I had the opportunity to attend a homeschool conference this past weekend, by the Maxwell family, from www.titus2.com. One of the biggest things I came away with was examining how I spend my “discretionary time”. That is the time in between all the ‘major’ things throughout my day. The time we have between dinner and bedtime. The time between picking Jesse up from school and sitting down for dinner. In the morning after Jesse leaves for school, but before I start school with Joshua. It’s amazing how much “free time” I really have throughout my day.

They challenged us to chart how we use the hours in our day. Some of the common areas are: sleep, school, work, church/ministry related activities, television, computer, and quality time with the children…the differs for each individual person and family, but you’d probably be surprised how little time you actually spend with your children. Not just in the same room or house with them, but quality time with communication.

Next they challenged us to evaluate how the use of our time effects our children’s hearts (or you and your spouse’s hearts if you don’t have children). When you are sitting in front of a television or a computer (um, like I am right now), are you building relationship with anyone? Are you cultivating your appetite for the Lord? Are you allowing moral sewage to seep into your heart, your mind, and your family thinking you’re just relaxing in front of the TV? How often do we complain about not having enough hours in the day? Yet how often do we choose to plop in front of the computer for an hour or in front of the TV for two or three hours after the kids go to bed? I’ve mentioned many times how I’d love to read more and have more time for ‘my projects’ like sewing, or exercising. Yet, when I look at how much time I waste throughout my day, I’m challenged to make a proactive change in order to do what is best for my family, especially my children and my relationship with my husband. It’s SO nice and easy and convenient to turn the TV on for the boys when Jesse gets home from school and Owen goes down for a nap. But how would their behavior toward eachother and toward me change if instead of turning on the TV or computer, I sat down and played a few games with them or read them a book? After the games, I would need to start supper. That would be the perfect time for them to color, do puzzles, playdoh, play outside, help me in the kitchen, or continue playing games together. I don’t want to raise children who are only content if they are being “entertained” yet I already see an appetite for that in each of them. That scares and disappoints me. I can change that very quickly by making a few difficult decisions and comitting to stick with it.

I challenge you to a FULL ‘screen fast’ for the next seven days. That means NO television, NO video games, and NO computer. I am going to set the timer for ten minutes each morning while Joshua does his math work so I can check my email, but I will turn the computer off as soon as the timer goes off. This is important because of communication with our foster agency and my duties as Nursery Director at church. No facebook, no blogging, no games for the kids (even educational ones), and no computer for my husband once he gets home from work. As a homeschooling family, I often feel like Josh is ‘out of the loop’ in regards to our school work because he is gone all day. We are going to take advantage of our evening time after dinner. This will be the time in which Josh reads the Bible to the boys and gives them the opportunity to tell him what they’re doing in school. Once the boys are in bed, I’ll finish up my housework, and we’ll have the rest of the night to read, talk, or whatever. 🙂 Imagine that; COMMUNICATION! I’m really looking forward to seeing the difference in my children, my marriage, and my family as this week progresses. I’m going to journal a little everyday so I can write a post on the results next week. If you accept this challenge, please comment on next week’s post so I can hear the results you experienced in your home! Good luck!

