The Peach Parents: Tough Times

Today is beautiful! A little wind, all sun and the temperature is a cool 80 degrees. This weather always makes me happy for several reasons....1-Its football season, 2-Adam and I met in the Fall and all the smells bring back memories for me, 3-My kids can go outside!!

I haven't blogged on purpose for a while because my heart had nothing nice to say. We have been struggling, to tears daily with Goober. He became this lazy, mouthy, excuse giving, back talking boy over night. I'm not sure if 4th grade is just stretching him or if having Chelsea move in with us threw him off but it has been a constant issue between the parents and him. His grades have plummeted and for reasons that are shameful. He has lied to our faces and been caught several times. He has manipulated situations and people and has allowed us to both look like fools while standing up for him as we were trying to trust him. We took him out last Saturday without the two littles (thanks Chelsea) and had a heart to heart. I'm not sure that 10 year old can put into words what is going on but he did cry and apologize a lot. We met with one of his teachers and even more things were revealed to us so we started looking at every possible angle, new friends?, new tendencies?, new sin issues?, something we were doing?. We have prayed and fought and I have several new pimples to prove it. I think we are just experiencing growing pains and the realization that life is hard for a 10 year old at CCA. He has to try now, he has to put forth effort, he has to take charge of his school work and the way to handle a disappointment is not by throwing things away or hiding them or making up complete fibs.

I didn't blog that to rat out my son. I have been asking God to show me something in the midst of all this, to teach my frustrated mommy heart. I have seen Goober struggle and begin to come out on the other side and for that I am thankful. I have learned that holding a kid accountable to strict grades makes them believe that a 40 or 50 will cancel out your love for them. I have learned that kids watch their parents more than we know. I have learned that God is the only one who can change and mold Goober....nothing I can do, no punishment I can dole out, no spanking I can give or no amount of yelling I can do will make Goober behave if he isn't first prompted by the Lord.

Besides the daily struggles with behavior and schoolwork Goober is doing great in baseball, pitching, getting strikes, throwing out people at first, getting his chores done and always playing nicely (80% of the time) with his siblings. He is constantly reading his bible and at our dinner devotionals he participates 100% of the time and loves to hear even more about the story of redemption.

The two littles are just fine. Ribbit has only missed two days of good behavior and both days she strongly needed a nap.You can tell by her eyes and hair right when school is over...in fact, she normally falls asleep in the car...and we live less than 2 blocks away :).

Baby Boy is doing well, loving staying home with Chelsea and always ready to hug and kiss us and shut the door in the mornings! He is learning soo much, sooo fast. He and his sister are constantly signing Frozen songs together, taking on different parts. They are also in love with Batman right now for some reason. We bought him a pirate outfit for Halloween and every day since he has asked to be a pirate. He reminds us every morning that we need to take our "bitamins"...and he is very HARSH with needing them RIGHT THEN!! Baby Boy and ribbit both meet me at the door every morning when I get home from running and they are ready for their breakfast and to be held.

We have a busy busy Fall ahead of us with lots of camping, church activities, holidays and football!!!

Here are some pictures from my 30th birthday...yup almost 3.5 months ago but still it was wonderful!! I got to spend the whole week with all the people I love and even though my Daddy attempted to blind me and my toe suffered greatly all within 30 minutes on my birthday, everything was super fun :). Love you Daddy!

My Aunt Robin took us the waterpark for the day in Pensacola!!! and to Ihop for breakfast!

They warmed up to her in no time....Ribbit is wearing her glasses :)

My sweet studly brother took me out for sushi and then waited at the airport with me to get Adam who flew in the nigh before my birthday!

Check out these two posing...one ready to go to the river, the other at the river and ready to swim!

They sure do love their cousins, Chelsea and Heather....Goober is covering Heather's Alabama jersey so we don't have any dirty words in our picture :)