10 o'clock nachos

Well hello me,

A potentially impending cold and the normal tiredness of post-kid bedtimes nearly prevented me from sitting down to type out a year end blog to myself and my tens of readers, but some prayer and a glorious plate of 10 o'clock nachos have re-inspired me toward a little reflection. 

It's been quite the year. I have THREE tiny humans now. I'm not sure how this happened entirely (I have some idea). I mostly can't believe I'm responsible for THREE tiny humans! I feel like the person who is truly qualified to be in charge will show up at any moment now. But I'm doing my best in the meantime, trying to veil my subtle naughty words muttered under my breath at various points in a day when given a one way ticket to crazy town courtesy of the aforementioned children. I really don't think I swore until I had children. #oopsididitagain

I hope hashtags are still a thing in 2017 because I am awesome at (my version of) them.

I am quite thankful for 2016. My husband continues to be phenomenal and handsome and phenomenally handsome, as well as an incredibly kind and loving partner in marriage and parenting. I could not begin to imagine being married to a man better suited to me. Jesus is so kind to us. Almost 9 years now of getting to wake up next to this man! Or, more accurately as of late, getting to wake up 2 hours after this man wakes up and tends to our 8,000 children. I read the title of an article that talked about women needing LOTS of sleep, so I am currently participating in a self-induced sleep study to see if it's true. I love science.

When I'm not riding the train to crazy town, I sit in awe of the three amazing individuals who call me "mama." (Claire says the sound "ma-ma" sometimes so this counts). 

I love how Emma's imagination can steal her away for hours to play with her stuffed animals, to put on special shows for us, or dance with the grace and elegance that has obviously been genetically gifted to her from her mother. Homeschooling for Kindergarten this year regularly makes me want to extract my own teeth, and yet I have to celebrate the wins of watching her proudly write out all of the words she can spell on her own, count by 5's and 10's, master whatever new concept I've pulled from Pinterest that day, and of course recite the entire Chinese dictionary by memory. We also pray that 2017 is the year that she successfully eats her first peanut, and then her first 25 peanuts, and then is able to eat without fear for the rest of her life! It is incredible to watch her go through this immunotherapy process. I look forward to signing up for an Amazon subscription for reeses. #healthyhabits

Ben (aka Bennyboo) regularly swallows me up in his big brown eyes and threatens to never let go. Also, his love language is totally physical touch, so he literally threatens to never let go for hours of the day each and every single day. I love his sweet snuggles and that he twirls my hair in his little man child hands. I also love getting laundry done and dinner made, so we have to compromise somewhere. He feels things very deeply and is doing a beautiful job of finding alternate ways of communicating those feelings other than via deafening screams. We all appreciate this. He loves superheroes, coming "to the rescue!," drawing, building, and determining what is and isn't scary in life. For the record, everything is scary. Except for hot chocolate and snuggling for 8 hours of the day.

One of the best things in life is getting to watch the way Ben and Emma play together. It is sweet and creative and cooperative roughly 97% of the time. The other 3% of the time mama cries in the bathroom and they are handed Kindles and told to not speak a word for the next 4 hours. I think this adds some structure to our days. Schedules are good you guys. 

Our tiniest little almost 10 month old Clairebear is the sweetest baby we could imagine. She thinks we are the funniest, most delightful people, and we cannot argue with her on this! She has resolved to learn to crawl by age 2 and get her first tooth by age 4. She realized at around three months old that she would never have her own baby book and thus these major milestones would only be loosely recorded via Facebook, so she doesn't have much motivation...

She has sleep trained me to her liking, which involves us interacting multiple times a night and is not at all conducive to the sleep study I created, but I don't birth sleepers you guys. I birth kids with a good sense of humor and awesome dance skills. 

I have no specific list of resolutions for 2017. My husband launched his personal training business this week which means I have to know what Lululemon is and not talk about eating nachos at 10pm...

I saw a friend post on Facebook today her intention toward gratefulness for this next year. When met with disappointment, call out an area of gratefulness to counter it. Like when my son was screaming at the bathroom door this morning while I was getting ready and I gritted my teeth and said, "Thank you Jesus for my children." 

I daily need Jesus to show me how to love these children well. They are so consistent at revealing their brokenness, and unfortunately uncovering mine as well in the process (highly inconvenient). They are miraculous and incredible and fascinating, and desperately need a savior just as much as I do.

I pray for boldness for myself in the new year. Our world is a pretty scary place depending on how you look at it (I guess Ben is right after all). You don't have to look far to find fear inducing news. I pray for the boldness to have hope in the face of such intimidation. I don't want to dismiss the global realities or grow numb to the tragedies, but I want the boldness to retain hope and offer it in whatever way I can to those around me. I pray to have eyes that see what's truly beautiful and to be an example to my kids of loving and serving well. I have a hundred other lofty ideals I pray over this next year. I know I can't accomplish any of them on my own. I'm mostly focused on keeping my kids reasonably bathed and my crockpot visible to give my kitchen the appearance of meal planning. 

I am thankful that 2017 will greet me with the same sufficient grace and strength to get through the year as I found at the beginning of 2016.

1 Thessalonians 5:24 "He who calls you is faithful..."