one of these days...

I'm going to post about the transformation of our new kitchen. I promise. and the bathrooms.

I will also share pics of our time in Florida (almost 2 months ago).

And I'll also post pictures of our time in Texas and Oklahoma.

But for now I barely have time to cook meals, clean the kitchen a few times, feed the baby several times, maybe get some laundry folded, watch the boys ride their bikes out on the sidewalk from the front porch, break up fights and help with reconciling brother to brother, change a few diapers, wipe up a spill or a mouth, tend to boo-boos, read a few books, play a game of War, give the boys' baths/showers, clean up toys (with the boys' help that I have to enforce...over. and over. and over.) and reorganize their bookshelf that gets emptied day after day after day. Sweep the kitchen floor a couple of times (although it really needs to be mopped). And feed Oliver a few more times. Clean up another spill. And probably draw a lizard and a frog. and check Henry's pockets for live grasshoppers before throwing it in the wash.

I went to bed at 8:30 last night. the earliest ever. with only one baby wake-up time. and woke up at 6:30 this morning. (I think little Oliver is going through a growth spurt. He's waking up again at night).

Even with feeling more rested than ever, I still got nothing done today (except for taking care of my kiddos, which is obviously my #1 priority anyway). So going to bed that early ever again is out the window. If I want to be productive and get things done, it's going to have to happen at night.

I got spoiled those couple of weeks the boys were in Texas, even though I missed them like crazy. I got so much done during the day!! And my house stayed clean!

So now back to reality. Back to a messy house and laundry piled high. Back to hearing the screams and laughter and swords crashing together. Back to jokes about poop and burps. Back to wrestling matches on the floor. or couches. or beds. or anywhere for that matter. Back to arm pit noises, which now even my 2 year old tries to compete. Back to every single room in the house looking like a tornado has hit. back to happy squeals upon the discovery of a new insect in the backyard. Back to low expectations for the day and being okay with that. Back to legos buried in the living room rug. Back to the boys' definition of a clean room: stuffing all toys, books, and clothes underneath dressers, bookcases, and behind doors. Back to reminding myself to view my boys as my calling, priority, and joy, as opposed to distractions and interruptions. and never wanting to view playing a game or reading a book to them as something "I don't have time for."

I'm always having to remind myself that I'm never going to look back at life at this time and regret that I didn't spend more time mopping the kitchen floors or doing the laundry or scrubbing or organizing. I'm probably going to wish I had spent more time on the floor coloring, or playing a game, or throwing the football, or drawing a frog. I don't want to regret time not spent playing with my boys. Sure, I have responsibilities that need to get done, but I also need to spend time and love on my kids. Those are the memories that we'll all remember...not the clean house.

But speaking of the house, there are lots more projects are on the horizon. Time and a willing husband who has a few extra hours are the challenge. (I take that back; he is very willing, but finding the time is the challenging part, especially now that he has another renovation project...our new church building! So exciting, but I'm selfishly realizing that time on our house is not top priority in his spare time. So this waiting patiently thing has been pretty hard for me ).

The disorganized/trashed out laundry room (aka Brian's tool room with no storage yet for actual laundry room stuff and the "catch all" room to put stuff we don't know what else to do with it at the moment) will have to wait. Another reason why I dislike doing laundry these days. don't. make. me. go. in. there.

I have big dreams for it, too...a little (colorful!) desk, a cute chair with a fun print, a big bulletin board covered with girly (because i need just one room with a taste of pink!) fabric (for hanging calendars, invitations, and school reminders), the boys' chore chart, fun pictures on the wall, the boys' easel and paint supplies, painted white cabinets (to hide the tools) and shelves with baskets for storage above the washer/dryer...I just can't wait!!

here's a few items just waiting to be put to good use (and makes me happy to be doing laundry)...

I'm also waiting on bookshelves (any will do at this point; we had our eyes on some at Ikea, but those will have to wait until we have some extra cash), so we can unpack the remaining boxes of books and photo albums (which are stacked up in a corner of our room).

which means I'm waiting on a peaceful, clutter-free master bedroom retreat, which can't happen until said boxes are out (and remaining pictures are hung), and we have a place for mail/bills/filing cabinet (which is all in our room at the moment. ugh!)...and this is where the organized laundry room comes in.

The closet in the guest room will also have to wait. Right now it's packed full of baby stuff, board games, fishing poles, and who knows what else. I can't wait to have some organization in there and a bar to actually have a place to hang some of Oliver's clothes!

Baby steps.

We'll get there someday. Right now I'm still basking in the fact that I actually have a kitchen. with a sink. and a dishwasher.

