Sometimes my soul is just tired.
not my body, I got enough sleep, but my soul is weary.

Sometimes I just want to lay on my stomach again.

Sometimes 35 pounds and 35 weeks gets to me.

Sometimes this apartment confines me instead of comforts me.

Sometimes I know what I'm supposed to think but I know what I am thinking.

Sometimes I want to grow up and move on yet grown down and stay a kid. at the same time.

Sometimes I want to be alone but I want to pour my heart out.

Sometimes I just want something I can call my own.

Sometimes this is my conflict.

Sometimes is this day.

I like to make my posts with fancy titles that both start with the same letter.. it's fun! but moving on...

Toddler Tuesday!
I found this website recently that talked about tot school. Pretty much it is starting to take specific time with your toddler and working on skills/projects/knowledge they will need for school. We are planning on homeschooling our little one, so I figured this would just be a good way to slowly move into that practice. The website is here, but if you type tot school into google you will seriously get a wealth of information.
Disclaimer.
this website is overwhelming. seriously.  like, "I'm a failure as a mom might as well let a pack of wolves raise my child" type of feeling. It is definitly something to be taken slow, and something to just glean a few good projects and kinda do your own thing with. At least that's how I am making myself feel better about it.

Basically we do a few things:

*Art Project/hands on activity
*Memory Verse
*Letter
*song
*read books





So for these two weeks we are focusing on A, and apples, since it is apple season here in Minnesota. Our verse, our crafts, our letter, all have to do with apples. For projects we have painted with apples, made this torn paper apple you see above (learning how to glue), and have a few baking projects ahead of us with the apples we got at the orchard (field trip!)

Basically I am flying by the seat of my pants here, because I just started without taking to much time to plan things out.  So we usually start with the project, and then go over our verse a few times, sing our verse song ( see the link at the bottom) and either learn counting or about the letter.  Then we read books based on our subject, the list of which I got from the tot school website and checked them all out from the library. Sensory bins are something I have not done yet, I have just been using craft materials we already have around the house for our projects. 

She really likes learning to use the glue stick and paste, use the safe scissors,  the book reading, and the songs. But the field trip was for sure her favorite so far.



It is also super cool to hear her recite her verse back to me. She has'nt got it word for word yet, but everyday I ask her about it. I try to make up little hand motions to go with it as well, but It is so amazing to find my two year old already hiding God's word in her heart. This CD is pretty cool, called songs for saplings but I will be honest I have not bought it yet, I just play the sample on amazon over and over ( :

  The picture above is something I came up with myself that she enjoys. I write out sentences, and have her find the letters a, both big and small, and when she finds them I shade them for her. this helps her identify the letter amongst other letters and identify the different types of the letter.



We are doing a fall theme, spending two weeks on each subject every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday up till thanksgiving.  The tot school website kind of set out a special section for fall, so that was easiest this year. I picked those three days of the week because that's when I have a nice little gap in between my own school of about two hours.

So my advice so far:
1. use your library! mine has it where I can search and reserve books online and just come pick them all up at once. super handy!
2. Songs for memorizing! she loves loves loves the music, and the memory verse is the most important part to me.
3. Remember their age I have to tell myself she is only two, so it's ok if things are not perfect. it's how one learns.
4.  start figuring out how your child learns. Ariella seems to be very visual.
5. Don't get overwhelmed- the main thing I can tell is that she enjoys the one on one, doing something out of the ordinary time. 
*Next to the verses, I would say this time is most important thing for her
and it helps me! I noticed on these days she is more likely to play alone if I focus just a hour on being with her and doing things she enjoys.
6. review. we don't just talk about school during school. I ask her about her verse and letters and such all the time, so it's really incorporated into her life.

Apple orchard fun!!!

Walking home from class tonight, a girl I didn't even know was firing away question after question of my impending birth.  I guess when your stomach sticks out six inches from it's normal spot, people get curious. I was honest with all questions, but the one that stuck out to me the most was  
"Did you plan it?"
She went on to say how much it would suck to become pregnant on your honeymoon (how about a week before hun?) and not plan having the kid and of course she wants a kid someday but she so wants to plan it out and....

