THE G8 EIGHT!

Dec 6th: Aidan's 8th birthday! Oh how I love this child. By nothing short of a miracle Aidan's shaping up to be a great kid. Eight G8 facts about Aidan:


He's proud to know & share Jesus! Aidan's faith is influential, inspirational and unshakable! This is a picture of Aidan @ Camp!

 

Trains, race cars, motorcycles & NOW it's airplanes! This is Aidan at a much anticipated trip to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum!

 

He is still a curious mind. He loves observing, discovering & inventing, Just last night he said he "when I grow up I'm going to invent a chemo treatment that cures cancer in just two days"!



Aidan is a die hard fan of the Portland Trail Blazers, much like his Dad!

  Our family loved cheering Aidan on in his very first full year of sports. (Soccer was his favorite :)


Upward is the BEST basketball league EVER!



Ok so t-ball was totally boring but we had great coaches & great weather!

Aidan did awesome @ soccer, he had to play up this year but he kept up just fine and adjusted well!



He is a great reader! It's usually well after his bedtime when I finally have to say no more reading, and even then it's hard to do b/c I'm so proud!

Today was  Aidan's official birthday. We went to the same Christmas tree farm we always go to on Aidan's birthday we pick out the biggest Noble we could find, came home and decorated then watched a Christmas movie and thanked God. What a happy momma I am knowing Aidan has way more than I could ever want for him. Not because we have a lot of money...we don't, but because he is a good person and loves God.

Good Party. Good Sleep. Good look.

Dec: 3rd. Today I woke up in a great mood. By that I mean, I hopped right out of bed and straight over to the coffee machine. Hey, it’s baby steps remember. My goal is to NOT dread getting out of bed each morning. Today, was Aidan’s 8th birthday party. It was a great party. Watching Aidan smile and laugh and play brings me joy. Seeing people come together to celebrate Aidan makes me happy. He is a good kid and has a good heart and a great perspective. That’s why his birthday this year was themed “The GR8 eight”.
Dec 4th. At 2:30 AM I was still awake. After all 9 kids who slept over went home for the day Paris and I took a 3 hour nap and it was wonderful. When I woke up we spent the entire day as a family doing nothing. I love days when we do nothing. Even when we’re at home with nothing planned we’re always doing something. But not today. Today we sat around and watched football How ’bout them Ducks!. Then we play fought as a family, I busted out my made up karate moves, but Adam remains champion and after that we played bop it. Once the kids were in bed I watched “Eclipse” for the 1st time in months, then I slept 9 more hours! A good sleep makes me happy. Not to much, not to little puts a smile on my face!
Dec 5th. Today was Sunday and we went to church. I took the time to get ready today after 3 days of t-shirts ponytails & pajamas. I love “getting ready” I feel way more confident when I like the way I look. Taking that hour for myself makes my whole day better! And it's not for anyone else, if I do my hair put on some make up and dress in something other than a tshirt & ponytail it's for me and only me. Church was lovely. Everything it should be, my heart was ready to worship, my ears ready to listen, my mind set on learning. Church=happy, getting ready=happy.
I want to re-establish my purpose in all this. Almost everyday, well pretty much everyday I experience frustration. I can’t say the same for happiness. Right now I feel like happiness is screaming inside me “that’s not fair, frustration gets more of you than I do”. Happiness is right. It’s not fair. My goal in this is to experience happiness daily. So far, so good.

Uno, Dos.

Dec 1st: My kids wake up before me and habitually I sleep in an additional 30-40 minutes. They know to stay in their rooms and due to my daily requests they try being quiet…but forget everyday.

So, we’re stuck in this predictable morning cycle: they wake up, I wake up, from bed I shout out “kids be quiet please”, I attempt to fit in some additional beauty sleep, fail at it, request shout from bed a 2nd time “kids please be quiet, try whispering”, works for about 10 minutes, then I finally give up and get out of bed.

I dislike everything about this routine. I just can’t bring myself out of bed easily much less happily if I don’t wake up by my own free will. So I keep thinking…almost EVERY NIGHT of my life, that yes tomorrow I will wake up before the kids. I’m obviously not super determined. I love the idea of waking up before the children almost as much as I like sleep. I’m done pretending, I’m so not waking up before the kids anytime soon. But I do not like my first impression on the kids each morning being me shouting from my room for them to be quiet. SO LAME!
Today I decided not to shout from my room. Instead I laid in bed, and wished that my children would just learn to play quietly. Sheesh. As simple as it was not to shout it made a great impact on my morning. Happiness: check!


Dec 2nd: Today I woke up and shouted, but I did hop out of bed earlier. Tomorrow in addition to not shouting I’ll be trying to hop out of bed earlier too! It might be difficult because it’s past mid-night and I’m still hopped up on that sugary piece of cake I had at teen mops today.


Today was teen mops and I did genuinely find myself happy there tonight. It was a real treat tonight. A speaker cancelled but to our benefit we had a really good night of discussion instead. I LOVE discussion group time, it really, really makes me happy. Though their stories are sometimes tough and I know some of my moms are in a real grey place in their lives right now I LOVE knowing they have teen mops. It makes me so happy to know Gods created this little safe haven for them and I get to be a part of it! Happiness day 2: check!

my happiness project

I'm borrowing this title from a book I saw advertised in a magazine I was flipping through while waiting to renew my licene at the DMV. Happiness. Homeschooling has definately brought my to face some interesting realities about myself. Mainly, I take life way to seriously. I want to smile more, laugh more, wake up and not drag myelf out of bed. Everyday in December I am going to be purposeful about being "happy". Every day I'll take a step toward accomplishing something I think will make me happy. Why? Because my kids. If I could write out a childhood for them it would be nothing but smiles & sunshine.

This will be an interesting journey. I'm curious to know what comes of it if anything at all. I know joy, I know contentment, and I've felt happiness here & there, but I really want to know if I can genuinely experience happiness weekly, or maybe even daily. I feel like I should be "happy". I have a lot to be happy about. Really! I do!

So what if it's technically December 2nd, I'll just blog twice today.