~audrey

Thursdays are always a doozey for me. I leave my house around 8:45am and typically don’t return until 8:00pm. Between Bible study, errands, appointments, picking up Jesse from school, worship team practice…yada, yada, yada, Thursdays are LONG! Today went quite smoothly…until I picked Jesse up from school. You see, Jesse is still adjusting to waking up at 6:30am and spending seven hours a day in school. By the the time I pick him up at 2:30pm, he’s tired, whiney, and hard to please. Today we went straight from picking Jesse up to a friend’s house who has been out of town for a month. This is when things started to slowly spiral downhill into something resembling a snowball from…you-know-where. Owen skipped his afternoon nap and Jesse was getting frustrated because he’s younger and less mature than Joshua and the other little boy. As a result of his lack of patience, he was getting left out of some of the activities. Owen was whining about being hungry and clearly exhausted, but by this time, there would be no point in taking him home and putting him in bed because we had to be at church within the hour. We hung in there until 5:40 and then we left to drive thru McDonald’s and head to church. Owen fell asleep in the car and stayed that way for about 30 minutes as we ate our greasy, chemically altered, faux chicken sandwiches. Practice began at 6:30 and I instructed the boys to play in the nursery nicely and practice would be over in about an hour. They niether played in the nursery NOR played nicely! Owen continued to whine and fuss and demand that I hold him, which he requests by saying, “MOMMY, KA’MERE!!” That is how he has always let me know he wants me to hold him. Well it’s pretty hard to hold a 35lb. two year old in one arm, a microphone in the other, and still hit the right notes! Jesse was frustrated that Joshua kept running away from him, and Joshua just wanted someone to play hide-and-seek, or tag, or whatever it was he was trying to do. All of this escalated into an all out civil war of disastrous proportions. At one point, I sent Jesse to sit down. He was very angry and tired and frustrated and I could hear him with my mommy ears. I leaned over to the girl standing next to me on stage and said, “I can hear Jesse screaming at the top of his lungs. You can’t hear him over the drums and the rest of the music, but if they stop playing, this is going to be VERY embarassing!” I had finally had it after about 45 minutes. I casually walked over to our worship leader, with Owen hanging off my hip and said (with a large plastic smile), “I think I should go so I can put the boys to bed.” I knew it was in the best interest of all parties involved to request a silent ride home…brush your teeth, use the bathroom, wash your hands, and GET IN BED! By this point, they were afraid…very afraid. hehehe 🙂

Bedtime went off without a hitch. I’m planning for a FANTASTIC FRIDAY!

His mercies are new every morning!

goodnight.

~audrey

I just realized, I don’t think I’ve posted anything about the squirrels that have been terrorizing my attic, roof, and my sleeping habits for the last month!!!  It all started while Josh was continuing work on the addition onto the back of our house.  Not exactly sure what he was thinking, but he left some major holes open that lead right into our attic.  The holes were safe from weather elements, but clearly not from squirrels.  I began hearing squirrels in our attic right above the master bedroom.  My dear hubby insisted that I was either hearing things, or I was simply hearing them running around on the roof.  However, he was finally present one night as the squirrel began gnawing away at who knows what right above our bed!  That weekend, he closed up all holes from our construction project.  A few days went by and we thought we had conquered the squirrel problem.  Boy were we wrong.  I began taking the squirrel invasion very personally.  I mean, come on!  I pictured President Obama having a sit down talk with my neighborhood squirrels.  It went something like this:

“Look guys, you have every right to be in the Wilkerson’s attic.  Every squirrel deserves to birth their babies into a cozy corner in someone’s attic.  It doesn’t matter that you aren’t welcome, you haven’t purchased space in their attic, and you’re destroying their home in the process.  As an American squirrel, it is your right to occupy attic space.  Go for it fellas!”            

Somehow they found a new way in.  I began hearing them above the laundry room, above the boys room, and even above the living room!  Of course Josh read online that squirrels usually have babies in August and September!!  LOVELY!

I began posting things on facebook, hoping for some good advice…or at least a good BB gun we could borrow!!  Last Friday, when I brought the boys to my parent’s house, my dad gave me his .22 caliber pellet gun with a brand new cansiter of pellets.  I was SO excited!!  On Saturday, Josh climbed up into the attic as soon as we heard the gnawing and scampering.  He sat patiently, waiting for a good target.  He fired a few times, pretty convinced that he had at least hit it once, but obviously not a fatal injury because it ran off.  Later that day…still more scampering in the attic.   By that time, Josh had gone to run errands and I was NOT about to climb into the hot attic with a loaded gun that I hadn’t the slightest idea how to use!

I have stood patiently in the front and back yards many days, hoping to see where in the world it is that they’re still getting in!  Never any luck. 

