First, a few stats from our past year at Stories of Our Boys:

You might have read all 156 blog posts.

You are reading this from 120 different countries.

JenerallyInformed.com was the #1 commenter, followed by McMom. I LOVE my commenters! You add so much to the discussion.

Nonna was my #1 topmommyblogs.com voter and promoter.

Most of you came to my blog via Google or Facebook.

This cute little blog started to make money. Then the home school year took over, and I have been turning away work ever since.

But the greatest thing in the world you give me is when one of you dear friends says, “I like what you said about….” or “I enjoy reading your blog,” or “Your post inspired me to….”

Thank you so much!!!

Biggest observation: The most popular posts are the informational ones. My stories…which are my personal favorite….are much less widely read. Ah, well.

As a blogger, you are who I aim to please. If I were only writing for myself, I’d have a journal, not a blog, so I value your feedback. I’d love to hear what types of posts are your faves.

Now onto this year’s….

Top 10 of 2015

#10 Four Things to Learn From the Duggars That They Didn’t Mean to Teach 

#9. What’s a Jamberry Anyway?

#8. One Simple Lesson That Brought Joy Back to My Life (One of my faves as well!)

#7. Breastfeeding Babies, Strangers, and Airplanes. My, Oh My, Oh My

(So random. I wrote that one in 2013, but it was still my 7th most popular article for 2015.)

#6. How to Build a Family Schedule That Works

This is the only thing I’ve ever written that was a Pinterest hit.

#5. Classical Conversations Cycle 1: Week By Week with Brain Pop Jr.

…because who doesn’t love BrainPop??

#4. Home School Vs. Public School Vs. Private School: Pros and Cons List

I so need to update this post. I wrote this one in 2014, before I ever tried the home school thing.

 #3. Montessori at Home: Brainy Kit Review

#2. How to Make a School Supply Cake

This was published in 2014. According to Google, storiesofourboys.com is the #1 authority in school supply cake building on the internet. Pretty funny when you realize that I almost never “craft”!

#1. Making Over My Morning, Like a Night Owl

…because anything that appears on MoneySavingMom.com is going to get a thousand times more traffic than my norm.

Here’s to the New Year! We’re excited to see what 2016 will bring. I hope it’s a great one for all of you!

The post Stories of Our Boys’ Top 10 Posts of 2015 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

If you’re hoping for another funny story about flying with all our boys, you are sort of in luck. 😉 This photo is us waiting at baggage claim at 11:30 pm, filing claims for lost luggage–on New Year’s Eve. Happy New Year to us! Hang with me, this is a long one…

Upon our arrival to the South, we realized we were missing a bag. We reported it, and 10 days later, that bag was still missing. That’s unusual. Airlines are usually pretty good at getting your suitcases to you. If you live close enough, they’ll even drive it to your house.

Let me tell you, after spending 5+hours on an airplane with your children, the very last thing you want to do is spend an extra hour and a half more in the air port upon arriving. At least in Atlanta we had family there helping us. As we waited there for our suitcases to get on the belt, I spotted an employee standing with a BIG empty cart. Not like the little ones that hold two suitcases. This was like the kind you get at hotels.  I said, “Oh, man, that is what we need.”

“You want it?” he asked.

“How do you get one of those??”

“Oh, I just put your bags on here for you and take them to your car, and you can just tip me.”

What!!  How had we not known about this??!! Happiest moment! Oh, it is the little things!!!

“Oh my goodness. Yes!! We have 15 bags!!!”

Fast forward to the return trip. It was a LATE night trip.

By the time we landed in San Francisco on NYE, we had to wake our children up, and do the major production that we do to complete the miracle of flight: deplane. I can’t even begin to explain why this is hard, so let’s just move on.

We got out. It took us all 30 minutes to use the bathrooms. We got almost to baggage claim, when all our talk about the coughing, influenza kid that we were sitting in front of on the plane, made us sure that we should stop and wash the boys’ hands again.  Was that really what happened, Alan? I don’t remember. It was 11pm. We were barely functioning. I definitely remember that we made someone rewash their hands. I just am not completely sure why, but there went another good 10 minutes for some reason.

We walked across the airport the wrong direction, to realize our luggage was a mile in the opposite direction. Gates were going down, employees were leaving, and we hadn’t even picked up our suitcases yet: 7 of them, plus 2 car seats.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that, yet again, another duffel bag did not make it. At least this time it was the baby’s suitcase, rather than the ELECTRONICS suitcase that went missing the first time. Sorry ya’ll, but I will be flying with expensive electronic equipment again never.