That has been put to very good use lately.

Lots of last minute dinner guests. Which is sooooo good for the prideful heart! "Step over the toys on your way in, y'all!" At this point, I'm just glad I actually have had some sort of meal on the table. Brian's good about asking people spontaneously...saves me the stress of knowing all day that someone's coming over...wanting to get the house and meal just perfect! :) I was even gone this evening running errands (I had to get a wedding gift and this was my only opportunity to go without kids and a free night with both of us at home). I left dinner on the stove and in the crockpot (and decided to just eat when I got home). Brian took care of feeding the kids and getting them bathed. When I got home, Hudson told me that the neighbors came over for dinner while I was gone! So thankful for a hospitable husband who, by example, is helping me to become more so. (I can get so caught up in the stress of entertaining, while he sees someone's need and just does it...true hospitality!!). I'm hoping he's starting to rub off on me!

the Kim family, missionaries in Mexico, who stayed with us last weekend

the boys had so much fun with their daughter, Priscila

King Jake

an impromptu dinner after church over here with some 2Cities folks...the house wasn't clean, but that's being real, right? thankfully I had some taco soup simmering in the crockpot.

the boys thought it would be fun to switch clothes...Henry and Noah switched, and Nate and Hudson switched. They thought they were so funny and had us fooled! :)

and as a result of a night of costume fun:

(I was actually impressed that it was mostly costumes on the floor, as opposed to all the toys!)

What's been going on...

I feel like lately we have had so much going on and so much I want to share, but it's just not the right time. Please continue to pray for our family and the future and specifically where the Lord is calling us to in the area of church planting. Please pray for wisdom for us, as well as our pastor and elders, in making these decisions...as well as continuing to trust in the Lord and His sovereignty.

Aside from that, for the past several months Brian has had a huge desire and burden to reach out to the many people in our city that are not being reached with the gospel, including the artistic community. We had been praying and brainstorming about how to go about this, and it has been so amazing to see how the Lord has opened doors just within the last couple of weeks! Just recently we found out about a sponsorship program through the Shakespeare Festival, where you can sponsor actors/stage managers, etc. for the year...have them over for dinner, make them care packages, calling and emailing them...just making them feel welcome in Montgomery. We are now sponsoring two girls (one is an actor and the other is a stage manager). As you can imagine their schedules are crazy and busy, but we were finally able to have one of the girls over for dinner a couple of weeks ago, and the other girl is coming over this upcoming week for dinner. We are so excited about this and are really looking forward to getting to know both of them!! Another fun perk about this sponsorship program are the free tickets to the plays!! (We didn't know about this beforehand...I promise!!). Anyway, our sweet girls were able to give us 4 free tickets to the showing of "Charlotte's Web" yesterday afternoon. Jordan was able to stay with Nate, so Brian and I could take Hudson and Henry. This was their first time at a play, and they absolutely loved it! They were so still and quiet throughout the whole thing, just taking it all in!! And...the girl who played Charlotte is one of our girls that we sponsor...the one that's coming over this week for dinner. We can't wait to officially meet her, and the boys were quite intrigued when we told them that "Charlotte" was coming over this Tuesday!

Another neat opportunity we will be having is getting to know the professional dancers in the Montgomery Ballet. Two of the dancers go to our church, and Brian has been talking to them about ways to get involved and get to know these dancers. We were able to go to one of their amazing performances about a month ago...a really fun date I might add...which I never thought would happen...going to a ballet performance as a date with MY husband!! (we have gone to a few performances in the past to support our youth group girls when Brian was the youth pastor, but now it's different.)

Anyway, just this past Friday we had the whole Montgomery Ballet company over for dinner, as well as a couple of other friends. 7 out of the 12 professional dancers were able to come. We had such a great time getting to know them, and amazingly it was so natural and not at all random. The dancers at our church encouraged us to do it, saying that the dancers would not think it strange to come to a stranger's house for dinner...they would just be grateful for the free, homecooked meal!! So we took their word for it, and they set it all up, and they actually came!! They had rehearsal until about 7, so it was a later dinner (which worked out really nicely to have our boys in bed by the time they came, so we could actually talk and not be distracted). We had a great time and really enjoyed getting to know them. We are really looking forward to doing this (at least once or twice a month). Now I'm really excited about going to their next performance because I know them (or at least am getting to know them) now!!

