Oh the Bliss!

I'm preparing my heart for celebrating the birth of my savior this week and the closer I get to the day the more I realize what the message for me is this season: Come again, Jesus! I love reading the Christmas story from the Word; seeing prophesies fulfilled and getting to usher in this baby King, remembering what a magnificent gift God the Father gave to us. I love singing christmas carols that focus my mind on the wonder and the power of his birth. I've been paying particular attention the words of the songs I've sung my entire life, and this week I started singing them with less remembrance and more anticipation, urgent anticipation. O come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel... ~ Joy to the World , the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, ... He rules the world with truth and grace , And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love... ~ Said the king to the people everywhere, listen to ...

Addison has roughly nine "babies" that she takes care of on a daily basis. Nine. And she takes care of them all day long, it's pretty amazing, she puts me to shame really. She feeds, dresses, walks, naps, reads to, sings to and loves on these babies from morning till night. She LOVES her babies. The other day she came out of her room and let me know that she was off to college and I needed to babysit for her. Later she spotted me not doing my "job" and said, "Mom, babies don't babysit themselves". Right. Got it. My favorite thing about her babies are their names, she named them months ago and the names stuck. You can ask her any of their names and they're the same name for the same baby every time... it's pretty awesome. It helps that three of them are Hannah and two are Bella. Then there's Minnie (fitting, since it's a Minnie Mouse), Baby Lucy (which has been her constant favorite for over two years), Addison (as in - Addison Jr.)...

Today Mia turned 10 months, yaaaaaay! This new month is welcomed because she basically spent the last month looking like this (and worse). Looking like that when you're a tiny one means you get lots of visits to doctors and specialists. Didn't phase her though, she was still super cute. Here she is at her Week Three visit, looking better, but the picture doesn't really show how bad it still was. Though the four different doctors in the six different visits could never quite nail down exactly what was causing Mia's breakouts, we are pretty sure this "extreme eczema" and "nappy psoriasis", as they're referring to it as of our last visit, will be a condition she'll deal with off and on throughout her childhood and perhaps into adulthood, unless the Lord choses to heal her. I wasn't a big fan of the four different creams they gave for her face and nether-regions. Each one was made up of lot's of little ingredients that I couldn't pro...

David mentioned in a sweet comment on the last post how grown-up Addison is looking, and beautiful, and model-ish. (I'm paraphrasing). So I thought I'd post a few more pics of Model Addie. She could never pose for the likes of Gap or Gymboree, but she is absolutely sullen and stunning enough for Valentino. (FYI, I had to text Wendy for the name of a high end fashion designer.)

My awesome Aunt Sarah (lovely name, no?) lives in Mississippi and reads my blog. i can't write these days, because my brains have turned to spaghetti, but I love my aunt, and I know she loves seeing wha'sup in my silly little life, so this post is for YOU Auntie Say-Say! I love you!

One of my nearest and dearest, my best friend since 4th grade, the girl I've walked nearly every journey with thus far in life, is (along with her adorable family, of course) just starting out on the journey of adoption. The sweet Coulombe family will be adopting their daughter from Ethiopia and I am over the moon excited for them! You can follow the journey too by visiting their blog . Here's to one less!!

I worked really hard on a post tonight. It took almost an hour. I pressed Publish Post and BAM! it's gone. I was sad. mark assured me it was ok to cry. I tried to find it, but only the first couple of sentences remained. I tried to rewrite it but I just wasn't feeling it anymore. So instead I'm here to tell you about another House (almost) Rule. No microwave. Mark hasn't used the micro for, well as long as either one of us can remember. Here and there he's said little things to encourage me not to use it either... mainly because of the way it heats food up, and the heating up of plastic stuff, and the actual microwaves it emits. Like the no TV rule, though, it's easy for him to say; he's not heating up 6 cups of milk, warming up cold oatmeal or reheating last nights uneaten dinner all throughout the day. Ben's need for hot milk in the morning boarders that of a caffeine addict and their morning fix. So getting rid of the "45 seconds to Happy Ben...

