I love my fam!

I really do! There are tons and tons and memories we have, of growing up and hanging out with our parents and cousins and other extended family members.

If there is any place I can laugh, be myself, dance, make funny faces, it's with these folks. I'm the youngest of four girls, so you can probably imagine the depths of my silliness.



My husband teases me because, (almost) no matter how tense and upset I am, if I get a phone call from one of my sisters who has funny story or joke, that frown is instantly turned upside down!

It's funny that my husband is also the youngest of four (of four boys) and his immediate family is not much different from mine. That makes life so much brighter than the alternative. And I don't take that for granted.

Speaking of the fun I had growing up, we can already see (well, we hope) our children, nieces and nephews will have memories much like ours. The madness began with my nephew who's now twenty years old and a sophomore in college and that madness has continued, down to our youngest son.

I love it and wouldn't trade it for the world!

My mom is now twice my age!

Today is my mommy's birthday. Erma Jean Montgomery. She's 72 years old, and I'm so grateful for her life, her spunk, her charisma, wit, and lovingkindness.

Thank you mom!!!

It's The Hap Happiest Season of All!

Thanksgiving kicks off the season for us!! Very exciting times!!!

Lord, you are good and your mercy endureth forever!

Only My Mama

Only my mama had the heart to tell me that I spelled Deuteronomy wrong on the top of my blog! It was spelled Deueronomy. I know, everyone else probably just didn't notice.

CTI - Importance of Family

About this time we are really seeing just how important family is, in carrying out ministry to others. How badly do I want to be used of God to minister to others? How badly do I want to share the gospel of Jesus and the love of God with others who don't know Him?

Really really bad. I want to share with women, mothers, wives, young ladies, older ladies who I can provide an answer or hope to, marriages to-be, homeschool families, those seeking to homeschool, mothers seeking to stay home with their chidren, unreached people groups in far away countries, unbelievers in my neighborhood, youth, and more.

But:

1) I don't wait until I'm in an official position to do that. I do some now, and I think about it at various times throughout my day and night. I (we) am (are) passionate about sharing and ministering to others. And we will continue to do it.

2) I don't want the percentage of outside ministry to outweigh inside ministry. Ministry inside my home. Four things have stood out regarding this. a) I have heard Pastor Hayes mention several times about one prominent Pastor in another country who has a church of hundreds of thousands of people (one of the largest in the world) but his children do not serve the Lord. b) I also heard recently, an author on the radio, who read the following quote from Nelson Mandela. "To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of family is a greater joy." - Nelson Mandela, Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela shared that his children believed that, when he was released from prison, they would get their father back. Unfortunately, that did not happen. The majority of his time was still spent in running the affairs of the country and leading the nation. c) a friend recently sent me an article by Audrey Broggi, where she spoke of the importance of women understanding that we should view what we do at home as ministry (rocking, changing diapers, first-aid, discipline, molding, nurturing, hugging, cleaning, teaching them the word of God, how to live in Christ, how to exhibit the fruit of the spirit, etc.), instead of saying that once we get through that stage of motherhood, and lastly d) An audio message from Harvey Bluedorn regarding the importance of Fathers leading worship at home, and the qualification of an Elder which include mangaging his own household.

These all have helped us as we solidy our family foundation!

I talked to some of the students in CORE today and received their feedback on this, the importance of family, as they read the words of the songs they wrote, and thought of someone in their own family that they could minister that message to. I shared with them, our personal story of how we have had to balance our family life with our ministry work through these last two years and how, in this final year, we have been convinced that, while we will minister in the areas of evangelism, marriage, music, and more --- ministry will start at home first.then we can do real ministry. and lastly d) We heard in an audio message from Harvey Bluedorn regarding the importance of Fathers leading worship at home, and the Biblical qualifications of an Elder which include mangaging his own household, by carrying out the duties that God has outlined for Fathers in the home.

These all have helped us as we solidify our family foundation!