We have now ordered a new video baby monitor. We figured we’d never see that suitcase again, and it could also help me watch Caleb at night for seizures. (That’s another story for tomorrow’s blog…)

It took 20 minutes to get the claim written for the second bag and another half hour to write the claim for the still missing 1st bag, which had apparently never actually been reported. Thank you, Atlanta.

Ok. I think You should know that I probably exaggerate time frames because by 11:20 or so we had finally made it outside, and there were no shuttle buses at all. I called the hotel. We were in the wrong place……back to hiking around with our 15 suitcases.

No really. 7 large. 2 car seats. 8 carry-ons, a double stroller, and a baby.

We spotted what looked like our shuttle and dashed to it in relief.

“No, I don’t go to that hotel. Actually I go to blahablahblah….” the driver informed us. Nooooooo!

So we kept hiking and looking hiking and looking…there!  We see it! It’s coming!!  And it zoooooomed right past us. It’s almost midnight. That was the last run of the night, and Dude didn’t even stop.

We had made it through an entire day of traveling. We had converted to central time, so for us it was actually almost 2am. 2.a.m.

The baby didn’t cry. Daniel didn’t melt down. The boys were fine.

I was not. This is the point where I got reeeeeeal whiny. Noooooooooo!

Alan got on the phone with the hotel, and we got the driver back. Alan managed to get me on the shuttle without me chewing out the driver, and that was an accomplishment in itself.

At check in, they informed us that our Silver Club Level (like frequent flyer miles for hotels…Thank you, Cross Country Road trip), entitles us to FREE breakfast on the 14th floor. Yes!

The boys and I headed to the hotel room, and Alan headed to our minivan. There was a moment where I was afraid that I actually rang in 2015 in my hotel room with the bellhop, while Alan was still downstairs getting the ‘pack and play’ out of our van. Then I realized the hotel room clock was just fast, so I am so happy to report that at 12 am Pacific time, I kissed all four of my children and my husband. (And just to be clear, I did not kiss the bellhop.) 🙂

This will be a wonderful year. 🙂 I have HIGH hopes.

Let me tell you what happened today:

-JD woke me up at 1am. We have tried everything. Literally everything, so let’s not discuss this any further.

-Daniel woke me up at 5am and said, “My stomach hurts. I need some milk.”

“Daniel, if your stomach hurts, you don’t need milk. You can have water, and maybe you need to pee.”

“No me go pee. Me need water.”

“Okay. Here you can have mine.” Daniel climbed into our bed, and I rolled over to Alan and said, “I think Daniel is about to throw up.” People who guzzle water and say their stomach hurts always throw up.

Somehow Daniel managed to wait until 8am to begin the barfing.

We had some rough moments today, and I might have sort of lost it at one point, but I never did apologize to the children. We’ll come back to that later.

Early on, the phone rang. “Are you missing a suitcase?”

I felt like that man on the milk commercial, you know the Aaron Burr expert. His mouth was full of cookies, and the radio contest calls with an Aaron Burr question, but he can’t answer because he has no milk!!?? Remember???  So funny.

Anyway. I had JD holding one leg and screaming, and Daniel crying to watch “Paws Patrols” on the other leg. This was before Daniel barfed big time and I quarantined him in his room. I could barely make out the words on the other end of the phone, but I got the gist.

Don’t worry. I managed to speak.

“YES!!  YES!!!  We do! We did!”
“Can you describe the contents of the bag?”

“Oh ho yeah buddy. Hundreds of dollars worth of video equipment and a baby blanket!!!!”

dingdingding

The suitcase was found in Atlanta, 16 days after our flight. Isn’t that something?

“This is great!!! Thank you!!!”

I called Alan around 3pm. After a day of cleaning up puke and teaching school, I needed this to be an early day. Thankfully, Alan is in a much less stressful place right now than last semester, so he was able to be home early today.

I dashed off to the beach. First, I did such a poor job of parallel parking that I finally gave up and paid the $1.50 to park. Boo. My walk was nice, but kind of ho hum. Have I become spoiled??? I prayed about my problems, especially about the way I panic, or “freak out” too easily.

God told me I need to learn to depend on him more. Rather than panic, take a deep breath and pray about the problem.

Now, just in case anyone is new here: I don’t mean the audible voice of God, just that God speaks to my heart, my spirit if you will. Christianity is not a religion. It’s a relationship. It’s about having a relationship with God.

I got back to my van. I took my jacket off. I was hot. I cleaned out the pockets back into my purse. That’s when I realized that my identification was missing!!! What! I wanted to cry.

I retraced my steps back to the beach. I had walked a looooong way. I was so furious with myself for having put that ID card in my pocket and then not knowing it had fallen out. I looked and looked. I panicked a little. I prayed and prayed and looked and looked, but there was no sign of it.

