Merry Christmas!

We had a hard time getting a good family photo this year!

We got some good ones of the kids, though.

Kai James, 7

Ezra William, 5

Jude Paul, 3

Koa Jeffrey, 1

4 brothers

I love this one, too.  But the winning photo is...

Ta da!  Merry Christmas!

From sunny Costa Rica, wishing you a joyful holiday season filled with love and laughter!

So, I know I said I was taking a break...

But we're having so much fun, I just had to share a few things!

We're having such a great time with our tadpoles.  I've been printing out some pictures and the boys are writing the dates and things to keep in their binders.  The first page was a photo of their habitat. 

Ezzy wrote, "I will always love my tadpoles!" next to his picture.

Kai decided to write step by step instructions.  He wrote:

How to make a tadpole habitat
sand - water- rocks - muck - container
step 1 - put sand in container
step 2 - get water from river or lake
step 3 - get tadpoles in water and muck
step 3 - pour the water and muck into the aquarium

Next is this photo dated November 28.   Ezzy wrote, "Today my tadpoles have legs."  Kai wrote, "This is the day my tadpoles had back legs."

This is one of our tadpoles on Dec. 2

And now on December 3, this one is really starting to look like a little frog - amazing!

 Here's another little activity I made for Jude - some black-eyed peas in a bin

 He wanted to pour some water and stir, and add some color, so I let him do this in the kitchen, this is with cracked corn.

Well, then I started wondering if I could dye the beans Jude was playing with.  So I looked online and found some instruction - simply soak them in rubbing alcohol and food coloring.  Let them soak for one hour, stirring every fifteen minutes or so to distribute the color evenly.

Then let them dry for the rest of the day.

Here are the results!  This is a mix of cracked corn and black-eyed peas. 

 Perfect for just playing with or all kinds of art projects, mosaics, etc.

 So then we decided we wanted to dye some noodles.  We got a variety of types.  You just place them into ziploc baggies, add the tiniest bit of white vinegar and food coloring, mix it around inside the bag, then open the bag to let it dry.  It dries fairly quickly. 

 Here are our results.

 We made some necklaces and strings.

Good fine-motor skill practice.

 And a happy, chubby baby watching everything!

I pulled out our Christmas tree and stockings, which were under our bed.  Kai was very excited about this and got inspired to dress up like Santa.

Ezra made this decoration all by himself (notice the dyed beans for buttons!)

This is Ezra's gingerbread man.

Kai's gingerbread man decoration.

And Jude's.  Yeah, Jude doesn't really like coloring very much, but he wanted to be included!

I had another thought this week.  Have you ever heard people talk about how much more they are able to enjoy their grandchildren once they are grandparents?  Well, I was thinking - let's have that enjoyment now!  I don't want to wait until I'm a grandparent to truly enjoy my offspring!  But the question is - how to do that?  There are so many stresses and pressures to face each day.  I think most times the answer lies in allowing God to transform my character, my reactions, my responses, to create the kind of home environment I want and be able to really love and enjoy my boys each day. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Some Fun Videos

The boys skateboarding



An obstacle course in our backyard



And a fight at the mall

Amazing night

I love the spontaneity of living here. I never know what each day will hold.  The other night Scott called me, "There's a turtle on the beach, I'm driving by - get the boys and jump in the car."  Sure enough, about one minute later we were jumping into our '98 Chevy Astro and booking it the short three blocks to the beach.  Scott drove right out onto the compacted sand, we ran through the misty rain and this is what we found.  

It's turtle season in Costa Rica, so every night mommy turtles are coming up onto beaches everywhere to lay their eggs.  There was a man working with a turtle reserve not too far away and he was looking out for this one.  After she dug her hole and settled in, the boys moved closer to see the eggs dropping into the hole.

After she finished laying her eggs, she moved her flippers and covered the hole with sand.  Then she rocked back and forth and did a little dance to smooth the hole to make sure her eggs were covered and safe.  When she moved away she had done such a good job you couldn't even tell anything had happened there.  Then she turned around and headed back to the ocean.

There she is, swimming away.  She is an Olive Ridley Sea Turtle for those interested.  (My camera battery was basically dead - it was really hard to get pictures!)

After she left, the man from the turtle reserve went back to dig up the turtle eggs.  They would not be safe on the beach here in Jaco, so he takes the eggs over to the reserve, protects them and then releases them back into the wild when they hatch.  The man from the reserve only had two gloves, but he let the boys take turns digging up the eggs and placing them into a plastic bag.

We counted 116 eggs!  Isn't that incredible?  Kai was especially thrilled to do this.  When he saw the turtle laying eggs he was very concerned.  He told me he was thinking right away about the eggs getting destroyed.  He was remembering another scene from a few weeks ago, talking to a homeless man.

The homeless man said he was laying on the beach at night and watched a turtle lay her eggs.  He was hungry so when the turtle went back into the ocean, he dug up the nest and ate the eggs.  Kai watched him squeeze lime onto an egg and eat it right before his eyes.  So I'm pretty sure that's why he was worried about this mommy turtle. 

It's for reasons like these that the Hermosa Beach turtle reserve is working to conserve these turtles and their nests.  The man from the reserve said they have already cleared over 150 nests from Jaco beach and taken them to the reserve.  It was really exciting to be a part of the conservation efforts and help to save this mommy turtles' eggs!   I was just having visions of my boys all working as little ecologists. 

Another thought, I was just reading in a book about the importance and spirituality of caring for creation.  The author was saying that, "Modern men and women have lost their connection with creation.  We're always insulated from it by shoe leather, cotton-polyester, glass, metal, plastic, HVAC, and screens of many kinds!  ...I can't help but believe our souls are starved for the company of God's creatures." 

