Good News

Lest anyone accuse me of only posting complaints on my blog, today's post will be entirely dedicated to ALL the good news going on in our household right now - and there's a lot of it!

FIRST, Joseph has his first loose tooth!

(He vacillates between being excited about the Tooth Fairy visit and terrified at the thought of it falling out while he's sleeping and him swallowing it, thus depriving him of the coveted "prize." He's such a silly goose. Can't believe my oldest is old enough to loose teeth now...*sniff*...Mama moment...NO, wait, back to happy!!! Banish those tears!)

SECONDLY, James has been so well behaved and grown up lately!

Yesterday he even got out his school book and started doing schoolwork all on his own. (And yes, it was definitely motivated by a desire to test drive his new crayons.;-) It's really hard to get him to do the "sit down and follow the directions" kind of schoolwork, but when he decides he wants to do it, boy, he does it! And it's getting very clear that his preschool book is way too easy and boring for him - he needs a challenge! He reminds me of both his Daddy and Grandpa Dan in that respect. I wonder if anyone sells a phonics book entirely based on bugs....

THIRDLY, Gabriella is ALL POTTY TRAINED!!!

 (I confess this is the one that I am the most excited about. ;-) She has been working hard for months, and we promised her an "ice-cream party" once she managed to be dry for a whole week. She's come SO close several times, but then had an accident and we had to reset the clock. But this week she finally managed it, and last night we celebrated with ice cream after dinner. Hooray! That only leaves me with one in diapers. Awesome.

FOURTHLY, Elora is getting more teeth - her 2 year molars!

I count this as good news, although there are moments when she isn't terribly happy about it, poor baby. But she's growing up too. In fact, she hardly even counts as a baby anymore! She's pretty much a full blown toddler, who loves to climb and get into EVERYTHING! She's super-cute. And I'm not biased at all....

and FINALLY, my good news is that my best friend Rachel is coming to visit!!! She and her sister Elsie are driving down tomorrow for a short visit over the weekend. We don't get to see each other but about twice a year, if we're lucky, so needless to say I am VERY excited about it!!

In fact, if you'll excuse me, I need to go work on cleaning my house in preparation for their visit....

Hope your day is as filled with good news an mine!

A Letter to the President

Dear President Obama,

Your recent statement to small business owners - "If you've got a business - you didn't build that. Somebody else made it happen." - shows just how out of touch you are with the people you supposedly represent. You clearly know nothing about the struggles, the effort, and the sacrifices that go into making a business successful. Your implication that somehow you, the government, or the surounding community are responsible for our sucesses - and failures - is both arrogant and offensive.

You didn't spend all those late nights at the office while your family had to sit down to dinner without you yet again. You weren't there for the all-nighters spent trying desperately to fix a problem in order to appease a customer. You didn't give up your vacation because you weren't able to leave your fledgling company lest it collapse without you. You didn't go months without a salary so your employees could get paid instead. And you can't comprehend the joy of success, whether it's getting a new contract or finally getting paid after all those months, because you didn't have to make the sacrifices first.

You can't understand small business, Mr. Obama, because you only know how to run a giant corporation further into debt.

Sincereley,
A Small Business Owner's Wife

{you know} #2

Reason #2 Why you know you've been a mother for too long:


You look down and realize you have absentmindedly been feeding the baby sips from your coffee cup. 

And you used to wonder why she wouldn't sleep...

"You know"

You know you've been a mother a long time when...


...your entire family shares a toothbrush and you're too tired to care. (You were going to catch - whatever they've got this time - eventually anyway.)

little balls of protein

Due to a traumatic oatmeal experience as a child, which I will not go into lest it also ruin oatmeal for you for all time, I cannot eat oatmeal. Like, literally cannot. If it was a choice between oatmeal and starvation, I'm not quite sure which one I'd pick, but it'd be close. I am not normally a very picky person, but this is one instance where I draw the line.

However, because it's my goal for my children to surpass me in every way possible, I do make oatmeal for them. And they love it. Which is good...until they try to share with me. (They're so unselfish like that.) Then I either have to pretend I'm not hungry or show them that I am already eating something else.