I talked to some of the students in CORE today and received their feedback on this, the importance of family, as they read the words of the songs they wrote, and thought of someone in their own family that they could minister that message to. I shared with them, our personal story of how we have had to balance our family life with our ministry work through these last two years and how, in this final year, we have been convinced that, while we will minister in the areas of evangelism, marriage, music, and more --- ministry will start at home first.

I love my Mama!

I talked to my mom on the phone the other day and it was such a sweet conversation. Over the past couple of years, my conversations with her have changed. We have conversations about deep topics (spiritual and non-spiritual) , sometimes I ask her questions and sometimes she asks me questions. It's really cool, and I cherish those conversations so much.

The other day we talked about the 'notion' of Jeoff and I having more children (or not) and we both shared our perspectives on the possibility. I told her how much I respected and valued her opinion and told her I would take everything to heart.

I won't forget the last three words of advice she gave me.

She said no matter what, if you have more than the three you have now :

• make sure you don't get so overwhelmed that you don't keep your house up


• make sure you keep yourself together especially for your husband, and
  


• make sure you take time for yourself!

I don't ever want to forget that. I could read something like that in a book, a magazine, online, or hear it from a speaker, but it was nothing like hearing it from my very own mommy.

Thank you Ma!!

Sound of the Dishwasher

I'm sitting at home in my family room, typing on the computer. It's 2PM on a Saturday afternoon, and al I hear is the sound of the dishwasher. Such a nice sound!

I never thought I would enjoy the sound so much. It's sorta like the sound you hear in the house when the TV is off all of a sudden. My mom reminded us of that sound one day at her house when all of the grandkids were there, and all of her four daughthers, we were all around the dinner table running our mouths and to add to the noise, the television was blaring in the background. Mama yelled (yes she yelled) "turn that tv off." After someone obeyed her command, she said "now, that feels good." And it really did feel good.

That's the feeling I have today. On that day I totally agreed with her but I didn't understand it the way I do now. I don't think I had any children at all that day but today I have almost as many as her. The contrast between a loud and a quiet home is huge to me now and right now I'm very appreciative of the quiet sound of the dishwasher, scrubbing away all the dirt of today's and yesterday's used dishes.

Why am I awake?

Because I told Moriah that I would lay down in her room with her for a while.....until she went to sleep. The sleep got pretty good I guess, because I 'just now' woke up!

We had a pretty good day today.

I actually took about a two hour nap!! What?

Hallelujah!

Shampooed Moriah's hair and gave her a hot oil treatment.

Shampooed lots of clothes. :-)

Watched Madagascar,.....again.

"I like to move it move it!"

It's All Worth It

It's 9:19PM (as I'm starting this). Pupster and Kitty just finished watching a movie, while eating grapes and Wheat Thins and sitting in their makeshift beds made out of a laundry basket, a pillow, and a blanket. It was so cute.  Kitty has coordinated another Family Fun Night (You know from Lilo and Stich 2?).

Of course they were in pretend mode and pretending to be parent and child. Can you guesss who played each role? Of course, the eldest played the parent. She had all kinds of ideas of things that she wanted her "son" to comply with throughout the adventure. "Be quiet, sit up, lay down, let's go to sleep now, ok come on lets' go to xyz...." Fun to watch.

After the movie, they were off to the room and rambled around and fussed a bit and Kitty just walked in with her back pack on and Pupster with his "suitcase" and Kitty says "Hi Teacher. Where are the other kids?" I have to play the part and and answer as she said "You said bring suitcases and tie backpacks, right Mrs. Sissus? What are we going to learn about today? Then she says you have to say 'Hello children' then you have to say 'How are you all today.....and now you have to read us a story......." Of course with Monte repeating every word. Oh goodness. Too funny.

So I ask her to go get the book and she's off to the back pack to bring a favorite book.

I'll be signing out now.

Watching and participating in this tonight makes all the frustrations of the week double worth it!!

