Sunday, June 06, 2010

My Prayer for this Summer

FIVE KIDS.

ALL SUMMER.

ALL HOME.

JUST 1 ME.

This would make some people fear and tremble, but I love it!

I love being at home with the kids in the summer.

I love being free of a daily routine. I'm always glad for the routine to return, but for a couple of months it's so nice to stay up late, sleep late, hop in the car and go places, read aloud to the kids for hours and in general just be free.

My prayer this summer has been that I really want to "see" and "hear" the kids this summer. I want to be "with" them and not just in the same house. I don't want the summer to just fly by and tolerate them while they're home. I want to laugh with them, engage with them, enjoy them, pour into them and train them up this summer. I don't want to just play referee.

Each summer we've picked a couple of big books out and we'll spend the afternoons with me reading out loud to them. They love it so much. They beg for another chapter. Always before we've read kid books. I'm sure we will get to those soon, but we've already started God Smuggler. This is the first "real" book we've read. Joey could sit down and have it read in a day, but I'm making him wait and listen with the other kids. They've all been enjoying it although it's a "grown up" book.

It's so fun to plan and go on a vacation, but these are also things that make memories that last!

Tomorrow will be the long awaited "SPA DAY" that the girls and I have been planning for a month now. The older boys are gone to Austin so the girls and I will be enjoying our time together pampering one another. We've got facial masks, pedicure stuff and the all important cucumbers for our eyes! We plan on doing this a few times this summer and Jocie's teacher heard about it and wants to come and join us one day.

Those are great things, but even more than the Events...I want to look and listen to them when they're talking to me. I want to answer their questions with more then a "I don't know."

I feel like this summer has the potential to be the best one yet!

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