7 Quick Takes Friday - #11

Here are my "7 Quick Takes" for this week--
  1. The difference between the sexes, summed up this week, after watching the cartoon version of "Robin Hood":
    Maranatha (our 4yo daughter), in a dreamy voice: "I love the part where they get maaaarrrried. That's my favorite paaaart."
    Baxter (our 6yo son): "I like the part where they dodge all the arrows!"
    Sounds like what adult men & women like about movies, too! :)
    (I kept trying to take a picture of all 5 kids, and he kept crawling ahead of the group... pretty determined little guy!)

  2. This motherhood gig passes so quickly. I'm so glad I listened to the people who told me that. My first baby, so beautiful, so chunky, so intuitive and interactive... he'll be 9 this year. Halfway to what our society marks off as "manhood". It seems like just yesterday I was cracking up at him jamming on his baby xylophone like Chris Martin with his piano, or watering plants with him in our yard in Texas. I'm so thankful that we still get to spend our days learning together, laughing together, and listening to Coldplay. While I'm glad to be able to teach him things and help shape his character, I'm so thankful to God that he uses this son of mine to is teach me things, and shape my character.

    Along those lines, I've just started reading "Sacred Parenting", and I love it already. In it, Thomas (the author) goes into how parenting changes us... and it's just so true. What a crucible for the soul is this work of motherhood.

  3. I've been hearing a bit about this this week: Should homeschoolers get a tax break? This is not a tax break I'm interested in receiving. I'm thankful to be free each year to make educational choices for our family as we see fit. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'll just link to Spunky. She sums up my concerns quite well.

  4. Ever visited my cooking blog? It's not filled with great photography, hilarity-written-right-into-the-recipes, or anything outwardly special... but I'm about to start methodically filling it with my favorite go-to recipes. In the past, I've posted a couple dozen of our favorites, but with our upcoming visit to the States later this year, I'm going to put all of our family's favorite recipes in one place, so that I don't have to take up luggage space with the cookbooks and recipes we use all the time. To be honest, more than putting you on notice, I'm giving myself some accountability to go ahead and get this show on the road. :)

  5. It's about mid-month... and so far, I'm keeping up with all of my five-a-month goals for January. Except, being that we're halfway through, I should've already visited one of my neighbors, and I haven't. But I've listened to or read scripture every day, I'm faithfully living out the No-S Diet, and I'm a good way into a pattern-making book. We were actually going to visit an art exhibit this morning, but one of the kids (not the little goofball pictured below) threw up last night, and we didn't want to risk getting vomit on a Diego Rivera. I think they frown on that sort of thing.
    What about you? If you posted January goals, are you keeping up with them? If you didn't join us this month, will you consider it for February? I'm finding that it's a good way to keep myself focused on a few key areas.

  6. My "newborn" is 6-months old now. Isn't that wild? How can he be that old? When he nurses, his feet hang over far past the other side of my body... he is crawling everywhere, into everything, even pulling up and walking alongside furniture (huh?). When he finds my husband or I, he grins and sometimes laughs really hard, like he really did something amazing. And really, he did! He still hasn't fully learned that if you pull on the speaker cord from the back, it will fall on your head (no worries! It's a small speaker!). He has completely won over his brothers and sister, all of whom are convinced that no baby can top him in the departments of cuteness or smartness. (If you're wondering, I agree.) He sits up at a full 90-degree angle, and doesn't tip over the way all of our other babies did. It's as if he developed his ab muscles first and then just decided one day to sit up, so he did. At present, no one can make him laugh like Daddy, and no one can comfort him like Mama. He is very precious, and Doug & I keep telling each other how weird it is that it doesn't feel weird to have 5 kids. It doesn't feel overwhelming the way I would have expected that it might. Anyway, we love little Moses and are so glad to have this adorable seventh person in our quirky family. :)

  7. This new blog background makes me happy. Blog backgrounds are getting harder to find, or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. Anyway, it made me feel a bit like blogging might be going the way of the dinosaur, but it matters not to me. I'm here, I'm writing. There may be gaps and lulls every now and again, but I don't plan on going anywhere.
As always, I welcome your comments & thoughts.

17 comments:

Jamie said...

Love the background!

always love reading about you and your family, that sometimes, when I see that you have posted something in my rss feed, I skip over it so I can take my time in reading what you have wrote... it always seems that the Lord uses you and your walk along this journey as a way to challenge and uplift me...
thank you for all that you write on here. (I am sure there are days you wonder if you are making a difference, and this is one mom that has to say YES! a huge difference!--thank you)

take care of those little sweetie pies!
Jamie

BETHANY said...

It's so handy to have a recipe blog! Mine isn't exciting either, but it's nice to just be able to link people to a recipe they want. Plus, I label all my recipes and those labels come in really handy when I do menu planning twice a month. :)

Kim said...

I love the new background - so cheerful! And oh my, does Silas look like his daddy!

I'm interested in reading that article about homeschooling! You always have great finds.

Hugs all around! How is the weather there?

(And I can't believe E is going to be 9. My big niece will be 9 I think a month after him? It's so crazy!)

Laura said...

Hey, Jess! I just wanted to say thanks for the No-S diet encouragement. I've been doing it for a week now and am happy to report that the days are all marked in green so far! And the best part has to be the fact that everything tastes so much more delicious now that I'm actually hungry when I sit down to eat. It's terrific. Thanks again and again! :)

Laura

Ruth said...