The fact that the school asked me to take Lamby to the doctor for what they believed was diarrhea to ensure that she was not contagious. Took off work to do so and the doctor sent a note home with me that says "Lamby does not have diarrhea, she has normal breastfed stools." It was very frustrating initially, but it was all worth it because she stayed home with me and I was able to work from home.

Going through Target with the kiddos to shop for a "few things" and explain over and over why we are only getting ONE treat for each child and we're NOT buying toys. It was all worth it because at least they were all fed before we got there. That would have been a nightmare if they had not. Anyone done that before?

I could go on, but the point :-) is (while I try to finish as Pupster TRIES to kick me in my back for more drink) that all those things are so worthwhile. Especially after the fun moments like this tonight.

Oh cute.....Kitty just said "I'm drawing a picture of us playing with Grandma while Mommy and Daddy are on a date."

The Pupster standing on top of the basket prentending to fall saying....whoaaaaa! I love the way he says that!

(While we're having this late night fun, of course baby sister is fast asleep.....this time)

"Crystals" all over the wash load - July 31 Part III

So I go to the washer to remove my last load of the night, open the lid and to my surprise and kenfewshen, I see white, shiny crystals all over the fleece blankets and everything else. I'm like what in the ……. world is this? I removed part of the load and there we have it, most of the innards of a Huggies brand pull-up stuck to the side of the washer. The rest was intertwined into the fabric of every item in the washer. Now, after doing tons of housework ALL day, I have to take everything out, dig out the remains of the demoslished toddler training pants, and rewash everything.... everything!

That means another 30 minutes for it to finish washing, then and only then put it in the dryer. Why me! Why didn't it work out the way I planned? Aaaaaarrrrggghhh!

How did I make it through? Humor and Grafefulness

I had to laugh at how funny the "stuff" looked in the washer. And it made me think of all the times (just a few right?) when I saw those "crystals" on my boy's bottom because the pull-up was left there a tad bit too long. And I was grateful that all of the other GOOD things had happened throughout the day and the weekend, to make up for frustrating ones like these.

Whistle while you work - July 31 Part II

The naps for the three mouseketeers were out of sync today but two of them did sleep simultaneously. More R - E - L - I - E - F. While Monte and Ja'el slept, we watched Moriah build some sort of machine with her blogs and listened as she described to us exactly how it works and how she came up with the idea using her imagination. That was really nice to see.

After their naps when everyone was awake we tuned into some internet old school "jams" and cranked up the external speakers on the computer. We remeinisced, laughed, and danced while we worked in the family room and kitchen. That was fun!

Then it was back to work, cleaning the tub, kids bath time, dryoffs, dressing in bed clothes, cleaning up toys AGAIN, bedtime routine, then our final Kiss, Hug, and Love (in that order) for the night. They wouldn't have it any other way.

The last load to wash for the night was the kids blankets for naptime at school. After that I could quickly toss them into the dryer, kiss the kids goodnight, go through my cooling down routine (More R - E - L - I - E - F) quietly drift off to sleep and wake up at 5:30 after having a full eight hours of sleep.

Long Weekend - July 31 Part I

We had a very long weekend. Good, but long. Friday night we hung out at my parents' place for a couple of hours. The kids always love to hang out with either of their grandparents. It's free entertainmnet! Plus we get to share with them, stories of funny things that have happened throughout the week. And it's just good to spend time with parents, since we're so fortunate to have them.

When we returned home, the kids were all sleep! They went to bed and Jeoff and I watched a movie. Cool! It had been a while. R - E - L - I - E - F

Saturday, we attended an end of summery party at the Montessori school where the kids now attend (I love the things they're learning there). There were tons of parents and family members there and dishes from lots of different cultures (Indian, American, Soul Food, Mexican,..)

The Pre-K Four and Kindergarten classes danced on stage to a couple of Elvis tunes and Moriah impressed us doing The Twist with her partner, spinning and twirling. It was entirely cute.

