Delighting in the Divine
Yes to freedom, yes to play and yes to celebrating the moment!
All tagged family
Yuck, I hate that sauce!
Why have you cooked pasta again?!
I don't want to go out to the shops!
I'm not doing that! No way!
Why doesn't he have to wash up too?
It's not fair!
Our lives were becoming flooded with complaints, groaning, moans and dissatisfaction from the boys (8, 6 and 4). What I hated most was that I felt powerless. I would start calmly trying to give them logical reasons why they needed to do what I had requested of them, but eventually we would end up raising out voices:
Sometimes Ice cream is the most important thing... A few final reflections on our family holiday to Cusco - things we learned and things we were thankful for. Oh, and a condor...
Exploring the Inca Ceremonial site of Sacsayhuman in Cusco we went on search of rocks bigger than us and found some incredibly long natural slides and tunnels...
Join in a photo journey around the World Wonder of Machu Picchu through the eyes of the boys. In this post I share how we got there and some tips for sightseeing with kids and find out who didn't like the ruins so much...
Crop circles? And is that snow or salt? In this post we visit the Inca Crop circles of Moray and the Salt plains of Maras on our way to Machu Picchu.
There is something restorative about getting out into nature. Join me as we go on a photo journey of some time we spent in Cusco visiting mountains, lakes, caves and ruins as a family. And find out why nature is so important for our mental health.
Finally we are practicing rest as a family by taking a two week holiday to Cusco. In this first post about out time there I share some photos from the countryside near Cusco and we finally find the twelve-sided Inca stone in the city's centre.
I loved seeing Sydney this time through the eyes of my kids. I have travelled to Sydney to see my family many times, but we have not been in the last 4 years, so neither Daniel or Joel remembered it. Daniel remembers traveling to England and seeing Mark's side of the family a couple of years ago when Mark's Mum passed away, but other than that all their memories are of Peru.
The whole reason we went to Australia this time was because my sister Chloe, was getting married to Sam...
Having been cocooned in life in Peru for four years, and my only outside influences being Facebook and others coming into Peru, I wasn’t sure how I would react to being ‘back’ in the Western World. Spending three weeks in Australia with my sister as she got married and my family, with my boys who are now so much older has been a beautiful time (we still have a week left!) but the strangest things are the things that I had forgotten that I had forgotten! So this blogpost is not focused so much on the people and the times we've had with them (perhaps I'll write about that in another post) but rather the beautiful things I have seen as we have been out and about...
We are in Santiago airport in Chile having just had a 3 hour flight from Lima at 1am. The boys didn’t sleep. We didn’t much either. The boys are doing great - no more grotty than normal, no more objectionable than normal - currently playing on the tiny play area near gate 11.
In 4 hours we will set off on a 14 hour flight to Sydney. I am hoping they will sleep a bit, but not too much - we arrive early evening into Sydney and it would be good if they slept tonight.
But at the same time, experience tells me that I just need to throw out any expectations regarding sleep, schedules, whether we will arrive on time or with luggage etc. I am hopeful that we will have an uneventful flight, but I also know that that might not happen...
So Anna Robinson started this discussion over on her blog about family prayers and talking about what they are currently doing as a family, and linked up to MissionalMumma too. I encourage you to have a quick read of both the blogs, because they both have some great ideas and perspectives on family prayers.
Family prayers are going to look and feel different with every family and that is great...
I am a better person when I slow down.
For some reason, (probably because I am a wannabe-don’t wannabe perfectionist), I constantly try and improve my life and create perfect scenarios. Some of this is positive. It is good to take time out to evaluate different areas of my life, relationships, my home, our ministry, our marriage, our parenting and see where things are not working out so well and make a plan for change. But why do I suddenly think that with that plan in place, suddenly everything will be perfect? ...