(Two blogs in one day! Look at me go!) For people who do not have TV we sure do watch a lot of it. Thanks to my handy dandy laptop and Ben's fantastic computer skills, he easily navigates through Netflix, Disney, PBS Kids and more, finding all the TV shows we were trying to avoid. I think reminding myself that we don't have a TV made it easier to believe that my kids weren't spending gobs of time in front of that screen, but also masked the amount of time they were spending in front of another screen. Why was I allowing this? Oh that's simple, because it made my life so easy. Upon waking my kids would come straight downstairs and watch shows on the computer - while I continued to sleep. If I needed to make a meal a "quick game" was played while I was in the kitchen. If I wanted to talk on the phone, sure, go ahead and watch some old school Goofy clips. When it came time to pick up the house instead of all of us picking up I found myself saying things like, ...

I went into Halloween thinking it was my chance, praying I'd get to meet and chat with my neighbors. I made baked goods, and set up a table. And waited. And waited. It seems the hood keeps their garage doors shut on Halloween too. That's not to say we didn't have a good time because we did. And a handful of people came by, and I even got to talk with a few of them. But I figured out some things that night, which was great because now I know, and if I learned nothing else from Saturday morning cartoons as a child it was this: Knowing is half the battle. 1. It's difficult to dialogue with parents on Halloween because they stay back, way back, like in the street back, and send their kids up to get the goods. 2. It's difficult to bring "Jesus saves" into conversations consisting of "Nice goblin costume" and "Wow, you make one great witch." But I DID have a fish pumpkin. 3. I'm not great at bringing Jesus into conversations at all. I get...

This morning Ben got up, took a shower, got himself completely dressed, and came downstairs. After a little while he yelled up to me that breakfast was ready. I came downstairs to find he had made scrambled eggs for all of us and a cup of coffee for me, complete with cream. As I was picking my jaw off the floor I looked around to find the "5 year old makes breakfast" disaster that was sure to be there, but the boy had totally cleaned up after himself, egg shells in the trash and everything. He's not even six. How can he be doing all of these things? After gushing over him for a good amount of time I remind him not to grow up too fast. He shrugged and said, "I might have to mom." "Why might you have to, Ben?" Shrugged again, "I'm just serving." AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I don't even know what to say. I'm not writing this to brag or anything close to that, I just want to remember this morning. And spotlight a boy whose heart is st...

Let's start with Halloween. I'm not a fan. That shouldn't shock anyone. I was raised to not be a fan. My family was the family that handed out tracks. We did the harvest carnivals at churches and avoided all things evil. I was baaaaaaaaarely allowed to dress up for the parades in Elementary School. I think I was a Crayola Crayon one year, and Little Bo Peep. I trick-or-treated at four or five houses, and those were the four or five houses where our friends lived. So this battle has been going on for decades. (I can say decades because I'm 30 now). Halloween has never reared it's ugly head so much as it has this year because this year I have a kid that is old enough to see, and be drawn to, the evil side of Halloween. Up until now it's just been a slightly silly day where my kids wear the costumes they wear out of the house on a regular basis anyway, except they get candy for it. No biggy. But this year something happened in the big kid. He notices the evil all a...

Halloween. The gifts I received/gave. It's a boy! Training Hearts for Jesus. New house rules. These are the titles of blogs I have written - in my head. One of these days I will put down the stinkin' Angry Birds game (thanks Hoolay!) and start writing again. No, it's not really that, although I am tempted to be epically distracted by that senseless app, it's just that these are things that really mean something to me, and try as I might I am unsure about accurately writing about them. So they build up in my head as I stick to silly pictures and one liners, but there is more mulling around in here - I just need to pray about how to get it out there. In the meantime... Stick with me. :)

Birthday was AWE ... SOME. Here are some outtakes from the evening... More to details to come...

