First Day of Church

Let me start off by saying, sorry about all of the typos in the first post! I was trying to post it from my phone but all four children LOVE playing on my phone, so I was trying to do it quickly and they were driving me to crazy-town! I think I pretty much fixed it though, now it might actually make sense!

 

Church was great. It was not only the kids' first day of our ward (Little Big Man said a lot of years ago he had a grandma take him, he knows a few primary songs and remembered what we do at church) but it was also Emerson's first day of nursery and my first day teaching Sunday School. Needless to say it was a little nuts. The key to a successful sacrament meeting is a properly packed diaper bag... I'm not sure mine was packed correctly! I made a rookie mistake of bringing different types of fruit snacks (ran out of the first box) and only one box of crayons. But, in spite of it all, we made it! In fact, they all did really well. Primary was also great! Emerson walked straight into nursery and didn't even look back. The only time she cried is when she had to leave which was pretty hilarious! Tate on the other hand has been going to sunbeams for weeks but when he couldn't go to class with his new sister Essa, we couldn't get him to go to primary anymore! So surprisingly enough, he was the hard one! My Sunday School class wasn't exactly roses either. I have the 12 and 13 year olds and there was a stake visitor because it's ward conference next week so they came to preview our class. What a week for that! As you can probably imagine, I haven't exactly prepared the way I would've liked to! So he was gentle with his 'critique' but there is still a lot of work to do to improve! (Do you have any teaching suggestions?! It was tough to engage the kids, they're supposed to kind of 'teach themselves' but that's easier said than done if you have a group of kids  who won't talk)

All in all we survived!

 

Anyway...

I think I'm learning more and more everyday with two more kids in my house...

First of all, I am learning that I am EXHAUSTED! How do you all do it?! Goodness, two kids was a total cake walk, I should have enjoyed it while it lasted! But I wouldn't change it for the world.

 

Second of all, I think we are definitely TOO HARD on ourselves when it comes to parenting. These kids have had some tough things in their life, but they are amazing kids in spite of it all. They love their birth mom, even though she couldn't give them everything they needed. And she was trying her very best because you don't get kids like this without a mom who was really trying to do her best for them. Sometimes we feel like kids need to be in every sport and to have every toy and that there is no way we are good enough, or that we are good parents. That just isn't the case. The truth is, most of us are great parents. Our kids just need us there loving them, and meeting their physical, spiritual and emotional needs. The rest falls into place.

 

Thank you all for your support! Tomorrow is Little Big Man's first day of school and he's really nervous that he won't make friends and that the other kids will make fun of him, remember him in your prayers for us! He's way too cool to be made fun of!