My 3 girls....and some twin shots.

I know, I know, Leighton doesn't look all that cute in this picture, but I thought it would be good to give a fair representation of my day. :) Poor baby girl is getting over the roseola virus (three days of a fever, and then a full body rash) and there are several spots in her mouth that I can see the swollen-ness of teeth about to pop through. She was miserable today...and cried everytime I wasn't holding her. I'm headed to Wal-mart first thing in the morning to get some baby ora-gel... hopefully she'll be doing better tomorrow.

The babies have been fighting over the toy walker...usually Leighton will get it and start walking and then Matthias will realize what a great idea it was and grab it from her and go speeding off. Their cheeks are full of goldfish crackers in this second picture. I cannot believe they turn one in 3 days!!! I almost can't believe I survived this first year! The year went by so fast even though there have been days that seemed like forever. We're having a party on Saturday, so I'll definitely be posting pics of babies and cake and such. :)

I've been trying to process through some thoughts from a women's conference I went to on Saturday. Several women from my church drove out to Sarasota to hear Tara Barthel speak on "Women and Peacemaking-a Journey of Grace". It was a great day of being reminded of the Gospel and our call to resolving conflict in our lives and seeking lasting peace. She talked about how we tend towards making hypocrites out of our children when it comes to conflict...well, it was actually a quick point she made, but it stuck with me...probably b/c our kids have been fighting a lot lately and I've been thinking and praying through how to address it better. The fact that we "force" our kids to apologize to each other, when in reality there are a lot of times that they really aren't sorry for what they've done...probably just sorry for being caught. And then, to have the other child say that they forgive their sibling for what they've done, when in reality...they're mumbling out "I forgive you" with a bad attitude. There is definitely something to be said about creating a habit of apologizing and forgiving, but there's also something to be said about taking those moments of conflict and using them as teaching moments to remind them (and myself) that we forgive because Christ has forgiven us!.....not just b/c mommy told you that you need to. Getting to the heart issue with the kids (especially the big kids) has been a challenge for me lately...but this peacemaking conference was an encouragement to me in the midst of it.