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Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

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Mr. Whitter’s Cabin

Mr. Whitter's Cabin

Mr. Whitter’s Cabin

Mr. Whitter lives two doors down on the opposite side of the street. He owns an old hunting dog named Rosie and a faded blue ten-speed which he sometimes pedals up the hill to collect his dog when she comes to call on our chickens. “Hey, Kiddo!” he says when he sees me.

It has been Mr. Whitter’s objective to get our family out to his cabin. His thirty-acre slice of Alaska lies along a river just past the town of Willow, where the Iditarod starts every year in early March. Decades ago, Jim and his wife built a cabin on the bluff overlooking the water. Over the years, more and more grandkids carved their names in the ladder leading up to the loft, and extra bunk beds have been built along the wall in the great room to accommodate them all.

In other words, it is the perfect place to share with the neighbors and their slew of kids.

coffee pot

Mr. Jim Whitter could not stand the fact that the silvers were running, wild raspberries were dripping on their canes, and the long summer days were already beginning to yawn—and not a single kid was running rampant over his land, taking advantage of it all.

“Just go on out there, and treat it like it’s yours,” Mr. Whitter said, pressing a hand-drawn map into Jeff’s hand. The combination to the padlock on the rusty chain fence was scribbled at the top, and Mr. Whitter had already hauled out the portable generator and an extra can of fuel to tuck into the back of our van.

“I think we’d better go,” Jeff said with a grin when Mr. Whitter left. The thought of being able to shoot targets with the kids at Jim’s homemade range was more than my husband could bear.

Mr. Whitter's flag

But it was Sunday afternoon. I was still in my church clothes, and the children were eating stale popcorn for lunch. Nothing was packed.

A few years ago, that would have been a deal-breaker. A spontaneous overnight camping trip for seven people would have stressed me out to the point of making it less-than-fun for everyone.  I would have said no. I would have offered a million reasons why going right now was impossible: My refrigerator was bare, the laundry wasn’t done, and did we even know where the camping lanterns were?

cook stove

But I’ve grown a little, I guess.

Instead of saying, “That’s not enough time to get ready!” I said, “Okay!”

We fed the chickens extra, made a quick food-intolerance-friendly dinner in the Instant Pot, dug up fresh batteries for the lanterns, and hit the road. I forgot deodorant. At least two kids didn’t pack underwear. But I didn’t stress, and I didn’t give my family an extra chance to practice forgiveness.

Because of that, we got to spend the night in a cabin by the river, nestled in the trees, with beaming kids who couldn’t stop saying, “This is the best place ever!”

I would have missed it all—and forced my family to miss it—if I had given in to my nature that says, “I can’t do this on such short notice and still have a good attitude.” That little area of growth in my life opened us up to an incredible blessing that my weakness would have robbed from me.

campfire at Mr. Whitter's Cabin

I realized that perhaps I’ve been a little backwards in my thinking. I have operated under the assumption that God longs for my sanctification because He is tired of my immaturity. He is sick of seeing the same sins and mistakes day after day. Won’t she ever grow up?

But I am beginning to understand that God longs for my sanctification so that He can pour more of Himself into me. My Father wants to bless me with all that He is; He desires me to grow up into the riches of Christ in the heavenly places. I can reach some of it now, right where I am. But God’s riches are like the cherry tree in my grandmother’s orchard—all the best fruit is in the top branches.

raspberries at Mr. Whitter's cabin

The more I grow, the more of God’s abundance I have available to me. He has such good things in store just beyond the reach of my stubbornness, fear, and rebellion. I think I would be devastated to know how I have closed myself to God’s blessings because I have been unwilling to let go of my lack.

 

It makes me wonder, perhaps what saddens God the most about my weakness is not the fact that I am messing up, but that I am missing out. I am missing out on His infinite fullness, richness, abundance, and power to more than fill everything that is lacking in me.

teapot at Mr. Whitter's Cabin

Suddenly, God looks a lot like an old man on a rusty bike, holding out a hand-drawn map. “Hey, Kiddo!” He says. “The salmon are running and the raspberries are dripping on the canes, and I can’t stand that you’re missing it.“

The riches of God are there, waiting.

All you have to do is say yes.

lunch at Mr. Whitter's Cabin

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A Zero-Budget Christmas: Homemade Gifts

Zero-Budget Christmas

A Zero-Budget Christmas

Part 6: Homemade gifts-help for the DIY challenged

 

We’re continuing our Zero-Budget Christmas series with an entire post on one of the best ways to give thoughtfully with little money: creating homemade gifts.

