Mission of the Month: March 2012 {and Feb Accomplishments}

Welcome to Mama’s Mission of the Month! My hope is that this will help me {and you} follow through on some of the goals that we have set for the month! So, if you are a mama and you want to join in, check out the intro post! (If you have already read the rules, you can easily grab the buttons from the Buttons Tab on the top of the sidebar.)

February Mission Update: My mission for February was quite extensive. But, it stemmed from the goals that my husband and I prayed about and committed to for 2012. Here is how I did:

Personal:

1. Commit to daily quiet time (Bible reading & prayer) each morning. I’ve been doing this one…still need to work on getting up earlier though!

2. Finish reading Eat That Frog! I haven’t finished this one, but it is full of LOTS of great nuggets for getting more done in less time and avoiding procrastination!

3. Finish reading Organized Simplicity.  DONE!!! This book not only inspired me to do a whole-house purge, but to totally change around the rooms (furniture) in our house so that they better suit our needs!

4. Complete 10 scrapbook pages. I am over 5 years behind! I’ve got a lot of catching up to do!

Marriage:

5. Find and begin a couples devotional. Rather than selecting a couples devo, we have put a night of the calendar each week to go over what our pastor taught on the previous Sunday.

6. Flirt with my hubby everyday. This was harder than I thought it was going to be because I kept forgetting. But, I am working on a little something to help me remember!! {wink, wink}

Parenting:

7. Decide on and begin a weekly family devotional. We decided on the downloadable family devotions that go along with The Hands-On Bible and we are LOVING them!

8. Gather scriptures so that I can discipline consistently with The Word. I didn’t have to come up with the scriptures for this one because we discovered The Child-Training Bible!!! What an incredible tool for disciplining with The Word! (I have a review coming up this month!)

9. Find a feasible way to have one-on-one time with each child daily. This one is a work in progress. I feel like I struggle with this one because I want to have structured, planned one-on-one time when the reality of the situation is that the kids just want my undivided attention…whether it is planned or not…even if we are just talking and folding laundry together! 

Homeschooling:

10. Read The Toothpaste Millionaire aloud to the kids. The kids LOVED this book. In fact, they want to try making toothpaste!

11. Read/watch Hans Brinker and take the kids ice skating. We ended up watching the movie, Hans Brinker…. and the kids had a blast ice skating!

12. Find and begin a new daily devotional with the kids. I decided on Long Story Short to use with the kids daily…well Monday through Friday, before we start our schoolwork. We still incorporate our Grapevine Studies, but they are part of our “schoolwork.” We LOVED Grapevine Studies, but I am not sure if Long Story Short is going to work for us. We plan to continue plugging away at it to see if it will be a good fit or not.

Homemaking:

13. Finish completely re-organizing the furniture to suit our needs. I can’t begin to tell you how great it feels to now have my home organized! Once we started thinking outside the box, we were able to come up with some pretty ingenious ways to create more space!

14. Finish purging each room in the house. Again, thanks to Organized Simplicity, I was inspired to completely purge our home (and my hubby was TOTALLY on board)! We cleared out TONS of stuff and it felt great to be able to bless someone else with it! But, due to my surgery, I have not quite finished…but we are almost there!

15. Start up SHE Method again. Why oh why do I stop using this system? It works so well for me and I am glad to be back with it! It keeps me from having to think about every little thing that needs to be done to maintain my home!

Ministry/Friendships/Extended Family:

16. Write 2 letters.

17. Start sending birthday cards to extended family & friends again.

Financial:

18. Gather documents for tax preparation. Still working on this one…

Blogging/Online Activity:

19. Begin writing and scheduling blog posts @ least 1 week in advance. I truly enjoy blogging, but I don’t love the pressure of “needing” to post something! Writing and planning my posts ahead of time relieves me of that pressure so that I can truly enjoy blogging and blog about what I enjoy! I even created a printable planning form to help with blog planning and scheduling. But, life has thrown me a few curveballs and I have not yet been able to get ahead and begin scheduling like I want to.

20. Stick with my new schedule for online activity. The computer can really suck away valuable time if you are not careful…and that is what was happening to me! I want my kids to remember me as a fun and present mom…not as being glued to a computer! So, I have restricted my online time and so far it has been working well!