Lately, we've been having families and couples over for lunch after church on Sundays (including today)...in which the Lord continues to sanctify me and break me of my pride when it comes to hospitality ... especially on Sundays...it is just a hard day for me. (I can't even imagine what it's going to be like when Brian is THE preacher every Sunday!) Even Brian is helping in that sanctification. For example, when he called one Thursday evening to see if I was making dinner (it was right after our week of the bad stomach bug where all we were eating was chicken noodle soup and crackers). Fortunately that night we were finally getting back into the swing of things with our mending tummies. Anyway, I was making dinner...thankfully...because he ended up inviting the young, single guy he has been discipling over for dinner...and they showed up 10 minutes later! I had also never even met him before! He definitely saw our family in everyday life...it happened that night for sure. Nate was crying and fussy and wouldn't let me put him down while I was trying to get dinner ready; the boys were fighting with weapons in the family room in the midst of their toys scattered everywhere, and I have no idea how clean the bathrooms were that night!! Anyway, talk about being humbled and not necessarily ready for guests. The Lord is sancifying me, I tell you!!

All that to say, we have enjoyed having people in our home...especially people that do not go to our church. It's been nice to get out of the "Eastwood bubble" and begin to serve and build relationships with those so desperately in need of the gospel!! We are so excited to see what the Lord is doing in all of this!

prideful hospitality...

is from what i suffer. does anyone else ever struggle with what their true motive is behind their hospitality? yes, my desire is definitely fellowship with others, getting to know other people, catching up with friends, serving, sharing the gospel through opening up our home, etc. however, there is also a motive of my prideful heart...whether it be to show off my home, good cooking skills, cute kids, etc. or the latter, which is most of the time for me...fear of what other people might think of me when my house is not clean enough, big enough, beautifully decorated, or my cooking is just sub par, or when my kids are misbehaving. more often than not, these thoughts seem to fill my head when preparing for someone coming over. fortunatley once people are here, i tend to forget my worries and truly enjoy the fellowship, unless the boys really are going nuts. however, i still desire the compliments..."i just love your house," or "the food was delicious," or "your kids are just the cutest and best behaved kids ever!"

last night after i wrote that post about our crazy weekend, i got in bed and read june 3rd's evening devotion from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening daily readings. i was convicted again of my pride!! coincidence? i think not! read for yourself...

"He humbled himself" (Philippians 2:8)
Jesus is the great teacher of lowliness of heart. We need daily to learn of Him. See the Master taking a towel and washing His disciples' feet! Follower of Christ, wilt thou humble thyself? See Him as the Servant of servants, and surely thou canst not be proud! Is not this sentence the compendium of His biography, 'He humbled Himself'? Was He not on earth always stripping off first one robe of honour and then another, till, naked, He was fastened to the cross, and there did He not empty out His inmost self, pouring out His lifeblood, giving up for all of us, till they laid Him penniless in a borrowed grave? How low was our dear Redeemer brought! How then can we be proud? Stand at the foot of the cross, and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed; see the thorn-crown; mark His scourged shoulders, still gushing with encrimsoned rills; see hands and feet given up to the rough iron, and His whole self to mockery and scorn; see the bitterness, and the pangs, and the throes of inward grief, showing themselves in His outward frame; hear the thrilling shriek, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?'. And if you do not lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it: if you are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you do not know Him. You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God's only begotten. Think of that, and as Jesus stooped for you, bow yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ's amazing love to us has a greater tendency to humble us than even a consciousness of our own guilt. May the Lord bring us in contemplation to Calvary, then our position will no longer be that of the pompous man of pride, but we shall take the humble place of one who loves much because much has been forgiven him. Pride cannot live beneath the cross. Let us sit there and learn our lesson, and then rise and carry it into practice.

sunday. a day of rest...or is it???

i think i'm still recovering from our crazy weekend. friday afternoon i found out we were housing 5 high school guys from georgia on saturday night. this wouldn't have been a big deal, except it just added to the chaos of what was about to come.

the Lord definitely continues to humble me when it comes to hospitality or just having people in our home. my pride always kicks in and wants everything to be perfect, which i KNOW is not reality. however, it is always my goal, but wouldn't you know never happens. i want the house to be spotless (but with 3 little boys is nearly impossible); i want the food to be amazing; i want our kids to behave like angels, etc. i know this is not reality nor should it be. i want our home to be a picture of the gospel...desperate sinners in need of God's grace...not perfection. how can i truly serve and be hospitable if i'm consumed with what people think of me? if i'm constantly worrying about the house or what spectacular meal i can make, i'm giving into my pride and fear of man. i obviously want men to praise me and not the Lord! i pray that the Lord will continue to change my prideful heart into a servant's heart.

