Children Archives - Page 2 of 7

Freedom to Enjoy Life

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

Co-op was canceled this week. I get an extra week to make my lessons even better. So instead of highlighting a fellow writer today, I decided to share a few pictures and tell about some of what we’ve been doing.

This past month, I’ve been making sure my children have ample opportunity to just be children. One of their favorite places to play is over at the nearby ranch where our oldest son works as an apprentice.

The day after Hannah’s birthday we all went over to visit the animals. Of course they had high hopes of getting to ride a horse too.

But while they waited to ride a horse their imaginations took over.

Jonathan and his invisible horse

Hannah found a saddle on a stand she could ride.

Ruth just loves any horse she can hug. Especially the babies.

Joshua has been learning a lot while working as an apprentice. He was proud to be able to show us how to put a saddle on a horse.

Elijah’s favorite part seemed to be watching the pigeons and chickens that were in their coop.

Elisabeth didn’t let all the excitement get in the way of a good nap.

Ruth leads her younger siblings to find water to drink

I love to see my children growing and learning.

They need these opportunities to be free to learn on their own and in their own way within the eyesight of a loving parent that won’t let them get hurt.

Ah, yes! I can learn something from my children.

Maybe I could use to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Let my hair down. Enjoy freedom under the steady watch of my loving Heavenly Father who is always with me. He’s always within reach. Any time I fall down God’s right there to lift me up and dust me off.

What do you plan to do to enjoy life today? I’d love to hear your ideas.

I may just forget chores this afternoon and go play outside barefoot with my kids. The dishes will still be here when I get back.

Here For My Children

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

I am linking up again at Lisa-Jo’s for another Five Minute Friday.

The rules are

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Today’s word prompt is “Here”.

My timer is set.

GO!

Here I am with a baby in my lap. Wondering if I can have a few extra minutes for typing a little encumbered. But I won’t I’m sitting here thinking about why I am here.

I am here for a reason. There is a reason I choose to type. God gave me my beautiful family. I have many friends online and in real life.

I am happy here. I have my baby here sleeping in my arms. I like having my children here with me. Even when they try to distract or draw my attention from what I am doing here. I know they are the reason I am doing this. I remind myself of that and I stop and listen. If I am doing this for them then I can stop typing for them too.

But here in this moment I have five minutes of quiet granted to me by 5 of my 6 children and I type.

Stop

This is my second time to do Five Minute Friday. I did it in one take this time.

Now your turn. What are you doing “here”?

Please share with us in the comments. If you participated in today’s Five Minute Friday, let me know and I’d love to check out your post.

Finding Beauty in Imperfections

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

These are a few bonus pictures that I want to share from the dentist appointment we had the other day.
This is 5 year old Jonathan. He is our budding photographer.

This is where we can be thankful for modern digital cameras. Back in the day of film developing, I probably would have just tossed these pictures.

Instead I’m embracing my son’s creativity and posting his pictures on my blog.

Sometimes we just have to find the fun in life. And smile.

These pictures may not be perfect but neither am I. However I see the beauty in these pictures despite all their imperfections. That’s one step in building a strong rock solid family. We need to be able to see the beauty in the imperfections.

Our children need to see that we love them, even when they make mistakes. They need to know we are proud of them even though they are not perfect. We must show them that they are still beautiful, inside and out.

How about you? Have you found beauty in the imperfections?

Feel free to share with me in the comments. If you received this in your email, you may also hit reply and I’ll email you back as soon as I am able.

Today is Hannah’s birthday. Hopefully things run smoother than they did on Elijah’s Birthday last week. At least I have eggs now. 😉 But a perfect day or not I’ll be sure to post about the beauty I find in it.

Today I’m linking up with Darlene Schacht at Time Warp Wife. for her Titus 2sdays link up party. You can click on the link to read other wives’ and mothers’ posts on marriage and family.

Adventures with 6 Kids at the Dentist’s

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

I received a call from our Family dentist Wednesday afternoon confirming our appointment for the next day.

I didn’t even pretend to hide my shock. I forgot!

The kind receptionist just laughed and said that she was glad she called. I assured her we would be there.

Elisabeth is playing peek-a-boo while Jonathan is putting his big brother’s hat on my head.

Yes. Living in Plan B a second time this week. What were my original plans for Thursday? I don’t know anymore.

