5 Years

November 1, 2013.  This date marks 5 years of marriage for me and my husband.  It is 5 years of growing (in more than a few ways) and changing.

3.5 kids, #4 due in 2014.....
1 house, and soon a rental.....
 Enlistment in the Air Force complete....
Move to another state....
Get new jobs, and keep trying to get jobs....
4 different churches so far....
3 dogs, though none are with us now...
1 foster child....and a partridge in a pear tree, right? 

Needless to say, we have learned a lot.  Not all our lessons were fun, but they brought us here. 

I think some marriages weather storms early because God wants the harvest to outlast the growing period.  And, our growing has made it clear that every marriage has a "hard part"...or more than one...and that even if it looks easy, it isn't.  What matters most is that you can still say that you love this person, and it doesn't matter what happened yesterday or 6 months ago.  Forever is still your destination, and this is just the winding road.

I love this man!  I would not change our past though it is easy to say that I wish I could, because without it I would not see the changes in him that I do in our years together.  I prayed for these changes, and they are a blessing to our marriage, so I thank God for them.  My rambling is not to make our marriage seem a disappointment, but to reassure someone like myself that you can look back on the hard parts of a marriage with new eyes.  That you can still love this life you made with your spouse, because it was with them. 

So with all my heart, happy anniversary to my handsome husband!

Still Waiting...

I have been trying not to worry....
I really have been trying...
I have been praying this verse....daily for three weeks....
Last night I realized that it was in fact a verse from the Holy Spirit because someone who was praying for me confirmed that she kept hearing the same verse over and over while they were praying for me.  She didn't even know how much I have struggled with worry...my husband hasn't even known.

Jeremiah 29:11

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I have been praying this in the moments that I feel like I'm going to lose it...
When I argue with my husband about how much I dislike living in my Aunt's living room....
When I realized that we have been here for 3 WEEKS...
When I have to pull the couch out into a bed AGAIN, and sleep on a very well used pull out mattress 29weeks pregnant....
When we have to put the couch back, and put EVERYTHING we own back into our van so that people can actually walk around the living room or even find a seat...
When my two littlest ones have diarrhea because people are not used to being as diligent about checking labels, and they have gotten a hold of something that contains dairy....
When I can see the look on my family's faces when they realize that we still haven't moved out that day, when they get back from work...
When I do dishes or make food in someone else's kitchen, and I don't feel like I can do enough to not be any more of a burden than we are on them...

I want to cry all the time.  My oldest son said he "hates this" yesterday, though I think he was talking about what my uncle was watching on the TV.  I caught myself, mid-admonishment, and realized that he had heard the exact same thing out of my mouth when I was talking to my husband about our current situation. 

I caught a glimpse of myself at church last night, and I look...haggard was all I could think at the time...I know I'm not sleeping well, or probably eating very much.  If you ask my aunt I'm not eating enough, or taking enough time to rest.  How do you rest when it feels like you have so much to do? 
Jobs to find.  Interviews to schedule.  Husband to work.  Kids to be fed and cleaned.  Messes to clean up in a house with 11 people in it...4 of which can't do much to contribute because of their ages.

I'm ready for rest.  Whatever that looks like I'm ready for it.  But here we are, still waiting.  I gave this verse to someone else the other day who was waiting on their husband to decide something that was important to them.  I guess I was just warming up to use it for my family.

 

So we are still waiting.....

Our Whole New Menu

About a month before our big move north, we had to make a drastic change in our family.  With two of three babies, the younger two, having digestive issues with milk and just going lactose free for them was not working very well.  We thought long and hard about shifting our whole family not only to a lactose free, but dairy free menu.  This was going to be HUGE!

Our oldest has quite an affection for dairy in any form.  Milk, cheese, you name it.  Not only that, but we would have to be very diligent about reading labels because dairy sneaks into the strangest places in commercial products.  Casein, Whey, milk, butter, milk powder, and then you have the products that have potentially come into contact with some form of "milk".  We were confused.  We were determined.  We had two, sometimes very miserable, babies that needed everyone in our home on board with changing our lifestyles to make them well.  We jumped right in.

