Back to School

Yes. We are all still alive.  

You know it's bad when you haven't blogged so long that you get back on here and the posting format is totally different. Almost did me in. I have very little energy or patience for any more change these days. 

But alas. I took pictures on my camera instead of my phone for the first time since Easter, and I figured I might as well post them. Despite the drowning (in construction, in work, in ministry, in children) going on in our home; I did still manage to get our two big kids up and off to school on the first day. And things have been going well for the two weeks since then. This was not a for sure thing people. Lots and lots of anxiety and sleepless nights and PRAYER, over Carter's first day and Macy's class placement. Seeing the results reminds me yet again that God IS in control, I do NOT need to worry... wish I could figure out how to stop forgetting that 1.298376481 million times a day.

Cooper eating his 'Back to School Breakfast'. As you will see in the below pics, the twins pretty much thought this morning was about them.

Such big kids. 

 Jude was a total crack up. He clearly sensed the 'specialness' of the morning and insisted on wearing his 'special Bellybou' hat. And backpack. Cooper quickly followed suit. I have no hesitation or doubt that these boys will RUN into their first Kindergarten class without a glance back. Such is the life of the younger siblings.

We think smiling and looking at cameras is overrated. They're all in the picture, that's as good as it gets folks.

Everyone with their backpacks. Displaying with shocking clarity, their individual personalities.

 The tolerance for the camera quickly waned. This was the absolute BEST I could do at a picture of Carter by his class. Ryan may be smiling but don't be fooled. He's using all his strength to honor his wife and MAKE his son take one last picture.

My sweet Macy. Oh how I love this girl. She was SO excited about school this year.

 

 And this is a major reason why. Macy got placed in another split class, 2nd and 3rd grade together. I think this actually ends up being good for her. She is the oldest of her grade and her little personality is even more mature than that. Being with the grade above her allows her to keep pushing herself and growing, both socially and academically.  It ALSO means she gets to have Ms. Hallam who is a wonderful teacher and just happens to go to our church. Macy was positively giddy when she found out!

 Carter. Home from his first day. And actually happy and positive about it. If it wouldn't have freaked him out I would have wept sloppy tears and kisses of relief all over him. As it was, I restrained myself with a casual, "That's great Bud, I'm so glad you liked it." While we hugged and walked back to the car. Gotta know your kid.

When we went back (for the third time. I am at this school three times a day every day now. Sigh.) to pick up Macy I was able to sneak a few more pictures in.

 Bella. Macy's precious friend who we are STILL waiting and hoping will one year get to be in her same class! Until then, they faithfully find each other on the playground!

Aaand. That was it, they were done with me after this last picture, can you tell. I'd say I got enough though. :)

All in all. It was a successful send off and we are now officially back in to the swing of Fall. 

Happy Schooling everyone!

EASTER!

Some of my family, including my precious nieces, got to come up and spend Good Friday with us this Easter which was so awesome for me. I so wish they could be a part of my world up here and it's always really special to me when I get to pretend for a day that they are. I love getting to introduce my friends and church etc to the Gross side of me :) Thanks Mom and Dad, Kyle and Holly for coming!!

Mr. Jude

Miss Peyton Jane

Our MOPS group does a huge Egg Hunt every year. It was a blast and we still have way too much candy left over.

Macy Grace and McKenna Gennevieve. Becoming more and more like sisters every day. 

Love. these. girls.

Ah, what a nice even number of children those MacDiarmids have. They're all getting so big. And look how they're all sitting still and even somewhat looking at the camera. Surely calm is just around the corner for this crazy family. Right??

 

Um. Apparently not.

"For man lays out plans in his heart, but the LORD determines his steps." Prov 16:9

No further questions please.

:)

Oh... I have a blog?

I've developed a love/hate relationship with this blog-o-mine. I pretty much go through the majority of my days now having decided I don't really 'do it' anymore. Life is simply much to much right here in front of me to be trying to find the chunks of time to exit the present and put together a post about the past, however recent that past is. But then occasionally I'll get sad about the decision to lay down that side of my reflective self and I'll wish it hadn't been two months since my last post. And then that will quickly leave me as I jump on to the next immediate thing happening within our household.

