Mentor Mom Dinner

Last night was our spring Mentor Mom’s Dinner hosted my the Mom2Mom Group I’m a part of at church.  It was such a great night out with the ladies.  I have to give my hubby a shout out for doing dinner, bath, and bedtime all by himself and surviving!

I found some adorable chevron paper in bright colors and then went from there with our decorations. The mason jars were wrapped with burlap, a coordinating ribbon, and filled with pretty spring daisies. Each gals spot had a baby food jar vase (wrapped with ribbon), a “pillow” envelope filled with Easter candy and a small piece of paper to write a question on.  I used my Silhouette cutter to make the candy envelopes.And since I hate wasting any paper, I also cut out little flowers to use as “confetti.” We had about 35 ladies in attendance.  We started with a fabulous dinner made by Darlene at church.  I seriously haven’t had anything of hers that I haven’t enjoyed!  The ladies had questions to chat about at their tables and I also asked each person to write one question on their card for the mentor moms and I collected them.

After dessert and coffee with whip cream, Veronica shared an amazing talk.  She shared the “Fourmost Lessons” she has learned as a mom.  She shared specific ways and fabulous stories about what God has taught her through EACH son...using their personalities , giftings, etc.  It was great!
Then, after a short bathroom break,  our 6 fabulous Mentor Moms came and sat up for the panel discussion.  I read through all the questions and tried to narrow it down as there were so many good ones.  I read a question and then had each mentor mom give an answer.  Here was a sample of some of the questions:

1. How do you keep worry from overtaking your mothering?
2. How do you balance the pressing(laundry, cooking, cleaning) with the important (reading, playing, and just being with your kids)?
3. How do you get your mojo back after having a baby?
4. What is a favorite tradition you have with your kids?
5. What do you do when your spouse and you disagree on a parenting decision?

And more.  We barely got to 1/3 of the questions.  It was great to hear these older and wiser moms share with us.  They all have traveled this road before and have kids that love Jesus.  There were some heavy questions and then lots of laughter.  After they shared with us, they went back to tables and prayed for us “younger” moms.  All in all, a great evening of being encouraged as a mom!

the dreaded flu

The last 12 days may have been the longest in my mothering journey to date.  I have had friends whose kids have had the flu.  I always said I was so sorry to hear that.  But I had NO IDEA.  None.  My kiddos have been sick before but nothing like we’ve experienced this last week and half.  I would not have wished this time on my worst enemy.  And I now have utter sympathy, pity, and respect for anyone who has mothered kids through the flu.  Our days have been filled with taking temps, puke, the worst poops ever, laundry and more laundry, doctors visits, and everything in-between.  Nights that seem to never end and days where I’m counting seconds until my reinforcements come home.
It has made me ever so thankful for a few things:

• that my kids are (in general) very healthy
• that our weeks are usually filled with activities that get us out and about.  Being stuck at home and inside is about to drive everyone insane.
• that I have great girlfriends who have checked in with me and are praying us through this
• that I have a mom that I can call to tell all the gross stories too that no one else wants to hear
• that I haven’t had to wear real clothes, a real bra, or do my hair in 12 days (trying to see the positive here)
• this too shall end

  

  one of the first days

  
  

  

  sleepy boy

  

  one of the doc visits

  

  puking babies are so sad

  

  finally feeling well enough today to do a craft project

  

  our Easter garland - thank you Grandma!

  

  Owen's better, Ellie's still a little under the weather

  
  

Mentor Mom Dinner

This year, I am involved with our Mom2Mom ministry at church.  It's a fabulous group of moms that meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month.  I am in charge of the mentor mom component of this ministry.  This means that I got to recruit some older wiser moms to start coming to our meetings and offering their wisdom to use.  This past Monday we did a super fun event that was open to the whole church, just not moms in Mom2Mom.  I coordinated the Mentor Mom Dinner and was so pleasantly surprised how great it went.  Of course, I have a whole list of things I'll change for the next one in the spring, but overall it was a wonderful evening.

I stuck with the fall theme for the decorations.  I got cheap pumpkins at the Farmer's Market and carved them out (of course saving the seeds for roasting). I put a cup down in the pumpkins filled with water and then bought some large mums at Walmart and cut them apart and inserted them.  Viola, a pumpkin vase.  Add a few little gourds around and that was our simple table decor.

I made little matchbook notepads by simply sewing some paper together and put one at every gal's seat.

 

 

It's not pictured, but I also made this fabulous mulled cider in my crock pot.  It got rave reviews!

