365: Jan 12.2

Hot chocolate on a snowy night...
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

365: Jan 12

Ain't that the cutest?
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

365:Jan10

See, I knew I wouldn't be able to do out every day, but I am trying. Here are the arrows of my quiver. I pray they go out from our home as fiery arrows for the Lord. I love them so!
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

365:should be day 7 ~3 months

Oh my sweet boy is 3 months old today. He is ready to go hunting with dad as you can see.

What day is it?

January 7th, but it might as well be any day, and yes that's my living room. Just being real. It takes .0000821 milli seconds to get dirty, because if you have 2 sq ft of living room, well then the people in it become clutter.
Seriously, clutter makes me crazy. Makes me irritated and way less patient. I find myself like that often. Mostly when the kids ask to play with something before they finish their chores.
So what are you going to do about it, you ask? Well it is one of my goals for the year... Organize and de clutter this few feet of home I have and make it a place of peace. I cannot do it alone. I have been trying to make this place less cluttered and peaceful for years. Now I have to ask for help...
Dear Father, you know how I am, how I let things get to me. Please help me go through this stuff and see the value of time with my family above the chaff I keep. It will take me all year, so keep me focused on the task at hand. In Jesus name, Amen.
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

365: day 4

My silly, quirky, youngest girl, oldest middle. She is emotional, that includes loving and kissy. She can be carelessly aloof, yet brutally manipulative. She has a smile and giggle that can warm a room. My precious Banana. Love that girl!
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

Breakfast in Bethlehem

The cutest "baby Jesus" in 2 millenia. (This is an actor portraying Jesus, not Jesus Himself) Memories and "talk abouts"... That is what life is about.

365-day 3

Three of my sunbeams....
Also, the baby doesn't have the pyloric stenosis. Just bad reflux. The worst part was that the dr didn't fax the orders yesterday, so we sat for 45 mins just waiting. Once we had the orders, it only took 10 mins...grrr.
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

365:2

Sorry it's sideways... sent it straight from my phone and something ain't right here!

My firstborn, my helper.
And at 9:15pm. I remembered to photo today.
I did take the baby to the dr, going for an ultrasound tomorrow morning. I think he has bad reflux, but we are ruling out pyloric stenosis.
Elias had a something black in his lower eyelid, looked like a blood pocket...turned out to be a 1/4 by 3/4 in piece of black fuzz. I don't know how he got it there, but it was scary for a minute.
Fun, fun. The days are long but the weeks are short... Savor every minute, even the annoying ones ;)
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

Diaper tab solution

My amazingly generous sister-in-law let me use ALL her cloth diapers for my lil man. Only, there was a slight problem, one I didn't even realize was a real problem.... The hook part of the tabs wasn't working that well. I didn't have any diapers falling off but they wouldn't be good for a crawler.
So the other day while sewing a few little things for Jesus Birthday Celebration, I found a tiny, tiny crochet hook. I am sure it was in there to help with buttons, to provide that bit of room you need to be able to button a button after you sew it on.
Fast forward to today. I was reading about cloth diapers and the chief complaint I saw was velcro that had lost it's hutzpa. So, I read that you could use a needle to pick it out. That's when I remembered that tiny crochet hook, wal-lah, I tried it out and these diapers are working like new, or what I think new would be. Yay!
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

365 day 1

So I am going to try to have a pic every day this year. Since I have already failed by starting on Jan 2, there is no pressure to continue. So I may or may not do this, but here is a cute day one pic for ya.
He is not feeling very good, I think he has reflux or allergies.
Let the Son shine,
Brandee

Melancholy Christmas and a W ii New Year

I have had the most blah Christmas this year. Not because of any thing that happened, just me. I just was not in it this year. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe the demands of a new baby. I just don't know. My countdown plans died along the way, all 4 of them. Because one cannot have too many advent/countdown things to do, right? So if you cannot have to many, I just decided to blow the whole shindig and not do any of them with any consistency. Yay, me.
This was Levi's first Christmas and true to form, I did not manage to take more than 3 pictures. Seriously, where was I? (I can tell you where I was, nursing him) The kids even opened Christmas from us a day late.
Now it's New Years Eve and Levi is having a rough go of it. He has spent the last 2 days projectile vomiting and today he will not have us laying him down. Nice. So we end up at Cici's pizza watching the first half of the Chick-fil-a Bowl. We invite ourselves to my folks to watch the rest of the game, then come home to play the w ii. I did purchase some sparkling cider for our toast (which the kids did not like). We rang in the new year and headed straight for bed.
I think I am glad 2011 is over. Levi's gestation and birth was a down and up time. I had a rough pregnancy (bummer) but Levi is here (YAY). I gained from pregnancy (bummer, but only because I had started to workout and get in shape). I ended the pregnancy lower than I started (Thank you Lord!). I couldn't be the example my kids needed (pregnancy limitations), so they had a full run of rebellion this year. No co-op or play group for the kids = More on the rebellion pile.
So with that I am doing some planning and hope to have some goals for our family. Ones we can all meet reasonably. I will let you know those in a few days, but just a few I know will be there.

• Exercise. I will do some form of exercise 3 times a week and hopefully more.
• Schedule. We will have a new schedule for the day. One that is enforced. No more lollygagging around all day. No more 2hr meals. No more 3+hrs on 30 mins worth of chores. I will have more time to enforce as the weeks go on.
• Consistency. See above.

Beware, there may be moaning and gnashing of teeth here at the SmoreSpohrs Camp. Pray with me that I can be reasonable, the kids can step up as Christ tells them to obey, and that they will see rewards for doing a job well.
What are your New Year changes, if any?