Summer update with pictures

If I had to give this summer a title, I would call it "The Summer of Change". Things have been painted, renovated, moved, and changed all around the Kendrick household. I have loved getting things crossed off my to-do list before we head back to our full school schedule. Here are some pictures to enjoy from our summer of change.

 We took out our old and broken swing set from the back yard and bought a used trampoline which has been a big hit for all 4 of the kiddos.

 We took a field trip to the Niabi Zoo. Here we are enjoying a train ride.

 We are hand feeding birds at the zoo.

 Shayna smashed her pinkie. Thankfully it was not broken, but the smash took a month to completely heal!

 We took a trip to Wisconsin to visit friends and family. Here Isabella and Micayla are enjoying the water park at our hotel.

 We had such a good time with our cousins, a definite highlight to our summer!

 We tore down our old rotten shed and put up a nice new one that holds all our toys and isn't falling into our neighbors fence anymore.

 We changed to color of our living room. We went from a gold to a beautiful blue. The kids tried their hand at being my painting assistant and where very surprised at how hard it was :)

 We had quite the hot weather stretch so we pulled out the slip and slide that even Isabella enjoyed.

 Liberty found a new friend. What summer is complete without finding a caterpillar?

 Levi is loving the cherries, can you tell? They have been SO yummy!!

 Our big project was painting our house. Our old paint had been peeling off in huge pieces, so we are so excited to have a house we can be proud of again.

Isabella is a big fan of corn on the cob. Of course being from Iowa, what do you expect?

We pray that you all had a fun summer too. We will soon be making our transition into our full time school schedule which will be an adventure with a 5th grader, 4th grader, and 1st grader (with a soon to be 2 year old in the mix)! But I wouldn't have it any other way! 

God's blessings on you and yours!!

Encouragement- pass it on!

Have any of you seen the commercial that has a little boy playing chopsticks in a big auditorium in front of an audience that is waiting for a famous pianist to take the stage? Well, it ends with the famous pianist coming up behind the boy, whispering "keep playing", and joining the boy in a magnificent duet of chopsticks. The words flash up on the screen, encouragement- pass it on!! I love that message.

I have really been focusing on that with my kiddos. Too often negativity and judgement can come out of our mouths, but who does that benefit? I've heard the phrase "praise your children 10 times more than you correct" and I'd like my children to also praise each other 10 times more than they fight or argue. (ambitious goal, I know!) But isn't that what we all need more of? The world can seem overrun with bad news, judgements, and condemnation, but as Christians we are to be children of light! Never underestimate the power of what encouragement can do when you sow it into someone's life. It may turn out to be just the word they needed to find the strength to finish their day! Let me give you an example from my own life.

As a stay-at-home/homeschooling mom it is very easy for me to feel societal pressure and judgement for how my husband and I have chosen to raise our four children. Many people are very opinionated about this topic and everyone is free to have their own opinion. Just as I am free to raise my children the way God has called me to.

After a recent, unfriendly run in with our neighbor I began to feel that my family was being judged and I was feeling that my children were unwelcome. I know that my children are not perfect, they are after all still children. We work daily with our children on their character and on making good choices. But yes, there will be toys left outside. And yes, they will yell and run while playing outside. And yes, they will forget things they've been told because they are children.

So a day after this negative filled experience I was dropping my children of at Vacation Bible School. The director caught me on my way out and shared that her daughter, who is helping teach at VBS was telling about these children who were so polite and attentive and worked hard to memorize their verses. And can you guess what was the last name of those children? Since it's my story, obviously it was the Kendrick children! I almost started crying because that 2 minute story and praise of my children affirmed all our hard work and choices and wiped away all the judgement I felt on the previous day. She took two minutes to sow some encouragement into my life and my whole outlook on the reality of my family was lifted.

So allow me to sow some encouragement into your life right now. You are a beloved child of God, a unique and special person. There is no one else on this whole earth like you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made by the creator on the universe and He thinks you are pretty special. His love for you is never ending. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you anymore, and nothing you can do to make Him love you any less! He loves you!!

 Miss Isabella Blessing trying her hand at being a cowgirl.

 Home school adventures! We built a vinegar/baking soda volcano because we were studying about Mars which we learned has the biggest volcano in the galaxy. We had such a good time!

 We couldn't decide what color the lava would be on Mars, so we tried them all.

 Levi holding a snake at Agriculture Days at the Linn County Fair. May 2011 The snake quickly squirmed it's way up Levi's body and surprised him, thus the look on his face!

 We also got to pet a baby alligator. We were all surprised by what the skin felt like. It was like touching a rock. So neat!

 Liberty holding a baby chick.

Shayna learning to ride her bike without training wheels. She did so good. Hardly needed any help. She just took off and started riding down the sidewalk!

