And then there were seven

Let me start by saying WE'RE PREGNANT!  Haha!!!  Another Sutton will be making its way into the world in nine-ish months. 

Were we surprised?  Relatively.  I guess as much as you were, maybe a little less. 

Did we plan to have another baby?  Moreso than any other child, surprisingly. 

Are we going to keep having babies until we're unable to have anymore?  It's difficult to say.  My life is not my own.

We've talked about letting go of the controls in this area of our lives and frankly, its what we should have done from the beginning.  This is a walk of faith.  If we really believe that children are a blessing, a gift, a reward... well that's all I'm saying.  How real is this faith?  There are a million practical reasons not to have more children.  I thought of them all before anyone brought them to my attention.  But I believe the Bible is the standard, the manual, the actual Word of God.  It is the very rock that I want to be established on.  And it says to have children, that children are a gift from the Lord, they they are a heritage, they are like arrows in the hands of a warrior.  How can I not accept this blessing?  And besides, where does it say, "Be practical about chosing when and how many children to have."  It's God who does the chosing.

I don't know why He chose us to impart this abundance to.  It's humbling, especially in moments of weakness when I am at the end of my well of virtues and find myself screaming at some poor child in my home who is certainly undeserving of such a response. 

Pregnancy turns my internal thermostat to "moderately hostile" from morning to night.  As hard as I fight it, there is nothing good in me and the ugly continues to roar in the face of my family members.  So rather than blow every five minutes, please pray for me to be quiet.  Even if rage burns, I want to keep it locked behind my lips.  It's a new resolve. 

So there you have it.  Celebrate with us.  New life is coming!

The beat goes on

When we first moved in, I was on a roll.  I was getting up early to pray and read the Word, the house was clean, the laundry was caught up, I had it all together, except for the cooking part.  That is still a work in progress.  But lately, ugh.  I'm tired.  I'm lazy.  I'm in a slump.  I just want to sit around.  It's really a blessing that we don't have cable because this is the time when I would willingly subject myself to hours of the cooking channel with reckless abandon. 

Fortunately for my family, we don't have cable.  Instead I find myself staring at the wall.  I am starting to lose ground with the house, but I am at least trying to plan my meals ahead a day at a time.  Tonight, fortunately, we have the church pot luck and I can get by with a broccoli salad, a pan of baked beans, and a loaf of bread.  Someone will inevidibly bring hot dogs for the kids and there will be a nice colorful salad, if nothing else, for the grown ups.

I'm just tired.  And now my house is filled with noise again and I am starting to lose my mind when there are more than three people screaming at the same time.  Sometimes it's all I can do to manage this cup and little spoon.

Such is life.

Hi!

Oh, yeah!!!  Suprise, surprise!!!  I AM BACK!  Today I want to write about blogs.  There are so many of them.  I mean, anything I want to learn about from real people, there are literally enough blogs about that thing that I can catalogue a whole list of them- just ones I really love!  Seriously- in my favorites I have homeschooling, cooking, couponing, design inspiration, current events.... it could go on and on.  Depending on my mood, I can open the folder and learn all kinds of things about those very things.

Here's the thing about bloggers.  They have some sort of mastery.  They are good at one of those things on the list.  Get it?  I read them and want to master these things, but there's no way to master the whole list, so I read it and get inspired, and then I read some more and I start to feel inadequate. 

I always wondered what my life would be like if I didn't probe into other people's lives and try to compare myself and then try to morph into that mold.

I've been piddling away the day.  Our summer vacation started at my mom's where we celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday, which was super-duper loads of fun.  Then we came back, three kids short, and spent three days with Dale, who had a super-duper three day weekend after our weekend.  Which gave me a six-day weekend with three less kids.  The house was already clean and there's barely any laundry, so since he's gone and there's not much to do, I'm piddling away my days.  And then I got on this website  http://megduerksen.typepad.com/whatever/ and started reading and it made me want to do more with my kids this summer- to be intentional.  I spend so much of my time trying to make MY life more simple but my kids are off doing their own thing and the day's gone. 


There has to be more that I can do to make this a great summer for my crew.  She has a to-do list on her wall for the summer.  That's what I think we'll do.  We'll make a checklist and then at the end of the summer, we can look back at the list and talk about how great it was.