It’s my birthday! It seemed to be an appropriate post topic for Things I Love Thursday. :)

My day started out with a surprise waiting for me on the kitchen island when I came downstairs…

A thoughtful and appreciated surprise from my sweet husband who had to wake up, shower, and get ready for work before I pulled my lazy bones out of bed… and he even did it extra early to make a coffee run. He’s a keeper. [Is it tacky to suggest this becomes a birthday tradition?!?]

I was greeted with a very enthusiastic, “Happy Birthday, Mom!” from AG, who then asked for help finding some paper to make me my card.

An impressionistic caterpillar on a leaf?

I treated myself to a nice long shower (not quite as relaxing when you’re constantly listening for a screaming child… or a too-quiet child…) and decided to wear my new jeans I found on clearance at JCPenny’s this weekend (using my Christmas gift card!) just because. Then I watched some Bonnie Hunt for kicks.

And now I am sitting here reading lovely facebook birthday wishes (birthdays are a great reason to be on facebook) with a milk mustache and icing on my teeth. Mommies do not have to wait for candles and singing before cutting into their cakes – I think that’s in a constitutional amendment somewhere.

Happy birthday to me!

[Forgot to get me a gift, eh? :) You know I do love comments... and if you wanted to become a follower or subscribe by email, that would be stellar.

Or you could just bring me some more coffee.]

I remember as AG’s baby toys first started piling up trying to figure out a way to contain them all. I asked for advice, I looked for articles… I needed a solution.

I know I’m picky.

First of all, I like toys to be put away. I like the feeling of cleaning up the chaos and looking around a house that looks like a place where grown-ups live rather than romper room. I hosted a baby shower a couple of years ago, and one of the guests overheard me talking about my daughter and said, “you have a kid? It doesn’t even look like it!” Music to my ears! :)

Secondly, I want my storage solutions to be ultra cheap, if not free. I like free. There are lots of organization companies that would be happy to give you a solution, but it has a hefty price tag attached! I repeat: I like free. Here are my favorite tips to mastering the toy avalanche.

1. Recycle large containers for free, uniform storage!

Don’t get sucked into feeling like you have to invest a mint in matching storage containers. You can collect quite a nice array of matching storage from using food containers; I have found that large animal cracker tubs, plastic pretzel containers with pop-off lids, wipes boxes, coffee cans (the plastic ones with pop-off tops and no sharp edges are great!), etc. all make wonderful storage. I have also heard that if you ask at your grocery store’s bakery, that they will often give away the large tubs they get for frosting, etc! I like using clear or translucent containers with lids that AG can get off by herself.

I personally don’t like the labels on there, and they can be tricky to get off. The best solution I have found to this is to fill the container with very hot tap water, let it sit for a couple of minutes (seems to loosen the adhesive), and peel off as much of the label as you can. Usually this gets the majority off for me. Then I take a paper towel with some vegetable oil on it and rub the rest of the adhesive off – the oil works great and it’s obviously nontoxic! Voila – perfect storage!

2. Contain the containers

Once everything is in containers, I want the containers contained. Put away. Neatly stowed. Accessable, and yet not in the way.

It is a lot to ask, I realize.

We are blessed to live in an old house built in 1914 that has those nifty built-in shelves with glass doors next to our fireplace. Frankly, I would love to only have decoration-worthy books of uniform color and size back there… but that would mean I would lose some amazing child-accessable toy storage.

Perhaps part 2 of this post will be how I contain the toys in their bedrooms!

3. If it doesn’t fit in the designated storage areas, it might not stay.

I try to steer clear of large non-storable toys. If it can’t be put away, it needs to be in their bedrooms. If there’s no space up there, it’s not the toy for us. Fact is, our house is just not that big!

I also have large rubbermaid bins in the attic full of toys that we rotate through. This is a great solution for limited space – on about a quarterly basis, I put away toys that haven’t been played with much and pull out some forgotten toys from the attic. It’s like Christmas! The kids get so excited to see toys they had forgotten about! :)

This is also a great time to reevaluate why we’re keeping certain things. Rather than unwanted toys getting buried in a pile of unloved rejects, I’d rather donate them or sell them… or throw them away!

I have found that my kids only play with a select number of toys. Keeping them orderly and visible helps them see what they have, find something that interests them, and learn how to put it away when they’re done!

For more Works for me Wednesday tips, head over to wearethatfamily.com!

It has been a rough week or so at our house. Talking to my sister and other friends with kids, apparently there is some sort of highly contagious virus going around that causes erratic misbehavior in our children! LB seems to be working on some teeth, but I have no idea what AG’s excuse could be! ;)

My husband has been putting in some long hours with work for a variety of non-bloggable reasons, and I’m feeling drained. Packing up the children and sending them to Grandma’s house has been a tempting idea!!

Last night and today, in the midst of insanity and ill-temper from all three of us, I had some precious snippets of conversation with AG. These are the little moments that remind me that the sacrifice of finances (and occasionally sanity) to stay home are so, SO worth it.

Last night as I sang to her, the John 3:16 song from Hide ‘em in Your Heart has been a favorite recently, we again discussed perish. [Remember last year's "perish" discussion??] Then she asked, “Why does it say, ‘whoever believes in Him?’” So, we went through the basics of salvation again. She smiled and said, “those were the two things I couldn’t remember – perish, and ‘whoever believes.’”

