It’s our 15th wedding anniversary! I {heart} Joshua Lee Dorminy.
This picture was on our honeymoon back in 2001!
We loved each other then, no doubt. But, oh how we love each other now! Being married is just so much fun. Challenging and Hard sometimes, but still lots of fun! I am thankful beyond words to be loved by Josh. He is simply the best for me. I hope we get many more years together, but I feel extremely blessed to have had these 15. Each day is a treasure.
Oh, it was a rough Monday around here.
We have good kids. We really do. And we love them so much. Too much to leave them to themselves.
Monday was full of bickering and complaining. They were frustrated with each other as soon as their feet hit the floor. They were not happy (and showed it) about doing school work. They were even more mad when their teacher/mom said that there were corrections to be made with their math work. One little guy was being a stinker and was telling his sister to not touch his new toy….not because he was playing with it….not because she was doing harm to the new toy….but simply because he didn’t want anyone else touching it.
Really? Have you lived in our house this long and still think that kind of attitude is going to go unchecked??!?? Gracious no.
Sooo, around 3:00 I had all I could take and told them all to go to their rooms and close the door because I could not referee or correct or hear the huffing anymore. I RARELY send them to their rooms (though I probably should more often); Mack and Molly hated it. Ruby, who wasn’t the main culprit anyway, was perfectly happy being in her room, though she knew they were all in trouble. Mack kept cracking his door to peek and see what was going on—-which was laundry and vacuuming and meal planning….in quietness and peace.
I talked with Josh about why the kids were in their rooms, and he said we would have dinner like normal and then have a family meeting. Our dinner was good. Then, he had the kids clean the table and then come back to sit at the table and discuss how the day went. After gathering each one of their stories, he told me to get a notebook and take some notes down. Josh is a fabulous father. Lots of fun. Extremely generous. Gracious beyond words. And he teaches them all sorts of things. When he is not happy with how they have treated me, it gets tense. Mack tried to sit by me during the meeting time, even though he always sits by Josh during dinner. I made him move back to his seat. Josh began to lay down the law about their disrespect, their rotten attitudes and the root of it all, which was selfishness. He reminded them to mind their own business and be peacemakers instead of chaos-makers. He told Mack he wasn’t too old for an old fashioned spanking, and Mack immediately started crying. I had to make myself not laugh.
Basically, the deal is:
If you huff or puff or complain to mom or around mom about school, it all shuts down and you have to finish it with dad when he gets home.
If you are selfish with your toys, the toy gets put away immediately and you don’t get new toys for quite a while (they all have extra Christmas money that they want to spend whenever they want..ain’t gonna happen).
If you don’t mind your own business, you go to your room to remind yourself to take care of your own self and stop inserting yourself into other people’s business.
If you put something in the dirty clothes that isn’t dirty, you will get a spanking. Mom does not have time to wash clean clothes and it is just being lazy and disrespectful to throw clean clothes in the hamper simply because you don’t want to hang it back up or fold it back up and put it in the right drawer.
I went upstairs to finish some more laundry and found another apology by Mack beside my bed. He had written it while he was in his room earlier in the day. Ruby also had one that I won’t post…she is getting too old to broadcast what she writes, but it was super sweet and genuine. Here is Mack’s:
He used a shoe box cover.
“I know I have done this before but I am going to do it again….I am sorry for being so bad and greedy.”
Love that kid. I am glad he has such a sensitive heart. I hope he keeps it forever….and I also hope he will share his toys and stay out of other people’s business, too! Here’s to a better finish to the week than how we started!
What a fun weekend with my mom and dad. I didn’t take a ton of pictures, but we had such a nice visit. We exchanged Christmas gifts on Thursday, and then we took them to Stoney River for their 42nd wedding anniversary Thursday night. Such a yummy place to eat!
We stayed at home Friday since it was rainy, rainy, rainy and COLD. We ate and the kids played games with Sweety and watched a movie. Sweety baked a pound cake with Molly. Molly likes having Sweety around—she lets Molly eat and also watched silly videos people post on Facebook or videos of the cousins that live next door to Sweety and PawPaw in Augusta. Later that night, the kids went to the hotel with my parents and stayed the night with them. They ate rolos and popcorn and drank coke, so they thought they were in heaven. And so did Josh and I over here at home alone!