Yesterday, I was fired up.  I heard those darn squirrels above my kitchen and I knew they were on the roof so I RAN out the back door in hopes of seeing how they keep getting into my attic.  There were two squirrels, right there, staring at me!  They didn’t even budge!  These things are clearly way too domesticated.  They were bobbing their tales up and down and making strange noises.  I couldn’t tell if the noises were being made to each other or directed at me?  Eventually they ran to the other side of the house…right to the corner of the roof above my master bedroom.  I had a feeling that was where they built their nest, and momma squirrel was now guarding her territory.  I stood there for a long time and the squirrel never moved.  She kept her perch right there above my bedroom.  Suddenly, I became empowered.  I looked that squirrel right in the eye and ran into the house to grab a handful of pellets and the gun.  Much to my surprise, the squirrel was right where I had left it.  I loaded the first pellet and began pumping the gun.  Hmm, I wonder how many times I’m supposed to do this?  I pumped and pumped and pumped until the handle would hardly close…probably about 15 times in all.  That’s probably enough!  I aimed steady as I closed one eye, looked through the cheap scope thingy, waited, waited, and then POP!  Just like that, the squirrel was gone in an instant.  I’m 99% sure I hit it.  FIRST SHOT…IN MY LIFE!!  I was SO excited!  I ran to the side of the house and jumped up into the boys’ tree house to see if I could spot the injured squirrel.  Sure enough, it was still on the side of my roof.  Probably a bit stunned!  I sat there, reloaded the gun, in case it wanted more, and waited.  Some how while I waited, the squirrel moved and I could no longer see it.  Without even thinking, I ran around to the front of the house.  I didn’t even think before doing this.  It probably wasn’t the best idea to run through my front yard, sweating, holding what looked like a rifle!  But, hey, I wasn’t thinking clearly at this point.  I was a hunter!  I went back to the backyard and stood for a little while longer.  One of the boys came out back at one point and I quietly told him to get back inside and stay there.  I can only imagine what he was thinking as he saw Mommy in his treehouse with a gun pointing at the roof?! 

I looked all around, through the trees, trying to spot a squirrel.  Nothing.  BUT, I did hear squirrel noises and the occasional nuts or acorns hitting the ground around me.  For a brief moment, I was a bit paranoid.  As if there were squirrels up there in the trees aiming at me with their cheeks full of nutty ammunition.  I felt a bit like Matthew McConaughey in Failure to Launch when he got bit by a cute little chipmunk and then attacked by a sweet dolphin…as if all of nature was involved in a plot against him!  Stupid, I know. 

I finally went back inside.  I was so invigorated by my sudden take action attitude and accomplishment.  I even called my Daddy and left him a message on his cell phone.  I’m sure he smiled as he listened to me explain how I put his gun to good use.  Only in the south!  🙂

It has now been 24 hours and we have yet to hear another squirrel.  It just started raining, or I would go sit out back and just watch and listen for a little bit.  I hope the other neighborhood Obama squirrels take note and stay off my property…or they will end up with a pellet in their butt just like their buddy who chose to shack up in my attic for the last month.

I hope you enjoyed my squirrel adventure.  If any squirrels return to the Wilkerson home, I will be opening my back yard as a free shooting range.  I wonder if that would be okay with my sweet elderly neighbors…or the three cops that live down the street… 

…probably not. 

~audrey

The mid-afternoon sky was not very inviting on Sunday. This picture really doesn’t capture just how dark and purplish gray it looked. It was quite intimidating.

On Sunday night, I needed to go to the store but didn’t want to go alone, so I called my friend Kristen. Kristen has three kids also, except she had all three of hers in two years and they’re still all three and under…bless her heart! LOL! Kristen and I live about seven minutes from each other. It has become quite common for one of us to call the other with short notice and plan to meet up somewhere in the middle. There happens to be a Starbucks, a grocery store (with a Starbucks in it!), and a Target half way between us. I love our impromptu girly time. However, as she pulled up to my house Sunday night and I jumped into her car, I realized, it rains almost EVERY time we go out! And I don’t mean a little sprinkle…it rains HARD, with thunder and lightening. The kind of rain that produces large parking lot puddles where your toes get all wet and the bottom of your pants look like you’ve been walking along the beach! SO, I brought my camera. I knew it was going to be raining and I thought it would make a good post. First we went to Target to get Owen a halloween costume. We decided to stroll through the adult costume aisle, where we took our first picture… 🙂

Kristen grabbed the bumble bee and I grabbed the chicken. Yes, we got some strange looks. Grown women being silly with costumes and cameras in the middle of Target. 🙂 I found Owen a cute Woody costume from Toy Story. He has worn it every day since I brought it home and now he suddenly LOVES the movie and watches that as well, with his Woody and Buz toys sitting next to him.

I love my outings with Kristen. We always joke around about putting a diaper on before we go out together because we laugh so hard, there are many instances we have come darn close to wetting our pants. You know, it’s not as easy to hold it after having three kids…even if we are still in our twenties!! LOL! 🙂 I’m so thankful for my girl friends and the laughter therapy we get from each other. By the time I get home we’ve laughed so long and hard that either my cheeks hurt or my stomach is sore. It’s great!

~audrey

This post is about two completely different stories, so I’ll try to make both short. 🙂 First I’ll start with the food. I was making sausage balls for my Bible study this morning, and as they came out of the oven, I set them on the counter to cool before placing them in the dish I was going to use. At one point, I left the kitchen to do something else while one batch was cooking. To my surprise, I came back in the kitchen to find several of my sausage balls gone! I walked into the living room to find Owen, my little piggie/thief, smiling with a mouth full of food and a sausage ball in each hand. He looked right up at me and through all the food in his mouth, he said, “MMmmm Mommy, good!” How could I do anything but laugh?? On the way to church, Joshua asked to try a sausage ball so I gave him one. First he declared they were the BEST sausage balls in the whole world. But then, after looking carefully at what was inside, he asked, “What’s this white stuff in here?” I told him it was cream cheese. He doesn’t have anything against cream cheese, as far as I know, but for some reason, this turned him off. He immediately said, “I don’t think I want anymore. These should NOT be called sausage balls, they should be called cream balls.” Not sure why he got so offended by the cream cheese, but he made a good point; they look a lot more like cream puffs than sausage balls. Hence the title. Here is a picture and the recipe. Not sure what’s wrong with my flash so the picture is a little dark.

Easy Sausage Balls

1lb. breakfast sausage, browned and crumbled
2 8oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
2-3 rolls of refrigerated crescent rolls

Brown and crumble sausage and mix thoroughly with softened cream cheese. Refrigerate overnight (or place in freezer for about an hour). Roll out the crescent dough and cut the pre-made triangles in half. Spoon about a teaspoon of sausage mixture into each triangle and wrap closed, pinching the edges to seal the mixture in. Bake at 350 for about 12-15 minutes. Best served at room temperature so the sausage mixture can ‘set’. Enjoy!

Okay, the second story is about my house and the way I think it smells. I don’t know about you, but I’m always paranoid that when people walk into my house they’re going to think, “Good gracious, what is that smell?!” Don’t get me wrong, my house stays pretty clean and I enjoy burning candles and using reed diffusers, but it always seems to have a ‘certain smell’ to me. Well, I’ve been looking for a while now for a carpet deodorizer that isn’t overwhelming and really “artificial smelling”. To me, there is nothing worse than walking into a room or a home that has the overwhelming smell of Glade plug-ins! The old building at our church always smelled that way and it drove me nuts (especially when I was pregnant!). Last night I found two really items at the grocery store. The first was Febreeze fabric refresher in the scent, “Cranberry Frost”. I really like berry scents and that is a lot of what I burn for candles. I bought that to freshen up my car and possibly the shower curtain in the boys’ bathroom. But the second thing was absolutely fantastic: “Glade Carpet and Room” in Clean Linen. It smells exactly like the clean cotton (or fresh linen…can’t remember the exact name) from Yankee Candle. Very fresh, like clean laundry, but soft and subtle. This morning I sprinkled it all over the boys’ carpet in their room, which just happen to smell like PEE. I let it sit for a few minutes and then vacuumed. It now smells amazing in there! In fact, when I walked into the house several hours later, after being gone all day, I could still smell it, but in a subtle, good way.
Now, if I could just get the “Waffle House” smell to go away, after cooking sausage in the kitchen this morning. 🙂

~audrey

I love a “day off”.  I mean, in all actuality, do I ever REALLY get a day off…no way.  But yesterday, Labor Day, was as close as I’ve come to a “day off” in a while.  We slept in until about 8:15 when the squirrel in our attic began gnawing away at the beams in our ceiling…then in my half-dozed state, I mistook my frisky husband for a squirrel in my bed and jumped almost high enough to catch my hair in the ceiling fan.  When I realized what I had done, we both just about died laughing… and woke the kids up.  It was hilarious.  Cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then we were off to Savannah Rapids with some friends who had never been there.  It was a beautiful fall morning.  When we got to the rapids, the sky was clear and the air was crisp.  The boys played on the playground for a while and then we strolled down to the water where we watched the kayaks, bikers, dog walkers, and devoted runners, all enjoying their day off.  After lunch we went out to the country to have dinner with my in-laws.  I absolutely love their home and their land.  It’s so peaceful and quiet.  Their house always smells of grand home cooking, even when nothing is in the oven.  They have ten acres and two ponds, so the boys are never bored.  It was fabulous.  The highlight of my day was definitely not when my sweet husband opened the door from the back porch and announced, “Mommy, your son has poopy, he’s all yours.”  That was right about the time I had settled into the living room love seat with the two latest issues of Southern Living magazine and a tall glass of sweet tea.  I put everything down and slowly walked to the back door, knowing good and well that I did NOT have an extra pair of underwear OR shorts for this kid.  “This kid” would be my two year old who has miraculously been potty trained for two months now, but still has random acts of body fluid leakage!!  It doesn’t seem to bother him a bit.  The worst part of this particular poopy was….consistancy.  Oh yes, my potty training friends, every mother knows that the best poops are the ones that are in one solid ball or lump.  You can simply grab it with some gloves and a paper towel and flush that bad boy down the toilet.  This poopy, was more like a messy nuclear disaster.  My nose was burning from the stench and it looked as if every square inch of his lower half was slightly coated in POO!  I paused for a moment to picture what Owen may have done to cause this mess.  Maybe he realized what he had to do, but it was too late.  The poop was already running down his legs and seeping between his toes, so in a last ditch effort to not get caught or scolded, he tried to “rub it in”.  I know, sounds crazy, but if you were looking at him from my end, anything seemed possible.  My poor mother-in-law was clearly grossed out as she brought me a WHITE wash cloth and towel to clean him up!  There wasn’t a single baby wipe in the whole house.  After I cleaned him up, he still smelled like toxic waste and was somehow, still a light shade of brownish green so I decided the tub was our only option.  He went in smelling like a toilet and came out smelling of fresh honeysuckle and orange blossom.  This lovely event did me in and I was more than ready to go home and put our pooping, whining, sweaty, and completely exhausted boys in bed. 

Ahhh, sweet relief.  Bedtime is by far my most favorite time of day, especially during the school year.  I spent the next two hours sitting with my hubby in the living watching HGTV and folding a self-regenerating pile of laundry.  I folded and folded and folded and that darn pile never seemed to get any smaller! 

Anyways, I hope your labor day was as relaxing as mine, minus the poop, of course.

Here’s to a short week! 

~audrey

Jesse was glowing from ear to ear on Monday when he hopped into the car and announced that he was “The Student of the Week!” As student of the week, Jesse had special priveledges in the classroom throughout the week, and the grand finale is being able to take ‘Leo the lion’, their class pet, home for the weekend. This just happens to be Labor Day weekend, so Jesse’s teacher reminded him all week how special it was that Jesse got to keep Leo an extra day. I’m thrilled that Jesse is off to a great year already. He’s excited about school each morning, comes home smiling most afternoons, and is more than ready for bed each evening.

As we drove home, Jesse had Leo buckled into his seat belt with him and Jesse announced, “Uh, oh, Leo just peed in the car!” LOL! Only Jesse would think to say something like that. He’s got a wild imagination and I look forward to our weekend adventure with Leo the lion. Hopefully we’ll return him to kindergarten on Tuesday morning with all four limbs still attached and no visible stains or offensive odors…you never know in our house! 🙂

Happy LONG Weekend Everyone!

~audrey

As soon as school starts each year, I long for cool autumn mornings.  Being in Georgia, our weather often skips straight from summer to winter, and it usually isn’t until early NOVEMBER!  I have an ongoing joke with my best friend from high school because we both start listening to Christmas music in September or October!!!  HAHA!  Well, today I woke up to a crisp breeze in the air.  It was absolutely PERFECT outside.  I immediately opened every window in the house and lit a few candles.  After Jesse left for school, we cleaned up a little around the house, put some quiet music on, and sat down to do our school work for the day.  It was so serene.  On days like today, I often find myself stopping in the middle of something, just to take a deep breath and enjoy the quiet stillness of my day.  It has been a perfect day.  My house is clean, Joshua got his school work done, we ate lunch with Jesse, Joshua and Owen played outside for over an hour while I tied up some lose ends in the house…I even painted my toe nails, which have been unpolished for…I can’t even remember how long now!!  I can hear the birds chirping outside my window and as much as I’d love to curl up on the couch and take a little nap, I have to go pick up Jesse from school and get my materials ready for church tonight.  I hope your day has been a good one as well!

