Here is a tiny peek into my own messy house:

My coffee table is covered in children’s books, a box of Legos, my Bibles, a box of crayons, a sippy cup, and ALL the little Lego men that I swept out from under the couch this morning.

There’s also a few preschool crafts and the remote control to the t.v.

Then there’s the center piece, all buried in there. It’s supposed to be an ornate pedestal bowl of THREE ornamental balls, but of course someone broke one…..when they were using it as a bowling ball, I believe.

Most of my house is as cluttered as that little table. I won’t even bother lying and saying it’s just because we’ve been busy lately.

Busy lately? Ha! It’s been pretty high tempo since about 2011.

We, like most American parents, live a little overwhelmed, stressed, sleepy, tired, and yes, we’re busy lately.

I rushed home from volunteering in the library this morning (BEST job ever– I love it so much I have trouble making myself leave it). As soon as I pulled in the driveway, the LOWE’s people were here with our new dryer.

Only I was being thrifty and purchased a dented dryer, so I have to send it right back because the drum is rubbing the dent in the side, making quite a loud racket. Problem not solved…

I unloaded the dishes and made myself lunch, but I needed some words of comfort.

Words of encouragement go a great distance when life is an uphill climb.

Kindness I read from a blogger a few years ago came back to me as I sat in my favorite chair, staring at that cluttered up coffee table.

She’s a mom of five boys, but she doesn’t blog anymore. Still what she said is with me though, and her words were so wise…

4Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue comes by the strength of the ox.     

 Proverbs 14:4

Julie (the blogger) said that this verse reminded her of her life. Her house is full of oxen, and so her stable is never clean, but look at all the glorious benefits of having a house full of children, 5 boys in her case.

Yes, people without……oxen……have tidier spaces. People with more OCD may also be better at it.

People with the tidy mangers even occasionally say hurtful things to us.

In the past four years, several folks have (surely unintentionally) hurt my feelings about my house. They didn’t get it.

Normal, right? No, it gets worse than this. I do have enough pride to not show you those pictures

But what is that to us?

Our life is richer thanks to these oxen. There’s not a parent worth having who would not agree that their children are their greatest blessing.

Sometimes I’m actually embarrassed to tell people about all my children because it feels like bragging, which we try not to do!! This glorious blessing is not something any of us take lightly.

Empty stalls are for retirement. No thanks. I’d rather have my coffee table full of toys and my arms full of hugs. An empty nest will be something to embrace later, and I’m sure by then I will be ready for it.

For today, It’s better to have…..

coloring books in my dining room than empty place settings

Clean school shirts to fold on my couch than tidy rooms with no inhabitants

Video games in front of the t.v. than knick-knacks collecting dust

baseball hats on my hall tree than empty hooks serving no purpose

dried toothpaste in the boys’ sink than a guest bathroom that’s rarely used.

We can only clean so many areas at once, ya know? You do your best.

These little souls, made in the image of God, are put in our care for a season. It is our most precious duty. There is none like it, the charge to guard and bring up your children, both flesh and blood and adopted.

And yes, it’s a messy job, but what a privilege!! What a privilege to have a house cluttered with preschool art and marked with chubby handprints. Be still my heart.

Eventually we will all be older and in a newer, cleaner phase of life. We will think we are still so busy because it will be hard to remember all this that we are doing now.

Maybe we’ll even shout to the neighbor kids to keep off the grass. Oh, I hope that’s never me.

But for today, the manger is full, and from the strength of the oxen comes the abundance of the harvest, and I am thankful. I hope you are too.

SaveSave

The post Hey, Mom with the Messy House, It’s Okay. Be Thankful appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This week I happened upon a super cute post by Janine Huldie titled The 8 Best Things About Having All Girls.

I had to read it! I needed a sneak peek into what that world is like because, mamas, the view over here, in my house of many little men, is a whole lot different!

Janine wrote a great article. You should totally go read it.

Naturally, Janine’s list inspired me to type out my own best things about having all boys, a life I never dreamed of having. Never in a million years did I plan to be a mom of all boys. No, I was not a tom boy. No. I never played a sport, unless you count cheerleading or church league volleyball, or gymnastics…….okay so really it would be more accurate to say I was never into sports.

I don’t fish, touch worms, or laugh at bathroom jokes, and I love everything sparkly and glittery. My toy of choice was Barbie dolls, and I’ve never made a mud pie in my life.