Saturday we waited for the sun to peek out and we went shopping. The kids got money from Sweety and Pawpaw that they “needed” to spend. We hit North Point Mall, New Balance, Barnes N Noble, Hobby Lobby and Target. Whew! We were tired. We finished off the shopping with some mexican food for dinner.
Sunday we all went to church together and then they went home. It was a nice few days, and I am so glad that they came to see us.
Thanks for coming, Sweety and PawPaw! We had fun!
This year I started a Discipleship Group with five other girls. This is different from Bible Studies that I have led in the past. Much different. For one, I am used to groups of 30 or more. When the room has only 6 girls, it changes how we get to interact. In addition to the intimacy of the group, we are reading the same scripture passages throughout our weeks and meeting every other week to pray together, recite our scripture memory verses and to share how God has spoken to us from His Word. We are all using the same journaling method as well. And each week we discuss some accountability questions.
There are three “older” girls (myself included and myself being THE oldest) and three “younger” girls. I like that and didn’t even plan it that way at all, but I like how those dynamics shake out. We may pair up and try to meet for dinner or coffee one-on-one if possible—one older and one younger gal.
See, we are encouraging one another in our spiritual walk and the disciplines of the faith, such as reading the Bible, memorizing scripture, sharing our faith, etc…..BUT we are also helping each other in other areas. Practical, every day stuff.
For example, last night all of us were discussing our influence over our kids. We talked about really being present with our kids, entering their world, etc. We talked about how young kids like to be WITH mom and talk TO mom and have mom PLAY WITH them, even dictating to us moms what to say during pretend play. We laughed about that….and then I looked at another mom who has girls near my age and asked her if her girls, like mine, have started disappearing into their rooms from time to time. She said that they do. My girls go in their rooms to be alone, to read, to listen to music, to just color and be alone. There are now times I find myself alone downstairs.
It’s nice.
And it’s strange.
Sometimes I go looking for them…quite the role reversal around here!
So, hopefully I will encourage these ladies in their walk with the Lord AND share other tidbits of practical wisdom I’ve picked up along these extra years….goodness knows someone can learn from my many mistakes! And I need not keep all that God has taught me to myself; that would be quite the waste. I am so appreciative of other ladies who have shared their life with me. I have several “one-liners” from older ladies that have stuck with me over the years and have come in handy when I have needed them. Thankful that they didn’t keep it to themselves!
If there is anything that we might do right around here as far as school is concerned, it’s read. Here are some books we are currently reading:
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is being read by my girls for their Language Arts class. I like to have conversations with them about what they are reading, so I decided I better go ahead and get to reading! So far, it is amazing. I love being able to ask better questions to the girls after reading the same chapter that they just read. There is more emotion and deeper thoughts when someone is reading along with you. It takes up time, but it is worth it!
Ruby is reading a biography on Ben Carson and just finished a couple of small biographies for the second time. She is also reading one of the Harry Potter books. That is where I draw the line….don’t think I will be reading Harry Potter any time soon.
Mack is semi-obsessed with mysteries. He has read Third Grade Detectives books and always enjoys them. We bought this spy book from Barnes N Noble the other day and well, let’s just say, there are a few words that aren’t used in our home in the book and some pre-teen boy/girl jargon that I am able to skip because I read this one out loud to him. He LOVES it and begs me for more chapters every day. I won’t share the title because I don’t want to encourage you to let your kid read it alone…it would need some parental guidance (i.e.. skip the bad words and leave out how beautiful the boy thinks the girl is). The actual story line is good and keeps Mack’s attention BIG TIME.
And what else do I have to do that is more important than sitting with my cute little boy on the comfy couch while it’s freezing and raining outside?!?
He is also reading Ribsy for his Language Arts class.
I am also reading a book on discipleship. It’s a good one, too! I am taking it very slowly at this point.