it is obviously my pride that causes me to become overwhelmed at the thought of last minute guests, or having different groups of people over for lunch and dinner the very next day...which is what happened this past sunday. i finally had to humble myself and realize that i couldn't do it all...and that was okay. it did not have to be perfect, and by golly it was not. the house was not spotless, but we had a wonderful time of fellowship anyway. i didn't spend hours ahead of time preparing delicious gourmet meals, but the food was good anyway. the boys did not behave perfectly, but everyone enjoyed them anyway. my family is not perfect, which is why we need Christ! i love it when our crazy circumstances can always bring me back to the gospel and remind me of why Christ died. Thank you, Lord, for showing me my sin so that i never forget my need for you!!

the weekend started off with a good schedule of grocery shopping, yard work, and swimming in our little pools. by saturday night i was still trying to catch up on housework and last minute lunch preparations. there was a church choir tour traveling through montgomery and singing at our church sunday morning, so we had 5 9th grade guys sleeping all over our living room, family room, and guest room on saturday night.

hudson and henry woke up bright and early sunday morning at 5:30. we tried to get them to fall back asleep or at least stay in bed for a good while. we didn't want them waking up the guys on the other side of the house. finally brian and the boys ventured into the kitchen for a quiet breakfast. i came out a little while later to make pancakes while the guys were all waking up. we also had yummy sausage rolls and fruit. one of the guys was wearing an orange shirt, and henry continued to refer to him as the "orange guy." "where did 'orange guy' go?" he would ask over and over. we would try and tell him his name, but it was no use. "orange guy" was the name. "his name is brandon," we would say. "garrison?" henry would ask. "no. brandon," we replied. "wheat thin?" henry would ask. "no, brandon." he could not remember it, so "orange guy" it was!

brian took the guys to sunday school while i stayed back with our boys to try and clean the hall bathroom for a second time (it was obviously a gross mess after that many guys), and get everything in order for the lunch, plus change a couple of diapers, resolve a few arguments, and then meet brian at a different church in montgomery where he was preaching that morning. right before we left, which we were running late by the way, i glanced in the guest room, and someone had left an ipod and towel. after working out how to get it to their group leaders, we raced to our church to drop it off on the way to the other church where brian was preaching. after the service (in which brian did a great job preaching, i must say), we headed home to get ready for the madness. brian was having his senior high sunday school class over for lunch and to talk more about eschatology, which is what they have been studying this quarter. we (brian) grilled out hamburgers, and we had corn casserole (thanks to trisha's delicious recipe), baked beans, potato salad, fresh watermelon and pineapple, chips, and a chocolate fudge brownie trifle for dessert. thankfully i had sweet girls to help me with my boys during lunch. jordan even helped me put them down for naps. everyone left around 3pm. sweet abby morrison offered to stay and help me clean the kitchen, so we were able to visit and catch up, too. she is an amazing girl and i always enjoy talking with her.

now by this time i was already exhausted, but we still had a dinner to get ready for. there was no point in cleaning the kitchen floor, since they were about to get dirtier, but i must say, my OCD was making it hard for me to not want to mop them. i made a couple of easy desserts while the boys were still napping...i'm so glad they took long naps! they rest of the evening was a bit chaotic as usual with the boys, especially since we were trying to get ready for the next group. our evening service was at 6, and then fellowship right after. brian offered to take the boys to church with him, so i could do a few last minute things before everyone came over. i was so grateful! however, to make it a little more complicated, brian's car was still at the church, so we all piled in the van. i dropped the boys off in the nursery, while brian was filling up chests with ice for later that night. i then took his car home, while he stayed at church. by this time, i had about 30 minutes at home to do a few things before i had to pick up the pizza (thank the Lord for Papa John's), and then the rest of the crew showed up.

we had a great time...the boys, too. they were in heaven all day long! they love having people over, which really puts things in perspective for me! we set up a volleyball net in our backyard, so we had games going on all night!! we ate pizza, salad, chips, brownies, rice krispie treats, and no bake cookies. a teenager's favorite meal! brian and i have had more pizza in the past 8 years than probably any other meal...a youth group staple! :) there was also a time of singing, in which hudson and henry played along. because it is now summer, the night never ended. kids hung out until almost 11pm! and then my cleaning began...it felt so good to finally mop that kitchen floor!

needless to say, it was probably one of my busiest and longest days ever, and sundays are already stressful enough as it is!! so that is why i am still recovering.

so now the next time we have someone over for lunch or dinner or dessert, i will try and remember this day...it will be a piece of cake compared to this past weekend. and i will, Lord willing, continue to remind myself that it's not about me but about serving and loving others. Lord, please keep convicting me of my pride and selfishness. thank you that you love me, despite my wretched sin!