Creating a Cuddler

Don't you just love when your little ones lay their head on your shoulder and cuddle with you? There's just nothing like it in the whole world. My 2 year old Luke is the BEST cuddler around. When he was a baby you could push his head on your shoulder and he'd leave it there forever. This is not the case with my sweet 10 month old, Jonathan. I'll never forget when we were in the NICU with him the nurse said, "Yeah, this kid is 0 to 60. When he's happy he's happy but when he's mad he's really mad!" I was thinking she was so wrong and that she really didn't have my kid figured out. But honestly, she totally did! Jonathan's personality has been so hilarious to us. He's the happiest baby but he's super intense and doesn't want to miss out on any part of life. Because of that, he rarely will put his head on your shoulder or cuddle with you. He's very sensory oriented and cuddling is quite opposite of that for him. But.... just because he's naturally like this, doesn't mean I'm not going to try!! You better believe I'm going to try! I've been determined that I am  going to "create" a cuddler. Thus far, my mission has been quite successful.... if I do say so myself.

With all of my children, while they cuddle me, I have spent time rocking and singing to them for a little while before laying them in their crib. When I would try to do this with Jonathan he started out bouncing and whacking my face a couple times. He absolutely REFUSED to lay his head on my shoulder. I added a soft fuzzy blanket to the mix and he started to nuzzle his head into it for a short time. Again, coming up and bouncing around, whacking me, and squirming quite a bit. After much time he has finally come around. He now will nuzzle his head into the blanket and keep it there pretty much the entire time I rock and sing to him before laying him in his crib. Yeah!!!

I was thinking about how this is so much like us sometimes with our Father God. Often times we want to do our own thing and we think what's around us is more fun than what God wants for us. We think what we want is what is truly the best! Jonathan didn't realize how much he would love to cuddle with Mommy and thought that looking at the room, and touching things would be more interesting that receiving the cuddle time with Mommy. But Mommy knew he would enjoy it just as much as she does if he would just let go, and allow me to love on him. Often times our Father is calling to us to let go of our busy lives, come away with Him, and allow Him to love on, and cuddle with us. The Bible says, in Zephaniah 3:17 "He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs." God delights in you and sings over you. Can you hear Him? I challenge you to ask youself if you've been allowing yourself to be cuddled by your Father. Yes, I said CUDDLED! If this is something you've never done I encourage you to get alone, possibly put on some worship music if you have it, and imagine yourself sitting on your Abba (Abba means Daddy) Father's lap. Let Him refresh you as you bask in His love. Try it!
I DARE YOU!

Matthew 11:28 from the Amplified version says:
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]"

You may think you don't want to or won't enjoy it like my son did. But I'm pretty sure you will be mistaken. :-)  Will you be God's child who cuddles with him? God wants to create a cuddler out of you ... will you let Him? :-) I hope so!

Top lines from facebook over the last month

So, I know many of you that read my blog do not have facebook and are not able to see much of my life anymore...since I haven't blogged in FOREVER! Sorry Grandma Lorraine :-)
So, just for you...I have clipped different facebook posts and put them into this blog entry. I probably should be typing most of them in the "Line of the Day" page of my blog, but for now this works. They are listed below from most recent, to oldest.

1-15-12 My daughter has a hoarding problem. She has so much crap on her top bunk bed that when I check on her at night, half the time I can't even see her. I finally had enough. I told her that her bed needed to be cleaned off before I got home or whatever toys she had left on the bed were going to the basement. I got home and shortly later we heard this loud crashing sound. She was shoving everything from her bed to the floor as quickly as possible. I wanted to laugh and scream all at the same time

1-9-12 I asked Grace to keep an eye on Jonathan while I took a quick shower. Even though she knew what i meant she proceeded to close one eye and put the other one on him. She's such a crack up!