So, while I did accomplish quite a bit, I still left a few things undone. So…

My Mission for March 2012: 

Personal:

1. Get up before the kids during the week to have my devotion and prayer time. (This means well before 7am.)

2. Finish reading Eat That Frog! 

3. Read Sun Stand Still: What Happen When You Dare to Ask God for the Impossible.

4. Complete 10 scrapbook pages.

Marriage:

5. Remember to flirt with my hubby everyday.

Parenting:

6. Diligently implement The Child-Training Bible into our method of discipline.  

Homeschooling:

7. Complete two read-alouds to the kids.

8. Finish making the alphabet bean-bags that I started about a year ago!

9. Decide on our Science and Art Fair submissions for our homeschool group.

Homemaking:

10. Finish purging the remaining rooms in the house.

Ministry/Friendships/Extended Family:

11. Write 2 letters.

12. Decide on a volunteer activity at church.

Financial:

13. Finish gathering documents for tax preparation.

Blogging/Online Activity:

14. Begin writing and scheduling blog posts @ least 1 week in advance.

15. Continue to stick with my new schedule for online activity.

16. Transfer all of my printable files over from 4shared to my MamaJenn.com site. 

Whew…that’s a lot!

What is your March mission of the month?

If you participated last month, how did you do?

Feel free to link up and share! It is a great way to hold yourself accountable! For more information on how to join in, please read the intro post. The linky will be open until midnight, March 5th.

FINAL Thumb-sucking Update

Believe it or not, some of my most popular posts in the past are those about our battle with thumb and finger sucking. Yes, both of my sets of twins (all four boys) sucked their fingers and/or thumbs. In fact, I taught them to do it! (insert gasp here!)

When they were tiny babies, it was much easier to teach them to get their hands to their faces than it was for me to get up and find their pacifiers in the middle of the night! So, even though I DID teach them to suck their thumbs/fingers, I did not want them to continue with the habit. With that said, I thought I would provide an update on our finger-sucking adventure!

It was May 12, 2010 when I posted about our final solution to stopping the finger sucking habit! I was desperate…and creative, but we have not turned back since! It has been over 2.5 years since I have had a thumb/finger sucker in our family! I guess it is safe to say that we have kicked the habit! LOL!! So, if you would like to follow our thumb-sucking journey, check out the posts below:

Thumb Guards 03.04.09  Explains how we got ourselves into this whole thumb sucking ordeal. Plus, I include details about our awesome success using Thumb Guards for our first set of twins.

Thumb Guard Update 03.22.09  Provides an update from our first attempts at the guards with the younger twins. It showcases our progress (with JI) and lack of progress (with TJ) and how we tried to remedy it.

Relapsed 03.29.09  The peer pressure from TJ’s lack of progress caused JI to relapse.

The Thumb Guards & Finger Guards are Back!! 03.26.10  Explains how we purchased additional guards to combat TJ’s love for his fingers!

No More Thumb Suckers! 05.12.10 We had to get creative, but we found a solution for TJ that TOTALLY worked!

Now that we officially have kicked the habit, I am hoping that our efforts may save us some money in orthodontist work in the future! A girl can hope, right?!?!?  LOL!!

So, do you have any thumb/finger suckers? Do you have a success story of your little one(s) kicking the habit?

VeggieTales AND Cooper & Me WINNERS

Thank you so very much to everyone who entered to win the VeggieTales giveaway and the Cooper & Me Military giveaway! We have some winners!

Commenter #63, Bess Wuertz

 

Now, onto the Cooper & Me winner:

Commenter #4, Marie Johnson

Congratulations Ladies!!!

Ww for Water {MFW Kindergarten Printables}

As much as I love the hands-on activities and crafts in our My Father’s World Kindergarten Curriculum, I was not very good about doing the Words to Remember badges with my daughter. So, I came up with something a little different for the boys. I created printable  art/copywork pages for them to work on their penmanship while creatively depicting the Words to Remember.

This is the Lesson 10: Ww for Water page from one of my older boy’s kindergarten school year. All we used for this page was some glue and some homemade colored sand. (You could use glitter in lieu of the sand.) Simply add some drops of glue to the paper. Hold the paper upright so that the glue begins to drip down the page a bit, looking like raindrops. Then lay the paper flat and sprinkle the blue sand or glitter over the glue. Shake of the excess and let dry!

