Starting a New Year

So this week we start our new school year...I can't believe that Zach will be in 8th grade!  Where has the time gone?  It seemed like yesterday that I was teaching Spanish at a local high and then I turn around and come to find that I almost have a highschooler!  It sends awe to my soul and shivers down my spine!

Noah will be in 4th grade!  There was a time in 2000 that I wasn't sure that I would have a second child...now that child is 9 years old! That God has blessed me with not one, but two boys boggles my mind.

This school year I want to do things differently...love on my boys more...I have only so much time left to influence their lives before they are gone from our home. I am starting to "number my days" (Psalms 90:12) with them.

Here are a few things that I plan to do differently:

*Laugh more often with them.
*Love on them with notes of encouragement hidden in their school books.
*Accept them for who they are and not what I want them to become.
*Focus on Christ so that I can have patience with them.  Knowing that in time that God makes all things beautiful in His timing...and that includes the life of my boys.
*Plan more "fun days" to get through the drugery of the year that will most certainly come upon us.
*Instill a love of God's Word in them...if they have that and nothing else then I have been successful as a mom.
*Start the year with cupcakes!  It is our family tradition to start each school year with a fun cupcake.

So I guess I am off...to look up some fun cupcake ideas....and write notes of encouragement!