So I came up with these little protein balls that I eat for breakfast or a snack instead. They contain oats, among other things, but uncooked, so they don't have that squishy texture I hate so much. These are great because they're fast, easy, and packed with nutrition and lots of protein. You can make them ahead and just store them in the refrigerator for any time you need a healthy snack. They're a little sweet, so they kind of fulfill that "dessert" mentality, but they're also really good for you. Kids love to roll them into little balls between their fingers and then eat them - it's kind of like edible play dough!

Peanut butter protein balls

About 1 cup of raw peanut butter or almond butter
small drizzle of honey
handful of raisins or other dried fruit
handful of chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds, or other nuts
teaspoon of flax seeds
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup dried coconut
about 1 cup of uncooked oats*

*for gluten free balls, make sure you use gluten free oats. Bob's Red Mill is the brand I use.

Mix the ingredients all together in a medium bowl. Then you can roll into little balls and refrigerate until slightly hard, to keep them from falling apart. Or, if you're impatient like me, you can just eat it out of the bowl with a spoon. But just a note of caution - they are very filling. Its easy to start eating them and think you haven't had that much, only to end up way too full. A couple of balls is enough for me, even for a meal. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator.

Note - I haven't tried this yet, but you could turn them in chocolate peanut butter balls quite easily, by adding a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder. You might have to increase the honey a little bit to counteract the bitterness of the unsweetened cocoa powder. You could also put chocolate chips in them and they would taste like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! You can also add whatever dried fruit, nuts, seeds, or other ingredients sound appealing. The possibilities are practically endless.

Monday's Top 10: Summer Goals

Top 10 things I want to do/achieve this summer:

10. Get the kids together with their friends - I'm thinking splash park!

9. Survive the coed soccer season without doing any of the following: dying, throwing up, passing out, crying, injuring myself, injuring someone else, ripping any of my clothing (inside joke), or in any other way embarrassing myself

8. Finish my sister Sophie's dress that I began making for her 2 years ago...

7. Go to an outdoor concert of some sort, like the music nights at the zoo

6. Take swimming lessons with the kids

5. Sew some little dresses for my girls - and maybe some shorts for the boys

4.  Clean up my house and throw a party of some sort!

3. Have a getaway with my husband, even if it's only for one night, with just the two of us - no kids!

2. See my sister Daniella and brother in law Phillip (and MAYBE even go up to Aurora to see their new house!)

1. Get to see my best friend Rachel!!

Of course there any many other things I'm planning on/hoping for the summer, including but not limited to eating watermelon, making homemade Popsicles, going to a wedding, spending lots of time at Mom's house, celebrating some birthdays, and watching fireworks! But those are kind of typical summer activities, so they're more likely to happen. ;-)

What about you? Any plans for the summer?

No such thing as a short epiphany

I had a big epiphany while doing my Bible study (which, to be honest, has taken me about 3 weeks to complete one week's lesson...but hey, I decided to just do it anyway!). Anyway, the study's called Anointed, Transformed, Redeemed, and it's about the life of King David, and how God specifically chose him to be king over Israel and used everything in his life to prepare him for that role. Today's lesson was talking about how God has specific callings on each of our lives, and asked us to write down two specific "missions" He had called us to. At first I felt kind of pathetic trying to write this down. See, I used to have a lot more "activities" in my life - drama, music, school, church, etc - but slowly as I've had more children - and less cars, specifically, one! - those things have been whittled away. So the only two "missions" I could come up with were being a wife to Robert and being a mother to my four kids.

On a side note, it was kind of an epiphany in itself for me to realize that those are two different jobs. Since my oldest was born, I have always kind of thought of the two jobs as one thing: "I'm a wife-and-mother." But there is an important distinction between the two, and I realized it's a mistake for me to lump them together in my mind. My job as a wife is outwardly related to my job as mother (i.e. I do cooking, and laundy, and cleaning, etc for my husband AND for my kids) but they are two very different roles. I should not be lumping my husband in with "the kids" in my mind. I think it causes problems when I start to think of my marriage as PART of raising the kids - subconsciously I end up treating my husband like one of the kids and expecting that I can change his behavior or "teach" him the way I do the children. And that does NOT go over well, let me tell you! Any way....back to the main epiphany.

