Changed By Love

I got this valentine book activity from Cross-Eyed Curriculum (as in the cross of Christ) at Currclick.com.

It’s called I Love You Minibooks. I got it a couple of years ago, but I didn’t look at it closely until last year before Valentine’s Day. I saw what it was like and realized that it was something I should make for just one child, not the whole “pack”. So I prayed about which child I should make it for. I thought about who would appreciate it the most and who I needed to draw closer to my heart. I then knew that I needed to make it for Kelsey. But I looked through it and saw that I needed pictures of her and me together. And honestly, I haven’t taken many pictures of me and Kelsey over the last few years. Of course, it’s hard for me to take a picture of myself and another person! But I was stumped on that minibook, so I didn’t end up making the book for her last year.

If you remember, we had just moved into this house about a month prior to that, and things were still kind of hectic anyway.

But this year, I was determined to get it done. I pulled it up on my computer again and looked it over. I still didn’t know where I would get pictures of me and Kelsey together. Suddenly, I remembered that I had old pictures in my scrapbooking case from when the kids were younger. I looked through them and found several pictures of us together (that somebody else had actually taken). I’m usually the one taking pictures, so there aren’t very many pictures of me throughout the years.

But I found some good ones and scanned them and worked hard to make them the right size and printed them and glued them to the little pages of the booklet. I was so proud of myself for figuring all of that out. That took me quite a while.

Making the other booklets and putting the book together took quite a bit of time. I would say it took me several hours. I worked on it for a couple of evenings. It was a labor of love.

I hope that Kelsey realizes that I love her enough to invest that much time and effort in making something for her. I think she was kind of surprised when I gave it to her, but I feel like we have had a warmer relationship since then.

That’s one thing that has been difficult with a large number of children and with the crazy, chaotic things that have happened to us over the last several years. It has been hard to spend special time with each child and keep their hearts close to me. And make each one feel special. But I ask each one how they’re doing from time to time, and they all say that they understand the priorities I’ve had with taking care of the younger children, and that they are fine. The other kids have helped fill the gaps.

But we know that nobody can really take Mommy or Daddy’s place. So my husband and I are making a commitment to spend more time with each individual child in the coming days. And pray with them and talk to them about how they’re doing and what they may need to learn more about, especially spiritually.

Of course, Gary needs to be home with us in order to do that, so we’re praying really hard that the Lord will provide a full-time job or long-term contract soon so that we can all be together as a family again.

The following video shows one of the things that Kelsey has worked on a lot during the last couple of years. She learned to play the recorder and the ocarina. She taught herself.

She likes the songs from Zelda, so she plays a lot of them.

Here she is playing some of her favorites on the ocarina.

Here she is playing that last song again. She can play it flawlessly, but I think the camera made her a little nervous.