1-6-12 This morning as I was in the kitchen preparing Jonathan's food Luke (2) was sitting on the potty. He hollers, "Mommy...my poop hurts! Pray for my butt?" So I went in placed my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him. He says, "No...my butt!" He wanted me to lay my hands on his butt and pray for him. Did I do it? Nah...I said...."go see if Daddy will pray for you!" Heehee. I kind of wanted to hear Chris' reaction anyway.

12-24-11 OK so the highlight of my day (other than the crab legs) would be teaching my kids how to slide down the steps faster... through demonstration of course. 1st, I got the slippery sleeping bag. 2nd, put Grace on my lap. 3rd, we counted off and slid down my parent's steps me screaming and laughing the whole way because we went so fast. At the bottom we hit the banister and I knocked a post out. And to top it off, I peed my pants from laughing so hard and the sheer shock of it all!!! Not quite like I remembered doing it as kid. Papa nixed the sliding down the stairs after that. Gee...I wonder why?

12-18-11 Lukey burped this morning and said, "Daddy...I tooted out of my mouth."

12-15-11 So I glanced at Isaac who had taken his shirt off and was looking at his reflection and making muscles. I asked what he was doing. He said, "I'm looking under my armpits for hair. (To which I started laughing) What?? I'm a boy...I can do this. I'm just being a boy."

12-12-11 We were searching for Luke this morning. The only reason we found him is because we heard him giggling at Daddy having fun with Isaac and Grace. We found him hidden behind the curtain....EATING A BOX OF MILK DUDS!!! You Sneeeeaky Lukey!!

12-11-11 Just glanced at myself in the mirror and noticed I was wearing 2 different earrings....nice. Nobody at church said anything. HA!

And of course I had to include a picture that cracks me up every time I look at it!! :-)

Jonathan wasn't dressed for the occasion but we thought we'd throw him in the picture real quick since it was already a doozie. Taking a "nice" Christmas picture is always a challenge...but it makes for a great laugh! Don't be surprised if some year you get something like this for your Christmas picture! LOL!

And last but not least I had to include another picture that pretty much sums up life here at the Elliott house:

(Don't mind the gazillion bags. Sorry.) He climbs up there and gets stuck and can't get down. I think he's finally learned his lesson now though.

I hopefully can start keeping up with my blog again. I always feel like unless it's really worthwhile, I shouldn't write it... because I don't want to bore you. But..hey, I guess you don't have to read it then right? :-) It's been a busy season but we are all doing great and enjoying life as much as possible! Have a great day and take every moment you can to LAUGH!!!
-Danielle
P.S. Don't you want to sign up for facebook now Grandma??

Baby Syrup Face

I recently started putting Jonathan in the walker. His toes barely touch the floor so I have yet to see him move the thing. Last night I stuck him in it while I went upstairs with Isaac to get him started on a shower. The kids had just finished eating pancakes and I had the dishwasher open with only a few dishes in it. When I came downstairs this is what I saw:

Needless to say...he had a bath after this! AND he can obviously move the thing!

He also threw quite the fit when I took the plate away. He had never had so much goodness in his little 8 months of life. I'm wondering what I'm in for here! ;-)

Straw-li-lee's

Tonight I was frantically running around trying to get the house picked up before my massage clients arrived. After I was done vacuuming I realized Luke was not in sight and was awfully quiet. I did the ole' shout out of "Where's Lukey?" I went to the kitchen and discovered him with his belly on top of the counter and his legs hanging off the counter with face and hands covered in red and brown. He decided he was going to go for Mommy's homemade chocolate covered strawberries! I should have grabbed the camera because it was a sight to see. But I was in such a hurry to keep moving that it didn't cross my mind until later on. I have been trying to get Luke to say the word, "strawberry" on video for awhile now and this was the opportunity. As you will soon see my whole goal was to try to get him to say the word, "strawberry." Well, Lukey decided he was going to go through the whole order of events. He even goes on to tell us that after he was done eating the strawberry... he pooped. (Another word I've been wanting to get Luke to say on video, "poopt-tid." He delivered tonight!) The video is then cut short because he wants to see himself in the camera. Enjoy! :-)

The adventure of our first pet!