Walking the Line

As my children get older and begin to discover their own unique identity and personality I find that I am constantly "walking the line." I truly and deeply desire for each of my children to become the individual that God has called them to be, but I am discovering the challenges of seeing this practically play out in day to day life. My personality is I LOVE to be organized, have everything always clean and straightened, and you can never plan too far ahead. Since becoming a mother and especially after homeschooling I have learned to be okay with clutter and milk spilled on the just cleaned floor (to a point). I try to embrace spontaneity and remind myself of the blessing my children are. I want to enjoy them now while they are this age, because this season will all too quickly be behind me.

I recently had a "conversation" with one of the kids about an issue. I was interpreting their behavior has disrespectful and sassy, when it was actually an attempt to be funny. Humor is definitely this child's calling and I feel the Lord has created them for joy. Well, during this "conversation" their spirit was crushed and they didn't want to be funny anymore, and I realized I blew it! I had steam-rolled this child's individuality and God-given calling.(not that their didn't need to be some direction given about appropriate humor)  I am walking a line, on one side of this line is the freedom to be, and on the other side is the responsibility to guide and correct. I feel like I error most on the side of correcting too much and I am focusing more on giving my children the freedom to explore and discover who they are, with encouragement and guidance.

So Jesus, please help me to walk this line with grace. Let me see my children through Your eyes.

Light Bulb Moment

Okay, so here comes some brutal honesty....I still have so much to learn in the mothering department. Hard to believe? No. Am I the only one? I'd venture to guess, no. Was this news to me? Sadly, yes. I've been at this full-time for over 10 years now and you'd think that I'd at least have the basics. But my eyes were opened to a basic fact I was missing. Brace yourself, here it is: You can't expect children to know something you haven't taught them yet.

I've been smacked in the face with this realty lately as I've been dealing with some attitude and character issues with our oldest. I would find myself saying things like "How many times do we have to have this conversation about ________?" Then it hit me, having "conversations" was not teaching or training. How can I expect my children to "behave" when I haven't done any training to equip them to do so? So now I have begun to understand that the most important thing I can teach my children is to have Godly character and to be confident in who they are, not how to read or do their math facts. But then that leaves me with the huge question of what do I do with that realization and make it practically happen. It has now become my "obsession", in a good way of course. I will not fail in equipping my children in this most important of skills.

The last new light bulb moment for me was a saying I have recently re-heard and have begun to focus on. Praise your children 10 more times than you correct them. I want to smother my children with praise so they become so confident in who they are, and like who they are, and never have any doubt as to what my feelings are towards them. I am reminded of the verse "Let Your praises always be on my lips" (Psalms 34:1) and I think this can hold true for my children. Let me be quick to praise so as to protect and nourish their spirits and slow to criticize.

The beauty of simplicity!

So we are having an absolutely outstanding week in the weather department here in Iowa. It is the middle of March and we have been enjoying gorgeous 50 degree days. All this warm weather has inspired the family to be outside which is fine with me. We are able to rearrange our schedule, so yesterday the kids and I went for a walk to the park during our regular school time knowing that we could get our work done in the afternoon instead. What a wonderful outing. The fun began as soon as the kids picked up on the fact that something different was happening Their little faces lit up with expectation as soon as they felt the buzz in the air. We were going on an adventure!

On our way there we had wonderful conversations about the world around us and even met an older gentleman walking a dog. (something about that combination always leads to at least a 10 minute delay in our arrival, but that's ok) It was so nice and relaxing.

We finally arrived at the park and the air was immediately filled with sounds of delight. The park was filled with potential and possibilities just waiting to be discovered. For me, the park was a much needed sanctuary of peace and joy. It was my "therapy". But the park was only a piece of the puzzle, the other important factor was the pure delight in eyes of every one of my 4 children that day. On a day with much global tension, stress, and tragedy we chose to set our eyes on other things. We chose to find beauty in a simple thing of being together on a beautiful day.

Not to get overly spiritual, but the event of that day reminds me of what our spiritual posture should be. We can choose to keep our eyes fixed on God, no matter what. This will then allow us to find peace and joy in the midst of troubling times. He becomes our foundation, what can shake us?

Emergency Room Visit

Whoever thinks that mommyhood is boring and mundane needs to come spend a week in my shoes. Last night our family ended up taking our 3rd child to the emergency room for the second time in her short 6 years. The first time was to get stitches on her face after she ungracefully descended the top bunk as a spunky 2 year old.   Well last night my oldest thought it was a good idea to do a hand stand and have little sister catch her feet. Now I know that many things do not enter into the thoughts of a child, but for some reason I thought a 10 year old would recognize this as not a quality decision. Even in a perfect world the ten year old out weighs the six year old at least 2 to 1, so how can this idea ever turn out okay?

