I’ve been cherishing these past 5 weeks with Soul and Glow. We have one week left until my whole girl gang is back together, and we are giddy for their return, but we are definitely enjoying giving the two little ones some extra attention. We’ve mostly been homebodies due to the renovations that are taking place (fingers crossed these white wood stairs are done soon!), but as soon as the floor guys leave, we take off. We’ve been taking lots of park trips (the girls love the skate park), walks around the neighborhood, or thrifting. Once we feel exhausted from being out, we go back home and relax. Then the afternoons are spent lounging on the couch watching shows and movies.

I love seeing Soul really step up to that big sister role (her older sisters aren’t here to boss her around) and it’s sweet to see how Glow loves to be with Soul. Here’s a funny thing… Soul loves to wear a lot of True and Brave’s clothes while they’re gone. Soul is that sister. HA!

Eleven. We have one decade plus one under our belt and it’s been full of adventure. We are on the same team to wage a war against sin and teach our children to do the same. While at the same time, asking God to help us savor Jesus more in our marriage and through our children. It’s been a good 11 years with all the craziness of putting two selfish sinners together because through it all, we get to experience an abundance of grace. Sweet, beautiful, precious grace that comes from knowing Jesus first loved and gave His life for us. Thankful for these 11 grace-filled years, and Lord willing, we get many, many more!

Happy eleven Benny!

It’s been a wild and busy couple months. With our family trip, to starting home renovations, sending the big girls off to Texas, then getting sick, lots of things have been thrown to the wayside. We saw True and Brave off last week, and the next day Glow got really sick and couldn’t hold anything down. She was in bed for two days and on a liquid diet. Then, just when we thought things were good, Ben and I come down with something at the same time. We must have come down with whatever Glow had, but it manifested itself a little bit differently in both of us. Monday night was definitely rough. I just remember hearing Ben tell Soul and Glow to eat whatever they want (they ended up having pizza for dinner), and then waking up to them talking about how they loved the cotton candy. Ben is still a little sick with something, but I feel mostly better, so then everything can still go on.

Soul has been very verbal about missing her older sisters. It’s the sweetest thing. They are such a tight knit pack that it really changes the dynamics when they aren’t all together. We’ve been letting Soul and Glow sleep in True and Brave’s bed while they’re gone, so I think that’s giving them a little bit of comfort.

We can tell True and Brave miss us more too. They’re definitely texting and calling us more than last year. Our relationship has changed in the last six months and we’ve gotten closer. I think I’m a baby stage kind of mom, then a 10 year old plus kind of mom. I really struggle when they’re in the 4-9 year ages. I also attribute the closeness to a whole lot of grace and God working on my heart (and theirs) the last few months, and intentional moments of trying to be silly and present.

The four of us miss our big two and can’t wait until the Bratcher six is together again.

on true: little mermaid dress, c/o childrensalon. clogs (on super sale right now!), hanna andersson. on brave: dress, handmade. salt-waters, zappos.

On Mother’s Day, the girls, with Ben as the brains behind the operation, surprised me with a little song and dance number. They did their own version of the “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and theirs is “Ten Years of Motherhood.” I was chilling in bed that afternoon and they came upstairs to perform their mini show. My favorite part was the 4 booties shaking. Every time they hit that line, they’d all turn around and do a good shaking. These girls are so cute!

What did I get exactly?  1 giant rubber plant tree… well, I have to go pick it out).  2 peanut butter bananas… yum. 3 ice cream adventures… we were supposed to do it that day, but Ben was sick, so I get to cash in later. 4 shaking booties… so funny! 5 wood floored rooms… we are changing out all the carpet upstairs for wood floors. 6 breaks from motherhood… I have to put that to good use. 7 Mother’s Day cards… I love their handmade gifts. 8 hugs and kisses… lots from each girl. 9 salted caramels… I got a bag full of salted caramel chocolates. 10 hip hop ab workouts... I love my Cize workout videos and can’t wait to try this one out too.

Ben created the art work (from this picture) and had the girls draw on each one. He told me he had the song planned out as “Twelve Years of Motherhood,” but True told him, “Papi, mommy has only been a mom for 10 years.” Nice catch, True.