Today we were coloring a picture of Adam (don’t you love his blue hair??) and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in our God Created the Dinosaurs book, which will be reviewed in the very near future. It had been an unpleasant morning, and I was simply trying to occupy her long enough to limp us along to naptime! But in that little window of time, she asked why it was wrong for them to eat the fruit; aren’t apples green light foods?! We talked about how they chose to disobey God, and as she picked out her next crayon she seriously said, “but He still loved them, even though they disobeyed.” Ah, the fruit of many instances of discipline and consequences, while discussing God’s unconditional love.

We then discussed how sin affected the earth – she thought that the picture we were coloring was “a little scary” because Adam and Eve were eating the fruit (scary, indeed!), the serpent was in it, and there was a dinosaur. From there we got onto the discussion that dinosaurs weren’t scary when God made them – they ate plants, and wouldn’t hurt people or other animals. Sin changed everything. When I said, “when sin came into the world,” she paused and said, “did it poke a hole in it or something? How did it get in?” Stinking adorable, and great ground for some theological discussion, too!

In the midst of the craziness, we have little golden moments. Moments while we sing a lullaby, moments when we’re disciplining, moments when we’re coloring… moments to teach our children the miraculous truth of a holy God who loves them and has moved heaven and earth to buy us back from our slavery to sin.

So, to my fellow drained mommy’s, this song is for you – I needed to listen to this after a very long day! In the midst of time outs and temper tantrums and 17 month olds who insist on hitting their sisters and obstinately disobeying :), we have a big job to do with immeasurable worth. No one else knows what you put up with today, how you struggled to keep your temper in check, how you wanted to go back to bed and let the kids tear the house apart, how you cried in the kitchen by yourself in frustration, how you kissed a boo-boo, how you taught your child about math or science or a new word, how you triumphed over that long-awaited potty training victory… but God knows.

Who cares that it’s not really mother’s day? :) This is a tough job 365 days a year, but it’s worth it. Keep up the good work.

I think it is fascinating to look at Jacob’s journey to personal faith – I believe that today’s subject matter is the first step to Jacob’s ultimate acceptance of God as His God. Wherever you are on the journey, I pray that you will recognize and accept God’s amazing offer of access to Him and a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, the only Way.

In Genesis 28, we find Jacob on his way to Uncle Laban’s house in order to escape Esau’s murderous rage after the whole blessing deception scheme. He ends up laying down to sleep with his head on a rock and he has a dream.

Genesis 28:12-13 says, “Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants…”

God goes on to restate the promises, originally made to Abraham, specifically to Jacob – his descendants will be like the dust of the earth (nation), the land will be theirs (land), and through them all the families of the earth would be blessed (leader). Jacob wakes up, is afraid as he realizes he was in the presence of God Himself, and anoints the rock he was sleeping on.

We could have pages of discussion about this passage, but what we want to focus in upon is the dream itself. Remember the wording: a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (28:12).

What’s the deal with the ladder reaching to heaven? Access to God. God is basically offering Jacob a personal relationship with Him – which is the only access to heaven.

How does Jacob respond to God’s offer? Check out 28:20-21.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God.

In other words: Ok, God. IF you are with me and bless me and give me everything I need or want and bring me back to my family, THEN you can have the privilege of being my God. Is this a genuine response of faith and gratitude for God’s amazing offer? I’m afraid not. And Jacob’s continuing deceitful, scheming character in the coming chapters will show us that he hasn’t changed at this point.

Now, keep all of that in mind and fast-forward to the New Testament. In John 1:51, Jesus says

“Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

(The Son of Man is a title used for Christ). The wording Jesus used would not be lost on the men he was speaking to at this point- He was claiming to be Jacob’s ladder! He is the only point of access to the Father!

Through Christ, God has offered us an unbelievable gift – a way of access to Him! Unfortunately, our wayward hearts often respond similarly to Jacob’s: “If God will take care of me and keep me safe and keep me comfortable and give me everything I want, THEN He can be my God. [And if He allows me to experience pain or suffering or sickness or the results of my own bad choices or if He just does things I don't understand, all bets are off.]“

This isn’t a genuine relationship with God. It’s a weird way of trying to bargain with Him to get what we want. Jacob didn’t understand that the real treasure was knowing God. All those other things were just peripherals. Abraham messed up time and time again, but he understood this idea. God offered a unique relationship, and Abraham picked up and left everything behind in order to follow. That is saving faith. Oh, may our hearts respond with grateful, sincere faith when God offers us access to Him through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Michael Card, a well known Christian musician, has a CD of lullabies. One of the songs is entitled “Are you Dreaming Jacob’s Dream?” I love it because it encapsulates the meaning of this story in such a simple, yet profound way, and then sets it to a simple tune I sing to my babies!

Are you dreaming Jacob’s dream? Could that be why you’re smiling?
Could you not be a man like he, so wily and beguiling?
Do you see a ladder there, reaching up to heaven?
Do the angels fill the air? Could you reach out and touch them?
Jacob dreamed about Someone, a Way to heaven, God the Son.
And someday it’s my prayer for you that in your heart his dream comes true.

**For more reflections on the Old Testament with personal application, you might want to download a free Bible study ebook!**