I dreamed a dream...

Linden is sitting up stairs in my room having 'quiet time' with some books right now because he won't go to sleep. He is happy to sit on my bed and read if it means not having a nap. Before I went up there and gave him some books I thought he had been sleeping...an hour went by! Then I heard him start crying and screaming so I thought he had fallen off the bed, I ran up there and he had certainly not been sleeping. He had been sticking his feet in the slats on our bed and had gotten one foot jammed in there. Turkey!

What I want to know is when is the right time to start taking out day time naps all together? I don't feel like Linden is ready for that - oh my, I hope he's not! - but every so often he just won't go to sleep. Then on other days he'll sleep for 3 hours in the afternoon.

I seem to remember my own parents enforcing afternoon naps until I went to school. Now, the memory of my childhoon is often blurred and I have been known to think that things really happened when infact I either dreampt of them or just imagined them happening. One example of this was when I was a kid and one night we were sitting around the dinner table all laughing and sharing funny memories. I piped up and laughing so hard I said, "Remember the time I was Gumby for Halloween and couldn't climb up our neighbors stairs because my legs were too stiff in the costume?? Ah hahaha!!!!" Suddenly there was an awkward silence followed by an outburst of laughter by my parents. "Laura, you were never Gumby for Halloween, you saw that on America's Funniest home videos!" My siblings then added to the laughter and I have never lived that moment down. Thankfully, I now know that I possess this amazing ability to make dreams a reality and have gotten over myself. I can laugh at myself in these times and really....I quite enjoy them when they come. It does, however, usually make me nervous when I am telling some amazing story that I may have actually made it up. Back to napping as a child, THAT I remember. Even when we were older my parents always had us nap on Sundays. I am so thankful for this, though I wasn't at the time, and regularily nap on Sundays (and any other opporunity).

So...what did you do? When did your kids quit the afternoon nap? How did you make the transition? I do plan on having my kids nap until they go to kinderschool and even then will have them nap on Sundays...but it's good to hear other people's stories! Am I dreaming to think that my plans are possible? Perhaps this is one dream I can't make into reality.

Linden is now downstairs asking me as many questions as humanly possible. I must give ear. Thankfully, he's a happy camper even though he didn't nap today. I love my boys.

LAUR.

PS - If you are a person that I have told some crazy story to and are now questioning my credibility, please know that I am an honest person with a lot of true stories....it's just that some times some stories I only think happened. Oh boy..... I'm starting to sound really bad... I have good intentions..... oh man.....

La la la lasagna.

I made an attempt at making a lasagna last night for dinner. You might ask, "But Laura, you mean to tell me that you've been married for 5 years and have yet to make a lasagna for dinner?" Oh I have. I have failed dismally a couple of times. The issue? Those fantastically frusterating 'oven-ready' noodles. They are supposed to save you time. My lasagna's either end up like a noodle soup in a shallow dish, which is just altogether bad, or it ends up dry as a bone with a nice crunch as you bite into it.

Time consuming, difficult to make and oh-so fattening, my lasagna last night was my first semi-success! It's a secret family recipe and so I can't share it with you, but actually Kraft parmesean cheese stole my recipe years ago and posted it on the back of their containers so you can get it off there if you want. I added a layer of ricotta in and probably will use cottage cheese next time. And I think I'll try the traditional pre-cooked noodles. And maybe take out a bit of the mass amount of garlic I added. But other than that I really enjoyed it and so did the fam. I do feel this morning though - thanks to dinner and the terrible quantity I ate - that if I were to jump into a pool I'd actually sink.

I hope today, wherever you are, is a sunny day. It's beautiful here today. Kids are up......gotta go!

Acting on Motivation...

What a fantastic weekend. I love Easter. I love it because it is a beautiful celebration of the life of our Lord. There is such joy in Easter weekend. While we remember the sacrifice made on the Cross we also get to  remember what side of the Cross we live on. What an incredible gift of love given to us, the opportunity to live on the redeemed side of the Cross. Where death is beaten and sin is forgiven, life is freely offered and received. Healing is normal and joy is natural. I love it!

Some times I wonder if God's grace is blind. If God knew who he was extending grace towards he'd probably change his mind. The crazy thing is, grace is not blind. That's why it's called grace. This unmerited love and favour is not given because God is blind or ignorant, it is given in spite of our imperfections and blatantly ugly sins. God sees it all my friend. That's what makes his gift to us so amazing. Grace is incredibly motivating. I am not guilted into living for Christ. I am motivated by grace to live for Him. He is the only one who can love me unconditionally because He is the only perfect love. That leads me to search my life for things I can change. I want to learn to love perfectly.

Sometimes I feel bad about putting so much emphasis on Easter. Sounds strange doesn't it? But I think to myself that I should remember the Cross and celebrate Christ's resurrection daily. I shouldn't have to wait for one weekend out of the year to celebrate. Not that I go through the rest of the year in complete disregard for this, but it just seems like Easter dulls the rest of the year and makes it feel like I haven't remembered.

This is crazy thinking though. While those thoughts have come into my head, I must say that they are brief and quickly diminished. I'm sure that God loves all the attention that Easter brings! And why shouldn't he?! It brings our eyes back to the Cross, back to his Son, back to the reason we have hope. What great things to think about. I'm sure he loves any opportunity to draw closer to his children. People who don't normally go to church will go on Easter Sunday. Instead of feeling bad about not celebrating the rest of the year, let's act upon the excitment and joy of Easter and use it to launch us closer to God.

Perhaps Easter is a Christian's New Years, if you will,  a time to measure our values and priorities and make changes where needed. We often think it's lame to set new years resolutions because everybody's doing it. A bunch of people with 15 pounds to lose buy passes to the gym and get motivated that this year is a new year. You know what? I didn't set ANY new years resolutions for that very reason. Everybody's doing it. And you know what else? Shame on me. Good for those people who acted on their motivation, who shamelessly marched into that 24 hour fitness and signed up for a year pass. I didn't act on that motivation and now it's gone. I'll have to find it somewhere else now.

Anyways, back to Easter. How does grace inspire you? Does it compel you to draw closer to God, or perhaps a friend in need? Act on it. Do it now before the motivation gets lost in busyness.

For me, this past weekend reminded me that it's all about people finding Jesus. I heard some amazing stories of how Jesus has transformed families and individual lives recently. I am motivated to love the people around me with selfless love. My neighbors need to know Jesus. I can help make that happen. I can love. I will love.

Sometimes we just need to put down what we're doing and do the right thing.

Laura

P.S - I don't know how exactly that last line fit into what I was saying........but I thought it sounded pretty cool.