Those of you who are crafty or creative love homemade gifts. You’re probably knee-deep in fabric scraps and Mason jars right now.

But if Christmas came around before your glue gun was warmed up, you might not be feeling the DIY vibe this year. Or perhaps you are not a crafty type of person. For those of you who can’t find your way out of a Hobby Lobby, making homemade gifts can be overwhelming.

This post is for you. Even if Pinterest gives you heart palpitations and you have very few days left to create any sort of Christmas magic, you can have a stash of homemade gifts ready in no time. Here’s how:

DIY Christmas

  • You do not have to be crafty or creative in order to make some great gifts. I did an entire series on this blog called Simply Homemade, which I created for people who don’t think they can make homemade gifts. These are simple, inexpensive, and very fast projects, yet they are gifts anyone can make and everyone would love to receive. Head there for instant inspiration!
  • Host a homemade gift exchange. Maybe you only know how to make one thing. You can knit a scarf or tie a fleece blanket, and everyone on your list has already gotten a million of those things from you. Here’s your solution: a DIY gift swap.

Everyone who attends makes multiples of one gift—their DIY specialty—to give to every other attendee. In exchange, they get a homemade gift from every other attendee. If six friends attend, that means each person leaves with six unique gifts to give—but each person only had to make one. Genius.

  • Make a craft kit. This is perfect if you’re short on time. Craft kits are hot items to buy, but the contents usually leave much to be desired. You can DIY a better kit on a lower budget. Choose a project, pre-measure or gather the supplies (you can use craft store coupons to save a bundle), and print the instructions. Package everything in a cute box and you’re done! This is perfect for the person who loves to craft but ran out of time to physically make the gifts.

You can even get your friends together to assemble craft kits assembly-line style to save even more time and money. Parse out the supply list so everyone brings something, and everyone goes home with something! As a bonus, you’ll get to spend time with friends during the hectic holiday season.

Homemade gift ideas

 

  • Give the gift of gourmet. Freezer meals. Homemade monkey bread. Peanut brittle. These are all food gifts that rock. Who wouldn’t want to get a homemade lasagna to stick in the freezer for a crazy Christmas night?! Food gifts are awesome because, as far as I know, we all need to eat. And we all like it.

But, if your culinary skills are lacking, you can hack this idea by creating food mixes. Similarly to the idea above, simply assemble the ingredients, print some directions, and package everything up in Mason jars.

One year, I made mocha mix and homemade marshmallows to give. Another year, it was dry soup mixes. Search Pinterest and you’ll find a million cookie-in-a-jar mixes.  The best part is, you don’t have to bake a thing.

Don’t forget to use coupons and online apps such as Ibotta to save on the ingredients or earn money back on the stuff you’ll buy anyway (roll those savings into some Christmas capital for next year). Walmart has a fantastic curbside delivery service in many areas, and if you haven’t used them before, you can save $10 on your first order. And it is. the. bomb.

  • Stick with tradition. If creativity is not your jam, pick one thing you can make, and make it every year.

My mother-in-law makes the most amazing cinnamon rolls. It’s something we look forward to every year. If she ever stops doing it, there will be a revolt. A pan of her cinnamon rolls is a fantastic gift, and exactly what we all hope she’ll make.

Growing up, one of my aunts made hard candy every year and gave it away in jars. I don’t remember most of the gifts I got as a child, except for the really special ones, but I remember jars of Aunt Carolyn’s “Rock Candy,” as we called it.

Make a tradition of the one thing you do well and your people will look forward to it all year long.

  • Assemble gift baskets. Alright. So, you can’t craft and you can’t bake. Don’t worry–gift baskets are where you can shine. Pick a theme, like Movie Night, Cookies and Cocoa, Spa Day, Dig in the Dirt (gardening stuff), Snow Day—the sky’s the limit—and gather items that fit the theme. Scope out your local thrift store for inexpensive baskets, or use things like dollar store laundry baskets, storage bins, or even wrapped shoe boxes to create a container for your goodies.

Then fill it up! A movie night theme basket could include things like DVDs (shop your own collection or get some great finds secondhand), microwave popcorn, box candy, glass bottles of soda, and straws. A spa basket could include candles, a classical music CD, lotions, a loofah sponge, and a good book.