I do know that my plan wasn’t driving 5 hours round trip with 6 children for their 4 hour dentist appointment.

This is not my kids’ first dentist appointment. It’s just the first one I forgot about.

Then I got a call from my dad saying the Dentist office just called to confirm his appointment and told him, he was going to see some grandchildren.

A squeal of excitement arose throughout the house as the kids realized Papa had a dentist appointment too.

Jonathan sat in Nana’s chair. He told her she could sit on his lap.

Something good happened with Plan B. My dad told me that he was just as excited as the kids.

Entertaining the kids wasn’t nearly as challenging with Papa and Nana in the waiting room.

You know…That surprise was a gift from God. He knew I was a bit apprehensive about the long drive and the long hours of waiting with my kids.

It’s like He gave me a hug and told me that it’s all going to be okay.

This is how the 3 youngest and I looked by the end of the wait.

Have you ever felt that way?On those days, weeks, or even months when nothing seems to go as planned. Have you ever had a surprise that made you feel loved despite all your shortcomings?

As always feel free to share with me in the comments. Or send me an email.

Joshua and Ruth with their nice, clean smiles.

Oh, and as an added plus to my day. My husband installed a new calendar app for me. Now to just start using it. 🙂

Building Memories

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

This week was Spring Break! My husband had most of the week off so we were able to take a short trip and have some fun with our kids.

Here are a few pictures I took this week.

I told them to pretend the sun wasn’t in their face.

I said we built memories with the kids. We didn’t necessarily get good pictures of them. 🙂

We took this picture at the zoo.

I tried to get the kids to all look at the camera at the same time but Elisabeth looked away in this picture. Some of the others were looking away in the one picture she actually looked at the camera in.

Elijah is going down a really cool slide that lets you see under the water.

Everyone had a really good time. We didn’t lose any of the kids. The only panic moment was when Jonathan panicked at the water’s edge of the slide that you see in this picture of Elijah.

Jonathan was scared to go under the water in the slide. But once we coaxed him through it he went down once with Ruth. Then he was willing to go down it again and again all by himself.

Jonathan finally slid down the tunnel with a smile on his face.

Even Elisabeth got to go down the slide with Daddy’s help.

Scott took Elisabeth down the slide. She seemed to like it pretty well.

Scott went with the kids inside a small cave.

My Motto: If you have trouble taking good pictures just take a lot of them!

Finally one last picture for now.

I have a whole lot more but I’ll save the rest for future posts.

There was a little playground area where the kids posed for me on top of a snake tunnel.

There was a little playground area where the kids posed on top of a snake tunnel.

Even the picture on top of the snake was a bit of a flop. Jonathan’s hand is in front of his face. 🙂

I’ll spare you the picture of my wounded elbow. I cut myself on the passenger side mirror. It’s a pretty good little gash but it’s starting to heal now.

I was so glad it was me and not one of the kids that got hurt during the day. I hate hurting myself but I hate it worse when my kids are hurt.

Have you ever had a vacation or trip where you had a good time but none of the pictures were good? Or am I the only one that ever happens to? As always feel free to share with me in the comments.

This is a rather short and hurried post catching you up with what we’ve been doing this week.

I have a book I am working on that I’ll be sharing with my followers. I also have a guest post to write and will be sharing that with you as well.

I am stepping out and trying new things. Thanks for following and listening!

How to Baby Proof Your Kitchen in 8 “Easy” Steps

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

You may remember a recent post I did on How to Maintain a Clean Kitchen in 6 “Easy” Steps. Well, the more mobile your youngest becomes your methods sometimes have to adjust. Especially when your oldest young’ns are away.

I now present you with my latest method of baby proofing the kitchen with less helpers.

Are you ready?

Step 1: Hold your baby out in front of you. Take a good look at her. Pay close attention to her size. Smile real big and coo before continuing on to Step 2.

Step 2: Position your baby on your hip and hold her with one arm. Grab a broom with the other.

Step 3: Sweep a spot on the floor at least two baby lengths square. (May need 3 baby lengths if your baby is a fast crawler.)

Step 4: Keeping broom in close reach set baby down on the floor.

Step 5: Quick! Grab broom. Immediately start sweeping the area your baby heads toward.

Step 6: Throw a pan lid and spoon in her path to slow her down a bit.

