his brothers and just a good big brother.

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There is nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby or a little guy.  I’m not a scrap-booker (just the word makes me cringe) but I would love to make a coffee table book of my boys sleeping.  Maybe like a book from iPhoto or Blurb.  I think in ten years,  when I am waiting for them to come home at 1am or when they tell me to bug-off( or probably worse), it will be nice to look back on my little sleeping boys book.

When they are all asleep, I go and tuck them in for the night.  It’s one of my most favorite times of the day – I love the sound of all their different sleep breathing going on simultaneously.  Sometimes,  it’s pretty humorous to see how they ended up going to sleep.  Sometimes, JJ and Henry end up together, a couple times I have found Henry completely naked asleep or half on the bed.  So here’s a preview of some of my favorite sleeping boys pictures….

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