Breastfeeding

It has taken 5 children to finally have a wonderful nursing experience from the very beginning. Without fail every time I had a baby, the first two weeks of nursing was VERY painful no matter what I did. With my first child, nursing was difficult until he was 2 months and then periodically throughout the entire year. This time, however, it was different. I had heard from someone to use Lansinoh everytime before nursing to prevent drying, cracking, and bleeding. It worked!!!! Now I only use it once a day. I am loving nursing this time around!

Hospitality

I mentioned that I would write a post about hospitality and here it is. Alexander Strauch wrote an excellant book on hospitality entitled, The Hospitality Commands. I highly recommend it! In it he speaks about how that hospitality is missing from our culture and how that the church is a family and as a family we are showing love for one another when we practice hospitality. In addition by practicing hospitality we can use these times to further the message of the gospel and to encourage pastors in their ministry. He explains six commands given in scripture to practice hospitality and he also gives some helpful hints in practicing hospitality.

Many of you may be saying, "I am too busy to practice hospitality". I say to that just give it a try and see how the Lord blesses you. Pray for more time. Keep it simple. If you plan on having someone over you don't have to serve an elegant meal. The most simple meals are usually the best anyway. Then this allows you the time to relax and enjoy one anothers company. As you continue to have people over you slowly get to know one another and then you know how to pray for them.

Be Patient With Me Please

I have somemore blogs to post but just have not had the time to post them. Just 3 weeks ago I gave birth to our little Emily and since then life has remained busy. Last week we had company on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and then we traveled to a friend's home so that Don could preach for him and we stayed with some friends. We then drove home on Monday and began our homeschool year yesterday. Don is now gone this morning to a pastor's fellowship 2 hours away. I am by no means complaining. In fact, I have LOVED every moment of the time we have spent in fellowship with other believers! My post that I am wanting to write about is about hospitality. When I have a free moment I will post it.

Family Worship

One of the things that we have found helpful as a family is to have a regular time of family worship in which we spend time reading the Bible, praying, singing a hymn, memorizing catechism, and memorizing Bible verses.

Our children are 8, 5, 4, 20 months, and 12 days. The Bible that we read from is Catherine Vos's Story Bible and it is the most complete children's story Bible that we have ever read. For Bible memory and catechism we use Truth and Grace memory books published by Founders Press. It is designed for age 2 through 12th grade. These booklets are amazing! They have a format all set up for you with age appropriate verse memory, catechism, and hymns. As for the hymns, we use the Celebration Hymnal (since it is the hymn book used by our church). We memorize the hymns (not the choruses). We focus on singing one hymn a week.

On a later post I will also share some doctrine books that have been helpful to us that we have read to our children on Sundays.

Loving baby sister

The Importance of a Routine

If I have learned anything in life it is the importance of having a routine. Without a routine chaos reigns in the family. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way but also through examples of seeing peaceful homes with established routines. In fact, a dear friend of mine who has 11 children has taught me much about routine and having a peaceful home. I am very grateful for our friendship!
When I say routine it does not mean that one routine fits everyone. Many times it is a matter of trial and error. You must keep trying until you find a routine that fits your lifestyle and your family. Every family is different. Also for the different seasons of life your routine will change. Since the birth of Emily, we have had to change our routine. Our plan now is to work together when we get up out of bed and clean the upstairs before we eat breakfast or have family worship. Then after dinner, we work together and clean the downstairs before we have family worship. Another thing that we do is to keep all the toys upstairs and have a school room upstairs. Now when someone comes over our house is clean!
Laundry is a whole other topic that I will spend more time discussing in the future. But for now, I wash an average of about 3 loads a day and have a table set up in my kitchen where I fold the clothes and the kids help to put away their own clothes.
The biggest thing that I would say is to have the kids help early! If you teach them early in life then latter in life they will be able to do these things on their own and teach their own children. You also learn patience in teaching them. It takes a lot of training and a lot of patience but any mom will tell you that it is well worth the effort!

tips I have learned on my journey in motherhood

Over the next few days I will be posting some helpful tips that I have learned either from others or the hard way by trial and error on my journey in motherhood.

First and foremost I have learned to follow the advice given in scripture that says the husband is to be the head of the house. When I try to lead our family it does not always work out. God has blessed me with a husband who leads and I just need to trust him enough to follow him everytime. This does not mean that I have no imput and can say nothing when I question his leadership abilities. In fact, we do discuss decisions often. He may not always no how to lead in certain situations and that is okay. We spend much time in prayer. Our heavenly Father knows what is right for us. What is right for me is to trust that God knew what He was doing when He placed Don into my life and to trust His command for the husband to be the leader in the family and to joyfully submit to his leadership. When I do this I know that I am in the will of God. It is all a matter of trust. Will you trust that the Lord knows what He is doing?

latest family pictures

Emily Lynn Speedy made her presence into this world on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 10:31 a.m.. She weighed 7lb. 7 oz. and was 20 and 3/4 in. long. On Thursday, September 4th we went home and was happily greeted by 3 brothers (Matthew, Joshua, and Aaron) and 1 sister (Kara). Her presence into our home has not brought sibling rilvary but LOVE and LOTS of it! The kids can not seem to give her enough kisses, especially Aaron (who is 20 months).

Welcome

The purpose of this blog is to share helpful insights from my journey in motherhood. It has truly been a journey. Motherhood is not always easy. When I first became a mom I did not know how to do it and was not always content with life. I thought that I would find contentment in being at a friend's house and not my own. Over the years the Lord has so graciously taught me that true contentment is found in Him alone. I also can gratefully say that the Lord has taught me to be content with my own family at my own house. I now LOVE staying at home and being a wife and a mother of 5 blessings. It took the Lord moving me to the "wilderness" where there are no other homeschoolers and where we truly have no friends to teach me to depend upon him and to develop a deep and meaningful relationship with my husband and children. I hope that I can be an encouragement to someone else out there who is also on the journey of motherhood.