When, ladies, gentlemen, did we get it into our heads that we are the planners of our life?
Job 38 comes to mind. (see below)
How audacious! how prideful of us as human beings to think we can take control of the very thing God has given us, life. That we can manipulate and control as little gods in charge of our own destiny. Because after all, we know best right?
I'm not just talking about having kids. apply this to any area. if your single if your married if your engaged if you don't care, where are you holding control, where are you saying "oh, im going to plan it this way" what issues are you not even consulting the creator of your life on?

In our society, when to have a kid is definitively one of them. And it just got to me. Did you plan it?

did you neatly map out your life and it to God saying "here is what we are going to do God?" Did I say to him well, actually I would like to graduate and get my masters first and then perhaps we can think about creating Jocelyn oh, lets say nov 2015? how does that schedule for you God? because I know you have great plans and all but Convenience wise, this works best.

No Thanks. I think I will let the omniscient God handle this. I think I will be clay. I think I will choose to die to my will and thank God for the adventure he is planning, because honestly a piece of paper with my name on it is nothing compared to one with her name on it stating that God honored my husband and I to be Co-creators with him.

with that said, dwell on these verses in light of your own situation. Job 38.

Dress for action^[a] like a man;
   I will question you, and you make it known to me. ⁴"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
   Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
   Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶On what were its bases sunk,
   or who laid its cornerstone,
⁷when the morning stars sang together
   and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
 ⁸"Or who shut in the sea with doors
   when it burst out from the womb,
⁹when I made clouds its garment
   and thick darkness its swaddling band,
¹⁰and prescribed limits for it
   and set bars and doors,
¹¹and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
   and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?
 ¹²"Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
   and caused the dawn to know its place,
¹³that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
   and the wicked be shaken out of it?
¹⁴It is changed like clay under the seal,
   and its features stand out like a garment.
¹⁵From the wicked their light is withheld,
   and their uplifted arm is broken.
 ¹⁶"Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
   or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
   or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
¹⁸Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
   Declare, if you know all this.
 ¹⁹"Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
   and where is the place of darkness,
²⁰that you may take it to its territory
   and that you may discern the paths to its home?
²¹You know, for you were born then,
   and the number of your days is great!
 ²²"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
   or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
²³which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
   for the day of battle and war?
²⁴What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
   or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
 ²⁵"Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain
   and a way for the thunderbolt,
²⁶to bring rain on a land where no man is,
   on the desert in which there is no man,
²⁷to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
   and to make the ground sprout with grass?
 ²⁸"Has the rain a father,
   or who has begotten the drops of dew?
²⁹From whose womb did the ice come forth,
   and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?
³⁰The waters become hard like stone,
   and the face of the deep is frozen."

I woke up yesterday morning and there was a whisper.
the air smelled like hash browns, it had whirled through my house and got caught in crannies like our stairway and the closet. my toddler reminded me of that whisper by saying " I'm cold mama"
fall.
This morning there was a deceleration of my favorite season. As I, bleary-eyed, poured cheerios for the munchkin, my husband walked out the door to class, and then walked back in. " It's like winter out there!" he declared, running upstairs for a hoodie. But I knew better.
It was autumn.
My favorite time of year! The crisp air that allows you to smell every warm invitation of the comfort foods we prepare and the coffee we brew. Change, of clothes, of colors, of games we play and things we do. Contrast, cold air letting us wear warm clothes, bright colors of harvest against the brown leaves already fallen or the darkening night. ahhh, fall.

I'm making a list, because I don't want to lose out this year! I want to embrace everyday as not just another homework- filled chore day, but as a day of my favorite time of year, and run full fledge into it.

So raise your pumpkin spice latte's into the air- here's to fall!

Rachel

I got a ton of compliments on my hair today, and I can't take the credit at all! I wanted to throw this post out there real quick about a tutorial I found on how to curl your hair, heat free and pretty much work free. I was skeptical at first, but after waking up the next morning, I'm sold. Try it! Maybe tommorow I will add a picture before/after of my own hair, but here is her tutorial: