New Things

March is a time of new things, new life springing up, new weather changes (except for us, not this year, March mainly consisted of rain) new things to learn, and around here of course, growing babies.

Our biggest babies had their first Spanish test! Actually it was their first test ever. Miss Mary comes to teach them Spanish every Thursday and she decided it was time for a quiz. They did pretty well. I can't believe my first little kids are learning so much.

Berg is learning a whole bunch of new things, dancing, running, giving everyone especially his baby, whom he used to call Babeese, now she's just Baby, "Muhs" (kisses) and talking up a storm. He repeats everything you say and points to everything he doesn't remember and asks, "Dis?" Then we say the word, "tools." and he points to it again and repeats, "tooze" in his own little cute way.

One of Pella's naps is at the same time as Berg and Opal's naps, which means both of the bedrooms are used up. So my new discovery is my sleep mask. I wrap her up, lay her on our bed (with pillows all around her of course), which is where our living room used to be, put a binky in her mouth and a sleep mask on her eyes and she's out! I can even work around her down there with the lights on and she's not bothered.

My huge February/March(and now April) huge project has been to try to de-clutter our home. I found this great blog called Large Families on Purpose during my two week sickness in Feb. which was when I also started getting sick of all our clutter and avalanching counter tops. I have found so much amazing advice and great tips for large families living in small spaces. Peter has been so supportive of this whole process and let me buy lots of bins. They're not so pretty, but very useful and you can see the contents inside. He's been wanting me to "see" the clutter instead of work around it for a long time. It's never really bothered me before. He said he's been praying for it to just not bother him, but God changed my point of view instead. I've ruthlessly been trashing, sorting, and clearing away junk from all over the place. In retrospect, it would've been easier to start at one spot and when I was finished go to the next one. But I got overly anxious and excited and tried to tackle all the rooms all at once. I also wish I had taken before and after pictures. Well, not the afters yet, it's not done, but I should've taken before pics. I did take one of my fabric organizing, while Pella slept in the background.

God is helping me be content through this whole process and use what we have to glorify Him. I'm changing my mind set that our 2 bedroom house is too small and coveting something bigger. The world is really good at pushing that mindset. He's given us this house and our children as blessings and I'm going to figure out how to enjoy our small house filled with lots of little people instead of wanting something bigger. Right now that means getting rid of the junk, keeping what's important and making sure everything has a home in our home. This whole concept and attitude change is a wonderful "new thing"!