Birthdays and More

Well, as most of you already know, we have a lot of birthdays right in a row at our house.  August 21, September 17, October 26, and November 10 to be exact.  Those events lead to our house being extra busy...as if it isn't busy enough already.

This year Caleb's birthday fell on a Saturday, so we were able to have his party on his actual birthday.  I always like when that happens.  Caleb had a Toy Story themed party.  That was a fun idea.  Here is a picture of the Toy Story cake I made Caleb.

We were going to buy Caleb Sheriff Woody, but instead I found the whole set of Toy Story characters at Target.  That was my inspiration for the cake.  We actually had all of the characters set up on the table.  You know what's funny?  They had Lotso Huggin' Bear in the set, but not Bullseye.  Who wants Lotso?  He's scary.  Anyway, that was my only complaint about the whole thing.  Oh, and Buzz doesn't have a helmet.  That's a problem too. 

It's really hard to believe that Caleb is five already and in school.  It seems like just yesterday he was born.  Here's a picture of the day our family went from three to four.

I love this picture.  This was such a sweet moment.  Isaac became a big brother that day!  Doesn't he look so proud in this picture?

Oddly enough, on Sunday, the day after Caleb's birthday party, I found an old appointment reminder card from Medical Associates.  It was in a maternity coat that I was pulling out to donate.  The funny thing is, the date on it was Sept. 15, 2006.  That was the very last appointment I had with my o.b. before I had Caleb.  Seeing that card kind of made me think about all of the lessons I have learned as a mother since his birth.  For me, the change from one child to two was much more difficult than from two to three and three to four.  Does that make sense?  I'd like to share with you some of the more important lessons that I learned those first couple years with just two children.

Don't cry over spilled milk!  For real!  I mean this literally too.  This is like a weekly occurrence in our house.  I used to get all worked up over this, and sometimes when I'm really busy I still do, but honestly, don't!  It's just an accident, and you can clean it up quickly and move on.  Yelling at your kids for the little messes that they make just makes them feel bad.  Nothing makes me feel worse than unintentionally breaking one of my kid's hearts. 

Pick your battles.  There is not enough time in a day to pick on every little thing that your child doesn't do perfectly.  I used to obsess over the towels being folded and put away in neat little piles.  I even used to refold towels that weren't up to my standard of towel folding.  Now, as long as the towels are put away that's good enough.  If you make your child think that everything that they do for you isn't up to par, they will stop wanting to help you.  In a family of six, you need all the help you can get.  Fix the things that really matter instead. 

Boys don't care if their rooms are clean.  This speaks for itself.  I'm sure most would agree too.  As long as it's presentable when company comes over, I'm happy. 

Don't force your child to respect you. It probably won't work.  They should respect you because they love you.  I think we struggle with this one at times.  Sometimes kids are emotional basketcases, and sometimes when they are like that all you want to do is ignore them.  Those are the times that you need to love on them the most.  More often than not, when we have a loving response to one of our kid's outbursts, it ends good.  The more we treat our kids with respect, the more they reciprocate.  Love, love, love them. 

Last, and by far the most important, pray for them.  Prayer is the best gift you can give your child.  We may be their earthly parents, but their Heavenly Father loves them more than we could ever imagine.  Sometimes, as parents, we don't have all of the answers.  That's ok because God does.  He wants us to seek Him for guidance.  I think sometimes we forget about that.  Especially when everything is going good.  We need to seek Him for guidance in the good times as well as the bad.