That evening was Saturday night service, and after getting all the kids checked into their classes I was able to go in and relax and let go of all of my burdens from the day and the week! R - E - L - I - E - F

We spent most of the day on Sunday cleaning up, washing pounds and pounds of clothes, folding and "starting" the put away. How many clothes do these people wear in one week?? Goodness!

How’s it going with three children?

Another response to a question from a friend:

"
With three with three with three. Let me first say that I met a lady a few weeks ago who has nine kids! I used to feel like I really had it tough with three, until I heard how many she had. That made me feel like "quit trippin' about your three!" Like "you need to just 'man up'. It's not that bad.

But I have to realize that because they're doing it with 9, doesn't mean 3 is not still hard. And just because I'm doing it with 3 doesn't mean 2 is not hard for someone else and 1 is not hard, etc. etc. I could go on.... Just being married with no kids ...... being engaged ... being single!!!
So let's see, aside from the fact that it's fun, it's rewarding, it's wonderful to see how much they look alike and how many things in their looks are unique from each other...and so on......
It's tough going places with the three of them when it's just me. When I have to go to the grocery store, or God-forbid the mall. Grocery store is okay if I'm not there for long and they have a basket that seats Monte and Moriah. Then I can put Ja'el in the basket part and get a few groceries and pile them around her or have Monte and Moriah hold the overflow :-)
Discipline is the other hurdle that we're working on. Monte is going through his two year old challenging stage. It seems like he's coming to the latter part of it though thank God. For a while he used to take off running whenever we would go out side of the house, out in the foyer at church, going in and out of their school, ...almost everywhere. One time I went to the mall and I had to get one of those backpack things with a strap so I could hold onto him while I pushed the stroller with Ja'el and also watch Moriah. (I didn't have the double stroller available at the time because I didnt' get it out of storage in time for the trip I was taking to the mall. Poor planning on my part. But the backpack thing worked pretty well.)

Oh and there was the first trip to the doctor's office with all three of them. Bad decision. But I learned a lot from it. It was Ja'el's two week visit. Moriah and Monte stayed home with me for a few weeks to save money from paying day care. Getting out of the car and going into the doctor's office was fine. The waiting room wasn't even bad. It was walking down the hallway to the "patient room" and chasing down "the boy" and keeping him from getting into stuff. Once we got into the room and he and Ja'el had been weighed and measured, I had to sit down in the patient room with Ja'el in my arms and try to keep him and Moriah under control with only one hand. I had not done enough prepping with them to instruct them on how they should behave in such a situation. And what really made me mad was when the nurse practitioner or whatever her title was came in and started talking with us and doing their exams,and after seeing him be all over the place and not listen, she would call his name and look in his eye and follow the "text book rules" for speaking to a toddler get him to say "ok" It made me feel like she was trying to prove that this is the way you talk to them, what you're doing is not working. Whatever. She was partly right though. The reason I didn't do what I would have normally done in private was because I felt I would look and sound like a crazy woman. I'm learning now to speak differently to them when disciplining them. In a way that will be acceptable in public and also in private. I still fail sometimes but I'm working on it!

I could go on... "

Status Report - July 27, 2006

Here's my status report for this point in this season in life. Just a quick one. Hopefully the future ones will be in more detail.

Age: 34

Married 6 years, one month, and three days!

Three children: Ages 4, 2, and 3 1/2 months

Occupation: QA Analyst / Contractor

Industry: Financial Instituion

Ministry: Jeoff and I recently moved from a leadership role in the Young Marriage Ministry to focus more specifically on the path to the call that God has for us.
We are currently enrolled in Covenant Church's - Covenant Training Institute - in the School of Ministry. We completed the first year and are about to enter into our internship year. I will be interning in the Children's Ministry, with specific focus in the areas of Music - Drama and Dance, and Jeoff will be enterning in the Worship Arts Media Department of the ministry.