This next book is very interesting to me. While I disagree with the author of BRAIN MAKER on how old the earth is, I do think what he is saying is spot on….he just hasn’t come to the realization that God made our bodies in such an amazing way. I wholeheartedly believe God did an amazing job on our bodies and that we have much to learn in how to take care of them while we live on this earth. But ultimately, this is not our home and this is not our final body. Thank the Lord! In the meantime, this is a good read on the importance of gut health and how it affects EVERYTHING.
Josh is reading Awe by Paul David Tripp. I will take that one once he is finished. Would love to hear any of your book recommendations as well! We {heart} a good book!
January is halfway over! It has been good getting back into the swing of things. I say good….and mostly it has been, but there have been some bumps on the road back to our routine.
It isn’t easy to give up lazy days in exchange for Math and History, but we are all committed to doing it. Here’s a little glimpse into our January 2016 so far.
I am starting a project for this year. I may give up a third of the way through, but I hope not. I love blogging and keeping up with what we do around here on the blog, but I also really like to have hard copies of my pictures. I am collecting a pic or two (or five or six!) on an app named “Collect.” I found lifepics.com and beckyhiggins.com and hope to use the albums from Becky Higgins and her cute cards to keep up with our year. I hope to record a little more from our homeschool days…achievements, challenges and even letting the kids write on the journaling cards about something they are learning and put those in the album as well. Check out those sites if you’re curious or are interested in scrapbooking in a more up-to-date way. I will keep you posted on whether or not I think this avenue of recording life is worth my time or if the blog would suffice.
Happy January!
Today we did math and then waited for Josh to get home so we could take a little ride up to a farm. We were interested in buying part of a cow and having some different cuts of beef from a local farm. Sure enough, these guys seem to have a great little business going, and they were super nice to show us all around.
First off, this is Max. He is the bull that has lots of lady friends. Looks like a tough dude.
This was Daisy. She wasn’t sure about us at first, which I can appreciate. She probably knows how this whole deal goes by now.
And this, well, this is Limo. He (technically half of him) will be what’s for dinner around the Dorminy house for a while. I know, seems so strange, but it’s called life.
Death, actually.
He took time to tell us all about the process and answer all of Josh’s questions.
Anyway, we also saw lots of other steers, heifers and cows. The pregnant ones had a special place in my heart. They were large and standing in the wet, mucky mud and out in the cold windy weather. I especially felt bad for the lady cow that, as our new friend told us, had her baby with the help of a rachet and a jack.
Ouch. I wanted to give her a hug. Well, I actually wanted to fall over and cry out in pain for her and tell him to stop telling the story about her breech birth. But in all seriousness, she needed the help and they said they were within an hour of losing both of them if they didn’t help her deliver.
He took us to see their dogs that usually stay up most of each night to protect the chickens and goats from coyotes and other animals. They say the dogs would kill a coyote if they had to. They also said that the dogs eat the afterbirth of the goats and lick the baby goat (kid) clean. Smell is what draws a predator, so they make sure that there is no scent for them to follow. Ick. And neat. All at the same time.
We were trying to take a picture of old blue eyes in the background and got a nice greeting from this pretty dog.
Here is the barn we went into to see the goats that were born just yesterday!
They were soooo cute.
These men were so kind and knowledgable; we appreciate that they took the time to show us around their farm. It’s their retirement gig. One retired from 30 years in the air force (far left) and the other retired from being a CIO of a large corporation (far right) and seemed to travel around the world. He said once retiring he was going to not cut his hair or shave for a year. It’s been 8 months so far.
Not all apologies are heart felt or genuine.
Some of them are.
Sweet Mack and I had a “moment” earlier today. He was playing around, as he was doing all. day. long. He threw a puzzle piece across the room and then couldn’t find it. So after searching and searching, he couldn’t find the puzzle piece.
And what good is a puzzle with a missing puzzle piece???
So this mama overreacted. I do that sometimes.
{I could insert here all of my excuses about how I am with my kids pretty much all the time, how he is a funny kid that just sometimes doesn’t know when to stop…..but I am not going to do that….because he is too sweet…and I lost my cool. Totally my fault}
When I finished tucking each kid in bed, I came to my side of the bed and found this:
“when I thru (threw) that puzzl (puzzle) pes (piece)”
Precious child. I could learn a few things from him.