1/22/2013

Celebrating you part 2

So yesterday we took a moment to celebrate sweet Annie, today it's Louisa's turn.

girls 9 year (26)
I love that both she and her sister wanted to turn their unused topbunk into a reading nook, which I can now not get them to come out of. Yes, I'm unabashedly jealous.

 I love that the reason their topbunk is unused is because they still want to share the twin bed underneith.

 I love that she thinks a courduroy dress and flannel pajama pants makes the perfect outfit to wear out on the town. No, I don't try to correct her either.

 I never imagined raising twins could be such a phenomenal experience. I never thought that they would compliment each other so well, and bring the perfect balance to the insane task of raising boys. I don't know what I would do without them, they're my heroes, my lifeline to sanity and my breath of fresh air.

girls 9 year (15)
They're my girls, and you can't have them. 

1/21/2013

Celebrating you, part 1

This week my twin daughters turned nine. Well one turned nine, and the other decided she'd rather stay eight. So there you go. Don't think about that one too hard.
girls 9 year (3)
So to celebrate, I thought it only fitting to share a little about each girl and celebrate who they are becoming. 

Since Annie is three minutes older than her sister, and she won the arm wrestling contest, she gets to go first. 

Annie is the quiet hero of this house. She makes my life possible on so many levels. She cooks, cleans, and loves to dust. No, she is not for sale. Or rent. There was a day a few weeks back where she made me breakfast, lunch and dinner. Best kid ever. I know.  

I love that one minute she's making waffles from scratch like a proper domestic diva, and the next minute in the middle of a rough and tumble brawl with her brothers.  

I love that she has a perfect spot on British accent. I have no idea where it came from, or how she managed to nail it so perfectly. 

Mostly what I love, love, love about her is that she would take a bullet for her sister any day of the week. She is fiercely loyal to her twin and will do whatever it takes to keep her sister healthy and happy. girls 9 year (18)

1/16/2013

The justified battle

Like most people, I feel like I spend my days trying to convince my children to do what I want them to do. This is especially true of Max, who has been known to climb into our car in his underwear because he refuses to get dressed.

Most days I feel like I'm picking justified battle after justified battle. So to say I spend most of my day fighting with Max would be a bit of an understatement.

I recently realized the folly in my thinking. When I'm fighting with my son over his schoolwork or chores or whatever, I'm not really fighting with him. I'm fighting for him.

I've engaged in a timeless battle that most parents choose to fight for their children. It's not about whether they're wearing appropriate clothing, or practicing healthy habits. It's about whether they are willing to recognize authority and obey without drama.

So later on this afternoon, when Max insists that it is ok to poke his brother until he explodes in an angry fit, I'm not going to argue with him. I'm going to argue with the angry beast (the one who tries to convince my son to pick on people) over whether he can control my son or not.

Today I'm choosing not to fight with my son, instead I'll be fighting for him. What a justified battle that will be.

1/14/2013

Identity crisis

Today my very like minded friend Abby agreed to share a few words about life as she sees it. Love her. Love her words. Enjoy!


I, like most of the readers here, have been following the story of Max and his adoption pretty closely. I had the opportunity of meeting the little guy when he first visited the United States with journey's of joy. I started praying then for the Lord to make him a Peterson and the Lord spoke back very plainly into my heart: He already is.

Those words sprang to mind as I was stalking Elissa's facebook page while she was in Russia waiting on the Judge to deliver Max to her, and most recently when I saw this as her Facebook update: "Max bragging to his sister: Mom thinks I'm special!" It seems like maybe Max is beginning to believe the words spoken to a stranger brushing her teeth in her parents house. "That boy is already a Peterson." Of course his mother thinks he is special. He is hers.He always has been.

I don't think that Max is the only one who is having a hard time believing that he is loved, that he is special. I think we all do. I know I do. What is it about us, that makes it so hard to believe what is true about us? What has always  been true about us. Why do we not see what we really are?

It is a funny thing, truth. It can be there, plain as day, waiting for us, but it will not change us until we believe it. My two-year-old is able to get up and down from the booster seat at the table. She does it about fifty percent of the time. The other fifty percent of the time she asks me for my help. When I remind her that she can in fact do that by herself like a big girl, she tells me she can’t, and in that moment she is right. She can’t because she won’t believe that she can.

I have two kids in diapers, a full time job that I love as a high school English teacher and a husband in PhD school. My plate is full in this season of my life, and yet now is when I felt the Lord call on my heart to write. Now is when he is telling me I am a writer, to finish that book I started a long time ago and figure out how to write a book proposal.

