A Sneak Peak, and Some Thoughts on Packing…

Less than two weeks until moving day!

Oh, my goodness.

Ben’s been painting like crazy, and I think he’s very lucky to be able to spend so much time in our new house! He gets to see all the progress. If I were him, I would spend lots of time just basking, imagining the wonderful new life we will have.

He says he’s a bit too busy for that, looking up at the ceiling all day while he paints it white.

The other morning he sent me this picture, so I could also see how things are coming along:

See? Definite basking required. It is almost done!

And a packing update? I have decided there are a couple of advantages to having boxes piled all over our current home:

1) There is always a place to set your glass of water down beside you, no matter where you sit.

2) The girls love having new stuff to climb.

So…any packing tips anyone wants to send my way??!

Pictures of a Summer Afternoon

“Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”  ~Henry James

I love summer. I love watching our girls loving summer, too. Hope you’re having a good one!

A Farm Girl At Heart

I love getting muddy.

I love rides on the tractor. (Even better, on the combine.)

I love the smell of stubble burning. (I know it’s bad for the environment, and all that, but when I smell stubble burning in the fall, it smells like home.)

I love fresh, green fields spreading out in every direction.

I love golden fields in fall.

I love lying on the ground, looking up and being surrounded by sky.

I love prairie sunsets.

I love seeing my little girls learning to love those things, too.

Deep down, I’ll always be a farm girl.

Why Our Kids Won’t Ever Be Cool

Found this great post by Jon Acuff about raising kids who are “dorks”. I wouldn’t go so far as to call my sweet girls dorks, but I do think that they could have trouble being considered “cool”. If we keep homeschooling them, they’ll never know! At least, not until they’re old enough to work through that emotionally. Hopefully…

Anyway. This is something Ben and I have talked about before. I think many parents secretly want their children to be brilliant, gifted, and socially accepted. Well, actually, “cool” would be better than “socially accepted”. I don’t want my kids to be mocked and made fun of. I don’t want them to feel rejected or lonely. I would much rather have them be strong leaders among their peers, confident, outgoing, sought after by people.

But the trouble is that I don’t want to raise our girls in a way that will lend itself very well to turning them into young women that the world will find very desirable. (And really, writing “that the world will find desirable” does sound quite disturbing, if you think about it.)

They won’t be allowed to listen to raunchy music, or dress immodestly, or watch what everybody else is watching on TV. They will have rules and curfews and all such uncool parental types of things.  Sheltered? Yes, please. In some ways. If “sheltered” means keeping them kids for the number of years that they actually ARE kids, then they will indeed be sheltered.

It would be very legalistic of me to believe that a bunch of strict rules will turn our girls into godly people. But I am a big fan of pure thoughts and pure hearts, and as a parent, I want to do what I can to keep the soil of their lives soft – I don’t want them to become desensitized to all of the junk that’s around them. Sometimes, I think being sheltered can be a good thing.

But I don’t want them to be ignorant or naive of real life. I want them to care about what is going on in the world around them – to know that good and evil exists without needing to make it into entertainment, or to constantly live on the edge of it. And then to make life choices that are godly, instead of cool.

I guess sometimes, in the right place and in the right crowd, “cool” can be “godly”. But I don’t want to raise children who are too concerned with what is cool.

Because that wouldn’t be cool. Ha!

But seriously. Are there any other parents out there who feel even a tiny bit of the inner struggle between raising cool kids or raising godly kids?

The Bible pretty much promises that it will be hard to follow Jesus. It will hurt, and be lots of work, and be a struggle. Lots of people won’t understand, and will mock and scorn that kind of a life. That doesn’t sound appealing. And yet I know that everything good and wonderful and close to Jesus is most definitely worth all the pain, work, and struggle. That’s what I want for my darling girls. I hope and pray that they grow up wanting it too.

Even if they are dorks. I’m kind of a dork myself! It’s working out okay.

The Post in Which I Rebel Against Having a “Mom Blog”

Last night, I was spending the evening with a bunch of ladies, when I heard one of them say, “I hate mom blogs.”

I thought, “Ha! Then she would not like my blog!”

And then I thought, “Wait, really? Do I actually have a mom blog? I hope not!!”

When I got home, I went to my blog and looked it over, pretending that I had never seen it before, trying to determine if it comes across as a “mom blog”.

See, I have this issue with “mom blogs”. Which is a little weird, considering the fact that I really enjoy reading some excellent mom blogs. (Here are a few of my favorites:  the anderson crew , Emerging Mummy)

But for some reason, I have never wanted to have one.