I was never a wuss either. I grew up climbing trees and doing bicycle stunts, and by the way, I killed a snake once.

But oh man, this world of testosterone I’m living in now is a unique ADVENTURE. Here are the 15 BEST things I could think of about having all boys. 

#1. Their clothes are cheap, and you don’t have to buy that much.

It’s so easy. For setting my oldest 2 up for spring/summer, I bought them each a new pair of tennis shoes, gym shorts, a pair of camo shorts, sleeveless tees, one nice shirt a piece, and that was it. I was done. The others have handed down clothes.

#2. All boys want to be Batman.

Not even kidding. They have all gone through the Batman phase. They have all worn the costume. It’s universal, and it is the cutest thing ever.

#3. The Hair

Wet it. Comb it. Done. So easy. Very little room for drama.

#4. Going to the Bathroom Alone

Once they are fully toilet trained, and they have a big brother to escort them, you are done.  Will you ever see me in the bathroom with a little person sidekick? Nope. Am I the one who has to take them to wash their hands at restaurants? Nope. All Daddy. And when Daddy isn’t there, I send them in pairs, with my oldest son. I’m a free woman.

#5. Bug Squashers

They squash the bugs for me. Never have I had to hear someone flipping out because they ran across a bug. They live for getting to squash pests. I’ve seen them kill spiders with their bare hands.

#6. They don’t expect me to play with them much.

Does that sound mean? Don’t worry. I promise I do play with them sometimes, a little. I’ll play board games or occasionally jump on the trampoline, and I love to read to them. But no one asks me to spend a bunch of time at a tea-less tea party or dressing a Barbie doll. I’ll even color, but thankfully, no one expects me to play pretend, which is a relief! They know my interests are a little different than theirs, and they play basketball or super heroes without me.

#7. Boys love their mama.

“I’m riding with Mom!”

“No! I want Mommy do it!”

Mom. Mom. Mom. We are still at the golden age where it’s still all about mom.

#8. The hugs!

I’m sure girls are very affectionate too, but I just adore the way little boys are so physical. That means lots of wrestling with their dad, but lots of hugs for mom.

#9. The laid back atmosphere!

When you are dealing with a house full of dudes, the approach to social functions, free time, vacation, etc., etc. is seriously laid back. There’s not a person in the house that cannot get up and ready in just a few minutes, if necessary.

#10.Their toys are simple.

Hot Wheels. Action figures. Trains. Baseball cards. Skylanders. Done. No need for a billion tiny Shopkins pieces. No need for a $200 doll with a $40 dress.

#11. Hand-me-downs

I have 4 boys, but I actually only have to buy a full wardrobe for 1 of them, and then I get quadruple my money’s worth out of each item they don’t destroy.

#12. Body guards

I do feel extra safe already when I go walking with one of my already-over-5 feet tall and 100 pounds pre-teen boys. Just imagine how much more like a body-guard they will be in just a couple more years! We strut across those parking lots like we own the place.

#13. They’ve made me less prim and proper.

Yeah…. I can say “Everybody get their butts in the car” as loudly as I want because frankly, they love the word butt. It makes them soooo happy.

#14. I get to focus all of my fashion efforts on my OWN wardrobe.

Who has the cutest Lula Roe leggings outfits in this house? Yep. It’s me.  Who has pretty colored hair clips? Again, me. Until the boys get married, I get to be the prettiest girl in this house.

Last but not least…

#15. No crafting requirement

I don’t craft, nor do I ever have to craft again. A friend of mine, who is a girl mom, said that the girl moms make bows and do crafts at play dates. I don’t know if that’s true, but I was horrified at the idea of doing anything other than laughing loudly at playdates.

I hope you got a couple of good chuckles out of this list. Being a boy mom is a treasure. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Whatever your situation is, it has to be THE BEST, because we only get one go at life. Might as well enjoy it.

Are you a boy mom or a both mom? Be sure to check out Janine’s list if you’re a girl mom! I enjoyed her insight.

The post The 15 Best Things About Having All Boys appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Y’all know it was a rough year for me, physically. Thankfully, everything turned out to be mostly okay. I just have a few chronic conditions to manage, but it’s all under control now, and I have a good outlook.

A brilliant thought came to me the other week, as I was putting on my rain boots, Alan’s rain jacket, and heading out to shut the trashcan lid and bring it in from the pouring rain.

“What am I doing??? Why am I trying to do so much???”