I was very shaken. I drove home disappointed in myself, and disappointed in God. Why hadn’t he answered my prayer? Then I remembered about how I’d panicked and lost it with the children when they were all four hammering me at once this morning with their needs. I had never gone back and apologized, and I do believe that sin hinders our prayers. The Bible has a lot to say about reconciling with those that you have offended.

I prayed that my ID would fall into the right hands. Maybe I would still get it back.

I knew God was saying, “I got you back your suitcases. Why can’t you calm down and trust me with your ID?”

I went home, told Alan my problem, and walked straight over to the boys. I told all three that had seen my melt down from the morning, “I am so sorry. All four of you needed me at once, and it was just too much for me to handle, and I lost it. I am so sorry. You know that is not how I want to be. Please forgive me. Next time I start to raise my voice, I want you to touch my arm and tell me, ‘Mom, you’re starting to yell.'”

They all nodded and jumped to other topics. I walked straight to the kitchen to clear things off for pizza. I kept praying that the ID would fall into the right hands. The doorbell rang. We figured it was the pizza.

Nope.

It was the police. “Someone found your ID on the beach. Here you go.”

Excited doesn’t begin to describe it.  Thank you, God. We have a God we can depend on, and thank you to the kind stranger who handed my ID into the police. SUPER thank you! And thank you to the police man, who drove that card straight to my house. He arrived less than 10 minutes after I did.

So now you see why I am feeling unusually optimistic about this year, even if I do spend tomorrow cleaning up puke…hope I don’t end up hating myself for eating all those Christmas clearance cookies….

The post A God We Can Depend On appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Nonna, sharing with us examples of gold, frankincence, and myrrh at Christmas.

Studying Jesus this year is something that has me just plum ecstatic! Last year I was in the Old Testament. I didn’t enjoy that much. I was like, “Oh yeah, I need to read my Bible today…” Some of the chapters were exciting, but once I hit Ezekiel, it wasn’t fun to me. I was just counting down the days until Matthew!!!

Bible study has been a passion of mine since I was in middle school. I don’t like taking other people’s word for something as complex as the Bible. I like to study it myself, as well as listen to excellent preachers and teachers who have had way more theological training than I have! 

Today I read Matthew 10. Here are a few things I learned from Halley’s Bible Handbook:

-“It took Jesus about a year and a half to complete his choice in disciples, and then they were with him about two years.”  (page 435)

– I guess I knew this, but I never really THOUGHT about it:  In Jesus’ day, there were no newspapers. The ONLY method he had to get his message out was word of mouth. Wow. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. 😉

– When the disciples began to follow Jesus, they were following him as POLITICIANS, because they thought Jesus came for an EARTHLY throne. They had no idea they were becoming preachers.  Haaaa!!  Jesus told them “kingdom of heaven” countless times, but I don’t think it sank in until he’d been crucified and resurrected!

IF they had realized that by following Jesus, they were in the process of becoming preachers, making history, and would one day also be martyred, do you think they would have followed Jesus so readily?

Maybe yes, maybe no, but that just goes to show we’re better off not knowing our futures…

-The disciples’ role was simply to tell the story of Jesus. I love that. I think of myself as a storyteller myself. I hope that I can learn to do a better job of telling the story of Jesus. (Jesus and his disciples also healed the sick and raised the dead as they went. Now that would be a great power to have!)

********

Those were all points from Halley’s, but I want to add a couple thoughts. I love studying Jesus because he was the only man that never sinned. The rest of us, even the ones that think they are starch-clean-perfect, sin probably every hour.

This was my favorite set of verses from chapter 10. This sums up to me the GREAT LOVE of Jesus. Not one of us, even our greatest heroes, will ever “arrive” at perfection. Even once we accept Jesus, we must always seek his forgiveness and rely on his grace:

“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”    Matthew 10:32-33

Who will go on to DENY Jesus THREE times?

Peter.

And do you believe that Jesus will deny Peter before God in heaven? No, no, he will not, and that is why you cannot take out one verse from the Bible and try to build your theology around it. This is not a contradiction at all. This is called taking the Bible and understanding it as a whole, rather than thinking you can isolate a few words and say that they are contradictory.

Peter was the most famous of the disciples. Jesus said of Peter, “That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  Matthew 16:18.

Peter was forgiven of this sin that he had committed. We all sin.  We all need Jesus.

To me this is just another example of the amazing love of God. God knows what we are, and he LOVES us. He will never twist our arm to come to him, but if we seek him, we will find him.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not thereofore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”  Matthew 10:29-30

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