I had a dream...

Things about girls....

 I had a dream that one day I would have this life. Long walks around a beautiful pasture, happy children who run after me and wrap arms hard around me. Laying in a king size bed that is so full that you actually wonder if it will stand under the weight. I dreamed of a home with a white picket fence and a swing on the front porch. I have dreamed of this man that I call my husband...but my memories don't go back so far as he's not in them. I seem to only remember my life with him... 22 years worth of memories. I never dreamed of having such a large family, but only because you can only dream so big. God had other plans.

She sat dating cards. The purpose is so her. You date index cards for every day of the year in 2012. Then every day you jot down something you did that day. Canned tomatoes, talked to Momo for an hour about jelly, took the kids swimming..etc And then you keep this as part of your life history and the next year, write out on the same day what you did in 2013. The handwriting telling, the card remembering, the memories cherished. Yep, so us.   

 I had a dream that one day we would put up our own food and eat grass fed meat and make homemade breads..as I write my daughter is making jelly. She has already made salsa and put up tomatoes. She is whizzing around me excited and bringing me spoonfuls of the delicious stuff. We are together and I dreamed of this too. A close relationship with my adult daughter.
Standing along side each other and her filling in the gap where I'm weak and she still willing to listen to me. Her random "I love ya's" ( and I say, "I love you too"). I had a dream and my dream came true<3.   

She froze most of this bread that she made with a friend and we will have it for winter. A Proverbs woman is always thinking ahead. I love that most of what she knows she didn't learn from me. I never grew up knowing this kind of stuff. So we've learned together. She's learned from older friends or her grandmother. She's not afraid to try something.  

Things about guys...

I dreamed of having a milk cow..

We need to find the balance of work/play with our guys. We want them to be able to stand with their father against his enemies in the city gates (ps. 127). We want them to be tough, not fragile.  We must prepare our sons to go into the world, face obstacles, work hard, and provide for a household with integrity. With integrity. Hmmmm.. we have to stop fighting their battles for them. We have to let them face the consequences of their mistakes.We (mothers) are in the mode of fixing things for our children...We need to stop when they get a certain age. We know when we fix it we feel good about it and think they will appreciate it, but in reality that's not real world stuff.  That's teaching our guys to be milksops, according to Nancy Wilson. It's hard work letting them find out that what they do or don't do has consequences. I want to speak up and say to my 17 year old, " I've tried that! It doesn't work." but I've learned to say almost nothing. It takes a lot of work to keep my mouth shut but I have learned if they succeed only if I tell them it doesn't mean anything, but if they succeed by trial and error they have truly succeeded. Take for instance...The picture above. This good looking guy came strutting in the kitchen this morning.
Jeans? check
Hat? Check
Boots? Check
Brand new church shirt? Check
Yeah, brand new. It's 100* outside..Everything in me wants to scream "are you kidding me!? go put shorts and a t-shirt on". But sometimes the battles aren't worth dying over and I hug him and say, "you look like a real cow hand" :) He says "Thanks, mom"
30 mins later he comes in and he is soaked through with sweat. Some lessons are just sweeter learned by experience.Our relationship is in tact.. It's ok if your guys sweat. It's ok if they work hard. It's ok. They will look back and say, "I had to walk a mile to school one way...."
Oh, wait a minute that was my grandmother. 
They will look back and see the good that comes out of work.


Learn something new that involves your children working....Don't let them read that little part up there^^^^^^ they may take my blog off of your computer:)


Blessings from the farm, where my dreams have become reality.