He goes on to say, "If I could live another life, I think I would devote it to ecology, because I also believe that this is a truly spiritual and Christian work.  Genesis begins with our mandate to take care of God's creation, and never has our failure to do so been more acute than now.  Learning to live as caretakers of creation and friends to fellow creatures must be at the core of Christianity."  Interesting, huh?

What's going on with Jude?

This is a journal entry from September 10:

Ever since I got back from my trip, Jude has been like a different kid. He's so clingy. He wants me to carry him everywhere and do everything for him. He wants nothing to do with Scott - only mommy. And he keeps shouting for things in a high-pitched, stressed-out voice, "I need JUICE!!" It is so frustrating, irritating, exasperating! I love this boy with all my heart, but I'm at my wits end with him.

Definitely I can see that when I went on that trip it caused some stress in little Jude's life.  Not only did I leave him, I brought the baby with me.  I chose Koa over him.  That's painful.  It's been tough to get that connection back with him.  The hard thing is, I know that what he needs is more connection, but his behavior is causing the opposite to happen.  And with three other children, including a baby, it's really hard to re-connect.  And honestly, I don't even know how to reconnect!

Well, I started reading a new book, Playful Parenting, and I had the breakthrough I've been praying for. I never realized before that play is such a powerful way to connect with our children. 

"Since fun and laughs are the currency of children's play, we may need some work on lightening up a bit.  When we get disconnected from children - and we do, again and again - play is our best bridge back to deep connection with them."

So, yesterday I determined to be more playful and see what would happen.  I needed to go grocery shopping and decided that I would take my little "tiger cubs" shopping.  When I took each one out of the van I gave them a little tug at the back of their necks with my mouth, the way a momma tiger carries her cubs.  Jude's eyes were twinkling.  He thought this was the greatest thing ever. Instead of buying food we were hunting, and our grocery bags were our meat.  The boys helped carry the bags into the car by carrying them in their mouths like little tigers.  It was hysterical.

"When we are exhausted or when we are at the end of our rope, we tend to think that play will be just more of an energy drain.  But when we engage playfully with our children, we find that sudenly we do have the energy, both for fun and for finding creative solutions to thorny problems."

That night Kai, Ezzy and Koa all fell asleep, but Jude was still awake.  This is a situation that could potentially frustrate me, but I decided to keep the playfulness going just to see what would happen.  We started out playing tigers again.  He was the baby tiger, I was the mommy and Scott was the daddy.  Then we were hawks and the daddy hawk taught him how to fly and the mommy hawk fed him some worms.  Then we were hermit crabs.  Again he was the baby and Scott and I were the parents.  We had to hide in our shells a lot.  Next we were bears, but this time he was a "big boy bear."  His voice changed a little bit, he was being more confident and doing more things as a big boy bear.  Then I suggested that the big boy bear was tired.  He went to lay down by Koa, still as the "big boy bear" whispering that the big boy bear wouldn't wake up the baby.

Jude's face as I entered his world of imaginary play was incredible.  Eyes alive, alert, engaged.  Facial expression serious, concentrated, intense, fully engrossed in what he was imagining.  He was seriously happy - like I haven't seen him in quite some time. 

Now today he seems to have a deeper contentment, he seems more brave, more able to risk being a "big boy" and know that I'll be here, buiding trust back with me.

A friend came by who's known to be a big Jude fan.  Since my trip Jude has been very grumpy and mean with this friend who used to be his pal.  Well, today Jude was being friendly, silly and engaging once more.  "Wow, he's getting back to like he was before,"  he said.  Yes, he is.   I think my Jude is back to stay.
 

I let my children fight

Yes, it's true.  I'm outnumbered here 5:1, so I learned pretty quickly to let boys be boys.  But we do have some ground rules:

1.  Playfighting is allowed, real fights are not.  If you visit my home you will here me asking, "Is this a playfight or a real fight?"  If both children answer, "playfight!" then it's allowed.  If not, it will stop immediately.

2.  To qualify as a "playfight" both children must agree it's a playfight.  In otherwords, if one child thinks it's a playfight and the other one feels it's a real fight, then it must stop immediately.

3.  There are some risks involved.  If you choose to playfight, you may get hurt.  If this happens, I usually recommend that the child takes a break.  When I recommend this, the child usually all-of-a-sudden feels better and decides that to keep playing would be way more fun than taking a break, and maybe is not feeling so hurt after all.

4.  Koa just can't wait to get in on the action.

Here's what I'm talking about...  beware this video is not for the faint of heart.  You may see some intense moments, but just look and you'll see the smiles on the faces.  It's taken me awhile to understand the strange world of boys - but I think stuff like this is a huge part of it, and possibly very necessary...

Developing character in our kids

Do you ever see a negative character trait expressed in your child and just cringe?  I believe that part of my job as mom is to help my children in their character development.  In the midst of dealing with difficult behaviors, I have to take deep breaths and remind myself to have grace.  Change is a process.  I have to pray about how to best address these things.  And I have to be diligent and not give up, even though it can be an exhausting process.

It helps to reflect, too.  The hard ages for me to deal with seem to be ages 4&5.  I remember going through a really difficult time with Kai at these ages.  I had times where I wondered if I would ever see results?  Would he ever get it?  "It's ok to be angry, but it's not ok to hit, scream, etc."  I repeated this phrase over and over and over again.  I can look back now and honestly say, he got it.  He did learn and he has gained a good measure of self-control over his emotions.  That's what I have to remember as I deal with Ezra and Jude who each turned 3 and 5 and seem to have entered into new phases with new challenges.

I'm working on teaching them about Honor.  According to this book, honor means: 

Treating people as special

Doing more than what's expected

Having a good attitude

I really like that.