~audrey

This was NOT my ideal Monday, to say the least.  I was exhausted this morning…go figure, so I got Jesse up a little later than usual to get ready for school.  He was a little crabby because he fell at church last night and busted his mouth on the concrete and was a little sore…once again…go figure!  My phone was turned off, so I missed the call from my car pool buddy that she was not going to be able to pick Jesse up for school, so Josh had to take him, which was not a big deal, I just felt bad that my phone was off!  I had grand plans to do school with Joshua this morning as well as get the house cleaned up from the weekend.  We did get a good bit of school done, but then I got side tracked and we went to the christian book store so I could get some ideas for the toddler nursery at church… entirely different story in itself.  While I was there, Owen proceeded to grab any and every toy or book that was wrapped in celophane and begin to open it so he could PLAY WITH IT!?  Each time I told him “NO” and took an item from him, his frustration and anger mounted until he finally threw himself on the floor of this nice, quiet, good smelling, slightly populated CHRISTIAN BOOKSTORE.  Have you ever heard the term “LOSE YOUR RELIGION!?”  I was SO there.  I could literally feel someone staring at me as I “gently” grabbed his arm and tried to “talk him down”, knowing that I was really the one that needed talking down at that moment.  By the time we got to the check out counter, I was sweating and I’m pretty sure I had veins popping out of my neck.  The lady smiled and said, “Aw, so that’s who was making a little fuss.  Would he like a balloon?”  Gee, thanks lady, that’s exactly what my disobedient, tantrum throwing toddler needs…a REWARD!?!  I let her give Joshua and Owen both a balloon, but Owen, of course, threw another fit getting into the car so I looked him right in the eye and popped his balloon.  Go ahead, gasp as you picture Owen’s sweet face in disbelief that Mommy just popped his brand new balloon…but he SO deserved it! 

From there, we met Josh for lunch near his office and surprisingly, that went smoothly.  When I got home, however, I was greeted by hundreds, if not THOUSANDS, of ants in my kitchen.  You see, apparently my husband tossed a bag of candy into the ‘plate’ cabinet thinking that was a good hiding place from the boys.  However, all he did to seal the bag was roll the top down a bit.  When he tossed it into the cabinet, it apparently unrolled itself and was basically a giant NEON sign for ants, “ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET–RIGHT HERE!!  Of course we are out of indoor/outdoor bug spray right now, so I pulled a Big Fat Greek Wedding and began spraying every square inch of my cabinets and walls with WINDEX!!  As I’m spraying the cabinets, walls, and anywhere I can see ants, I realized something…we haven’t had ants since we put our new BLACK countertop in.  I swiped the windex-soaked paper towel across the counter, and with ONE swipe, covered the bottom of that paper towel in ammonia scented ants.  GREAT, the ants were ALL OVER my countertop and I couldn’t even SEE them!  All of this was happening as I’m TRYING to prepare dinner.  Chicken parmesan was on the menu tonight.  I was very excited about this meal.  I hadn’t made it in a while and I have a really great recipe.  I had defrosted the chicken and had all my ingredients ready to go…except the OIL.  It’s pretty hard to fry chicken for a family of five with less than a 1/4 cup of oil.  Very hard indeed.  By this point, I was laughing hystarically at what could POSSIBLY go wrong next.  I actually considered for a good long moment, completely downing the remainder of the cooking wine sitting on the counter in front of me.  It was THAT kind of day.  I mean really, has anyone ever actually consumed white cooking wine for the purpose of a “glass of wine”??  Gross.  I’m so glad I talked myself out of it, but it was a close call.  The meal turned out just fine and I’m still squishing ants with my fingertips every time I go to the sink in the kitchen.  

I must say…I’m good and ready for TUESDAY!

~audrey