It is a re-usable, stickable poster that goes on the wall and comes off cleanly. And at $14 it is such a steal! They have tons of great designs and they are really customizable. We currently have 7 of them up in our house, but here are the four in the basement:

The Story of Ian and Larissa

I don’t really even have much to say about it because I was just so deeply humbled at the reflection fo Jesus I saw in these lives.

I don’t know if I could have survived breastfeeding four babies for 4.5 years without Lansinoh Lanolin. One of the fabulous things about the product is that a little goes a really long way, so you may have found yourself with some extra sitting around. I just recently discovered it is the ULTIMATE lip balm. It is incredibly thick and moisturizing and totally pure as well. Elijah gets really chapped lips and nothing works quite like this for him (and doesn’t sting which he often complains about with other lip balms). And as an added bonus it works great for healing cuts and scrapes too. So even though I am now done breastfeeding, once my tube runs out, I will be buying another for the lips in our family.

1. Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist: This is a fabulous post by Christine Hoover that felt like it was written especially for me.  I have added Christine’s blog “Grace Covers Me” to my limited blog reading as well.  One post that struck me as I was perusing her blog was entitled “What a Nursing Bra Taught Me About Friendship“.  It was such a real and honest look at true friendship.
2. 15 Tips on Blogging from John Newton: These great tips that were converted from Newton’s tips to writers are fabulous.  I think they could apply to any area of our communication.

Wishing all my readers a wonderful weekend

A few days after we got home from Ukraine, I was at an ice hockey game. I was still a bit jet lagged, but overall was feeling pretty good. The game was moving along through the first period and then came the break between the first and second periods. And it was like I had entered the Twilight Zone. As soon as that buzzer went off to end the first period, people whipped their mobile devices out like nothing I have ever seen. As I looked around to see what people were doing I saw everything from checking Facebook pages to texting to playing games to posting pictures. I kept looking and saw couples that were obviously on a “date” sitting beside one another moving their thumbs quickly across their phones. I saw kids with their parents all with their own devices lost in their own worlds.

It was really striking to me, especially considering I hadn’t even brought my phone in the building because I was there with my dad and if I needed to call someone I could use his phone. Or asked one of the hundreds of people around me who had a phone.

Now it isn’t like I don’t see phone usage in Europe. I certainly do. In fact texting was big in Europe long before it was in the U.S. because it was cheaper over there. So I can remember fumbling around with texting back in 2005 while my European counterparts could breeze through a text like they had taken a class on it. I had to actually get used to the fact that people would text rather than call. But I think the big shift in the U.S. has come with the iPhone. It is relatively cheap to get an iPhone in the U.S., which is not the case in Europe. They are much more expensive there and not as universally used. Plus there seem to be less phones trying to copy off them. But in the U.S., the majority of the people have an iPhone. And there seems to be something about the iPhone that is addicting and almost seems to come up with reasons why you should be on it every hour of your waking day.

This little glimpse into American culture was a wake-up call to me because it saddened me. People barely talk to one another anymore. Or even beyond that, they don’t know how to just sit and “be” for 10 minutes without their fingers having something to do. It is part of the reason I am off Facebook and Twitter and have turned off all notifications on my own iPhone. It is part of the reason I put my phone away one day each week and don’t use it. And it is part of the reason we are already thinking through how we will let our kids use phones and how we want to model phone usage for them. We really want to be people who love people and not things. And you show what you love partly by the way you spend your time. And what I saw at that 2 hour glimpse into American culture is that we spend a lot of time on our phones.

This is not a rant against iPhones, but just something I felt compelled to share because it squeezed at my heart. Maybe you don’t even have a cell phone, but all of us probably have an area where our stated priorities don’t line up with where we spend our time. I just want to challenge you to think through that today. Have a great Thursday!

I also take a few other steps to ensure safety with the kids while we travel:

1. We try and schedule flights so we aren’t tight on time.  Running through an airport is an easy way to lose a kid.  We always take our time getting on and off the planes too.  We aren’t in a rush, so we don’t need to act like it.

2. We use strollers for the younger kids.  I try to keep as many kids confined as I can when we travel.  And the older ones know they need to touch the stroller as we walk.

3. For bathroom trips, we look for family bathrooms or just all pile into one stall together when we can.  No one ever stands on their own.

Please leave any of your safety tips for traveling with kids int eh comments section.  Have a great Wednesday!

So anyway, I made an Amazon order and was very excited to receive this book.  I opened it up, thinking it would be a great way to get her to clean her room without me bugging her about it.  Low and behold I found it was a spoof from a child’s perspective about how to clean your room.  And it was hilarious!  I read it through to the kids the first time and we just laughed and laughed.  Abby and I would look at one another at certain points that sounded so much like her and just giggle.

And it was actually better than getting a step-by-step book on how to clean your room.  The power of humor helped me to step back and realize a messy room isn’t the end of the world.  And helped her as well to see how ridiculous she may sound at times (for example, the mom asks the little girl about getting rid of a ratty old stuffed animal at which point the girl cries proclaiming it as her most favorite thing in the whole wide world and then tosses it on her heap of other stuffed animals when her mom leaves the room).  So if you live with a child who is a little on the messier side, this book is a fun way to view the “problem” at hand.

How to Clean Your Room in 10 Easy Steps by Jennifer Larue Huget

The Everyday Question of Motherhood by Christine Hoover from the Desiring God Blog

The quote is from Elyse Fitzpatrick’s book Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus that is sitting on my shelf, ready to read (a lot is sitting on my shelves these days!).