I have as many excuses as to how this isn’t true as I do papers to grade and diapers to change. I don’t have enough followers on the blog. I don’t have the time to write. I don’t write as boldly as one or as eloquently as another. There is someone else to tell this story, someone more qualified. Surely Lord, what you are saying isn’t true. But deep in my heart these things He is telling me about who I am and what I am called to pull on something I didn’t even know was there. Something dormant comes alive. Our hearts know the sound of truth, even when it takes a while to believe.

Today, I want to remind you of the truth: You are special. You are the Lords. You are uniquely qualified to raise the children He has given you, work the job you are in, live the life you are living right now. God knows what dreams He has called you to,  how He has created you to be. The truth is waiting for you to believe what your heart already knows.

Tell me, what truths are you having a hard time believing about yourself? What does God’s word say that you don’t always believe? I can’t be the only one who occasionally looks in the mirror and thinks beautifully and wonderfully made is stretching it!

Abby lives and loves in the city of Atlanta. She has two hilarious children and a husband that doubles as her copy editor and biggest fan. If two in diapers and a full time job teaching English at a local high school don’t keep her busy, you can find her blogging at accidental devotional

1/10/2013

My interrupted

Three years ago my life was perfect. Our house and income levels were sufficient, and I had three beautiful, sweet children who were the pride of my life.

And it was awesome. My life was exactly as I had always imagined it would turn out to be. But as we all know, what we think will be awesome is never really as awesome as we assume it will be. 

It's true that maintaining a clean house and raising three happy healthy children is the stuff that dreams are made of. But For me it was a cake walk, and I didn't want any cake. I wanted gritty. I wanted to be "all in" for Jesus, but I wasn't completely certain what that was supposed to look like.

So I shopped around. I poured all of my extra into our children's ministry at church, into homeschooling my children, I even dabbled in growing food for our community food bank.

All of those were fantastic, community changing projects. But they were the wrong projects. Each one I tried on felt like a second-hand pair of sneakers. They might look great from the outside, but they were molded to fit someone elses foot. And every step I took reminded me that they belonged to someone else.

This all came to a head in October of 2009. I vividly remember the time my frustration with all these projects came to a boiling point.  It was a warm afternoon and the late afternoon lighting was golden. The kids and I were out in the garden, as we were most warm afternoons that year. They were off running around like yahoos and I was pulling weeds. Well mostly I appeared to be pulling weeds as I yelled at God. It was a "what do you want from me, and why do all of my attempts at being 'all in' feel so wrong" kind of argument.

October 2009 is when Max's biological father lost his custody battle with the Russian court system and our son was moved into the permanent care orphanage in Severodvinsk.

We wouldn't meet this little boy who would ultimately change the course of our lives for another 9 months. And even then we spent most of his 2 week visit assuming God had brought him to us so we could help him find a home with another family. But that's another story entirely.

If you ever wanted an example of what it means to be "all in" for Jesus, just look at my son. My very anxious, attachment disorder-y child who really is much too emotionally fragile to be in public school. My child who would flounder in any other social dynamic than the one he's in. Everything we have is everything he needed most.

And by golly it's hard. I never imagined that being "all in" would mean so much sacrifice. That ultimately I'd end up scrapping all those other "good for the community" projects to focus %100 on this little boy. This child who is so much more than a good deed I did in order to make myself feel like a good Christian.

1/01/2013

New Year, same hope

On this bright dawn of a new year it's easy to spout a long list of "I will's" for my next year.

I will take more time for myself
I will accomplish xyz...

But everything in me revolts at the idea of changing my behavior because I changed a the page on my calendar. I learned long ago that God doesn't care so much about what I do, but mostly He just wants me to work on improving who I am.

So with that in mind, we're going to officially drop the notion that New Years means improving my preformance in the ways and activities I choose to define myself. Today I announce that I'm done doing, it's time to start being. It's time to stop freaking out because I didn't do X and don't have Y. It's time to stop doing and start being. I really need to work on being the child of God I claim to be. Here are a few gems that I've come up with over the last few years that help me remember how to be who I want to be. If  you don't mind I'm just going to recycle them again this year:

I want to see the world as Christ sees it, and act accordingly
I want to live a life rich in being, not rich in having
I want to invest in people, not in posessions

But mostly I just want to remember who I am and that God doesn't care what I do.

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