(WARNING: Pan lid and spoon are no match for the Cheerios clear across the floor in keeping your baby’s attention.)

(But having a big brother with a matching lid and spoon helps.)

Step 7: Grab dust pan. Sweep it all into dust pan before baby sees the dust pan. (Dust pans are even more attractive than Cheerios!)

Step 8: When baby gets fussy because you took all the “fun” stuff away give her a nice big carrot to teeth on.

How about you? Do you have any great baby proofing tips you’ve learned along the way? Please share them with us in the comments.

I have so many things to write about. The hard part is deciding what to write about first. I’m also contemplating a few book ideas. Be watching for more on that.

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For those who have already joined, you may have noticed that I’ve tweaked the look of my email posts.

Let me know what you think!

How to Maintain a Clean Kitchen in 6 “Easy” Steps

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

I spent a day this week with just my 4 younger children. Joshua and Ruth had gone to a nearby farm to help with their animals and to have riding lessons.

I had to drop them off. Leaving the younger 4 by themselves is a disastrous proposition not even worthy of consideration. (Okay, I admit I enjoyed putting that many big words into one simple sentence.) In other words I’m not leaving the little kids by themselves for even a minute.

I got them all up and the older children ate breakfast while the younger ones were scrounging around for their shoes.

We dropped their big brother and sister off for their riding lessons and I took the younger ones to a local store for honey buns and hot chocolate mix.

That was a fancy breakfast in their minds.

After breakfast I decided to let them have a little free time while I worked on some lesson plans.

Jonathan and Hannah were pretty creative. Hannah made herself a mop lady and Jonathan a broom man.

Hannah named her new friend Jennifer. Jonathan said his was grandpa with a Mohawk and a cowboy hat.

Elijah has been working on potty training. I have also been having to teach him not to be rough with Elisabeth.

In the above picture of Elijah and Elisabeth they are playing on our kitchen floor.

I’ve been managing to keep the kitchen clean. I try hard to keep every dish washed up after each meal. Sometimes there are a few left to be done before bed but not nearly as many as there used to be.

I have learned that there are a couple of things that help in being resolved to keep the kitchen clean.

1. You can’t expect anyone else to do it. I can tell my children to help but unless I show that I care and put forth some effort myself then no one else will.

2. Be determined. I tell myself that I’m not going to bed until every dish is clean. If I want to get to bed at a reasonable time I have to keep those dishes up throughout the day or I’d be up all night doing dishes.

3. Don’t make excuses.That popular saying going around that I used to listen to. “The dishes can wait they’re not going any where.”

That is true but unless you want those dishes to multiply into an embarrassing mess you better catch it while there is just a few. Otherwise you’re stuck playing catch up and believe me that is no fun. Keeping it up is much easier than catching it up.

4. Numbers don’t matter. Cleaning with 2 versus 6 kids? I’ve had only 2 kids before and now I have 6. I can actually speak from experience on this question.

With 2 children you don’t have as many helpers. Of course, they don’t make as big a mess either. Technically clean up is about the same with both.

With 6 kids there may be more dishes but you can assign them jobs that you would normally have to do if there were only 2 children.

5. Make it quality time. The same saying about the dishes not going anywhere is usually followed by “…but your children are only young once.” In other words, you should spend that time doing dishes and cleaning house with your children instead.

Okay, I’ve followed that advice before. I actually liked it. I much preferred spending quality time playing with my children to housekeeping. That’s why I had a messy kitchen for the past 2+ years.

I now have a new outlook on quality time. This year I’ve determined that I’d have even more quality time if the kids and I cleaned up the kitchen before we do other things.

And who says cleaning the kitchen isn’t quality time? If you think about it we are all in the room together. Why not teach my kids a new song while we’re cleaning.

Now with little ones particularly of the potty training years then I may have to leave the dishes for a moment to take care of an emergency.

If it’s a 6 month old wanting to be held. A clean floor with a pot lid and plastic spoon is a very fun toy. More fun than a brightly colored toy in fact.

6. Give the excess away. If I haven’t used a dish in over a year then I probably don’t need it. Give it away! Think of it as one less dish to wash. It’s also one more spot in the cabinet freed up for those dishes I do use.

