Meet Heidi: Looking for the Daily Gifts

I hope you’ve been enjoying the Motherhood Series and the lovely moms who’ve shared their stories. Today’s post features Heidi, mom of four boys, talented in journalistic-style photography and just celebrating her one-year blogging anniversary!

Heidi and I met I-won’t-say-how-long-ago when I was a college freshman and she was a senior, and God must have known I’d need a special someone watching out for me so He put a fellow New Englander as my room leader!

We had good times that year (well, I did! I’m pretty sure all my roommates thought I was a bit crazy and a bit too hyped up on sugar!).

I’ve watched Heidi’s family grow over the years into this lovable scramble of four boys, plus one always-smiling hubby. Heidi loves to talk about the small moments of motherhood, so worth zooming in on and writing down.

Since I’ve loved her new blog Trying Not 2 Blink, I thought you’d enjoy getting a taste of her writing and photos today!

Meet Heidi

When those pink and white buds start appearing on the trees in our yards and in our parks and along our roads it gives us hope. Those brilliant colors remind us that once again we will be warm, we will smell burgers on the grills all around the block, we will “pick-your-own” strawberries soon, and we will see that bus come ‘round the bend one last time because school is almost over. We can kiss those high-watered, sharpie-stained, patched-up uniform pants goodbye! We can cash in on those Pizza Hut book-it rewards and trash those Scholastic order forms they receive 14 of each week with some book about boogers to entice even boys like mine who really don’t read books they just build walls out of them during Nerf Gun battles in their room. We can take those Glad sandwich baggies and those brown paper sacks and those Rubbermaid containers of spaghetti from February 3^rd that they just found in their locker yesterday and those soccer cleats that could defeat and wipe out an entire military brigade with just one whiff and we can burn all the stuff! Burn Baby Burn!

Hope. Those blossoms bending over Main Street and littering pink petals along the Conococheague Creek that flows right through downtown delivering pastel blossom bunches of hope to each one that bends down to notice? These are the colors of hope.

And when these petals of hope are at their tip-top prettiest, we celebrate our mothers with these brilliant colored petals in our photographs – both a gift from God himself. And as if being a mom and having a mom is not a gift enough on this day, sometimes we get a little bit pampered, too. We get to choose the activity or the location or the restaurant or their clothes for that annual photo that comes faster upon us each and every year. One year they are sitting on your lap with a pacifier and a wet diaper and the next thing you know, you are shorter than half of those babies and wondering if they put on enough Axe Bodyspray because my goodness, that scent just might wilt those pretty blossoms.

I hope you were celebrated on Mothers Day. But in case you couldn’t see the confetti and the streamers and the party favors with your name on them through the mountain of laundry, stacked dirty dishes, and the pile of bills, please know that God doesn’t miss a thing. He sees your daily grind and He sees your aching back and He sees that never-ending list and He is so thankful that He created you for such a time as this – YOU are His. His Masterpiece. His Creation. His Bride.

But something happens to those pretty petals – have you noticed? We click pictures and upload them to Facebook and to Instagram as if we’ve never seen such beauty before and fearing we may not see it again. We fill our minds and our screens and our walls and our newsfeeds and our SD cards with these pictures of hope and of something new and we barely even notice it as these magnificent colors turn to green. Our world becomes green and the waiting is over and summer is just about here. Green blades of grass and green leaves hanging on branches and green bushes have come and it feels secure. What once was dead and lifeless, through a season of hope and change and beauty, has now become shades of green and tranquility and we feel security. The green enfolds us and reminds us that He never left us nor did He forsake us and He loves us with an everlasting love.

Mothers. You almost made it. The projects, the papers, the math lessons, the permission slips – they will all soon disappear and you will find yourself with a whole new problem.

Children. Lots of children wandering aimlessly around your house with nothing to do, nearly starving since you’ve only fed them breakfast and it is 9:17am and WHERE IS THE FOOD MOM, I’M ABOUT TO DIE HERE, and can I have a friend over??? And they will be in your way and they will be messy and they will want you to entertain them every waking minute of the next 12 weeks.

But remember. This is what you wanted. You missed them. You were done with the school routine that day before you dropped off the Easter cupcakes for the class party. You wanted summer.

And so those colors of hope that brought to us colors of green and summer and security – will soon be bringing us our children. Forever in our paths and in our pocketbooks and in our refrigerators.

Here are 3 simple tips to “EnJOYing Summer with a houseful of kids”…

(maybe if I make this list for all the world to see, I will do better at implementing it myself)

1.  Limit electronics. This goes for you and your child. Go to the pool and leave your phone in the car or go on vacation and leave their ipod in the car or go visit their Great Aunt Betty or their Great Grandpa Henry and leave all the electronics in the car or better yet – just leave the car! Make a conscious effort to be in the real world more and the pretend world less. Click here to read about last summer’s vacation from Facebook.

2.  Make a list of daily chores. Remember, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy? Well. All play and no work makes Mom a crazy woman. Give them a list of 3 chores to do each day. My boys actually prefer this to the “ranting and raving lunatic that just goes in circles all day asking them why they never help out around here.” I know. Hard to believe. Kids like to cross things off a list just like we do.

3.  Count your blessings together. Get out that notebook and leave it right on the kitchen table all summer long. Encourage your kids to count the gifts and record them with you. It will most likely end up being your most treasured keepsake from your summer vacation. (or maybe you will still like the pet slug named Arnold that they brought home from the pond better??)  If you write just 3 gifts a day for the 3 months of summer – you will have counted over 275 gifts and you will end up a whole lot more joyful than when you started. And if you enjoy photos even half as much as I do, consider following me on Instagram this summer as I share a picture of one gift each day. I can’t wait to count the blessings on film!

It’s almost here.

Those spring blossoms of hope have turned into green leaves of security and promise.

Limit the electronics. List the chores. Look for the daily gifts.

Limit, list, and look…Live, laugh, and love!!! (and don’t forget to feed your pet slug…)

Visit with Heidi at her blog Trying Not 2 Blink, as she recounts the details of the everyday wonders of parenting four growing boys into the way God would have them to go. I promise she’ll have you laughing and crying, and enjoying all her beautiful photos too!