But occasionally I'll have an evening where my husband has left to sermon prep, dinner was uneventfully successful and all four kids were tucked in calmly and happily (maybe slightly due to the excitement of Easter the next morning!) by 8 pm and so I am not completely and utterly exhausted as I enter my room to wind down for the night. Typically these days I still would not choose to spend my extra energy on the blog, but rather reading, watching silly TV, or lets face it..sleeping. But tonight I felt like 'What the heck? I'll pop a few phone pics up for old time's sake and say hey to all the internet peeps!"

So.. "Hey blog-o-sphere friends! Here's a few glimpses of what we're up to these days!"

Macy and Carter have been doing Karate since January. They got to try it out for a few months as a Christmas present from Grammie and Poppie and we have all been VERY happy with it, so we decided to continue for the time being. Karate was definitely nothing I ever pictured in our families dream activities, but hey, you go where your kids blossom right? Karate is developing some awesome drive and habits in our kiddos, love seeing them love something. Here they are with two of their buddies right after they tested and earned their yellow belts.

Cooper makes this face every.single.time. he hears someone even mention the idea of being silly or making a funny face. It's his go-to and it never fails to make me laugh. His stinkin' cheeks are unbelievable.

Jude and Cooper loooove to match. I don't actually have much for them that completely matches, but we are lucky enough to occasionally get some hand me downs from a wonderful woman with twin boys a few years older than mine, and sometimes they have matching sets, like these PJs for example. They get so excited when anything of theirs matches, even the colors of their sippy cups or lollipops honestly... but especially when it's clothes. The best part is that whenever they realize something matches you can absolutely count on them shouting excitedly and then bumping together whatever matches (including their bodies/bellies) and saying 'Cheers!' It's hilarious. Twins are SO SO fun :)

Macy continues to amaze us, I really don't know where she came from. The girl can make anything. Her absolute favorite way to spend time is making things out of paper or robots out of trash (recycling!) She won't let us throw away paper towel tubes, water bottles, pieces of plastic or metal or heaven forbid a cardboard box. Today she made an entire outfit, shoes included out of gift wrap tissue from presents my mom gave the kids yesterday. Ridiculous. Here she is with a house and furniture she made out of construction paper. She'd learned that day in school how to measure different dimensions with a ruler and draw those dimensions and lines into a 'plan' for a house. Most kids stopped with the drawing of the plans, she came home and had to actually build it. The girl knows what she's in to.

Finally. Three boys has become a lot of fun, and a lot of chaos. The twins are officially old enough to (think they can) hold their own against Carter, and Carter is loving having full time side kicks. Atleast once a day he lays flat in the middle of the living room and yells, "Twins! Wrestle me!" To which they happily oblige :) They are also ALL still deeply enthralled in their love of super heroes. Thankfully Carter has acquired quite the costume collection so we have enough super heroes to go around. This is at least a once a week sight in our home. Usually more often than that :)

And there ya have it. You can now imagine you've peeked into our little world over here and feel like though you may not read from me for another month, you might have a pretty good idea of what we're doing behind the un-updated blog page.

Happy Easter to everyone. He is RISEN :)

Freedom

Hi. My name is Katie. And when it comes to games I am an insanely competitive person. :)

The game Settlers of Catan? Yeah, it caused one of the first major fights Ryan and I ever had in our marriage. No. Embarrassingly enough, I am not joking.

So after that fiasco I had to take a step back and get a little perspective on where my head goes to when I'm playing board games. I honestly had to give myself a little pep talk and realize I was gonna have to get this thing in check if Ryan and I were ever going to be able to enjoy game nights with friends and not end up fighting at the end of the night.

Don't judge..you all have your own bits of crazy..this is just mine. :)

So here's what I did; novel as it was. When I could feel myself start to get a little too wrapped up in a game, care a little too much about what someone just did to mess up my plan, get a little too anxious about whether I could win...I would literally stop, take a breath and remind myself of ...oh, I dont know ...REALITY?! That this was JUST a game. That it DIDN'T MATTER.

And then this amazing thing would happen, as soon as I'd remind myself of those truths, almost instantly I could relax and sit back and enjoy the game, I could breath and let go!

Perspective goes a long way.

Now game playing and competition is a very silly example. But the concept; the idea of perspective and the way we can be literally set free by truth seen clearly. Is a powerful one that has been rocking my world for months now.

It's called the 4 G's, a series of teachings and truths we first learned of at a Soma conference this summer and now Ryan just finished teaching at Creekside the past 5 weeks. It goes a little something like this...