The problem is that one of the keys to having a great blog is that you need a very clear angle, a defined purpose and theme to it.

Well, I’m a mom, I write about my kids, I share a ton of pictures of them, and yet I don’t want to be just a mom blog. Even though there’s nothing wrong with mom blogs.

But if you would say to me, “Kendra, your blog is the most mom-ish blog I’ve ever seen”, I would take that as an insult.

I’ve been asking myself what is up with that.

Here’s what I think I’ve figured out:

I love being a mom. I really do. I love our girls very much, and I love being  able to stay home all day, every day, taking care of my family. But that is only one part of my life – one part of who I am. It is very important to me, but I never want it to consume me. I don’t want to forget about the passion I have for other things, or miss opportunities because I have “tunnel vision”, and only see myself as a mom.

I don’t want my blog or my life to revolve solely around our girls, because I want my life to revolve around Jesus, and I want very much for my blog to reflect that.

There is nothing wrong with having a mom blog that focuses only on the kids, and covers things like cloth diapering, homemade baby food, and how to make felt play food for your kids. It’s just that I want something different than that.

I want to be learning and growing every single day, and getting to know Jesus more in all that I do.

And right not, I’m a stay-at-home mom. So I’m finding Jesus as I am a mom.

Maybe my blog theme is “Finding Jesus in My Mom Blog”??

Wait. That still involves the term “mom blog”!

Do you see my problem?

Whatever. I share pieces of my life with you, in the hope that as I’m learning and experiencing things, the words that I try to share with honesty and transparency will possibly touch on something that you are experiencing in your own life – even if you’re not a mom!

And even if you don’t find my kids nearly as cute or funny as I do!!

Swing

We’ve been spending a lot of time on the swings – an activity that both girls love:

Weekend

SOOOOO glad to have Ben home! I was sick all weekend, but the girls were very happy to spend all their time with him! And with the few summer staff who stayed at camp for the long weekend.

Shopping

Ben was the officiating minister at a wedding yesterday. Jordan and Amber have worked at camp with us for a long time, and Ben felt excited and honored to be involved in their wedding, but… he didn’t really have anything to wear.

It’s kind of busy around here right now, but on one of our wild, jam-packed trips into the city, we went shopping for a new shirt and tie.

I had never done that kind of thing before. Ben got a new suit right before we were married, and we live a pretty casual life out here, so we haven’t needed to shop for that kind of thing until now. I had no idea what I was getting myself into…

First mistake – we went shopping with our girls. Within about 2 minutes of arriving at the store, Kaylia was trying to climb out of her stroller (while still being buckled in, which gets a little complicated) and Anika was nowhere to be seen because she was hiding in among the suits.

We realized very quickly that this was not going to work, so I told Ben that I’d pick out something I liked (because I probably care more than he does), while he took the girls to the play area, which happened to be right outside the entrance to the store. Then I’d come out and switch with him so that he could go into the store to take a look, and then we’d be done.

It was a good strategy, because I could play the role of “helpless wife“ – never been shopping for this kind of thing before, don’t really know what’s stylish in the world of suits, need lots of help from the sales person. (Ben would never go ask the salesman for help on his own.)

It worked great – the salesman was fantastic, very helpful. He asked what size of dress shirt Ben wore, but I didn’t have a clue. We were standing there in the store and could see Ben in the play area, so the salesman started watching Ben playing with the girls and said “Well, from here, it looks like he’s about a size 16.”

Sure. I have no idea.

He found a few different shirt and tie combos that would work, so then I went to trade spots with Ben. He went into the store, and I was playing with the girls in the play area when suddenly I look up, and there stands Ben, in the entrance to the play area, with the salesman, who is holding a new shirt and tie.

Ben calls out above the noise of the play area, “What about this one??” And I yell back, “That’s the best one yet!” So he and the salesman disappear, and Ben soon comes out with his shopping bag.

Thank goodness for good salespeople. And thank goodness that we won’t have to do that again any time soon!

My own blog!!

I’m pretty excited – after blogging for a year and a half, I decided that it was finally time to have my own blog! So, this is for everybody who has faithfully followed the Red Rock blog, and said, “My favorite pictures are the ones of your girls!” I’ve kind of been thinking that there are a few too many pictures of our family on the Red Rock blog, so we’ll put personal stuff on here, and let the camp blog be a little more “campy”.  We’ll give this a try and see how it goes!