“People used to have lots of children, especially wanting BOYS, ON PURPOSE so that they could have lots of workers for their farm! Here I have all these workers, and yet I’m putting on rain boots to go out in THAT??”

I turned to Caleb, who was playing Monopoly with Daniel, “Caleb, why don’t you put on my rain boots and go bring the trash cans in for me? The lid is open, and remember, Dad wanted y’all to take care of that.”

Caleb grinned—I’m not making this up. I was so relieved!– “Okay, Mom! Let me finish this turn with Daniel. Then I’ll head right out there.”

And he did! I was so excited. I stood at the garage door and filmed him going out in that rain, closing up the can, and rolling them back to the house.

Hmmmm….I could get used to this!

I’ve been looking for more ways to harness their power lately. Did you know that both my 2 oldest are 11 and 9 respectively, and they can both beat me at arm wrestling? I challenged them recently after Caleb proclaimed himself the 3rd strongest person in our family.

What!? I may not be much, but I’m stronger than a 3rd grader!

“Well, Caleb, if you are #3, who is #1 and 2??”

“Dad is the strongest. Then Joshua. Then me. Then you…”

“Oh, really, well, I think we should arm wrestle because I am stronger than you think!”

Yeah….no, I’m not actually, as it turned out.

Joshua can even do pull-ups now. We have a pull-up bar, and he practices incessantly. We had to move it out of Alan’s closet just to get Joshua out of our room.

And guess what Alan did the other week? He couldn’t take my messy, disorganized closet anymore, so he cleaned it up for me:

working hard

And the After:

After. That stack of clothes in the floor are the ones that are only 1 size too small. I’m holding out hope. Roll your eyes, but I seem to go up and down a size every season. Plus my hip swells and un-swells with the pain, so this isn’t unrealistic.

And of course, what would I have done this fall without Nonna and Nana helping when Alan was out of town? I am so over “toughing it out.” Stress makes people sick. Get help when you need it is my new motto!

Nana and Daniel

I also never have to carry my own groceries in anymore. We’ve been training them for years. Now I don’t even have to say anything. I just get home and pop the trunk. Sadly, I’m on my own when I shop during school hours.

Even Dan does his part.

Thank you all for being a part of our village. I hope you will get help when you need it too! That’s what we are all here for, to help each other out.

28 “Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.”

Ephesians 4:28

10″ God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.”   Hebrews 6:10

Merry Christmas! Have you signed up for our newsletter yet? It goes out every 2 weeks and has stories that are not on the blog. This week’s is an inspiring story about this Christmas tree:

The post “Get help when you need it” is my new motto. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Top Pre-Teen Boy Picks: Ages ~8-12

#1. Popular Video Games this Christmas:

Our sons don’t have any of these yet, and all three are on my oldest’s list. His nonna has already claimed the basketball one, and I took care of the Skylanders, thanks to this incredible deal that Amazon is running right now on it. (That’s a link that’ll take you to it. So yes, this whole page is chock full of affiliate links.)

#2. Cards, cards, and more cards!!!

Both of my oldest two boys (ages 9 and 11) are crazy about these. Here’s a link to some card holders too because their collections get massive quickly.

#3. Books my boys have asked for:

The latest Wimpy Kid book is HALF OFF on Amazon this week! I’m sure we’ll be completing our collection…

Epic Big Nate: This one is NOT on sale, and it’s $32. Youch. It’s an overview of Peirce’s career progression with Big Nate. I’m not sure that it has any cartoons in it that haven’t already been read, so we will be holding out on this one, but if you have a die-hard fan, like our son Joshua, it would still be a hit.

The Big Book of Who is $12.50, and has enough pictures to be a major hit for kids who love basketball and love memorizing sports stats.

This one is only $9, and it’s an excellent story of a boy overcoming adversity through hard work to become an NBA star. 

#4. Sports Team Apparel

This is the first year that sports team apparel has made both Joshua and Caleb’s lists. Clothes! They actually want clothes! Joshua wants (yet another) ball cap, and Caleb wants a Bryce Harper jersey. And our sports teams are all over the place because we move so much, but that’s okay. Here are the ones my boys want. Of course, the Braves and Georgia Bulldogs are more popular where I live. What team do your neighborhood kids root for?

#5. Well, actually, who DOESN’T want a drone this year???

This one is the Star Wars remote control Tie Fighter Drone, per Caleb’s specifications!

