Tradesman and I have been together for 19 years. 16 of them of which we have been married. I have spent more years with tradesman than I have ever spent without him!
Are you going to try and have any more babies after losing your twins?
Honestly, we would love more children. If God chooses to give us more then we would be thrilled! The next best thing to serving Jesus in this life has been having our kids! We find them, outside of our relationships with God, to be the most fulfilling things in our lives.
Where do you live?
Because this was an anonymous comment that I did not publish I am not going to answer this in case you are a stalker, axe murderer! I hope you understand! :)
Are you going to homeschool your kids all through Highschool?
Yes! Why stop a good thing now? It works for us and our family. We honestly believe that God has called us to this, so now I simply remind myself when it seems I am not cut out for it or it's too difficult that there is no turning back! Our eldest will actually be gr.10 in the fall and I still like having him home! (well, most of the time ;)
What DID you have for breakfast?
I'm not telling.
Do you celebrate the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus in your house? What about Halloween?
This could be a BIG answer so I am going to try and keep it short. :)
We have changed how we do things over the years. There was a time that we did the Santa Claus thing. Our boys were little and we started to feel convicted ourselves about OUR focus on the true meaning of the season so we started to weed out that side of Christmas a little every year. We were never comfortable lying to our boys and telling them that there was a Santa, so we didn't . We would just play pretend and they knew from the beginning that tradesman was really Santa. We would still leave out cookies and milk and carrots for the reindeer all in fun.
The problem was that it was hard enough to keep our focus on the birth of Christ with all the shopping, festivities, presents and such, nevermind the big jolly fellow. Eventually, we decided for us and our family that it all had to stop. Our kids know the real story behind Saint Nicholas, so we try to focus on the gifts as a chance to bless others. Our kids receive 3 gifts each as Jesus was presented with 3 gifts from the wisemen. We also fill stockings for them with candy, toiletries, school necessities and silly little items.
We still decorate our home with seasonal things and put up a tree and such. We just avoid the whole Santa, what do you want for Christmas, reindeer, Frosty the snowman thing. We keep the kids out of stores, and activities that are focused around Santa during that season. We celebrate Advent and have made new traditions and new ways to celebrate. It has been a huge blessing for us and I have found that our family has been able to focus on the coming of our Saviours birth with so much more intention now. I do have a little ornament that has Santa kneeling with his hat in his hands at the manger with baby Jesus lying there. I love it and it sits right in the middle of my kitchen island and is a reminder to all of us of why we have no part in any of the regular Christmas festivities any longer.
As for the Easter bunny? Same kind of thing. No Easter bunny at our house. We do a sort of lent devotional every year and other things as well including resurrection eggs. We still normally do an egg hunt and chocolate bunny that weekend. However, we have decided that next year we will start a tradition of "Spring baskets and egg hunt" and do it a couple of weeks before Easter so that it is done and over with and we can use the 2 weeks leading up to Easter more reverently. We were just finding that the typical, traditional, Easter festivities invade on the true reason we celebrate and we just don't like it.
Halloween? We have used it as a way to evangelize the last 2 years. We give out tracts and candy in little bags and my kids go around the neighborhood and give out tracts to each door that they receive candy from. It's been great, the responses from people to the kids have been really neat. We were going to throw the whole Halloween thing aside until we saw it as an opportunity to spread the gospel. Next year tradesman and I will be setting up some hot apple cider outside and hoping to talk to parents as they come by. We will also be giving the book "One heartbeat Away" found here out as well. (powerful evangelistic tool) We don't do the spooky decoration thing and again keep our kids out of stores and Halloween activities.
How do you keep up with all of your children? I find it hard with just 3!
I remember those days! Trust me, it is SO much easier now. Once some of the kids get older, they are a great help around the house, and they help to entertain the little ones.
The kids always have someone to play with and despite the fact that there are more people making a mess, there are also more people to help clean it up!
The only real challenge I find is food. My life is all about the food prep now!
If I had an answer on this one, I'd let you know! ;)
There was one more important question that deserves a post all of it's own. That is coming up. Also many of you asked what was the big burden on my heart. I will share a little in a future post.
That was fun! If you have any more questions go ahead and send them to me at thepassionatehousewife@gmail.com and I will do another post just like this when there is enough.
Blessings!