 

The ladies started to arrive and then after I prayed for the evening, we dove into some fabulous food made by Darlene at church.

After our yummy dinner, I got the privilege of introducing our speaker for the night, Cathy Vincent.  That link is to her blog.  You should read it.

She gave one of the best "mommy" talks I've ever heard.  She shared "7 Things I Wish I'd Focused on at Age 30."  They included things like enjoy life, train your kiddos to be enjoyable, stay connected to God's family.  She gave great tips and told great stories from her own life.  Watch her blog as she flushes these ideas out even more.  One of the most impactful things I heard was in the simplify section.  She was talking about saying no to stuff and activities and shared that she used to say "yes" to everything unless she heard a clear "no" from God.  But He challenged her to change this by saying "no" to everything unless God gave her a clear "yes."  This totally spoke directly to me.  I've definitely been getting better about saying no, but I think that should really always be my response.  Or at least saying, well let me check with God and William and I'll get back to you.

She made great handouts that everyone was busy filling out during her talk!

 

Then, after her awesome talk and some refills on cider and coffee, our panel of mentor moms came up.  They introduced themselves and shared a bit about their families.

Then, we opened up the floor for questions.  We only got to about 4 or 5 questions before our time ran out.  We didn't even get a chance for them to pray for us as planned.  But they still shared some great wisdom.  I already have this part tweaked for the spring dinner to make it more effective.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening with some great ladies.  I am blessed to have such a great community of ladies to help me through this journey of motherhood.  If you're local, mark your calendars for Friday, March 15th.  We're doing another one of these dinners!

randoms

Do you think he might have a few too many trucks out?  Oh, but look how sweet that smile is.And my sweet bald girl:  And because of this article:

Mommy Minute

This past Tuesday, I got the privilege of sharing a quick thing at Mom2Mom.  We have instituted the Mommy/Marriage minute each meeting.  It’s just a 5 minute segment on anything. . .could be something God’s teaching you, a cool thing you do with your kiddos, or a way you love on your husband.

I decided to share a little about what we do with Owen to help start getting some Bible in him. :)  We’ve been reading his Bibles to him since he was a baby.  This is his current favorite of his 4 Bibles.But around 18 months I realized, he could repeat things  back to me, so I decided to start doing Bible verses with him.  I printed off a few of my favorite simple verses and decided to read one a week.  We use it as his bookmark and after we read his story, we read his verse.  I have him repeat it back to me and we sometimes talk about it.  Then, I pray it over him.  I think it’s so important to let your kids HEAR you pray over them.  So for example, if the verse is “Children obey your parents because you belong to the Lord.” I would pray that his obedience would stem out of a love for the Lord.  I would also try use this verse when talking to him about obeying me. I want to try to teach him the “why” behind why I’m asking him to do certain things
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After I used my ugly ones for awhile, I finally found these 2 cute printable ones.  No re-inventing the wheel here.  I printed them and “laminated” them with contact paper.  I put them all on a D ring to keep them organized.

{From HomeSchool Creations}

{From I Can Teach My Child}

Hope maybe you can use these with your kiddos.  Here’s a fun story from a friend who started using them with her daughter:
“I have a cool story I have to share with you since you shared those verses with me!   We had friends over yesterday & when it was time to leave, their son threw a fit.  I walked out with them, husband & kids were inside.  Daughter told dad "he was being naughty when they left."  He asked why & she said "he kept saying no, no & wasn't obeying his parents.  He needs to obey his parents because he belongs to the lord!!!"  What a huge blessing to me!  So, thank you for sharing those verses with me:) “

my guy

Do you ever look at a picture of your kid and start crying?  Just did that.  I’m writing an update about this guy soon, but I really just can’t believe I get to be his mom. 

Thank you God for the awesome privilege and responsibly of raising this little man.  Help me learn from his shyness and teach me how to gently hold his tender heart.  Give me wisdom to pull out all those thoughts and dreams he already has in him.  Draw him to you and make him a "young warrior” for you.

my cutie

Yes I put this on Facebook today.  But seriously, how pretty is this little girl?!  I mean those little kissable lips.. . swoon.  But just kissable to me.  No boys will be kissing those lips for a long time. :)

This picture was actually taken on Saturday when I finally got to introduce Ellie to Miss Pam.  It was a long over-due meeting.  We had a girl’s afternoon out to Sephora where Pam is a Personal Beauty Advisor.  If you’re needing a make-up or skin care refresher, make an appointment to meet with her!  I’m loving the 118 Pam. :)