#6. A New Bat (or sports equipment in general)

#7. Lego

Lego sets are still a safe bet for some boys, but not others. Caleb still loves them. They weren’t at the top of the list this year. However, they do get excited about the Legos that you can do robotics with, the kind that have moving parts.

The very affordable Star Wars build able figures are still a hit.

And then there’s these, for the mechanically inclined:

Buyer beware: It’s $200. This is just a pipe dream for most of our kids. Ha!

But they do make these:  

These are only $30, and you can add these motors to Lego creations that they already have or make to go with it. 

#8. A Mega Nerf Gun

We refuse to buy any more of them because our boys have way too many, and yet it still turned up on Caleb’s Christmas list, yet again. Caleb has this one, and it is pretty amazing:

Toys we’ve graduated from:

–Hotwheels (sad, I know)

–Super Hero Toys

–costumes

This age group is mostly past the above toys. My younger boys love them, though!

I hope at least one of these ideas will be helpful for you. Please always feel free to share with me what types of articles you’d like to see on the blog or the newsletter.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The post 2016 Christmas Gift Guide for Tween Boys, Ages 8-12 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan and Mom. Mom was such a huge help the week of my procedure. Thanks, Mom!!

The Move

Yesterday I started cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and drawers. No, I’m not packing myself. Alan’s job hires people to do that, so why would I?

What I’m doing is trying to eliminate all things that I do not want or use so that I don’t have to unpack them in a few weeks. We have way too much junk.

Junk. Just junk.

How do we all accumulate so much of it?

Is it the result of retail therapy gone overboard?

The inability to let go? I don’t know. But somehow every two years, we haul off truck loads and truckloads of our old stuff to Goodwill and the dump.

Occasionally, we sell a thing or two. I got $25 for an Ergo baby carrier…

Bye-bye, Ergo, we had a love/hate relationship anyway.

I sold a Mickey Mouse Cake Pan for $5. Because let’s face it. I bought it 2 years ago and never used it. I’m obviously too intimidated by the directions and the hand cramping to actually decorate a Mickey Mouse cake.

My hand hurts now, just thinking about squeezing out all those icing stars.

So yeah, we’re moving. We still don’t actually have a house to move INTO yet, but we hand over the keys to this one on June 25th.

Do you know what the funny part is? The funny part is that my California Health Crisis earned me a plane ticket with JD, so I don’t even have to participate in pack and load week or the cross-country road trip. I leave on the 20th.

……Oh. my. goodness. Daniel is watching Teletubbies. I thought we killed those obnoxious things off years ago. How? How are they suddenly back here, back into our lives????

“Daniel, please, please, don’t watch this show. I can’t take it. It’s too dumb.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. Now we’re watching an alphabet video. It’s not too bad.

What was I saying? OH YEAH! Our moving plan. I ended up getting the super-sweet side of the stick, thanks to my psoriatic arthritis issues.

Mom and Me at Point Lobos. We’ve established that Pt. Lobos is what I will miss most about California, right?

The Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis is basically pronounced sorry-attic arthritis. In my head, I also call it sorry ass arthritis because that’s what it makes me feel like.

It’s back, and it’s ugly, and I’ve just stopped playing around about it. My big toe swelled, but I’ve figured out a way to walk without using it, and then I bumped it just a tiny bit on JD’s potty stool, and now it’s swollen, bruised, and bloody.

The ligament that connects my knees to my hips is inflamed all the way up, on both sides, and my left thumb is permanently bending slower than all of my other fingers. The shoulder tendonitis is back too. But at least the plantar fasciitis finally went away. So, there’s that.

The Heart

I asked my cardiologist about what anti-inflammatory meds I could take. I need them right now, for this flare-up and the up-coming travel.

He was obviously not too concerned. He said, “As long as you don’t take cocaine or meth, I’m good.”

As you can see, my cardiologists are super worried. Not.

I had my last appointment the other day. Dr. G is my super-soft-spoken but very personable electrophysiologist, a.k.a. a highly educated heart doc that specializes in electrical problems of the heart, arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia.

He was actually kind and sympathetic about my Linq monitor. Wait. A kind and sympathetic doctor? What is this new thing?? I’ve just had bad doctor luck these past two years, so this was a nice change.

He’s funny too. I asked if anything had shown up on my Linq monitor. He explained that he has the parameters on the thing set so that the v-tach won’t register unless it’s over 195 bpm or at least 16 beats in a row.

“Ha! I don’t think it’s ever that bad,” I said.