So over the years my kids have asked when they can have a dog or any other animal for that matter. At this point in our lives Chris and I have no interest in cleaning up dog poop during this busy season. Having 2 kids in diapers is more than enough poop for us, to be quite honest. :-) So the other day when the pet conversation came up again with Isaac, I was explaining to him that pets take responsibility. I went on to tell him that he doesn't even put his pajamas away in the morning. If he couldn't be responsible in that how would he be responsible for a pet? I told him that when he can show me responsibility with something like that then maybe...MAYBE we could get a fish for him to take care of. A couple days went by and I started noticing that he was putting his pajamas away in the morning without being asked. This was impressive to me. That day we were in Walmart. EVERY time I take the kids to Walmart, and we get to the section with the milk, the kids beg to go see the fish. Well, this time was like no other and the kids begged to not only SEE the fish, but to BUY a fish. I saw the gold fish for like $.38 and I figured I might as well give it a shot. If it doesn't work out I can always flush 'em. The kids were ecstatic!! I got one fish for each kid.

Now, I already had a tank and fish stuff from when Isaac was about 1 year old when we had a few fish in Tulsa. The kids had no knowledge of this. When I pulled it all out when we got home and Isaac saw all this stuff he could hardly contain his excitement. He saw that not only did I have a little aquarium, but I had some pretty rocks. He exclaimed, "Oh MOMMY!! You have pretty rocks?!?" Then he saw a little plant thing, "OH MOM!! You have a TREEEE!!! OH You're the BEST MOM EVER!!" And he gave me this giant hug. It was quite hilarious. The fun part about the fact that he is a drama king is that not only are his lows really low, but his highs are really high! He was so dramatic. It was hilarious.

After we got the fish settled they had to come up with names for the fish. Isaac named his fish "Gabriel," after the angel Gabriel. Grace named her fish, "Sunny." Then Grace named Jonathan's fish "Rollie Pollie." Isaac and Grace decided the best name for Luke's fish would be "Destroyer." I'm sure you can understand their reasoning and justification for the naming of Luke's fish. Just to be sure I had to ask why they named Luke's fish that name. They matter-of-factly said, "Because he destroys things Mom."

Here are the kids making fishy faces this morning

The awesome thing about these fish is that Grace really wants to feed them too. So not only has Isaac been cleaning up the clothes off the floor, but Grace has kicked it into high gear as well. She REALLY wants to feed the fish too. So I told her she could if she could be responsible for her clothes as well, then she could feed the fish too. It has thus far been awesome. The kids know I have no attachment to the fish and that the threat of flushing them is real. I know...I'm a mean mom. So, we will see how long this lasts. My guess is that Luke will get into them at some point and do something to kill them. You'll get that post later when/if that happens. But for now, the kids have their first pet and the Mom is loving having PJ's and clothes picked up off the FLOOR!! Woohoo! Who woulda known that spending less that $2 would bring me such happiness!?!

Luke's Supper Prayer

We captured Luke praying for our food at supper time. It was too cute to not share. ENJOY! :-)

Picture Giggle

Several weeks ago Chris was trying to capture a picture of all four kids smiling at the same time. Now if any of you have this many kids you know the challenge he was taking upon himself. I decided to go help him out. I said, "Here, I'll take the picture and you make them laugh." Boy did we have fun. To this day I don't exactly know what Daddy did to make them laugh...but it worked. Well...almost worked. Jonathan was more scared than anything. Needless to say, it made for a funny video. So I thought I'd share the picture of the first time Daddy was silly as well as the video of the kids giggling. Who doesn't want to hear kids giggle right?

Like I said, this was the first picture I captured of them seeing Daddy do it for the first time. Chris didn't know I was videoing them at the time. He thought I was snapping pictures. Now here's the video...

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and that you got a few giggles from it. Hey..whatever it takes to keep...LAUGHING THROUGH LIFE right? :-)