The only people I interact with on a regular basis are my husband and kids, and I was starting to feel pretty badly about this. Not because I don't love them or think being a wife and mother is important, but as if I were somehow failing in the "good Christian witness" category. When I was in school, I was able to argue in defense of Christianity, to witness to my teachers and fellow students. When I taught drama, I had a big influence in the lives of my students, their parents, and even the audiences who came to see the plays. I used to go to Bible studies at church, but with four little kids and husband who's always working, it just doesn't seem feasible. I feel like somehow I am holed up at home not doing "enough" for God. Should I be seeking out more opportunities? Should I go door to door Jehovah's Witness style, talking to my neighbors? (And who is going to watch my kids while I do that?)

But then as I started to write down my two callings - wife to Robert, and mother to my kids - the study asked me to write who would be affected by my witness and influence to them. And I started to think about it. It's not just 4 people who are being influenced when I teach my kids. It's THEIR spouses, THEIR kids, and EVERY SINGLE PERSON they will interact with in their lives. How will my children know how to raise THEIR children in the truth if I fail in my own responsibility?

And what about my husband? I often feel I work as hard, maybe even harder than him, at all the little things around the house, but my contributions don't count for much. I don't earn any money. I don't have any reputation among his clients or grow his business; heck, most people probably have no idea who I am, just that vague mention of "Robert's wife." But I began to see - or God began to show me - that if Robert and I are married, are "one flesh" like the Bible says, our contributions to the world and to His kingdom count as a team effort. I'm like the pit crew at a NASCAR event. Robert's the driver of the car. He's the one who crosses the finish line, who everyone sees and cheers for, with the name recognition and the glory. Nobody knows the names of the pit crew members, or really thinks about their contribution. (Okay, maybe a few crazy obsessed people do...but they have too much time on their hands!) But if there was no one to put gas in the car, to change the tires, to give the driver a drink, or check the...uh...pistons, or something (you see how much I know about NASCAR? It's cars. That go around in a circle. Like 400 times...that's all I know!)...anyway, without the support and maintenance of the pit crew, the driver would never be able to succeed.

Maybe my role isn't noticeable, or glamorous, or appreciated by the world or even sometimes the church. But every success that Robert achieves is MY success too. And I don't mean just in an earthy sense, but an eternal one. When he gains a good reputation for integrity, in part because he is able to come home and talk to me about how to stay honest in a cutthroat world, I get credit for that too. When he works as the chairman of the board for a Christian non-profit agency, while I have to stay home and feed the kids and put them to bed by myself, I am helping every person that his agency helps, too. Every person who sees my husband in the world and notices something different about him, that he is able to talk to or share with or influence for Christ - I am a part of that "ministry." (And vice versa - he gets credit for the things that I do here, like Bible study with the kids or teaching them their schoolwork, and yes, the diaper changing too! :-) Our family as a unit is a witness to the world, and Robert and I as a team are building Christ's Kingdom. It doesn't always seem like it - in fact, it doesn't OFTEN seem like it. It's very easy to get bogged down in the mundane, day-to-day cycle of cooking, cleaning, laundry, changing, bathing, teaching, etc. None of those things much feels like they matter at any given moment. I don't see a lot of forward progress through my daily efforts, but I think the mistake comes in thinking of it as "my job" and "my credit" vs. "his job" and "his credit." Both of us are working on the SAME thing, but from different angles. That's what teamwork means, right? Cause when Team Unser wins the Indy 500 (is that different from NASCAR? whatever...they're all racecars that go around in circles, right?), it is the whole team that shares in the win, and when Team Voss succeeds in God's calling for our lives, as business owners, and parents, and followers of Christ, well, we all win as Christ is glorified.

So I'd like to leave you with two cliches that are nevertheless true and wrap up my thoughts rather nicely:

and 

Note - I wrote this post about two months ago and for some reason never quite finished/posted it. So the epiphany is a little less fresh but the thought is still good, so I figured I go ahead and post it anyway! Especially because I've been so busy (or lazy) that I haven't posted anything in ages...