“Well, I set it that way because that’s the point at which we would need to do something about it.” he explained.

Sure.

“Can I put off going to a cardiologist for a while because I’ve got so much to do with this move… I feel like I’ve been to the cardiologist enough for one year anyway…”

“Yes, of course, you have a lot going on. Take care of that, and then you can get a new cardiologist. UNLESS you have symptoms.”

“I have a lot of symptoms lately, but none long enough to set off the monitor (16 beats), so what do I know?”

“Well, that’s because you got a plate full of s***.”

Haaa!!!  Ain’t that the truth.

I’m always surrounded by children or other stay-at-home moms or home school moms, so I don’t hear a lot of conversational swear words. So now when I do hear them, it’s really hard not to giggle. Yeah, I probably did snicker.

Oh, well. Dr. G says he’s not worried about my v-tach. My heart is structurally fine.  His actual words were, “You’re not going to die suddenly in your sleep or anything.”

Ha! So there’s my good news of the day, folks. I’m not going to die suddenly in my sleep, at least not this year. It sounds like a joke, but that DOES happen to v-tach sufferers when there is heart disease present or with an inherited condition, like Brugada. However, when those things aren’t present, and the v-tach is short, like mine, it is considered benign.

JD was seriously THIS small when we moved in!! 2 years ago!!

I have a good sense of closure from this California Health Crisis chapter: the pain, the fevers, and the heart thing…Most of it was all from psoriatic arthritis, which mostly goes away if I don’t eat wheat or get too stressed. So there you go. I’m learning how to better take care of myself.

And the funny part…

So did you catch the part about Alan? Did you read that right? They wrote me out of the cross-country move and the pack week. SOOOO..  Alan will be overseeing the pack out and the cross-country move by himself, along with our three oldest children. That’s right. Alan is  doing a week-long road trip with Joshua, Caleb, and Daniel.

I know. Poor Alan. What kind of a wife am I? Well, I’ve done all the other pack and moves, thank you, most of them by myself. But yes, I usually shipped off the kids.

I’ve asked him repeatedly to send another kid on the plane with me, to lighten his load. But Alan says it will be fun.

I’ll give you a minute to laugh…

It won’t be dull, anyway. You gotta give him that. A friend of ours suggested that we should strap a Go-pro on Alan for this trip. It would surely make for a funny video.

Nah, what am I saying? Our kids are perfect angels, and so are we.

In fact, today I gave Cherielle a ride home from church, and Alan had all four boys with him because we’re trying to keep the van CLEAN, in order to sell it.

Alan decided to take all the boys with him to the grocery store.

While he was there, there was quite a spectacle. A certain five-year-old boy took a gold “good behavior” reward coin from his big, eight-year-old brother.

“Hey, give that back!” the eight-year-old demanded.

But the little guy only clutched the good-behavior coin even tighter. Oh, the irony..

So the two ended up WRESTLING IN THE FLOOR of the check-out line over this coin. The oldest boy, a ten-year-old, was dismayed and embarrassed at his younger brothers’ behavior, so he started punching the middle one in the back saying, “Cut it out! Get up! Cut it out!”

my little wrestlers with Aunt Janet and Nonna

Don’t worry. They were quickly apprehended, and upon their return home, appropriate consequences were measured out. I’m sure those weren’t our little angels, scrapping it out over a Sunday School coin in the floor of the grocery store….Nah….

I’m just thankful I was not at the grocery store. I was at home putting the frozen pizzas in the stove.

Just another day in paradise, y’all. Have a great week!

The post The Move, My California Health Crisis, and The Grocery Store Scuffle appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Right now Daniel is washing his hands after his hour-long worm hunt. All he found was a slug, which he tried to bring into my house. Joshua put a hard stop to that. What would I do without Joshua?

JD is upstairs NOT napping. Caleb and Joshua are outside playing with a friend. I’m chugging coffee in a last ditch effort to hold on to wakefulness. A friend of mine is out walking, trying to coax her labor pains into a pattern. Alan is at school, chipping away at his thesis work.

Ah, the great circle of life.

Today I feel tired, sleepy, and wiped out. (I volunteered at Dan’s preschool from 9 to 12 this morning.) I have carved out a lull in the day, and I am hoping it will hold, but my wildest dream right now is of my pillow.

Why am I so tired? We had company for a week, and we went sight-seeing with them. The boys had their end-of-year-school program, and Joshua said all of his lines from memory! Woo-hoo! We now have some more friends staying with us, and they are expecting a baby this weekend, so this is exciting.