The best part about gift baskets is you can shop all year using coupons to put together very inexpensive themed gifts. You can even use these as family gifts (try a Game Night theme) so you can knock out that Christmas list even faster.

 

Homemade Christmas ideas

The bottom line is, anyone can make homemade gifts. Just have fun with it. Even if your projects don’t turn out quite the way you had hoped, your thoughtfulness and love for the recipient will shine through.

And isn’t that what Christmas giving is all about?

To begin reading A Zero-Budget Christmas from the beginning, start here.

**During this series, affiliate links may be included for your convenience.

*

 

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We’re Expecting!

Making Room for 1 More

I have been dying to tell you the wonderful news: Five in Tow is about to grow!  Jeff and I are excited to announce that we’re expecting.

I know you probably thought we were done having children.  Five certainly is a handful, at least that’s what the Costco sample ladies tell me when my kids clear out their toothpicked cheese cubes in one fell swoop.

There’s also the small part about how motherhood didn’t come easy to me.  It took me about…well, five kids to get broken in to this gig, and for some time prior to that, I threatened to pack up my children and send them to Argentina.

But, this child, this sixth child, is something different. This child is not growing in my womb.  This child has been growing in my heart since I was old enough to notice that not all children have it good.

Not all children are safe.

Not all children are wanted.

Not all children are loved.

And not all people who can do something about it are.  Including me. 

Many years ago, before I was married, I wanted to adopt all the babies.  I had lived in third world countries and worked with street children and orphans.  By the time I was nineteen, I had seen more unwanted children than I could bear. I determined to do something about it.

But then I got married.  And pregnant.  And pregnant again, and…every time I thought about adding another child to our home, life would get crazy and I would wonder what on earth I was thinking.

I began to believe that I really am terribly busy, and I have used those Costco ladies as my justification for passing up many opportunities to be Christ to this hurting world.  I have my hands full already, thankyouverymuch.

But God’s been talking to me about being the Word, and it’s all terribly more self-sacrificial than I am comfortable with.

So I read all through the Word looking for some fine print that would exempt me from anything harder than where I am right now.  What I found was Jesus telling poor people to care for poorer people.  Jesus telling busy people to stop and bind up the wounds of the hurting.  Jesus telling moms who pounded out their daily bread to feed the widows and the orphans with some of it.  Jesus saying, “Hey, the harvest is ready, but the trouble is, none of you are willing to stop what you’re doing and labor for me.”

So we stopped.  We prayed.  We talked to our kids.  We did the next thing, and the next thing more.  Now, we are knee-deep in the foster licensing process with the intention of adopting a child out of the system.  We have to get the licensing part done before Jeff deploys, which is so insane, our case worker is developing a twitch.  But we have a set of fire extinguishers in our kitchen and fingerprints on file and a whole lot of friends and family with permanent hand cramps because they had to fill out pages of references forms on us.

It is labor, all of it.  But with the labor comes great expectation, abundant joy, and a good share of nausea.

I hear that’s normal for expectant parents.    

just act normal

Hopefully, we can act like a normal family for a few weeks longer so we can wrap up the foster-licensing process.  Jeff will deploy, and even though it’s not ideal to welcome a new child to the home while the father is away, we’re kind of over waiting for ideal. When it comes to foster care, there is no ideal.

Our hope is to foster-adopt, so we are praying that the Lord will bring us the right child right away so that we can begin the legal process as quickly as possible.  Jeff will be getting orders to a new duty station soon after he completes his deployment, and we need to complete the adoption while we’re still living in Texas…or we might lose the child and have to start the whole thing all over again.

But even if we cannot adopt, we are thrilled to have the opportunity to love and invest in another child for as long as God lets us have her.  When you think about it, that’s really what  parenting is all about.

Won’t you pray for us?  We’re expecting God to show up big time because this whole thing is crazy-scary and infinitely bigger than us.  Those are exactly the circumstances God seems to like the most, when I have nothing of my own to offer and He gets to remind me why He’s God, and I’m not.

Pray particularly for this sixth child who may, at this very moment, be experiencing unspeakable trauma at the hands of those who are supposed to love him.  Pray pray for the family who is so broken, a child isn’t safe in their care.  Finally, pray that we will remain steadfast and diligent as we labor to make room for one more.

Six in tow?  I kinda like the sound of that.

Faith, Parenting, Uncategorized 29 Comments

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I believe you can find grace for the mother you are and help to become the mother you long to be—a mom who has the freedom to choose the better things and enjoy her kids right now.

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