Hosting is Our Jam

While we don't feel like the most social individuals in the world, Ross and I have discovered that we enjoy opening our home to people.  Is extroverted introverts a thing? In recent days, we have come to realize how important in-person relationships are. We (humans) were created for relationship and fellowship.

We feel extrememly blessed to live where we do in the home that we have. We want to share.

We want people to feel welcome here and comfortable to drop in. You may have to ignore the six or seven pairs of dirty socks on the floor, look past the dirty handprints on the wall, and be okay with a little stickiness on the counters, but you are welcome here.

We might have different opinions, come from different backgrounds, bring different baggage, but we hope we can still be friends.

Please remember there are kids in the room. Expect them to be loud...and dirty but also expect them to be respectful and polite. They talk a lot.

We like to fill people's bellies. If we're feeling fancy, we'll use the china. If we are feeling relaxed, we'll break out the paper plates. Either way, bring an appetite. If I burn dinner, we'll order pizza.

We like a house full of people.  If it gets crowded, we can spread out on the patio. This is our open invitation. You're welcome here.

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Sheltering in Place

In the past three months Corona Virus has more or less turned the world on its head. I feel almost guilty for not being more stressed or put out by the whole thing. We have been extremely fortunate. What we thought was a most impractical move on our part, wound up being a huge blessing. With our two boys and our two newborns, we moved out of our house with no yard in the city limits and into my parents' house in the country while waiting for our new house to be completed. The weekend we moved "quarantine," "social distancing," and "shelter in place" became the new mantra of our state. Moving in with my parents meant ten plus acres of play space and two extra able bodied adults to help even out the score with the four kids. Win for the St. Clair's! Unfortunately, my parents are beginning to realize they may have made an error in judgement. Yesterday, Sawyer gave their cat swimming lessons. Last week th...

Bump in the Road

If your kids aren't annoying you at least occasionally, then they probably aren't doing childhood right. Ours are winning at childhood. Actually, we came to the conclusion the other day that if they are annoying you all the time, then you probably aren't doing parenting right. And when I say "you," I mean "we." We weren't enjoying our kids recently, and we wondered if that meant other people were also finding them unenjoyable. It made us finally pause and take a long hard look at what was bugging us about our kids. We felt like we were in a perpetual state of irritation. Once we made our list, and it was lengthy, we noticed a theme: attention. Our kids were begging for our attention with every behavior. It was annoying, but it was our fault, and it was fixable. We started putting down phones and brooms and laundry and giving undivided and intentional focus to our kids throughout the day. It wasn't a huge...

Advanced Placement

Not to brag or anything, but I think we are raising some very advanced children. At two-years-of-age, our girls have already worked out the art of manipulation and deflection. It's the antithesis of endearing. They went missing the other day - the girls did. That's never a good situation. They were in the house, and I knew they were in the house, but I couldn't see or hear them. Silence is the loudest alarm system. Fischer took action and found them both in my bathroom. "MOM!" I met them in the hall. Carter was covered in clumps and blobs of hand cream. "Emi did it," was her unsolicited response. "No," I told her. "I think you did it." That night I got ready for bed and pulled out my one "self-care" splurge - my face cream . It was in my drawer where I always keep it. The lid was screwed on. And it was empty, wiped clean. "EmmmeerrrrrSON!" Guilty. They were both ...

Not so adventures of the St. Clair clan...

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