Right before going to bed, I freaked out and started crying because they are growing up. Suddenly, this all feels too fast with already having 10 years of parenting under my belt. True is 10 and that means her leaving us is not too far from now. I was crying and asking Ben if we could have two more. LOL. He lovingly said, “No, we are already having a hard time with 4.” That is true, but all I could think of are all the missed opportunities and how badly I wanted to rewind and do it all over again. I was in panic mode and wanted to freeze time (or rewind), but certainly not move forward.

True and Brave are becoming such little ladies and I feel the teen years creeping up on us. Every one tells you, “Enjoy it now because it will be over soon.” But when I’m up to my neck in all the chaos and craziness of having little ones, I struggle with the enjoy it now part. It’s true though, it feels like it will be over in a blink of an eye.

My motherhood resolution for my 11th year of mothering … more hugs, kisses, and stopping for chats, especially about grace and gospel.

Being a mom is great, but let’s be real, there are lots of not so great days too. Today, I had envisioned adventures out to get ice cream to celebrate the end of standardized testing, but then it was raining, and I didn’t want to drive in the rain. Also, the girls had some schoolwork to finish and I had projects to catch up on, so we decided to stay home. I did say, “If we get everything done early, we can hop in bed, watch a movie, and eat ice cream.” I thought some movie watching and ice cream eating was a good way to waste away our Friday afternoon.

Well, of course, someone had to start fighting with someone, and someone didn’t want to share with another someone, all while I was trying to cook. Then, I join in and decide to be mad at all of them because they aren’t listening and everyone is pissed off. I took a break and went off in my room to get away from the endless crying. One was in her room crying over the silliest things, another was at the school table crying because everyone is mad, and number three is pouting and angry because I took away their light sabers (they weren’t sharing). In the midst of the crazy, the baby was sleeping (she always disappears to nap every afternoon), so she missed all the drama. I laid in bed, put on Netflix (and my headphones), and waited a little while until it was safe to come out of my cave.

When I finally emerged (after an episode of Daredevil), there was no more crying, the baby was awake, all the laundry was put away, one was downstairs sweeping, and another in her bed reading. One by one I talked to each girl and talked about how they were struggling to love others more than themselves (and how I was having a hard time with that too). Then they each prayed and asked for forgiveness from God for whatever it is they were doing wrong, and then they went to party they wronged to ask forgiveness from them as well. I had to ask them (and God) to forgive me for losing my cool too. All is well and peace has been restored to our home.

Despite the not so graceful moments, motherhood has plenty of great and magical moments too. Like earlier, before all the drama, I was joking around with the girls and we were playing ninja. I was pretending to do some fancy kick moves and we were all laughing at how silly I looked. Their eyes light up when we are all just having playing and being silly together. Those moments remind me to give my kids more silly. They need a silly mom just as much as they need a structured and disciplined mom.

All of this though, good and bad, need to cherished. The time is moving far too quickly and I already feel this season will all be over too soon. My heart hurts thinking about it, while I also get excited to see what our relationship will look like later. I’m not a perfect parent, but that’s why I trust in the one who was the perfect parent in my place, and I strive to point my kids to see Jesus too (albeit, I fail in that too). Parenting is definitely an adventure with lots of high highs and low lows, but I’m so thankful for all it. All of it is a blessing.

I texted Ben that the girls were driving me batty today. His text back … #HMD.

Happy Mother’s Day indeed.

We are studying angles and this one of my favorite things to teach kids. Really though, all the credit goes to Sir Cumference who makes learning shapes and angles so fun. When I taught fourth grade, I looked forward to being able to introduce my students to the Sir Cumference books. You get to meet characters like Lady Di of Ameter, Radius, and visit the a cute town with pointy little roofs. We aren’t math fans, but I do love when we can integrate math with stories because it really helps our non-math brains understand and get excited about it. It brings all the math and numbers to life. I think that’s why we love Life of Fred so much too. If you’ve never heard of Sir Cumference, I highly recommend checking out all his stories (find them here) and I think your children will enjoy the math adventure he takes you on, I know mine certainly do.