Yesterday my friend Chanda came into town, knocked on my door around 1PM, and said, “Let’s go to lunch. Come on. Right now. Bring the boys.”

(You HAVE to watch this video from that luncheon. So funny: JD Falling asleep at dinner)

So I did. It went surprisingly perfectly, and now I have a new favorite restaurant.

On the health front, my fevers are creeping back into my life, but my heart has calmed down completely.

I think I could go upstairs and sack out for the next 12 hours. Sometimes there just isn’t enough coffee.

So, yeah, life is crazy, but hey! Good news. JANET took pictures.

She has a better eye, more photography skill and patience, and a better camera. It’ll take me weeks to share them all, so let’s get started!

JD sweetly watched Daniel zip this remote control under-water robot (much like a Polaris) around the pool. Then he also got to take a little turn.

Daniel was a master of this game. The object was to get the robot to pick up the diving rings, and he was good at it. The creator was all impressed with the Dan Man.

A grand ballroom…..with 3 little boys running wild in it. Who are those boys? No idea, dear. Don’t look at me.

a tiny rodent skull, found on the ground from an owl pellet

…And Caleb just walked in with two bloody knees, from playing baseball in shorts, so I should go clean him up. We wish you all a restful weekend, no coffee required.

The post 20 More Breathtaking Photos of Carmel Valley and Monterey, California appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan, Caleb, and JD were in the kitchen eating cookies. I don’t know what JD said, but Caleb looked up at Alan and said, “Doesn’t JD make your heart smile?”

We all definitely smiled.

Caleb has also recently taken up saying, “ain’t.” He uses it correctly (if there is such a thing), but it took me by surprise. We don’t say ‘ain’t,’ nor does anyone that he knows in California.

My suspicions lie with Granddaddy, but that’s okay. Caleb has that whole classic-8-year-old-boy act down pat, so it kind of fits.

Joshua and JD are both sick right now, but JD is especially so. I have a little bit of it myself, so the three of us sat in the living room together tonight, eating cough drops, watching Cars, and constantly wiping JD’s little nose.

All day, that poor baby came to me saying, “Nose running,” in the most pitiful voice I have ever heard, asking me to wipe it for him.

You’d think after an hour or two of this, I would have thrown in the towel on the home schooling and focused on that sweet baby. But no, no. I lack that amount of sense. I kept trying to force school. I am here to tell you that you cannot teach ANYTHING to anyone with a sick baby following you around and crying.

Caleb and Daniel are not sick, but they certainly felt entitled to their share of cough drops.

“If you want one, go ahead, but I’m warning you that they taste terrible.”

“I want some!”

“I want some!”

I washed my hands of the situation and moved onto the kitchen to finish cooking spaghetti.

Then I heard Caleb, “Hey, Mom! You were wrong! These cough drops are DELICIOUS!”

Wow.

But what quote post is complete without a little Daniel sass?

Alan was herding the cats upstairs for bedtime. He directed them all to clean up the living room, which only has to be done about 5 times per day. He gave them each a task, and he told Dan, “You’re in charge of cleaning up the floor.”

Daniel only focused on part of that sentence. “I’M in charge!!!???”

Alan hesitated, “Yes. Do a good job.”

“Oh boy! I’m in charge. All right, boys, clean up this floor! Get to work!”

A few minutes later, I heard Joshua say, “Daniel’s trying to act like he’s the president of us or something.”

Daniel was so happy, “Yes! I’m the President!”

Joshua said, “Well, that doesn’t mean you have to act so bossy.”

Alan gave them all a pep talk, especially Daniel. “Daniel, if you’re the leader, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. You clean up too.”

“Okay! See! I’m cleaning up! Now come on, boys, clean up! Wait, Joshua! Right there! I’m the President!”

It’s still going on. Wait, no, it has now morphed into a game of tag, and they are arguing over who is ‘It.’

Don’t let this adorableness overload fool you. Parenting these angelic looking children will bring you to your KNEES, I’m telling you. I cry often.

But I love them. Plus, I’m out of here in just 5 minutes. Thursday night is ladies’ Bible study night at my friend Hillary’s house. Whoot! Good luck, Alan. If all else fails, just open the Bible and start reading it out loud and praying for help. That’s what I do.

The post “Doesn’t JD make your heart smile?” It’s a quote post! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.