Grateful Acres

I've been feeling a post brewing for a few weeks now... my words aren't clear yet, but my heart is full enough tonight that I'm going to try writing and see what happens. I'm taking a parenting class through my church right now. I realized recently that I studied theory in college to be more well equipped in music (that and I didn't care about much else :)), I took marriage counseling before getting married, and have been offered birthing classes during pregnancy... but I didn't do much reading up on raising kids before having them :) **and they don't come with instruction manuals** Anyway, I've been really deeply chewing on the concepts and material we're studying. I've been processing and praying about punishment vs. consequences, approach, how things affect kids psychologically long term, how to teach responsibility and grace at the same time, how to be nurturing and firm, and occasionally spiraling into a mild amount of panic that I may, ...

...nothing enormously serious to post today, just some pictures and some thoughts/stories that I don't want to fade away as time passes... This morning I woke up to a sunny day, feeling rested (which doesn't happen very often... the sunny day OR the feeling rested :) ). I decided that today needed to be haircut day-- very much overdue. I love when the boys' hair gets all long and shaggy. It smells like little boy, makes for some amazing bed-head, and feels so soft and sweet against my neck when I hug/rock them. However, I've let them get about as mop-topped as I usually do, and as the weather begins to warm up I felt today would be a good time for haircuts. Neither of them like haircuts, but we are freshly past the screaming-like-I'm-cutting-their-fingers-off stage! They have reduced their noises of discomfort to the occasional "allDONEmommy!!". Henry's "before" picture "after" ...he's still pouting because he didn...

Often I pass by "inspirational quotes", labeling myself as a bit of a skeptic... Today one grabbed my attention because I feel it labels the season I'm in spiritually right now: Refuse to be content with just the knowledge of God- insist on experiencing His presence. I copied it onto a little green notecard, "put-a-bird-on-it", and it's sitting on my kitchen counter, adorned with a little paper clip given to me by Caitlin Hooper (http://ckp.showitsite.com/)... ready to remind me to be in with both feet daily. "Experiencing God's presence" is new for me- REALLY FEELING IT. I used to write off the idea as "emotionalism", but then I realized that our relationship with God is like a marriage- if we mumble "luv ya" once in awhile, but there is never any passionate expression of that love... is the love really there? We must passionately express how we feel about God to Him. And in that moment, we "experience God's ...