Tonight I will say goodbye to my 20's. Not gonna lie, it's a little sad. I liked being 20 something. I felt young, even when everything in my life made it seem like I was old, or old er , I should say. My 20's were good to me. Full and rich, busy. Stats on my 20's... 2 colleges (yes community, they still count) 8 moves 5 churches 1 engagement 1 wedding 2 major house remodels 1 turtle, 3 cats, 1 dog, 8 chickens 7 trips outside Cali 4 pregnancies, labors, deliveries, births, kids 127(+) grey hairs So, you know, my 20's were nice. And, truth be told, the "baby of the family"-attention seeker (read:attention LOVER) in me will miss the look of shock and awe on people's faces when I tell them I'm a mother of four and still in my twenties. Mother of four and in my thirties? Meh, no biggie, isn't everybody? I've kind of always felt like that's what made me special... (Time to dig into the real reasons I'm special.) I'm exited because ...

Tonight I'm going to write about something that is heavy on my mind. Something that I have to face, to deal with, to devote time to multiple times a week. Packed lunches. This is what Ben's lunch looks like almost everyday he goes to school, which is only three days a week. I can only imagine what it would look like if he went five days. I've even made a complete lunch mainly consisting of these and these. How those even got into my house is beyond me. (Not that far beyond, though). There are so many things wrong with Ben's lunches, the plastic baggies for one... the lack of protein, the quantity of processed foods, blaach. I want his lunches (and mine for that matter) to look like this: or this: I promise I will not re-purchase any of those nasty things. Pinky promise. **The delicious looking lunches pictured up there are from a fabulous little website called Weelicious . They have a fan page on FB and they post a picture of their packed lunch for the day, everyday. No...

It's only been one week and Birthday Month is off to a great start. Monday night brought a much needed Fitzselson Night. Mark surprised us and came home early from work on Tuesday, can you say awesome? Wednesday I started a Book club and had pie with this girl , who happens to be 12 days OLDER than I, which warrants a "Happy Birthday Month Becks!" Mark stepped out a bit early again from work today and met us at Pumpkin City AKA: "Temptationville". It was reeeeeeeeally close to being fun, until we (quickly) figured out the wonderful little city is really a front for a money sucking, child torturing "fair" that smells like farm animal poop. Don't you fret, little kids, you can ride these ponies all day long if you want. What? Not as fun as a bounce house? Super Mark swooped up our pumpkin-crazed kids and took them to Trader Joe's where any sane person will buy their pumpkins, HUGE ones, 3 for the price of 1 tiny one from Rip-you-off-Land. It'...

Birthday month has arrived! And it's a big one folks... in just 19 short days I will be celebrating my---- Woo, that's big. This requires a party, no? How should I celebrate? I'm at a loss... small and intimate? Big and rambunctious? Girls only? Couples only? Entire families? Day at the spa? Night away with the hubs? Gifts? No gifts? In-and-Out truck? The options are endless! Thoughts?

So if I'm going to embrace this homeschooling thing (all two days a week I do it) then I'm going to embrace all the perks that go along with it. Today was a perk. It was HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT today. I have dubbed this fall, "The Summer that Never Was". (Feel free to call it that amongst your friends.) It was over 100 degrees, and for my three German friends who may, or may not read my blog, that means it was HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT. Hot. So we went to the beach. Because you can do that when you homeschool. There is lot's of learning to be done at the beach. Or none. Addison taught the "Safety First" lesson, insisting on wearing her vest - though she hardly goes in the water above her ankles due to her "wave allergy", her words, not mine. She's a serious student, no? One funny thing, (that might be only funny to me and my mom), about our beach trip, excuse me, field trip, was snack time. My mom and I pulled out our snack bags and discovered th...

Troy loves to help. LOVES it. And he's pretty good at it too. He helps me in the kitchen all the time. His favorite job used to be setting the table, although he never really mastered that one. Now his favorite job is unloading the silverware basket into the silverware tray. (He's so good he can do it with one hand holding a carrot.) It's pretty fun because he'll stand there and pull out each piece, one at at time, tell me what it is (or ask if he's unsure) then he sorta squeals and says, "OH! There it goes!" and puts it where it belongs. He's a fresh two year old, keep in mind, so I get a chance to teach him that he's doing a job, he needs it to it diligently and complete it as unto the Lord. He does a great job and he feels so good knowing he's a helper too since he sees Addison and Ben helping me all the time. And for those of you wondering, yes, I let him put the knives away too. GASP! I know, I'm such a risk taker. Not the steak knives...