Do you have any advice on keeping the kitchen clean? Or do you have a housekeeping question that you’re struggling with? I’d love to hear from you. Tell me what you think.

I’ll be posting again in another day or two. In that post I’ll be answering the frequently asked question, “When do you find time to write?” 🙂

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Babysitting Chickens and Potty Training…Oh, my!

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

My 14 year old son volunteered to babysit some baby chickens. I agreed to let him. So far they are still alive and still in their box.

I was imagining a whole bunch of baby chicks the first morning after we got them. It’s been good though.

I want to give a little mid month progress report.

So far I have kept up with the dishes. Right now as I type this post all but maybe 2 cups are washed in the kitchen. It’s been a lot of hard work but we’re keeping it up.

This makes my second blog for this week so I’m still going strong on posting twice a week.

I have actually got a devotional book started in my mind. I realize that’s not quite writing one devotional a week but the brainstorming and planning can be some of the hardest work.

To make up for not writing a devotional a week, I have been writing my son letters to greet him each morning as he arises early to work on his lessons. I am usually up but this gives him a chance to read cursive writing and I like to throw in some devotional type thoughts for him to think about as he begins the day.

I am thinking about writing letters to my other children as well but I need to get my sleep schedule back on track so I can have more time to write more letters. I’m thinking there might be a book idea in this somewhere.

Elijah is still potty training. The other day at karate class he fought with me over actually going in the toilet. He was still dry but in his refusal to go he peed all over my gi pants.

Something about having a two year old wet you while standing right next to the toilet is pretty discouraging although I managed to get him aimed in the right direction and cheer for his getting some in the potty.

I praised him for staying dry and he said, “Mommy, yours wet!”

Yep.

Today made up for it though. He dirtied himself this morning but this afternoon he went in the potty and stayed dry.

He got two stickers. One to proudly wear on his hand and another to put on a chart I made for him out of notebook paper. He has 3 stickers on his chart and he stayed dry all the way through bedtime.

I have not been doing too well at keeping up with going to bed early but I’ll keep trying.

In fact I’m having trouble getting my eyes to stay focused on this blog post. I really need sleep!

How have you been doing on your goals? Do you have friends that help keep you accountable?

Learning to Read Through the Stages

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

Our older 3 children all have pen pals that they write to every month.

The other day they were writing letters, while their younger brothers were pretending to write letters as well.

My 5 year old wrote this letter. He asked me to read it. So I made up what it said.

“Dear Mommy, you are the best mommy in the whole wide world…”

He started erasing it, “No! No! No! Mommy you need to learn how to read!”

Ha! I laughed but informed him that the real problem was that he needed to learn how to write.

My husband and I were realizing the other day that we have kids in just about every stage. Here in about 6 years we probably will have kids in every stage as our eldest will be old enough to move out on his own.

Wow! Where has the time gone?

Meanwhile we’re continuing to learn.

This past week we’ve dealt with everything from teething, potty training, to puberty.

My solution to all these issues? Give the kids more work!

Yes. They might not like me now but I hope they will appreciate all this work when they’re grown with families of their own.

For now I’ll just keep on praying for each one of them and dream of the days when we start having grandchildren come over. My husband and I can’t hardly wait until we can spoil those grandchildren real good and send them home. I’m beginning to understand this spoil the grandkids thing. 🙂

How has your week been? Do you have days that you struggle with the new stages your children are going through? Feel free to share with me in the comments.

I have had a lot on my plate lately and haven’t had much time at all to post on all the social media sites that I normally frequent. After all I do have a Rock Solid Family to build.

This blog will be the place I’ll be doing the most writing and I’ll do my best to answer your comments here on my blog as soon as I possibly can.

If you know someone that might benefit from our lives feel free to share this blog with your friends.

And if you haven’t already, sign up for my free email updates in order to not miss a single post.

Conquering the Chore Monster

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

We are coming upon the end of our second week of 2013. Quite often you can know at the end of a month whether the goals you set were reasonable or not.

I feel pretty good about our goals this year. One great thing is I’ve been meeting my goal of waking up earlier in the mornings. I’ll be posting more on that in future posts.

Today I want to tell you about our housekeeping goals. I have a goal this year to never leave dishes in the sink. There were many nights in 2012 that I sighed and left the dishes to be done the next morning. That is because I had a chore assignment fail between 2011 and 2012.