My husband and I both agree that going dairy free for us also meant not diving into soy products because of the risk of lots of exposure to plant based estrogen for our growing young men.  I know lots of men who grew up on soy products, but we decided that was not the way we were going to go.  Our new Vitamix blender became our very best purchase to date in regards to our family.

I could blend up batches of coconut and almond milk.  Make dairy free dressings and sauces in no time, and give our babies a nutritionally dense smoothie every day to help supplement the vitamins that they were no longer receiving from dairy products.  It is a truly fantastic machine, and it is the only way that our family could make it with the price of dairy free milks on the market.  Someday I will share our smoothie recipe, which is pretty versatile, but I usually just throw things in and eyeball it so I will actually have to measure it out in order to do that. 

After one month of being off all forms of dairy our two youngest babies finally were not having the digestive problems of the past.  No diarrhea, which had plagued our middle child for over a year.  No throwing up at least once or twice a week.  Improvement of skin rashes that had begun to develop on both children.  Even their attitude and energy levels improved...all 3 of them benefitted in this way!  The real surprise was that my husband and myself had noticed changes in our own bodies and attitudes.  THIS was the what we needed to do for our family.

Our pediatrician had not felt the need to test our kids for sensitivities or allergies, even when presented with the symptoms, because they were growing and "healthy" otherwise.  But, as a momma it breaks you down to not know why your kids are having some digestive problem, or a strange skin break out, and you don't know what to do about it. 

It was my husband and I that took our middle son off of lactose, with small improvement in his body.  And it was our drive to truly fix the problem and change our entire menu for the entire household, FOR these little people God gave us, that really made the difference.  My husband even had a co-worker get almost angry at him for going dairy free like we did, because he didn't see the point if he wasn't allergic as well.  Like we now tell our oldest child...sometimes you do what is best for the people you care about even if it is an inconvenience to you. This is probably the second greatest lesson we learned by doing this.  The first is to not be afraid to try everything to make your babies well because it is the right thing to do.

Building Our House

A Friday evening drive through the winding roads of Montana. Between our new home town and my old one.  The roads, like our conversation, zig and zag but keep a constant theme of trees and rocks.  Houses dot the area here and there.  And it got us thinking.

We aren't the type that listen to the radio, just to keep the silence at bay, we like to chat while we travel.We discuss lots of things, some serious and others light.  Tonight was a somewhat serious conversation.  Talking of the acts of faith we have taken in the last year; some leaps and others hops, but all have brought us here.  We pondered a sermon that our Oklahoma pastor shared about marriage.

Using a house as an example, he likened men to the foundation.  Strong, solid, meant to bear weight and pressure.  He likened women to the walls.  Meant to be seen, pretty, they complete the look of the house, they are essential to the structure just as the foundation.  One without the other is not complete.

My mind went on....and on with this.

I know the pastor meant this sermon to be an inspiration to the men in our church, to take up their responsibilities and be the foundation of their own families.  I don't think our pastor painted a truly complete picture of a house.  Walls are not made just for being pretty.  Walls are strong, they hold the roof, they bear weight as well.  Eventually they settle into the foundation.  And, after some adjustments, they are one unit.  The house and the foundation will not be moved any more after this, though it may stand for decades it can only truly settle once.  The foundation must settle too, but it must be built on solid ground.  I think all of these are essential points for a marriage as well.

The order of marriage is God, Husband, and wife...and that is how you have to build your house.  Solid ground, Foundation, and Walls.  We are not made to stand alone.  We are made in an order that demands changes, some quick like adding pictures on a wall and others that take time like the settling of a house.  We are meant to be ONE with our spouse, and through the settling of time you will get there. What you put in your house matters too...but we will discuss that later. 

Happy building!