Day 3

Day 3 of our challenge gave us some concrete ideas for ways to "give life" to our homes.  I thought it interesting that one of the ways listed was to plan regular times away from home.  It seems counter-productive to be away from your home to bring life to it, but I can attest that sometimes it is necessary to step away and get some new perspective.  It's easy to get bogged down with everything we're facing when we're always "on the job."  This is something that I definitely struggle with, but really want to make a conscious effort to correct.  Whether it's simply doing something special with the boys, packing a picnic and taking a walk, going out on date night, making time for girl time, or getting away for the weekend.  These little things are vital to the health of our homes. 

The Mary challenge for today asked us to consider what makes each of our family members feel loved and begin (or continue) doing those things.  This reminded me of the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  If you've never read this book I highly recommend it.  At it's most basic level it says that there are 5 ways that people feel most loved.  It is important to recognize the primary love language of your spouse and children (and yourself) so that you can make sure that you are doing things that resonate most with them and make them feel loved.  The 5 languages are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.  My primary love language is Acts of Service.  Russell's is Physical Touch.  Now we're trying to figure out the primary love languages of our boys.  Josh is still young enough that a primary one hasn't emerged - we just do our best to make sure we "speak" to all of them.  Drew is just starting to reach the age where I can start to see a preference.  It's looking like he's leaning towards Quality Time.  He's always asking for someone to sit by him while he's eating, come play with him, or watch what he's doing.  Please pray that we will have wisdom and discernment as we determine the best ways to love our boys! 

The Martha challenge was to dust the top of the refrigerator (which is a task I often forget about) and clean/shine the outsides of the kitchen cabinets and drawers.  I never realized how dusty things could get until I started cleaning them down.  Now the whole kitchen (well, at least the cabinets) shines! 

How is your challenge going???