Come peek into my window and see some scenes from my house: here are some blips from the last couple of days.
Mommy Octopus: 2 tentacles-washing dishes; 2 tentacles-dressing babies; 2 tentacles-straightening floor; 2 tentacles-giving a spelling test and a math drill. You know what? Tentacles sounds ominous...I shall change it to "arms". Mommy "arms" sounds much more loving than Mommy "tentacles", lol! But, seriously, I wonder why octupi were bestowed with 8 arms and not Mommies. Look at that, I made a dangling modifier...it looks like I said, Why were octupi given 8 arms and not 8 mommies? :D But you know what I meant to say.

 I did not realize until I went how much I needed a Ladies Night Out! Dinner, then Bible study, then coffeetime after...I came home feeling refreshed! Thank you, Lord, for Christian ladies-friends!-to fellowship with!
  
Being home with my children is a privilege I don't take lightly. On a lighter note, however, :) when I was leaving Tim Hortons at 11:00 last night, I was thinking with relief that I had the option of sleeping in this morning. One lady had babysitting kids arriving early. Two others had to be up bright and early for work (I do NOT miss those days!). I was relieved that I didn't have to be up for anything

 this morning or go anywhere today. Fast-forward to 2 a.m.: two little girls who think it is morning, wide awake for 30 minutes. Fast-forward again to 6:40 a.m.: two little girls who realize it IS morning, hooray for them! Breakfast time! Playtime! Um, girls? There is this little thing called SLEEP that Mommy is not quite ready to relinquish.....snore...

 

 Baby Jane's all snuggled up in her beddie-bye. Big boy James who voluntarily did six whole pages of preschool worksheets is all tuckered out on his big orange pillow on the couch covered up with my coat. Gabriel is impressively coloring a frameable picture of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Gracie is coloring Hello Kitty at her little table with the new colored pencils. My house is clean and quiet

. The teakettle is on. Dinner is in the oven. There's a clean, fresh snow blanketing the world. And Beethoven is creating a calm, mellow atmosphere. Just right for storytime, which is the next thing in my plans. So, to take my cup of tea and settle in my rocking chair for a good hour of reading the mystery Gabriel and I are making our way through.

 

 Brrrr! Boy am I glad Richard told us to stay home tonight! He said I shouldn't be bringing the kids out in this cold. I hadn't stepped foot outside this evening until a few minutes ago when the cooped up kids were begging to go outside. Against my first(and better) judgment, I agreed for only long enough to take a tiny walk 1/2 block to check our mailbox. Seriously, only about six houses long. By

the time we got to the mailbox, I realized it is frostbite freezing out there! Painfully cold. The trip back up our alley was miserable and the kids are now in a warm bath. I thought I had them bundled up well enough, but that air gets in all the nooks and crannies....it's freezing out there! They asked to go out, but they were all crying by the time we got back home. You'd have thought we were at the north pole the way they carried on. But with good reason. Definitely a wise choice to stay indoors with little ones this evening. Thank you, Richard!

 

And, last but most definitely not least....

With four children, it is sometimes a balancing act to find individual time with each one. Sometimes, a moment is handed to you and you grasp it by its fleeting tail. Such as this morning, when the older three chose to go upstairs and watch cartoons. Which left Baby Jane happily downstairs with Mama all to herself. It blessed my heart when she grabbed my little white Bible and said, "Bible?" I asked her, "Do you want me to read it to you?" She nodded happily. We climbed onto the couch and with a great show of an exciting discovery I pointed out "her" verses....little repetitive snatches that I am trying to imprint on her heart: "Be ye kind one to another" "Walk in love" "Be ye thankful" and "Children, obey your parents" I talked to her for her two minute attention span, then prayed a tiny prayer with her. Then, while I finished my own devotions, she occupied herself quietly on the floor by pulling the papers off all her crayons. She was happy, I was happy. :)