God is GREAT...so I don't have to be in control.
God is GOOD...so I don't have to look elsewhere.
God is GLORIOUS...so I don't have to fear others.
God is GRACIOUS...so I don't have to prove myself.

There's a funny thing about words, as soon as you take something powerfully complex and hone it down into something simple enough to digest in words and phrases, most of the power and complexity seems lost. But if you were to take the time, to really dig into the truths behind each of these attributes of God and what they in turn mean for each and every one of our lives, well, they dramatically change everything.

I could spend this whole post telling you how the perspective that God is GREAT allows me to breath deep sighs of relief knowing I can entrust my children to His very capable hands. I could talk for hours about my constant struggle to believe that God alone is GOOD. So good, that He will completely satisfy every thirst I have for the things in this world and that as I trust Him in faith more and more I will taste that deep satisfaction and be filled with that which is truly satisfying LIFE. I could write about God's GLORY and utmost importance in my life being the thing that sets me FREE from the worry and anxiety of living life boldly, speaking and writing the things of my heart with passion; and living life quietly, knowing I am I SEEN by Him and I don't need anything else in this world to make me feel important or valuable. And finally I could shout from the rooftops how the Truth that God is GRACIOUS washes soothing calm over my heart as I learn I can SIT in the approving gaze of Him who sees me as He sees Jesus, righteous, forgiven and incredibly loved. And because I didn't earn that approval I don't need to work to keep it or demand that others earn it either. I am FREE to be generous with my own approval and love of others.

Oh..friends, this is good good stuff!

But instead of talking anymore about the explanation of these Truths about my God I will just tell any of you interested that you can listen to Ryan teaching on them in the sermon series linked here.

And then I will simply spend one more minute telling you all about the FREEDOM that comes when your belief in God grows bigger and bigger. It's really as simple as my little Settler's analogy.

When for a moment our eyes become locked on a false reality, when we forget the larger story and perspective and we begin to believe things that aren't true like, I have to create my OWN security and my OWN happiness and my OWN value and self worth...well, we can all of the sudden find ourselves trapped in panicky, pressure-filled, fear-filled lives.

Alot like the silly emotions that would wrack me in a ridiculous board game where I wanted, no NEEDED to win.

We don't often identify these emotions with being bound, or enslaved, but really what else can you call it when you NEED something in order to survive? I would say if there is something you absolutely NEED in order to feel like you matter in this world, like you are satisfied and happy and safe. Then that thing in a strange way owns you. You work to keep it, to attain and then maintain it... I know, trust me. I have danced many a dance working for the things that held me captive because I believed they provided happiness and significance. And can I tell you how incredibly exhausting it is? It does not ever end, and it does not ever permanently calm the rising panic that at any moment it may all suddenly slip through your fingers.

Oh, but my friends. The FREEDOM! The relief that comes when you let it all go. When you entrust it to Hands much bigger. Much more GREAT. When you believe that life with Him really will be GOOD and all that you could ever need. When you let His opinion of you be GLORIOUS and put everyone else's below it, and when you stop trying to be good enough to earn His favor and accept it instead as a free gift of GRACE... oh it's rich.

It's life giving. It's incredibly, unbelievably FREEING.

And then the most amazing miracle is, you can give your whole life away and still have everything you could ever possibly need.

God is real my friends. And He changes lives. I believe it.

A Tale of Two Cribs

Once upon a time there was a twin nursery that looked like this...

Which was okay when the twins looked like this...

But after two years they looked much more like this...

And their cribs began to feel a little like this...

Eventually there began to be bit of this...

Which led to way too much of this...

All that craziness compelled their parents to begin work on an exit strategy for said cribs and when they told the twin brothers they responded like this...

And so just like that, those twins now live in a room that looks a little more like this...

(I don't have Ellie's fancy fish eye to get you a good look this time.. oh well, you get the jist)

And though when they were told they'd have to stay in these big boy beds all night long, just like they had to stay in their cribs, their faces momentarily looked like this...

...they quickly adapted to the spacious beds and pillows and practiced their new sleeping arrangements extensively before it was actually even bed time... like this...

And when the night came to a close they were still smiling happy boys who stayed in their new beds all night long. Which means that tonight, for the first time in 7 years, there are no cribs or changing tables in this mama's house.

And THAT is just plain wild.

Helloooo 2012! I'm liking you already!