There are a lot of unknowns out there for the Fitzfam. Will we have more kids? Will we stay in Mission Viejo forever? Will we adopt? Will we ever have chickens again? These are not things we are deciding anytime soon, fyi, but they are questions that come up frequently by us and others. (Addison is particularly concerned about the chickens). Advice has been given that it might be a good idea to share with people early on that we might be considering adopting. I think this is good, not only for adoption, but for most of life's banner-worthy news. It's good because 1. It allows people the time they might need to work out with themselves (and maybe God) their reaction (which may or may not be positive), losing the shock and getting more at the true emotions behind the response. 2. It allows people the time they (hopefully) need to pray for us, as we come to mind, and where our family is heading. 3. It gets people excited and saying things like, "Oh that FitzFam, always keepin...

I'm a soccer mom. I will cheer and scream and don the team colors. I will drive to and fro and happily, no, ecstatically, and be at every game (barring any interference with previously scheduled nap times). I will provide healthy snacks - and bring enough for siblings because I was that sibling once. But I will not, no way, not gonna do it, won't, put any type of "Soccer Mom" decal on my minivan. Period. Go Blue Thunder!

We've already established that I'm no Jesus . So it should be of no surprise that this mothering thing can be quite difficult at times. I feel like I'm treading water trying to figure out how to get it all done. Anyone out there like the feeling of drowning? No? We've started the whole "Big Kid" schedule, which is what happens when you have a big kid I guess. On one hand it's cool because I get to say things like "No you can't - - - -, it's a school night", but on the other hand I have meetings and classes and appointments and places to be and consequences if I'm not there (or not there on time, sorry Ben). It's not that Ben has to be places, it's that I need to get him there AND three other little ones in tow. I don't want to start using the four as an excuse as to why my life feels chaotic, but sometimes... Part of me would really like to just move to the country and homeschool my kids and live without any kind of sch...

This is Chrystal Renn . She's beautiful. Good thing too because she's a model. But not just any model, no, she's a plus size model. PLUS SIZE. This world is so warped.

I've been living in the season of "Less is More" for a few months now and I've made little habits here and there of getting rid of stuff. For example: when I fold laundry I almost always have a TJ's brown bag sitting next to me, so as I fold I can easily put unecessary, rarely worn, (or over -worn), duplicate items (how many brown long sleeve shirts does one girl need?) right into the bag. It's very handy, I highly recommend it. I'm also trying very hard not to buy anything that we don't need, trusting that the Lord will provide for all our needs, and even lots of our wants too ('cause He's cool like that, right C? ). And I feel like I've been doing pretty well with this. In fact; up until yesterday if someone would've asked me what I want for my hugegiganticmega thirtieth birthday that's quickly approaching I wouldn't have been able to think of one single thing. Not one. (Ok, maybe a pair of TOMS , but will that desire ever re...

Just so ya'll can feel like you were there with Ben, here is the play-by-play of Ben's first day at Cornerstone Community School . Woke up bright and early, was really cold, so put on Gma's bathrobe (or housecoat for all you southern folks). He is going to kill me for posting this picture some day. ;-) Getting all ready to go. Lots of hugs... Addie was so sweet, made Ben a card (her own idea) and gave it to him when we picked him up. The school meets in the Education Center of a church, so it's a really pretty campus, with a little lake, and fountains and a rose garden. Ben was juuuuuuust about over all the picture taking. But I told him it was my right, as his mother, to take as many "First Day of School" pictures I wanted, and that I will be doing so on every "First Day" for the rest of his life. Did he learn nothing from his first day of Pre-K? So sweet and so big. I tried not to make a big deal out of the morning, because he hates that sort of th...