You can download the Words to Remember printables from my MFW Kindergarten Supplemental Printables page.

PLEASE NOTE: These copywork printables are only for students who are reading and writing easily. This type of copywork is not a regular part of My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum.

Mama's Mission of the Month {Feb Mid-month Reminder}

Alright, all you mama’s who are participating in Mama’s Mission of the Month for February! This is the February 2012 Mid-month reminder about the goals that we set for the month of February. With the month half-way over, I just wanted to check in to see how you all are doing!

How am I doing? Well, despite an unexpected surgery scheduled for this Friday, I have still been able to make great headway with my February goals!

Personal:

1. Commit to daily quiet time (Bible reading & prayer) each morning. I’ve been doing this one…just need to work on getting up earlier!

2. Finish reading Eat That Frog!

3. Finish reading Organized Simplicity. DONE!!! This book not only inspired me to do a whole-house purge, but to totally change around the rooms (furniture) in our house so that they better suit our needs!

4. Complete 10 scrapbook pages.

Marriage:

5. Find and begin a couples devotional. We did set a day for our weekly devotional time together. But, rather than a book, our plan is to go over what our pastor taught on the previous Sunday.

6. Flirt with my hubby everyday. This has been a bit tougher than I expected! I need to set up a daily reminder or something!

Parenting:

7. Decide on and begin a weekly family devotional. We decided on the downloadable family devotions that go along with The Hands-On Bible. We decided on a night and plan to start this week!

8. Gather scriptures so that I can discipline consistently with The Word. I discovered a jewel!!! The Child-Training Bible!!! While I am in bed recovering from surgery I plan to finish getting it ready to use with my kids! I can’t wait!!!

9. Find a feasible way to have one-on-one time with each child daily. I have tried a few things and I think what I like most is having individual reading time with each child. We cuddle up and they read to me or I read to them. However, I still want to find another way to squeeze in some more one-on-one time…Do any of you mama’s with lots of kids have some ideas you want to share???

Homeschooling:

10. Read The Toothpaste Millionaire aloud to the kids. Not done, but the kids and I are all enjoying the book!

11. Read/watch Hans Brinker and take the kids ice skating. DONE!!

12. Find and begin a new daily devotional with the kids. I decided on Long Story Short to use with the kids daily…well Monday through Friday, before we start our schoolwork. We still incorporate our Grapevine Studies, but they are part of our “schoolwork.”

Homemaking:

13. Finish completely re-organizing the furniture to suit our needs. DONE!! My hubby is so impressed, b/c I am a creature that DOES NOT LIKE CHANGE!

14. Finish purging each room in the house. The only rooms left are the master bedroom, all bathrooms, laundry/craft room, and part of the garage! Woo-hoo!! I am now a firm believer that less is more!! Thanks to Organized Simplicity for the inspiration!

15. Start up SHE Method again.

Ministry/Friendships/Extended Family:

16. Write 2 letters.

17. Start sending birthday cards to extended family & friends again.

Financial:

18. Gather documents for tax preparation. Just downloaded Your Blogging Business, which should help with identifying additional info that I need to gather for our taxes. Hope to read it over the weekend!

Blogging/Online Activity:

19. Begin writing and scheduling blog posts @ least 1 week in advance. I’m not going to lie…I am struggling with this one. But, I’ve got some ideas of how to make it easier…don’t worry, if they work, I’ll share them with you! LOL!!

20. Stick with my new schedule for online activity. Being disciplined to do this has been hard, but when I stick to my schedule, I find that I am a happier mom, which means the kids in turn are happier!

With that said how are you coming along with your February Mission of the Month? Feel free to leave a comment letting us know how your mission is going! {No, you don’t have to leave an update comment. And yes, you will still be able to write your complete Accomplished post and link it up at the end of the month. The update comment is simply a way of keeping you on track with completing the goals you have set for the month.}

If you have no clue what the Mama’s Mission of the Month is all about, it is basically a monthly blog carnival designed to help me {and you} follow through on some of the goals that we have set for the month! For more information or if you want to know how to join in next month, check out the intro post!