Well this ill conceived idea turned into a major collision with big sister knocking little sister to the hard floor and landing on top of her where she slammed her head. After the tears stopped Lyle was talking with her and realized that she was having trouble seeing. He brought her over to me and as I was standing right next to him talking to her, her eyes were searching all over and she couldn't find me! Mommy entered into "extreme- problematic-situation" mode and I got on the phone to call our doctor and we shortly headed to the ER. On our short commute to the hospital she threw up, another symptom of a very bad thing. Lyle and I started activating the prayer warriors in our life and gave them a call to action- Please pray for Shayna, that there would be complete healing and NO DAMAGE!

As we checked in at the ER she still seemed to be having a little trouble seeing, but if I got close enough to her, she could see me. We were quickly seen by a nurse and then taken back to wait for the doctor. By the time the doctor came in and checked her vision she was seeing fine, even from across the room- Thank you JESUS! She had a cat scan done to check for any cracking of the skull or bleeding. She was very brave during the scan. On the wheelchair ride back to the room she threw up again. They gave her medication to help with the nausea, but it didn't seem to help. While we waited for the results we kept our prayer warriors and family updated and our other three children were as good as gold, even though it was an hour past their bed time.

After about half an hour the nurse came in with the discharge papers! The scan showed no bleeding and no fracture, there was NO DAMAGE! They were not happy that she was still throwing up, but as long as it didn't get worse and no other symptoms showed up we were free to go. With a new found thankfulness and an overwhelming consciousness of the Goodness of God I bundled my family up to take us all home to sleep in our own beds.

Shayna slept on the floor of our room. She woke up three times sick to her stomach, but was able to go right back to sleep. Then at 7:30 this morning she woke up happy and perky. (normal waking time is 8:30 and usually later when we get to bed late) So I helped her to the bathroom and encouraged her to go back to sleep. Well she never did, and even said she was done sleeping and ready for breakfast! When I asked her if her head hurt, she said no. She's had oatmeal for breakfast and is feeling great! So after the whole ordeal yesterday she doesn't even have a headache! God is so good! And I stand amazed that when my mommy skills can't fix a problem, He is so faithful to take care of me. I just want to publicly say thank you to all the prayer warriors who faithfully lifted up my darling daughter to the Heavenly Healer, and to Jesus who paid the price for us to have complete healing- THANK YOU, it sounds so inadequate, but THANK YOU!

The importance of a love for learning.

During today's home school time I was struck again by just how different each of my children are. And nothing shows these differences more than how they learn, or more accurately how they feel about learning. My six year old started kindergarten this past fall and before I started I was a little concerned about how I would have the time to teach 3 children. But with about 5 months under my belt I have decided that it was the best thing for me! She has such a love for learning, she just devours her workbooks! She is even asking to do school on the weekends and never gives me any sass when I say it is time to do school, and is sad when her school is over.  It has been such a breath of fresh air! Now I suppose after watching big brother and sister do school for a few years made her chomp at the bit for her turn, but I believe there is more to it than that. She seems to be wired with a love for learning!

Now I am seeing how a love for learning can affect a persons approach to learning new things as my oldest seems to be struggling with a perfection complex. When approaching a new concept she is obsessed with getting it right rather than enjoying the process of discovering something new. I've lost track of the times I had to say "it's okay to get it wrong, that's why we are doing school, so we can learn!" But as the tears stream down her face, she looks at me as if I've lost my mind. I don't know where this has come from as she been home schooled her whole life and has never even taken a formal test or received a "grade". But I am starting to think it may be how she is naturally wired and I need to bring the joy of learning back into the process.

In my simple observation I have come away with a lesson I hope to apply, but it may be easier said than done. Approach new things with joy and enjoy the experience instead of being obsessed with the outcome. Being miserable about having to learn something new causes us to miss the amazing discoveries found in "the unknown".

New Year New Season!

2011, really? Already? I know I heard "old people" say "the older you get the faster time flies". But when you are 5 how do you put that in perspective? Well I definitely have some perspective now. There is nothing like watching your children grow to act as a very affective road marker to the passage of time. But while it saddens me on many levels, it is also my greatest joy! I love to observe lessons learned, the good decisions made, and the personality emerge. So with this new year and new season comes a new venture for me, with the main motivation being to preserve these memories and remember the lessons that I learn through my journey of motherhood. These are precious days, but also busy days! I desire to be intentional in remembering them, and if anyone is blessed along the way- bonus! But let me be the first to warn you, as the name explains these will be random. As I learn them, I'll pass them along. Many of the thoughts expressed will be from MommyLand, where I reside 24/7. (They say to write what you know) So with a multitude of good intentions I say..let the journey begin!