"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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Well, I need to share some ...

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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It makes me think too about how every Christmas my mom makes a big batch of Divinity candy.  Until she got her good Kithen Aid mixer, she burned up...I know it was at least 4 mixers trying to make that.  Having to mix it on high speed, while sticky, for such a long time gets tough on the mixer.  What amazes me is that this was my great-grandma's recipe, and they used to mix it by hand!  I seriously wouldn't have arms left!

We really are spoiled, and it's great to get these little reminders and some perspective.

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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1] WHAT IS IT?
Joy

2] FAMOUS ARTIST/BAND/MUSICIAN:
Jewel

3] 4-LETTER WORD:
Joke

4] STATE:
Just chillin'

5] BOY NAME:
Joshua

6] GIRL NAME:
Jolie

7] ANIMAL:
Jaguar

8] SOMETHING IN THE KITCHEN:
Junk food

9] REASON FOR BEING LATE:
Just plain tired

10] BODY PART:
Joints


11] DRINK:
Juice

12] SOMETHING YOU SHOUT:
Jump!

13] SOMETHING YOU EAT:                                             Jello

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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I can understand some of what you're going through.  With Timothy, I pretty much lived on diluted juice and popcorn for the first couple months. 

I know one of my sil's said that sucking on hard candy (like Jolly Ranchers, etc) helped somewhat for her.

I have also heard that peppermint tea can help settle your stomach.

Anyway, congrats and best wishes!

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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Hello all!  I do apolo...

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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I actually didn't vote in the poll because you can only choose one answer, and we use a whole variety of things.

When the kids are being whiny, fighting, etc, we separate them and send them each into their rooms to cool down.  Most of the time it is just to allow them to get themselves under control, and they are allowed to draw, listen to music, look at books, etc, to calm themselves down.  On occasion we will have time-outs where there are no toys, books, music, etc- just time spent thinking about what they were doing/not doing.

When we are having major defiance issues over rules that they are familiar with, we do use a swat on the butt.

Also, they know that if they are caught lying, using bad language intentionally (knowing it's a bad word and continuing to say it anyway) or extreme sassiness, they will get a drop of "hot sauce" (aka mild taco sauce) on their tongue.

Also, if they are fighting over a toy, book, etc and things are escalating instead of getting resolved, I will take that item and put it in "time-out" for the rest of the day.  Similarly, if we ask them to do something and they deliberately ignore us, whatever they are doing/playing with (toys, books, movies, etc) are removed for the remainder of the day.

Discipline is definitely still a work in progress here.  It really is about finding what works for each child (every child is different!) and what works for a particular situation and then sticking with it.  The most important thing is following through with whatever you say you're going to do. 

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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My mom completely rocks!!!!  I want to be like her when I grow up!!!

Mom always has been and always will be one of my very best friends.  I have always known that I could talk to her about any and everything, and I want our kids to know that with me too.  She always showed us in a multitude of ways how much we are loved (still does!) and part of that was being consistant with discipline.  Mom said that I was very easy to discipline as a child, and I know it's because for me, there was nothing in the world worse than knowing I had done something that made her upset. 

One of the ways that I want to be more like Mom is in her awesome creativity!  She made a lot of our dresses when we were little (it was actually because we didn't have a lot of extra money, but I thought I was the most special girl in the world to have dresses made just for me by my mom!).  She also made our Halloween costumes (which were always cooler than anything you could buy in a store), book bags, and hand-painted white canvas sneakers for us. 

I do think that I tend to worry less than my mom.  She is a professional worrier and I can understand where that comes from.  But I try to spend more time praying and less time worrying.

My mom is the best and I couldn't love her more!  I can only hope to be half the mom that she is!

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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I do think that as moms, it's easy to look at other people and their situations and think "They have everything totally together and under control.  Their kids never act like this!  There must be something wrong with me!!!!"  But that is NOT true! 

The first 12-18 months with Timothy were extremely challenging for me.  He tended to scream (the piercing, blood-curdling, "my child must be dying!!!" sort of scream) for the majority of the day and into the night.  I remember being embarassed to ask for help because I didn't want other people to look at that and think "Wow!  She must be a really bad mom for her child to be doing that!"  One of my best friends (now has 4 kids but had 2 at the time) said that she felt really bad for me, but part of her thought that somehow, someone must be doing something wrong for him to be doing that.  Then they had their third child, and she understood!  You can judge other people on circumstances that you have no experience with.  And don't be so hard on yourself.

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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Wow, I can't remember the last time we actually rented a movie...

We do go to movies occasionally.  Mostly we will watch things on tv/dvr, sometimes buy them.  Also, we borrow movies from the library a lot.  Whenever we go, the kids are allowed to pick out a couple books and 1 movie.  They have a pretty decent selection and you get to keep it for a week for free (longer if you renew it).  It works out really well for us.  There have only been a couple of times that we have gotten a movie back late, but it was still a lot cheaper than renting and getting it back late.

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

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