It is a very cheerful looking background. :) Your Moses came after my Lilly Faith but has passed her up in his progress. She is still not crawling. He looks like he has places to go and things to see. :) Cute little guy. :)

Unknown said...

Wow do I love your background! I may have to steal it. I read in a reader, but clicked over just to see your new digs.
I really like that you feel having a 5th isn't overwhelming like you thought it would be. I think that's really awesome.
How long will you be in the states for?

on the eastern journey said...

We just traveled for the birth of Selah Temple and I found having our recipes on line so convenient! It also made me realize that i need to blog a few more family favorites!

There's no way I could take my bulky recipe binder with us when we travel or go to the states. I love having everything digital and hope to transfer them in a book someday for the kids.

Michelle said...

"I love the part where they get maaarrried."...love it! Too funny.

I love my recipe blog. I'll have to visit yours. :-) Hopefully we'll see you sometime soon!

Luke Holzmann said...

I'm more of a dodging arrows kind of guy. My wife and I rarely watch movies together [smile].

~Luke

Kat said...

Jess..I really like your background...and I liked your old one..too.

I have really enjoyed reading your blog...you help me keep my heart in the right place.

So far so good on the goals...although I have yet to clean up and organize my desk!

Jess Connell said...

Jamie, Thanks for the encouragement!


Bethany, Good call - about linking people to the recipe- I feel like I'm always wanting to do that. After I get this project underway, it'll make sharing recipes that much easier.


Kim, people here say the same thing about Silas resembling Doug. It's hard for me to see it, maybe because I know and love them both so well, but when I blur my eyes and look at just the shape of their faces and their blue eyes, I see what you mean.


Laura, I agree about the food tasting better, etc. When I finally EAT dessert, I'm enjoying it now. A friend of mine and I laughed that we realized we had been basically "celebrating" multiple times a day, as if "yippee for me, I made it through the morning/afternoon/another day, time for dessert!" LOL! I'm glad you're finding the No S diet to be helpful; I'm certainly enjoying it, and hope to eat like this the rest of my life. It just makes so much sense.


Ruth, thanks! He is a busy little guy, more physically determined to do things quickly, and do them well, than I remember any of the other children being. He's keeping me on my toes, for sure!


Jess, :) It's going to be a good long visit; it's been (aside from a medical testing time when my husband got sick) nearly 5 years since we lived in the States. So we're thinking summer through the end of the year. Something along those lines.


Sandra, I've got the same hope, of being able to pass on all of our family's favorite recipes to our kids. Maybe make it a bit easier on all our future daughter-in-laws... no need to call "the dreaded mother-in-law" for the beignet or moist banana bread recipe. :)


Oh, Michelle... just wait. It gets so fun once they really start talking. People talk about the "terrible twos", but I think that's when they really start getting hysterical. :)


Luke, you and every other man/boy I know.


Kat, you are so sweet. I miss getting to talk with you more regularly... what an encourager and inspiring woman you are.

Catie said...

I can't believe your 6 month old is sitting up on his own not to mention pulling himself up to stand?? (Did I read that right?!) ;) I have a 6 month old too and she's almost sitting up!

I'm gonna follow your cooking blog - I need all the help I can get in the kitchen!

I'm also going to check out Sacred Parenting - thanks!! God bless!

Christine said...

I loved Sacred Parenting. And I loved Sacred Marriage too. Both were so convicting and inspiring. I agree about the tax break for homeschooling too.

And your little guy is the cutest!!

Jess Connell said...

Yes, Catie, you read that right... he's standing up... and tonight, he actually turned around, while standing by the couch, and let go of the couch and then (after letting go) dropped to the ground. It's as if he has no idea he's supposed to be just content picking up one new skill every now and then. He is blowing us away with his physical feats!


Christine, thanks! Yes- Sacred Marriage was a convicting and excellent read!

Kimberly (Intentional Mom) said...

Hi Jess,
I like your new background! It's fun that you are always being creative!
Your post has reminded me to revisit my goals! "What were they again?"
I know I am failing miserably at getting myself to bed on time....
Help!

Missus Wookie said...

January got away from me somehow so thanks for the reminder to go and get my goals out of the file. Cute new background for the blog too.

Oh and Ewok crawled at 5 1/2 months and walked at 8 - isn't if fun chasing mobile small people who have no idea of danger? ;)

Thanks for the book suggestion too, parenting has definitely changed and shaped me.

Regina said...

Thanks for sharing about the "S" diet. It was the "kick in the pants" I needed to squash some bad family habits. I'm a homeschooling mom with 5 kids and we have morning, afternoon, and sometimes before bedtime snacks. Embarrassingly, too many of them included cookies and other baked goods. After hearing about yet another colon cancer victim to be prayed for at church, I remembered your "S" diet and decreed "no baked goods, desserts, etc. except for Saturdays and Sundays". There was quite a bit of grumbling, but amazingly (!) we started eating healthier things! The beauty of it is knowing that in a few short days you can have that cookie that you'd like to have now. I hope this can be a total lifestyle change -- because of it's simplicity, I think it just might be!
Also, so glad you're blogging more -- not that I wouldn't blame you for not finding the time! I especially appreciate the book reviews -- I have found a kindred spirit in your book choices and ideas regarding education and family life.
Blessings!