Yes, it was pretty sad.

Let me tell you what happened.

I have tried so many things these past couple of years with chores. We do pretty good when we’re in a good routine that works but when something breaks the routine sometimes it turns crazy. In 2011 we tried assigning each child monthly chores and paying them an allowance. That did not work!

The problem I had with paying them an allowance was that they took so long to get the job done. Then if there was a dirty job they didn’t want to do, it wound up set aside for the next month’s switch. Which meant that just made that chore yuckier for the next child assigned to it.

It was also hard to judge how much to pay our children because they preferred not working more than money. I also felt if I helped them by doing their assigned chore they were only learning that someone else will do it for them.

It is a lot easier to maintain cleanliness than to catch up on it.

This past year (2012) I had a hard time getting caught up. I felt I was constantly washing dishes. I’m faster at the dishes than the children and more thorough. So I had my kids doing other odd jobs around the house or working on their lessons while I did dishes.

My husband was very sweet and started trying to help me with dishes as well. He was seeing the effort I put toward getting things caught up around the house.

Two weeks into the new year and things are going well. I’m determined that my goal of having a clean house is higher priority than even my writing goals.

The clothes issue is another matter.

We have too many clothes. We are given quite a bit of hand-me-down clothes which isn’t the problem. The problem is we’re not getting rid of the outgrown clothes quick enough.

Then it becomes a mess because the kids don’t have a place to put it all. It gets left on their floor along with dirty clothes. Well, you can probably imagine how their rooms looked. Picture 6 kids in 2 small bedrooms. Scary!

My husband had 2 weeks off during the Christmas break. One of those weeks he took and bagged up the trash and hidden toys in their rooms and kept the laundry running with clothes.

I had the kids helping me sort through those clothes as soon as they came out of the dryer.

We’re not finished with that project yet but basically I am having them pick only a certain number of clothes to keep. The rest we need to get rid of. So far besides what my husband has already taken away, I have two large garbage bags of clothes waiting in the van to be given away.

My husband told them that he will be doing weekly checks on their rooms at random to ensure they keep them picked up. Anything he finds on their floor or out of place will be thrown away. He gave them a warning to look in their rooms yesterday and tell him what they would be losing if he were to check them right then. They had a few things they would have lost but I think they are taking him seriously.

I have simplified our kitchen routine this year. We no longer leave the kitchen for one or two people to clean. I assigned the two younger boys to wipe the benches and the floor. (They tend to cause the most spills.) We don’t let those spills set around for someone else to clean up anymore.

I assigned my 7 year old daughter the task of clearing and wiping the table. She can reach everything on the table and is able to put things where they go. In the picture I also have her straightening the cookbook shelf.

My 12 year old daughter is very good at organizing. I usually have her dry and put away the dishes that I wash.

And my 14 year old I usually have getting all the trash off the floor and sweeping. I’m not sure where all the trash comes from but there never seems to be an end to it getting on the floor. We don’t even use paper napkins. I’m not sure where it all comes from.

That’s our new after-meal routine. I must say that so far it’s been working. I no longer have to stay up late doing dishes. Nor do I have to sigh and decide to leave the dishes for the next day.

I found that by my being in the room washing the dishes while they do their tasks keeps them from getting distracted. We now get the kitchen completely cleaned in a matter of minutes.

That is much better than the whole day it use to take.

How about your home? Are there chores that your family struggles with? Do you have any housekeeping tips that might help us out? Please share in the comments section.

Hopefully I’ll be having a success story about our laundry woes soon. Stay tuned by subscribing to my email updates. That way you won’t miss a single post.

I’m also linking up with some other Mommies today at

If you want to read some other Mommies perspectives on Thriving at home, check it out.

Follow Anastacia Maness

Category: Children

Freedom to Enjoy Life

Like this:

Here For My Children

Like this:

Finding Beauty in Imperfections

Like this:

Adventures with 6 Kids at the Dentist’s

Like this:

Building Memories

Like this:

How to Baby Proof Your Kitchen in 8 “Easy” Steps

Like this:

How to Maintain a Clean Kitchen in 6 “Easy” Steps

Like this:

Babysitting Chickens and Potty Training…Oh, my!

Like this:

Learning to Read Through the Stages

Like this:

Conquering the Chore Monster

Like this: