Outside my window…it’s sunny with a nice breeze.  I can’t even complain about the heat…that breeze makes it completely bearable.

I am reflecting…on this thought from Ann Ruethling and Patti Pitcher, “Parenting is a journey – an inner journey, an outer journey, and a journey of the heart.  Parenting brings us to unimagined heights and unparalleled lows.  It has the potential to transform our souls, heal our wounds, and lift our hearts.  But it also has the power to reduce us to tears, time and time again.  Parenting can bring out the very worst in our behavior, even when our intentions are stellar.  Every wart we thought we had hidden will somehow be exposed in the process of parenting.  No experience has the potency to touch us, challenge us, or transform us like the process of loving a child.  Parenting offers us lessons in how to grow and to strive and to seek.  If we choose to open our hearts to the possibility of transformation inherent in parenting, our children will teach us how to love, how to forgive, and how to be full expressions of our deepest selves, if only we let them.  Their love has the potential to crack open the hardest parts of our hearts, just as our love has the potential to carry them through their lives knowing they are cherished.”  from Under the Chinaberry Tree

I am thankful for…words.  Words to express my thoughts, my feelings, my frustrations. 

I am praying for…Landon and his family. 

From the learning rooms…lots of reading, some Right Start Math, and some new twists on old nursery rhymes with the help of a book called I Love You Rituals.

From the kitchen…berries, berries, and more berries!  I love summer with all of its glorious fruit!

I am wearing…a striped t-shirt and olive green shorts.  Not very stylish, but so very comfy. 

I am creating…a small list of last minute curriculum needs like the supplies to make the Wee Felt Saint dolls for our journey Along the Alphabet Path.

I am reading…How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

I am hearing…William proclaim “I am tall!” He’s standing on the tallest stool we have with his arms raised up, shouting with every ounce of strength that he is tall!  Perhaps if he’d eat more of his veggies, that would be true.

Around the house…the messes come in waves.  The toys are taken out.  The kids are learning to put them away.  Ever so slowly.  But with lots of coaxing, the toys are put away.  The house is clean.  Then the toys are taken out again.  It’s very cyclical. 

One of my favorite things…snuggling together before bed reading and telling stories. 

Here is a picture I thought worth sharing…